We’re writing this from Neah Bay on the southwest corner of Puget Sound. It is overcast, raining off and on, with water temperature that feels barely above freezing. Ashore, the hills are covered in timber, and even in this weak light are a verdant green. Toss in a small marina filled with working fishing boats and a few yachts, and it is a picturesque scene.

We’re doing a few boat chores, catching up on paperwork, writing a bit for SetSail, doing several loads of wash, and watching the NBA playoffs. There’s a great museum ashore which we want to check out, and a walk would be nice – once the rain stops.

Getting our cruising act together has taken a little longer than expected, but then that does seem to be the norm. We’re now starting to get into a cruising rhythm, so you can expect frequent updates and photos.

Our route so far has taken us through Santa Barbara, California, for a surprise birthday party for some cruising friends we first met in Mexico in 1976. Morro Bay was next, a friendly town with guest berthage for visitors and a spot where we could drop the hook.

It always amazes us how small the world of cruising is. The harbor patrolmen came aboard for a tour and it turns out we have many friends in common in the world of boats, surfing, and soaring. And then ashore, checking out the art scene, we came across a lovely Japanese brush-style painting of a horse. We tracked down the artist (a local) and it turns out she studied with a friend of ours from Ojai, California.

Santa Cruz has to be the most-used small craft harbor we’ve ever visited. Every day, even during the week, you will see folks sailing, rowing, or heading out for some fishing. One night we returned from dinner with Sally Christine, Randy, and Kent Harris whom we first met in Newport, Rhode Island, and with whom we most recently shared an anchorage in Fiji, to find a note on the door from another old friend whom we haven’t seen or heard from in 14 years. Turns out Richard and his wife were docked 100 feet across the channel from us.

We spent the next couple of days anchored off Sausalito, hanging out with good friends just back from the South Pacific. Richard (another Richard) and Katy have recently been to the Galapagos, and the Gambiers, working their way back to San Franciso via northern Polynesia. Listening to their tales of the Gambiers, the last unspoiled islands of French Polynesia, has us ready to head south!

Richard and Katy joined us for a tour of the Bay, the highlight of which is shown below in the photos of one of the exotic islands.

This particular island is home to an exotic resort, as you can see in the photo above. OK, it is a little run down, but in its better days it has been home to some well-known residents.

This resort has been closed for years, but the signs from the olden days are still hanging.

After reading the above sign, we decided not to pick up any hitchhikers in the area.

Late spring passaging north along the West Coast is dominated by the Pacific High. If it is well developed, strong north to northwest winds will be dished out. The key is to make tracks when the high is weak, or even better, on the southerly quadrant winds that accompany late spring fronts. Our trip from Santa Barbara north, around conception, was quite easy with no more than 15 to 20 knots of afternoon head winds. By Wind Horse standards this doesn’t even register on the discomfort meter.

We’ve recently been conducting tests to develop data for a new set of props. One of the things we needed to do was find a really steep head sea situation to check our present prop loading under worst-case situations. So, we left San Francisco at maximum ebb tide. As the 5.5 knot ebb encountered the 10- to 12-foot Pacific swells, we had short, steep waves stacked up three within a boat length, giving us a chance to check our prop loading.

Running at 2100 rpm, which would normally produce 11.5 knots, we were slowed down to an average of 10 knots, but with current this gave us 15.5 knots over the bottom. And we were able to hold 12 knots at wide open throttle with exhaust gas temperature just a little over maximum allowable.

We had decided to make a short hop to Bodega Bay, but Wind Horse was making such comfortable way through the 12-foot (4m) 10-second swells that we continued up the coast.

Noyo Harbor has always seemed like a neat place to stop, but we’ve passed it by in the past because of draft and height issues. Since these are no longer a problem for us, we took advantage of the high tide to run our first bar with Wind Horse. The swells were humping up a bit, but not breaking, and steering control was fine as we surfed down the waves into the very narrow entrance.

Above is a photo of Noyo harbor from the Coast Pilot in our Navigator’s Library. The entrance is about 100′ (30m) wide.

Working our way around the winding river, we found ourselves at a small marina. Having called ahead, we were warned that the space was very tight, and that we’d have little room to maneuver. But with twin screws we were well within our comfort zone.

The local Coast Guardsmen helped us tie up to this commercial dock, and then came aboard for an inspection.

This led to an invitation to see one of their 47-foot surf boats – a design from which we had borrowed several concepts when designing our boat.

Wind Horse was the subject of a lot of interest from the Coast Guard professionals. We took this as a compliment. We eventually ended up with a sea trial off the Noyo Bar on one of their 47-footers, which will be the subject of another SetSail report soon.

Noyo is one of those small working harbors which we love to visit. The locals are always friendly and interesting to chat with. This is Jeannie, the marina manager, who did her best to make us feel at home.

She found us an end tie at the head of the yacht basin. We did overhang each end of the dock by 10 feet (3m) but nobody seemed to mind.

There is a lot of sea life in this part of the world. From great white sharks, to whales, to these sea lions hauled out on a local dock. They are great to photograph, but rather vociferous and smelly.

When we were about to leave we found a strange deposit on one of our dock lines. Stan, one of our new friends, informed us this was a gift from a river otter. Best of all, it is a sign of a good voyage when a river otter poops on your dock lines! So we knew that the weather was going to be favorable.

The river otter’s gift encouraged the Pacific high to relax and ease off its pressure gradient to the point where our trip north was in light southerlies for most of the run. Conditions were so benign that we decided to keep going straight to Puget Sound.

We’re having a few "sunbreaks", so it is time to put the dinghy in the water and check out the scene ashore. If you see us out cruising, come by and say hello!