After about 4 years of steady upgrades and dinky trips on Zia, we finally left Portland, Oregon in May and headed up the coast. New sails, radar, radar pole, dodger, bimini, instrumentation, AIS, dripless stuffing box, life raft, dingy, cabin heater, refrigerator, etc. She’s a spoiled girl.
Fully loaded & ready for cruising.
We headed down to Astoria, OR & did some sea trials in 35-ish knot winds, 6-7 ft waves, etc. We’ve done a lot of ocean sailing but this was our first time in the ocean on Zia. Everything held together great, and we had an excellent crew. As I expected, Zia did great on the ocean waves/swells. We crossed the notorious Columbia River bar (aka “Graveyard of the Pacific”) a few times. We gave it a lot of respect & avoided problems.
Wind and Fog
Next, we headed about 40 miles offshore and up the coast to the native village of Neah Bay, which is at the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Then to Port Angeles WA, then Port Townsend. We really loved Port Townsend – a great little town and one of the nicest collections of sailboats I’ve see around. Not super big boats, but obviously well loved/cared for.
We had 20-25 knot winds and quite thick fog at the same time. Disregard those ‘experts’ who say you won’t have fog and strong wind at the same time. IMHO it would have been crazy to do this trip without radar and we sure liked having an AIS transceiver as well.
Next up to Anacortes, Washington, then to the San Juan Islands. Explored these beautiful islands for about a week. We saw pods of Orca whales, porpoise, lots of seals, eagles, sea lions, and some other ‘mystery’ whales.
Wing on Wing
We love anchoring in secluded bays/inlets & it’s one of the only times that owning a boat actually makes financial sense, I think. The hotels & lodges up here are quite pricy (like $300-500/night), and living on the hook is basically free! I told my wife how financially sound boat ownership was and she gave me a deeply sarcastic (maybe hostile?) look and managed to change the subject.
We then headed into the Canadian Gulf Islands for another week.
We crossed through Dodd Narrows (which can do tidal rips at up to 9 knots), and up to Nanaimo, BC. We have a slip rented in Nanaimo for 3 months and plan to base Zia out of this port through September. Alas, we need to go home to work for a few weeks before we come back and take Zia further north up to Desolation Sound on a 10-day jaunt.
We’ve covered about 660 NM so far this trip and have had a blast. Zia and all of her upgrades have done great.
As we were headed north & approaching Nanaimo, another boat that looked just like a Morgan 38 passed us headed south. My wife & I stood staring at the boat, concentrating and it looked like they were staring at us too. The other guy finally waved at us and we waved back. I decided it was probably an older Tartan, some of which look just like M38s. I found out about a week later that it was Garrett (new member of this forum) and his wife aboard Alpinisto (a 1979 382). They are based out of Bellingham, WA.
Despite running this forum, I’d never seen another M38 “in the wild”. M38s have a lot bigger presence on the right coast than the left coast. I’m obviously a little biased, but M38s sure have nice lines, lower freeboard, and are a welcome contrast to the more ‘bloated’ marshmallow-ish hulls of the newer production boats. To each their own, though.
The only other M38 I’ve seen is Terry Thatcher’s 382 at its dock in Portland. Terry just took an amazing trip on his 382 down the west coast to Mexico, Galapagos Island, French Polynesia, Hawaii and I think he’s on his way back to the northwest US now. Terry has emailed me that he thinks his favorite/best “world class” cruising grounds is the northwest area where we are now cruising with Zia. I’ve been lucky enough to cruise all over the world, too, and I have to say that I agree.
I’ll post some more when we continue up to Desolation Sound.
Cheers,
-Mark
Fully loaded & ready for cruising.
We headed down to Astoria, OR & did some sea trials in 35-ish knot winds, 6-7 ft waves, etc. We’ve done a lot of ocean sailing but this was our first time in the ocean on Zia. Everything held together great, and we had an excellent crew. As I expected, Zia did great on the ocean waves/swells. We crossed the notorious Columbia River bar (aka “Graveyard of the Pacific”) a few times. We gave it a lot of respect & avoided problems.
Wind and Fog
Next, we headed about 40 miles offshore and up the coast to the native village of Neah Bay, which is at the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Then to Port Angeles WA, then Port Townsend. We really loved Port Townsend – a great little town and one of the nicest collections of sailboats I’ve see around. Not super big boats, but obviously well loved/cared for.
We had 20-25 knot winds and quite thick fog at the same time. Disregard those ‘experts’ who say you won’t have fog and strong wind at the same time. IMHO it would have been crazy to do this trip without radar and we sure liked having an AIS transceiver as well.
Next up to Anacortes, Washington, then to the San Juan Islands. Explored these beautiful islands for about a week. We saw pods of Orca whales, porpoise, lots of seals, eagles, sea lions, and some other ‘mystery’ whales.
Wing on Wing
We love anchoring in secluded bays/inlets & it’s one of the only times that owning a boat actually makes financial sense, I think. The hotels & lodges up here are quite pricy (like $300-500/night), and living on the hook is basically free! I told my wife how financially sound boat ownership was and she gave me a deeply sarcastic (maybe hostile?) look and managed to change the subject.
We then headed into the Canadian Gulf Islands for another week.
We crossed through Dodd Narrows (which can do tidal rips at up to 9 knots), and up to Nanaimo, BC. We have a slip rented in Nanaimo for 3 months and plan to base Zia out of this port through September. Alas, we need to go home to work for a few weeks before we come back and take Zia further north up to Desolation Sound on a 10-day jaunt.
We’ve covered about 660 NM so far this trip and have had a blast. Zia and all of her upgrades have done great.
As we were headed north & approaching Nanaimo, another boat that looked just like a Morgan 38 passed us headed south. My wife & I stood staring at the boat, concentrating and it looked like they were staring at us too. The other guy finally waved at us and we waved back. I decided it was probably an older Tartan, some of which look just like M38s. I found out about a week later that it was Garrett (new member of this forum) and his wife aboard Alpinisto (a 1979 382). They are based out of Bellingham, WA.
Despite running this forum, I’d never seen another M38 “in the wild”. M38s have a lot bigger presence on the right coast than the left coast. I’m obviously a little biased, but M38s sure have nice lines, lower freeboard, and are a welcome contrast to the more ‘bloated’ marshmallow-ish hulls of the newer production boats. To each their own, though.
The only other M38 I’ve seen is Terry Thatcher’s 382 at its dock in Portland. Terry just took an amazing trip on his 382 down the west coast to Mexico, Galapagos Island, French Polynesia, Hawaii and I think he’s on his way back to the northwest US now. Terry has emailed me that he thinks his favorite/best “world class” cruising grounds is the northwest area where we are now cruising with Zia. I’ve been lucky enough to cruise all over the world, too, and I have to say that I agree.
I’ll post some more when we continue up to Desolation Sound.
Cheers,
-Mark
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