Sailing Trip Part 4: Garibaldi & Heading Home.

Day 4: Monday July 14

It felt SO good to have a day at port to relax! We slept in, had some yummy french toast for breakfast, and hung out in bed reading our books and cuddling with our boys. It was just what we needed.

After relaxing all morning, we took our folding bikes out and rode 9 miles to the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

The views of the bay were amazing!

If you zoom in you can see our boat! Also, I love the cute G on the mountain. Reminds me of Utah :)

We rode up a giant hill, which I named the hill of death, and once we reached the top we saw the factory. YAY! It was actually super packed, which we weren't expecting considering it was Monday... but that didn't stop us from going through the cheese sample line twice :)

On the bike ride back to the boat we passed this sign and I had to stop to take a picture. It's so cute and there's even a sailboat :) We loved Garibaldi!

We both were tired from our 18 mile bike ride, so we ate lunch and took a nap. Have I mentioned how amazing it was to have a day to relax?! Oh man, we needed it! :)

That night we walked into town to get internet so we could check the weather. It was looking great, but the bad news was we would have to leave at 2 a.m. to reach the Columbia River Bar during the flood tide (between 2-4 pm). I wasn't too excited to sail in the dark, but we had to if we wanted to have a safe bar crossing.

I wish I had my camera with me, but it was so fun to walk around the cute, little town. We walked along the water and climbed over rocks finding tiny crabs. They were stuck out in the low tide, so we rescued them and put them back in the water.

image via

I really wanted to find a heart shaped rock, and I found one that sort of resembled a heart and showed Landon. He told me it looked more like a sock. So now it's my sock rock and I love it :)

We went back to the boat and tried to go to bed around 8. It took us forever to fall asleep, especially after our long nap earlier!

Day 5: Tuesday July 15

It was not very fun to hear our alarm go off at 1:50 a.m. We put on our 5 layers of clothes and quickly pulled out of the marina to head to the Tillamook Bar. We got out into the ocean and I steered while Landon hoisted the main. We decided to put two reefs in. A reef makes the mainsail smaller and is something you have to do when the wind is stronger. Here's a picture to explain :)

See how the main doesn't go all the way up the mast? 

We also reefed the jib so we had two smaller sails instead of using the full sails. Even with all the reefs, we were killing it through the water! We were sailing up into the wind, which meant our boat was heeled over and we were heading into the waves. You have to remember it was pitch black too. So heeling over in the wavy ocean in the pitch black is also on my list of "not favorite things." Landon had to go down below to get something so I was at the helm basically freaking out. We were moving so fast and I didn't feel in control because I couldn't see how much we were heeled or basically anything around me. The wind was also pretty strong... 20-25 knots which is a lot when you are sailing upwind! I felt like every wave that came was just going to push us all the way over, since we were already tipped over a lot! At least it felt that way to me as I had a mini-panic attack...

I felt much better when Landon came back and took the helm! :) It was cool to see the coastline and the lights slowly disappear behind us and to be sailing in the ocean again. However, the rest of the day was complete and utter crap. I got SO sick. For some reason hitting the waves from this direction was SO much worse than on the way down. I had to sit facing forward, clinging to the boat for dear life (remember it was tipped over), with my face directly in the wind. I was freezing, but it was the only way to make it somewhat better. After about an hour of that, I decided to go down below and try to take a nap to see if that would help. I laid in our bed for less than 30 seconds when I realized that it wasn't going to work out and tried to run upstairs when I threw up... Not fun :(

So the rest of the day was spent outside, staring at the horizon, trying not to move or talk. It was a LLLOOONNGGG 13 hours... The only other time I went back inside was around noon when I had to go to the bathroom after attempting to hold it all day... Landon got sick too so both of us were just miserable!!! Not to mention we only had about 3 hours of sleep!

We wanted to go inside and turn on music, or grab our camera, or our sunglasses.... but neither of us dared to go below. So I have zero pictures from this day. Which is lame, but oh well.

We had a really strict deadline to make to cross the bar between 2-4 pm, so after about 7 hours of sailing, we turned on our motor. We were closer to the coast at this point, and even though it was cloudy and freezing, there was a break in the clouds and we could see the beautiful coastline. Oh man, I really do wish I would've been able to take a picture.

This part of the trip was definitely the worst and Landon and I decided we might like sailing more in a place like the Caribbean--warm and sunny! We also joked that we might be river sailors not ocean sailors! ;) It really wouldn't have been so bad if we had been prepared with some anti-nausea medicine and if our boat could move a little bit faster than 5 knots an hour. Luckily, the boat Landon is building will be around 15 knots an hour... which makes a big difference! Our 13 hour sailing day would've only been a 5 hour sailing day on our new boat. So we are pretty dang excited for that :)

We have officially started building this guy... well kinda :) We have the temporary shop set-up in our backyard and are in contact with a supplier to order the foam and fiber glass! YAY! More on that in another post :) Image via 

Finally after 13 hours of misery, we crossed the Columbia Bar! It was warm and sunny and we were just SO happy to be out of the waves and the freezing cold ocean :)

We docked in Astoria and then went on our nightly walk along the river. We went to bed early because we had to wake up at 1:15 am to head home...

Day 6: Wednesday July 16

We left Astoria in the middle of the night because the tide was coming in, which meant we would get a speed boost to help us get home faster. It was hard to wake up so early for the second night in a row, but having the current push us along was SO worth it! I also went back to bed for a few hours and then Landon went to bed after my turn. So it really wasn't too bad.

The sunrise was unreal! 

While Landon slept, I turned on the autopilot and sat on the bow. It was so quiet, so peaceful, and so beautiful. I feel closest to Heavenly Father outside in nature than any other place (other than the temple). It was a really amazing experience to pray and ponder and I just felt so happy and grateful.

As we got further up the river, the sun came out and it was warm. It was crazy to feel warm after being so cold all week!! The river is also so smooth compared to the ocean! :) It was great to be back on the good ol' Columbia!

We motor/sailed all day to help us get home faster. We had our music going, we laid on the bow, we were warm, and loving the day.

My favorite place to be is standing in front of the jib on the tip of the bow. It really does feel like you're flying :)

We made really good time and made it back to our dock at 5 pm...after 16 hours of sailing. We were SO happy and ready to be home. We had a track on our GPS to see our route and see how far we went... In 5 days we went 297 nautical miles! That is a LOT on a slow sailboat! ;)

Honestly, this trip wasn't the most "fun" week we've ever had... but it was a great learning experience and confidence booster. I mean, we're pretty bad-a now... we've sailed in the ocean! :) However, next time we go on a trip like this we are going to do things a lot differently. For one, we are going to keep our boat down at the coast so we don't have to spend 20 hours each way going down the river just to get to the ocean. That way we can spend more of our time going up and down the coast and going to different ports.

We are both SO happy that our next vacation is on an actual cruise and not a cruise on our sailboat! We were feeling kind of guilty for booking our cruise because we were only supposed to take vacations on our boat this year, but now we are so happy that we have a real vacation to look forward to.

If you read all of these posts, you get a gold star! I'm sure they weren't the most exciting things to read... but I wanted to document all the little details of our first big trip on Viking. I know that one day I will look back on this trip with fondness. I'm glad that I have this blog to record things like this because my memory isn't the best :)