Astoria or bust

They say that sailing is an activity with long periods of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. I wouldn't say that has been our experience this week, but "hurry up and wait" has been part of the adventure. We found that once we got into Astoria, we were exhausted. So, at first we were really happy to wait for a weather window. The weather has been fairly nice - just a little rain at night. We took the trolley across town (or as we call it, the "twolley"), walked for miles and miles each day, searched for wi-fi connections, visited the boat supply store at least twice a day, and tried to finish our preparations in a reasonably leasurely manner. It was just a pleasure to be a bit more relaxed than at home, not having 101 different things to focus on. As Cory mentioned, we took the boat out yesterday to see what we could break. We had about 20 knots of wind, and the waves were nice and steep, so we felt like we were able to gain further trust in the boat's ability to handle ocean conditions. (Nothing broke, not even us!)

And as to the famous noise, athough I like Alyssa's idea that the cats left a present for us, we decided that the noise is a sympathetic vibration coming from the wooden structure around the engine, and are confident that it is not from the engine itself. We've tighted up the screws, and the noise does seem to be a bit more restrained. So, we're comfortable with taking the boat in the ocean.

The photo above is a picture of the boat in the marina in Astoria. (The dingy isn't ours.) Both we and the boat are looking forward to moving on to our next adventure. In the meantime, we're taking a short break and heading back to Portland to do a bit of work and pass the time until the planets align and we can take our ocean journey.

A link to our photo album for this trip... http://picasaweb.google.com/nrjlee/SVBalancingAct2007TripNorth