Eureka! We've found them!

October 7, 2011:  From Cynthia's mom

For those of you who have been worried about Cynthia and Glenn....they are safe!
After their last blog,  they were hit by a big wave that swamped their nav table and toasted both of their computers.... thus their ability to communicate with us through their blog or email went kapoof (or kasplash).   Their single side band and VHF radios continued to work  just fine. 

So where are they?  They are motoring very slowly with calm seas against an ebb tide at the entrance to the Straights of Juan de Fuca.   When they reached Neah Bay,  Cindy was able to get a Verizon signal so she called Verizon, who called me, and we were able to reactivate her phone.    At least they will have a way to communicate whenever they can receive a signal.

I will let them tell their exciting tales when they reach port.   Although the remaining distance isn't very far it may take some time to reach Friday Harbor.    They are both exhausted and because they are motoring,  one of them needs to hand steer while the other keeps close watch for the considerable boat/ship traffic in the Straights.   Also,  the Customs offices keep office hours and they can't even anchor while they wait for the office to open.   They may choose to use the Customs office at Port Angeles instead of Friday Harbor depending on the time of day of their arrival.   They will definitely want to rest at some point.

We can almost reach out and touch them.   They should arrive at port by Sunday,  and giving them a couple of days to rest and get to a computer,  you should hear an update early next week.   If something changes,   I'll provide another update.

Stiorm Update

We are now taking the brunt of this storm, being pummeled by gale force winds (Force 8). Surprisingly, and fortunately, the seas are not yet very big. So our current tactic is to run before the storm using the stays'l only. We are making over six knots to the northeast. This is why we wanted to gain so much sea room off the Oregon coast. We can now use any of the standard storm tactics - running, heaving-to, lying ahull, deploying a sea anchor - without fear of running ashore. From the Grib files, it looks like we will have quite a few hours of strong south to southwest winds, so we will keep running for now - they are taking us right where we want to go.

Things are still comfy inside, with the exception that we are taking in water occasionally through the skylight. When a wave breaks over the cabin sometimes it sneaks under the upside down dinghy that is covering the skylight, and comes through into the cabin, dousing the off-watch person sleeping on the settee below. It's on my to-do list to seal them better, but I haven't gotten to it yet - that particular list is always very long. But otherwise things are good inside: warm and dry.

Anyway, I just wanted everyone to know that we are fine, and finally making progress north again.

Update: I didn't get this posted in time, and now things are changing. The winds and seas are increasing, so for the near future, we will be running under bare poles - no sails up. This is the tactic we used years ago leaving the Pacific Northwest, and maybe it's fitting that we use it coming back.