Sailing Trip Part 3: Sailing in the Ocean!

Day 3 Continued: Sunday July 13

After crossing the bar successfully we were SO relieved and couldn't believe we were finally sailing in the OCEAN! Ahhh! I kept asking Landon, "are we officially in the ocean yet?!" We couldn't believe it! I told Landon we were playing with the big boys now and we both broke out in song (name that movie!)

It was seriously the weirdest feeling to be out there and have nothing around you. Surreal for sure. But I actually wasn't scared like I thought I would be.

My super-excited-can't-believe-I'm-sailing-in-the-ocean face! :)

We were both wearing wetsuits, jeans, long sleeves, jackets, and our foul weather gear... You would never know it was July! We were freezing! It was super cloudy and at some points really foggy too. The waves were relatively big, but pretty far apart. I got a little bit nauseous but took a nap and woke up feeling MUCH better!

This picture doesn't do the fog justice. Looking at the horizon usually helps me when I'm getting sick, but there wasn't really a horizon... so that was lame.

We were able to sail downwind for a few hours, but then the wind got pretty light and we had to drop the main sail and just sail with the jib. The waves were so big and without wind, the boom was slamming around too much. 

The jib is the sail in the front :)

Then the wind completely died and we had to motor again. Where was all that forecasted wind?! Boo! It was okay though, because we were just hanging out, enjoying each other's company, and jamming to The Beatles :)

Oh man, are you ready for the best story ever? I still can't believe it really happened. It gives me chills just thinking about it. Landon and I have been on too many cruises to count and basically we never see any wildlife. Ever. Landon's favorite animals are whales, specifically orcas. So we've been talking for months about how cool it would be to see a whale on our trip. We didn't ever think it would really happen, but it was fun to talk about... Well Landon was down below taking a shower when I saw a crab pot (more on those later...) and realized I should probably pay more attention. So I stood up and I saw water spout!! A WHALE! I started screaming "LANDON THERE'S A WHALE! THERE'S A WHAAAAAAAALE!" at the top of my lungs. Landon threw on some clothes and came up just in time to see a black fin right by our boat! We thought it was a humpback or possibly a porpoise. But then we saw the WHITE part of the eye and realized it was an ORCA! There were at least three of them!!! Oh my gosh. I started tearing up and Landon was seriously in heaven. It was a real life miracle. We were both in shock and just so happy. 

I almost fell trying to get a picture so this was the best I could do with all the waves and my lack of balance!

Okay so let's talk about crab pots. Fisherman drop these baskets down into the bottom of the ocean and then they're attached with a long rope to a buoy.

Image via

Basically they're ALL over the ocean if you didn't know.  And they're really dangerous for sailboats because the rope can get wrapped around your keel and if your motor is running they can get wrapped around your prop and basically disable your engine. Which wouldn't be fun when you're 20 miles offshore. I can't even tell you how many crab pots we passed. They're REALLY hard to see, especially with the big waves and fog... Well guess what? We ran over one. It wrapped around our keel and completely turned us around. And our motor was running! Luckily both Landon and I saw it at the same time and we hurried to take our boat off auto-pilot and grab the helm. Landon also stuck the motor in neutral to get the prop to stop spinning. Thankfully, we were able to get off the rope--the second miracle of the day! It could have been VERY bad... So the rest of the trip we were constantly on the look out for dang crab pots!

The boys were seriously SO good the whole trip. They're our little sea dogs :)

After over 12 hours of motoring/sailing, the fog finally lifted and we could see LAND! Of course I had to scream "LAND HO!!" :)

The clouds were hugging the cliffs and hills along the coast.

After crossing the Columbia River Bar, every other bar is basically a baby in comparison. So crossing the Tillamook Bay Bar wasn't a big deal. We crossed during an ebb, which isn't ideal, but we did just fine. You can see in the picture below water crashing up onto the rocks that form the jetty. As we got closer I had to put my camera away, but it was actually creepy to see all the waves crashing onto the rocks and picturing what would happen if you got too close... When we hit our first big wave I immediately said to Landon, "so should we turn around now?!" haha I'm a little bit paranoid :)

The rocks on either side of the bar entrance are called jetties :) Image via

We motored through the bay and pulled into the small town of Garibaldi, just outside of Tillamook. It's the cutest little town! We of course went for a walk and then went back to the boat and straight to bed. It was such an exciting day which left us both exhausted again :)