Everything is Broken

We anticipated the journey down the West Coast to be difficult, but we were excited.

No, we weren't ready to leave Washington and the safe waters of the Puget Sound.

No, we weren't as experienced as sailors embarking on a long passage should be.

But we were determined and we had an open window.

This is what we had envisioned back on land whenever we thought about what our lives at sea could be like. Sailing from location to location, always moving, seeing all we can. Full sails and happy faces.

Reality is less kind.

Our hearts were full of emotion making the Left Turn around Cape Flattery, the Northwestern most point of the continental United States. It was beautiful and we made it an easy hop from our stop in Neah Bay to La Push. A gentle first day of what should be a week long passage.

La Push was our first bar crossing and we were nervous. We knew how bad these bars could be, how ships can run aground or take on water. It was narrow, but all was well. We tied up for the night and tried to get some sleep because we had to push off early in the morning when the bar would be crossable again.

We left without issue at around 5 am, it was still dark, and we were about to put up sails and set off for Crescent City, California. At around 6:30am, I went downstairs to find Toby unresponsive. Kyle stopped the boat and tried to revive him, but couldn't. We bobbed around for what felt like an hour. Grief stricken we modified our plans and set the autopilot for Westport, Washington. Westport had an animal cemetery where we could get Toby cremated. We rushed there, I don't even remember the bar crossing, and settled in for a long weekend while we waited to get Toby's ashes.

We missed our window, but we no longer cared. A new one would come along.

It didn't.

We must have made every stop possible on our journey. Each window was smaller and smaller, the wind less favorable and never as forecasted. We saw big seas, but tons of wildlife. Our favorite has been massive sun fish off the coast of Oregon. Quite a sight as the creatures look like they could take down a boat as big as ours should we accidentally hit them.

Each time we pushed off the dock we started off positive, excited, but soon something would go wrong. The 14 knot northerly wind would diminish and turn south. Our wind instruments would fail, unable to warn us of 28 knot gusts that would push us off course in the dead of night. Our steaming nav lights would go out and not come back on leaving us dark to other boats. The VHF didn't like the update we ran and ceased working too. Our main sail repeatedly gets jammed and will now only extract to about a third reef. Every failure an expensive one.

It's been a month and a half since we left Washington and we're still not "there" yet. We've leaned into going slow, taking our time. We choose weather windows that offer the least excitement and motor if we have to. It's getting colder as winter catches up to us.

We miss Washington and we miss Toby, but we're still going. I'm just not sure I remember where we're going anymore.