Ahoy,

We left Bamfield on the Westcoast of Vancouver Island at 2 am yesterday. It was a pitch black foggy night and if we hadn’t had our radar it would have been impossible to leave that narrow stretch of water called Bamfield inlet.

The Pacific Rim National Park follows the whole coast from Sooke to Bamfield and offers perfect hiking conditions.. 

But we did leave. The weatherforecast predicted 20 kn NW wind and around 10 ft sea from WNW. Perfect for a downwind run with ZERO. 

Once out of the bay the wind sets in, slowly increasing up to 25 kn. We set full canvas and left a deep cut in the sea with our up to 8,5 kn warp speed. But there was a pretty mean wave playing Ball with us. probably bigger than 15+ ft.
The nights were filled with marine phosphorescence and moore stars than anyone could imagine, the day was sunny and the diverse mammals of the North pacific payed us a visit. Humpback and killerwhales, dolphins and sealions, albatrosses and other seabirds..it was awesome.

Our time planning for the arrival at the Columbia River Bar was perfect and we passed it 30 min before hightide with winds around 10 kn and 5′ sea. Easy.

The only difficulty was that our helmpump stopped working 2 hrs after we hit the ocean.  But we didn’t plan to handsteer a lot anyway and for gods sake the autopilot worked just fine.

First task at Astoria was to check in with customs. I called them an hour before arrival and the officer was very friendly. 10 min later he called back and all friendliness was gone. He talked with the customs in Bellingham and said he will not change a thing on that. I couldn’t say anything.. He just didn’t let me.

I called the super friendly officer in Port Townsend who offered help the time We left more than two weeks ago and he promised to call Astoria and try to help.. It did help!

After the chance to explain the whole situation we were treaded like humans and got our cruising license and the standard time of 6 month.
THANK YOU!

Now we can make plans to explore the coast and enjoy the time in the US..

After repairing the helmpump of course..

In the marina we got the answer why the waves were so big.. Another Sailboat, a beautiful old woodboat we’ve seen in Port Townsend at the wooden boatfestival experienced 65 kn of wind the day before we decided to leave.. That’s the reason for the huge watermountains.. It was right to wait another day..

Aloha