Northwest Trawlers

Tom watching a ship go by....

Underway again…..at last. We spent 6 days in Gray’s Harbor waiting for decent weather so we could cross the bar and resume the trip to San Diego. The weather didn’t seem all that awful, especially these past 3 days, but the Coast Guard cautioned us against leaving as the bar was treacherous.

Speaking of treacherous bars, we found the Islander, a neat place in Westport that had a big screen TV so we watched the ALCS and the Boston Miracle. The food was pretty good as well. Another great spot is Tachahachi, a seafood restaurant right across from float 6 where we were docked.

But back to the trip…… We crossed the bar this morning at about 9AM, an hour and a half before high slack water. On the way out, the Coast Guard called us and asked how long we were as the bar was closed to traffic under 40 feet. The swells were running about 10-12 feet. Nor’wester handled them with ease, gently climbing up one and down the other side. The run out to the outer buoy took about 45 minutes and then we turned south.

Seas have been quite lumpy all day and I have more or less stayed put here in the pilothouse. Wireless (Verizon) coverage is good using my Blackberry as a modem. We have been able to keep up on the buoy reports as well as business email.

As I write this, it is about 7PM and I am going on watch soon. I will stand the 8 to midnight watch. We will dog the mid-watch so that Tom and Steve will only have 2 hours each and that breaks it up except that I only get 4 hours sleep before going back on watch. Dogging the watch changes the schedule so that you don’t end up with the same watch each day.

So here is the sunset from tonight……More tomorrow.