Safely back in Noyo River!

For the long time readers you will notice that on the way up to Alaska we got stuck in Noyo River for about 9 days waiting for the weather to subside. Well, we're back.
Dad and I left Coquille River at 7am on Friday (we got a late start waiting for the tide to turn). The run down the coast was uneventful and we had a smooth passage around Point Blanco (one of the big capes where the weather can be "boisterous"). I managed a short nap in the afternoon and manned the helm until about 1am when Dad took over until about 5:30am. By that time we were abeam of Humboldt Bay and approaching Cape Mendocino.
Cape Mendocino is actually more of a triple cape with False Cape, Cape Mendocino and Punta Gordo all together. When coming north, I approached the cape(s) in calm weather and then within about 15 minutes of rounding Punta Gordo the seas just blew up and I got hammered for the next 6 hours as I was only able to make about 3 knots over the ground into steep and breaking seas.
As you can imagine, I was a little nervous approaching this cape again.
We rounded False Cape and Cape Mendocino and approached Punta Gordo with calm seas and I ws just starting to relax when over the space of about 15 minutes the seas blew up again. This time they were following seas wtih 25-30 knots of wind and breaking seas building quickly. Fortunately, we made it around Punta Gordo in good shape (but a little shaky) and approached Shelter Cove (an anchorage just south of Punta Gordo).
I didn't want to fight these seas for the next 6 hours to Noyo River so we approached the anchorage only to find that it was VERY rolly in the anchorage (the kind of rolly where you don't sleep) and it also had absolutely NO cell coverage.
Even though I was having to maintain a constant helm watch, the boat was handling the seas well and the winds were dropping as we got further from Gordo and the Noyo River bar entrance conditions were benign and expected to remain that way so we elected to just gut it out and head to Noyo River.
Things were going well but we couldn't head directly toward the harbor since that heading put the seas directly on our beam and we were taking 20+ degree rolls every minute or so. So we headed in toward the coast with the seas on our stern quarter since I had talked to a fisherman who said the seas were generally calmer in close to shore. Ha!
We finally got within about 7-8 miles of the harbor and had to basically tack out to sea (going into the seas) which started to build rapidly even though the wind was dead calm. Pretty soon we were heading into 8'-10' VERY steep seas. We got a little out of position on one set and took 30+ degree rolls which managed to rearrange most of the stuff in the boat. No real damage except for a broken pair of binoculars.
When we finally got far enough off shore to head directly for the harbor it took several minutes before we could find a gap in the swells to allow me to turn down swell. It was a fairly tense activity as I gunned the engine and laid the helm hard over to make the turn just ahead of another set of these big steep swells.
Once we were heading back down swell, the boat motion calmed down considerably. Even though I had to watch the helm constantly and occasionally "help" the autopilot, the boat handled sea conditions that were equivalent to what we experienced around Point Conception last year (when we broached the boat). The added ballast that put in this spring made a HUGE difference and the boat actually handled the seas without much complaint.
We finally made the turn into the harbor and the seas laid down almost immediately for us to "thread the needle" into the Noyo River channel (not quite as wide as we are long). The tide had just turned so I was looking at only about 4'-5' of water under the keel with rocks very close on both sides and the need to keep my speed up for control. YIKES!
We made the turn into the river proper and were hailed by a guy on a fishing boat who yelled "Beautiful boat! Do you need any crew?" I thanked him but told him we were managing ok by ourselves!
After all of the excitement of the day, the docking was mercifully uneventful and dinner was quickly served! Followed by a quick trip to bed where we were serenaded by the local sea lions.
I think we'll be here until Tuesday morning when we depart for Bodega Bay. We might try to take in a movie at the massive 2 screen Noyo Cinema.