Newport to Charlston OR.

We left Newport Oregon on 10/12/10 and headed south for Crescent City, or Humboldt CA, as our first intended port. As usual, the best made plans never seem to work out. Yep, more electrical problems. Judy called out to me from the cabin to inform me that one of the red lights on the inverter panel was flashing. When I tried to start the engine to boost the charge, the engine refused to turn over. To my chagrin, I discovered that we lost our starter battery. I then switched over to all on the main battery switch and started the engine. The light stopped flashing. We were back in temporary service mode. At this point the closest port was Charleston. We arrived outside Charleston at around eleven thirty that evening. One of the first things I learned was never try to enter an unfamiliar harbor in the dark of night. I ended up spending most of an extremely cold night at the helm keeping Wind Raven pointed into the wind, until I discovered that she is quite capable of lying a-hull on her own. At this point I first took care of my bladder problem, and then crouched under the protection of the dodger, as the wind was up to around 20k and damn cold. There were two large trawlers in my proximity that I was keeping a sharp eye on all night. At five in the morning, after lying a-hull for almost six hours we had only drifted about a mile. Around an hour before daybreak we headed towards the bar at Charleston. The bar report wasn’t bad, so we headed across the bar in four foot rollers extending up the channel about ¼ mile. We were glad we waited to enter, as the entrance was not well marked and if you missed it you would end up riding a large wave onto a somewhat rocky beach.


We are now safely docked in the harbor with, (we hope) all repairs completed. We were informed that the 775 CCA deep cycle battery that came with Wind Raven was the wrong type. We procured a 1000 CCA starting battery in North Bend. I was in for a surprise when I tried to remove the old battery. I am too big to fit into the engine compartment and enable myself to get into a position to lift it out. I tried several times to no avail. Luckily when James arrived to finish labeling all of the new electrical switches he was able to pull the old battery and install the new one, due to his small stature.

We planned to leave Charleston today 10/15/10, but due to unpredicted weather changes we will lay over another day. I am not keen about going around Cape Blonco sixty seven miles south in 20 – 25kn winds and combined waves of 12 to 13ft at 9 seconds. Tomorrow will be much better. We can both use the rest anyway.

Next stop Humboldt, We hope