Victoria, BC to the Sea of Cortez

VicTrawler said:

The excess is ending up in the oil pan under the engine, so it's not being burnt. That being said, when I did the last oil change I definitely put in more than 12 quarts to hit the mark on the dipstick. However, the mark I'm talking about is a new mark so I figured the adjustment had already been made. Maybe the last person got it wrong??? Next oil change I will put in 12 quarts and see where I end up.

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Add 11 quarts then mark the dipstick, that'll be the low line. Add another quart, mark the dipstick and that will be your full line. This of course is assuming that you've drained all the old oil out. I did this and my oil use was reduced by about 75%.

mahal said:

Add 11 quarts then mark the dipstick, that'll be the low line. Add another quart, mark the dipstick and that will be your full line. This of course is assuming that you've drained all the old oil out. I did this and my oil use was reduced by about 75%.

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I've got a good hand pump that sucks right from the bottom so it's not difficult to empty the sump. I will follow your advice at the next oil change. I have a feeling the dip stick is not marked correctly.

Just a hint for a shortcut for you. When you leave Neah Bay and are going to head around the point you'll see Tatoosh Island. Before we took that boat from Seattle to CA we got a briefing from a retired USCG ship skipper. He said that rather than go out around the island he used to take his 190' Cutter between the island and shore. There is a passage there that was plenty wide enough or him to go through there with no problem.


We did that and it saves several miles.

VicTrawler said:

Yes, I was hoping we'd take off about a week earlier but it just wasn't doable. Looks like the weather is closing in next week as well. Anyway, we're not on a schedule. If we have to sit around, we sit around and make the most of it!

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That attitude right there is what will make the difference between a fun trip and a trip that is uncomfortable.

You go to a nice little town. You explore the town. When you get a nice weather day, you go to the next little town. You explore that town, and the cycle continues.

No schedules, nothing better to do. Yes you will spend some days sitting around. You might even spend a week or so sitting around. During that time you'll be exploring all the place you are at has to offer.

That to me is the way to cruise. To me long overnight passages should be left to crossing oceans. Coastal Cruising is all about exploring towns along the coast.

Your fuel range is not relevant because you are not going to need it. 100 mile hops or less. There are just a few places where tou need to go over 100 miles between ports. Very few.

ksanders said:

That attitude right there is what will make the difference between a fun trip and a trip that is uncomfortable.

You go to a nice little town. You explore the town. When you get a nice weather day, you go to the next little town. You explore that town, and the cycle continues.

No schedules, nothing better to do. Yes you will spend some days sitting around. You might even spend a week or so sitting around. During that time you'll be exploring all the place you are at has to offer.

That to me is the way to cruise. To me long overnight passages should be left to crossing oceans. Coastal Cruising is all about exploring towns along the coast.

Your fuel range is not relevant because you are not going to need it. 100 mile hops or less. There are just a few places where tou need to go over 100 miles between ports. Very few.

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Unless your stuck in Neah Bay....the armpit of the Pac Northwest!

Hollywood

We are now in Port Angeles. I took this picture about two hours into the trip. You can see where oil has been dripping onto the soak-up pad in the pan under the engine. The drip is perfectly in line with the fuel pump and I didn't see anything leaking above it, so it's gotta be the fuel pump. The replacement is in the mail and I'll have it in 48 hours.

By the way:

The Facebook page (you don't need a Facebook account to read it): Log into Facebook

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And you can follow our progress via our Spot Tracker, which updates every five minutes while we're underway:

SPOT Shared Page

GFC said:

Just a hint for a shortcut for you. When you leave Neah Bay and are going to head around the point you'll see Tatoosh Island. Before we took that boat from Seattle to CA we got a briefing from a retired USCG ship skipper. He said that rather than go out around the island he used to take his 190' Cutter between the island and shore. There is a passage there that was plenty wide enough or him to go through there with no problem.


We did that and it saves several miles.

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The passage seems fairly clear on the charts, and I'm only drawing 4.5 feet. I guess I'll go for it!

VicTrawler said:

The passage seems fairly clear on the charts, and I'm only drawing 4.5 feet. I guess I'll go for it!

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Please do me a favor and mark it and post it here as I am interested in taking the same next summer.

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Please do me a favor and mark it and post it here as I am interested in taking the same next summer.

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Looks like this is the safe bet:

No one has mentioned the tow lanes which are virtually crab-pot free, Look up Pacific tow lanes on the internet and mark them on your chart or chart plotter. We brought our present 40 ft trawler from Puget Sound to Venture a couple of years ago. We stopped every night and picked up the tow lanes each day. They are about 5-10 miles off shore. As for the bars, go in at high slack water if you can. We had no trouble at all.

Paul

So here's a picture of my dipstick. When I add 12 quarts of oil to the engine I get nowhere near the etched in mark between "MAX" and "MIN." Unfortunately at the last oil change I just added what was needed to get to that mark (approx 15 quarts) and didn't pay attention to whether 12 quarts would put me between those other two etched in marks.

Anyone with a Lehman think I should be filling to the lower etched in marks???

It looks like it has been re-marked. But I would verify those lines at the next oil change. 15 quarts is too much.

We made the passage from SFO to SEA in 2012. We had a great weather window. We stayed inside 10nm from the coast. Since you have plenty of time, you should be fine. Here are some links for you.

National Weather Service - NWS Portland

Getting past Cape Mendocino: A coastwise passage south from Seattle - Ocean Navigator - September 2009

Crossing the Dangerous Bars on the Oregon Coast

We only stopped the boat and Crescent City and Westport. Fair winds!

mahal said:

It looks like it has been re-marked. But I would verify those lines at the next oil change. 15 quarts is too much.

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Well, I changed the fuel pump with a new one but unfortunately the new one had a fuel leak from the diaphragm. I put the old one back on but kept the new gasket and it looks like my oil leak has stopped. I'm now also operating with the oil level below that higher etched in mark and during yesterday's 9 hour transit I don't think I lost any oil whatsoever. I also put in a new lube oil cooler and my oil pressure was higher and more consistent.

Should hit the 200hr mark (i.e. time for an oil change) within the next month. I'll get it all sorted out then.

Ahh! Bet that's it.


1983 Present 42 Sundeck
Twin Lehman 135's

Paul Swanson said:

No one has mentioned the tow lanes which are virtually crab-pot free, Look up Pacific tow lanes on the internet and mark them on your chart or chart plotter. We brought our present 40 ft trawler from Puget Sound to Venture a couple of years ago. We stopped every night and picked up the tow lanes each day. They are about 5-10 miles off shore. As for the bars, go in at high slack water if you can. We had no trouble at all.

Paul

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Found some discussion about it here (Avoiding Crab Pots, Washington Coast - Cruisers & Sailing Forums). Chances are they'll be less crab pots, but they're still be something to avoid. Good to know though.

We've been at Neah Bay for a couple of days now and I've asked a couple of people about taking that passage inside Tatoosh and I'm being told to avoid it. We actually walked out to Cape Flattery yesterday and I saw the passage for myself (albeit on a rough day). I think I'm going to take the long way around after all.

VicTrawler said:

We've been at Neah Bay for a couple of days now and I've asked a couple of people about taking that passage inside Tatoosh and I'm being told to avoid it. We actually walked out to Cape Flattery yesterday and I saw the passage for myself (albeit on a rough day). I think I'm going to take the long way around after all.

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Interesting.......What say other TF members?

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Interesting.......What say other TF members?

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We heard very mixed opinions. So we figured it was probably ok, but a bit more risky, and just went around. We didn't even know people took the short cut until we got there and talked to some people.

Like many things in the PNW it may depend on conditions. I suspect if I regularly needed to go through there, I'd get comfortable with it. However, for a one time trip, I chose not to. That's one of those cuts that with good luck you get to follow a fishing captain who uses it all the time for your first trip.

We used it. No problems taking a 60' boat through there. Charts and visual sightings of the rocks showed plenty of room, and that USCG Commander said he'd taken his 190' Cutter through there. That was good enough for us.


Better safe than sorry though.

GFC said:

We used it. No problems taking a 60' boat through there. Charts and visual sightings of the rocks showed plenty of room, and that USCG Commander said he'd taken his 190' Cutter through there. That was good enough for us.

Better safe than sorry though.

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What were the sea conditions when you cut through? That might be a difference as we went by there six times in total and only one of those times would I say the seas were anything close to calm. Wind waves were moderate most of the time but swells were not as moderate.

As I recall when we came off the Strait of Juan de Fuca we were coming out of 4'-5' waves with a 1'-2' wind chop on top of that. It was a bit less going through that cut, and much calmer on the Pacific side. For the 1 minute or so we were in that cut it was a confused sea but not big waves and winds of about 10kts.

I did it

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Interesting.......What say other TF members?

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Hole in the wall, do it it early on a calm day.

Last time around I did it..luckily for the folks that issued a mayday as they were being pushed into the rocks after running out of fuel. I snugged in bow first and passed a line to them and pulled them to safety. Had I gone around they would of been in the rocks. On a calm day I would have no hesitation going through.

The good karma followed as we made a known halibut spot offshore before dark and boated two 40lb fish in less than 30 minutes throttle down to throttle up.

If there was much of either a West or south west swell I would think about going around if headed south
Hollywood

It always pays to do the right thing!


1983 Present 42 Sundeck
Twin Lehman 135's

Update time!

So the original plan was to hop from Neah Bay to La Push but I got frowns all around from the other transients in Neah Bay every time I mentioned La Push, including a few mentions of fishing nets blocking the entrance. Based on that we decided to attempt our first overnight passage and an early morning bar crossing into Westport.

The weather forecast was quite good but after sunset the wind really picked up from the NW, adding 4-5 foot wind waves to the 4 foot swell. Needless to say we were tossed around all night and neither of us slept on our off-watch. On top of that I planned the passage for 6 kts and we were making good 8kts, so at 2am I throttled back to near idle to ensure we didn't hit the bar in the dark.

The sky started to brighten around 5:30am but it was totally socked in. I got the bar report from the Grays Harbor Coast Guard station and fortunately there were no restrictions, but vis was 100 yards and the seas were still just as rough. Even the local fisherman were saying it was shitty out.

We kept an eye on the laptop and radar and safely made our way in. My 1984 vintage Raytheon 1200 was worth its weight in gold! We saw about a dozen boats coming at us on radar over the course of the transit into Westport and safely kept our distance.

Anyway, we paid the price for skipping La Push as the good weather forecast turned out to be inaccurate. That being said, we completed a lot of firsts and we're better off for it.

When we got to the slip I popped down to the engine room and found a quart of oil in the engine pan, so something weird was obviously still going on.

Today I drained the sump and refilled it with the recommended 12 quarts and lo and behold it was exactly to the lower etched in marks (the higher of the two at 12 quarts). I was running with about a gallon too much oil! No wonder the engine's been smoking so much and oil's been seeping out of every oriface. Anyway, mystery solved, thanks to a few helpful comments above.

Tomorrow we depart for Astoria. 9 hrs at 7.5kts, crossing Grays Harbor bar on the flood and will be crossing the Columbia River bar on the flood as well. Weather is 5-10kts out of the N with a 4ft swell at 9s. Should be pleasant... SHOULD be! I'm a little anxious about the Columbia bar but will not hesitate to check with the Coast Guard before I make the entrance.

Till next time...

Staying the night?

VicTrawler
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm monitoring your posts on TF and FaceBook along with your SPOT transmissions.
We have a particular interest as the previous owner of your boat kept it in the same marina as ours. Actually we purchased our windlass from him when he upgraded. My impression is that Halcyon 1 was meticulously maintained. You have a great boat.
Fair seas as your voyage continues. We'll be following along.

Doug said:

VicTrawler
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm monitoring your posts on TF and FaceBook along with your SPOT transmissions.
We have a particular interest as the previous owner of your boat kept it in the same marina as ours. Actually we purchased our windlass from him when he upgraded. My impression is that Halcyon 1 was meticulously maintained. You have a great boat.
Fair seas as your voyage continues. We'll be following along.

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Glad to hear the boat has a good reputation! We definitely got the impression that she was well maintained as well, hence why she ended up being the one we chose.

Thanks for following!