Finally Home!

As I'm in the living room of a house that we are dog sitting for I'm a little bewildered that we are already back. And a little stunned that we went, we did it, we sailed the ocean on our own, and we are finally living on a boat? It's funny I've been asked upon returning if it feels strange to come back to Portland and not have a house and, well, i honestly hadn't thought about it till i was asked. We have made that boat so much our home that I will need a huge reason to ever leave it. All summer the feelings of relief and finality rushed over me as it set in that we were at last on our journey.
We got back a couple of days ago and our trip didn't see the sun for three days. With the 100 degree weather everybody else was having I'm sure that sounds great, but for us being on the ocean, miles from any visible land(or anything) it was despairing, gloomy and empty. We had only the aid of our GPS and radar due to the extremely pour visibility we had from all the fog. I would have taken pictures of the transit except there was nothing to see besides 3-4 different shades of gray. Only now that we are home and its all like a dream I wish I had.
Bob and i took a bus from Portland on Friday morning and met up with Cuba 8 hours later in Port Angeles. It was really great to spend that time with him and connect on an even deeper level. I am so extremely grateful for the love and support in my new family. They have all been super amazing.
Saying goodbye to the kids after spending every day together all summer was super hard, it didn't help that they were balling in the car with Lynn as I hugged them. But I do have to say I was a tiny bit relieved that they missed me that much after being stuck with me for so long.
While we are talking about aching to see someone!
Cuba Said it well, but i feel the need to say it also. I was surprised to be with him every day in super tight quarters for months and then to spend a night apart and not be even the slightest bit looking forward to it. I got very little sleep that night, it was lonely and restless.
Bob, Cuba and I started out of Port Angeles at 3:30a.m. to catch a good outgoing tide(to Bob's disbelief that Cuba and I were capable of rising at that hour). The fog was thicker than we had expected so we tried to hook our radar up and it wasn't working. Hmmm. Well the waves were also little larger than we had thought they would be and as sea sickness started to kick in I handed out the Dramamine. I have only used Dramamine twice but both times i am bashed with the most useless wave of drowsiness. I'm talking the kind of drowsiness that you have no control over where your eyes start rolling back and you are nodding off while you are feeling confused and slurring your speech. I was USELESS. It felt horrible because the other two were feeling sick enough to be struggling also. Thank god for Cuba, once again my love, my hero, my knight in shinning armor and my sunshine on a very cloudy and dreary day. He over ruled his disabling seasickness and mustered the strength to be at the helm for a few hours while sending me off to sleep. God i love you!
Since it was just Cuba, his dad and I on the trip home. It meant that Cuba and i would have to take continual 3 hour shifts because none of us felt comfortable leaving Bob alone at the helm with his limited experience. Having him there was a huge benefit though as that we would often find ourselves taking ten minuet cat naps on watch while using auto pilot if he was up with us.
It is really awesome to me that our summer was so full of experience and familiarity with Coqui. When we left to go up to the San Juan's earlier this summer i demanded(with pleases as always) that we have someone experienced go up with us, even if it meant that I wasn't able to go because of schedule conflict. And i am every bit as glad now as i was then that we did. However, on the trip coming back i felt very different. I was content to only have the two of us if no one else could make it. I knew it wasn't ideal, but i wasn't concerned.
The ocean, like i said was gray and cloudy. for three days we were cold and damp from all the fog, like bone damp. Even in taking naps i would wake up cold and still damp. It was unbelievable, and we saw very little the entire time. Sleep was taken in 3 hour very restless shifts. I woke up every hour and wanted to know where we were. The only confirmation was the GPS and our hourly course plotting on the map as back up.
We had the current in our favor for the first time all summer but no wind so once again we motored the entire time with a couple short exceptions. At least we were making awesome time(in boat life) like 6-7 knots per hour so we had the ability to get off the coast a day early. And at the rate things were going i wasn't interested in spending another hour unnecessarily on the depressing gray ocean. So we sped things up a little to take advantage of time.
We were never so excited to see the bar at the Columbia River entrance at 2:30p.m. on Sunday instead of Monday. But we had made it there a little too early. We had two hours to kill waiting for the tide to change so we could go in. Cuba went to take a nap and then Bob followed. So as we were just drifting around in wait I decided to turn the engine off and pull out a sail. I had more fun than you would think just tooling around in circles killing time. smelling the sea for the last time maybe this year.Once it came time I woke Cuba up and we headed in. The Columbia Bar is world renowned for it's drop of the dime weather change and grisly seas, so although our other two crossings had been a piece of cake there was a mild ere of anxiety looming as we approached. The current was strong and the seas got a little boisterous for a while. We almost considered turning back and my small amount of anxiety definitely increased, but only for a short time. Then things smoothed out and calmed down. I have to say it felt really good to be in total trust of my partners capability as well as his judgments, which in times like that its super important to feel safe and of one mind.
Thank God we made it to Astoria!!!!! things only got better from there. The days of lingering queasiness that Bob felt finally started to go away. We were off the friggin ocean, and we almost saw our first patch of blue sky off in the distance. We arrived in Astoria at around 7:30p.m. and with the time we were making it was hard to stop so we motored on till 11p.m. and then slept for the night. I have to say that we all finally got great sleep that night. Not to mention that Cuba and i finally got to cuddle for the first time the whole trip :)
We woke up with the plan to get fuel at the marina around the corner. The charts showed the depth into the marina being 7ft and the depth in the marina itself being 10ft. since we draw 7ft we knew we were pushing it, but we didn't really have a choice. Going into the marina was ridiculous, not only was it shallow but it was extremely narrow. We approached going as slow as possible and as we rounded the corner to go in we could see the fuel doc. We got about 30ft from it and bottomed out. Hmmm.....Well? Luckily for us we were in there at the low, low tide and it was just on the rise, but in the mean time we had to get to the fuel dock. With a little effort we backed off and went around the shallow spot, but as we got closer to the fuel dock we realized we weren't going to make it all the way there. We got about 3ft from it and I jumped off, followed by Bob and we pulled Cuba over as far as we could. Thankfully the fuel hose is really long.
Fueled up and ready to go Bob and I swiveled Coqui's bow over and hopped on that way. The tide had come up a little while we were getting fuel so getting out was quiet a bit easier than going in but still narrow as all hell. Once out we were excited! The sun came out, there was a good breeze and we didn't have far to go from there!!!! We had been motoring so much I was determined to sail. I threw the Jib out the first chance i got and had a blast tacking it back and forth convincing myself that it was giving us extra speed, but when I convinced Cuba that we needed to fly the spinnaker that's when the fun really started. (The spinnaker is a huge parachute like sail that is good for when the wind is behind you). We have been nervous to fly it since we got the boat because of its ability to capsize if used improperly, ignorantly or in too strong of winds. But this was the most perfect of all opportunities to try it. The kids weren't with us, we had perfect wind, we were on the river 50ft from shore and we had three people on board to help.
We were a little edgy when we first put it up but as we gained familiarity with it we gained confidence in ourselves about using it. We gained so much speed that we were able to turn the engine off and sail the rest of the way home up the river!!! We even got home hours earlier than we thought we would. Arriving in Portland at 8:30p.m. we were able to be picked up by Lynn and the kids and taken back to their house for the night. We were all so happy to see each other.
It's really amazing how fast our time up there really was. We felt like we had just got there when the day actually came to be on our way home. If it wasn't for all the amazing people that we miss it would have been impossible to get me to come back. The fast pasted congested city has very little allure on the quiet ports of the San Juans. Its crazy how much slower I feel than the world around me right now, but that's a good thing I guess. People keep asking HOW I feel about all the change... Well, I feel amazingly blessed and fulfilled with life, love and family right now and that's more than I could have ever asked for.
Love you all and can't wait to see you!