Newport, We Have a Problem

Over the course of last winter and spring, we joined this great rally to help us get from Port Townsend, Washington, pretty much all the way to Mexico.  We attended very informative seminars presented by the Coho Hoho, and even got to participate in a raft-up in Blakely Harbor.  We made some great friends, shared awesome stories, and eventually 7 sailboats left together on the 14th of August from Port Townsend.  The night before we left, there was a FANTASTIC pirate-themed party put together by the folks at Cruising Outpost.  On the 1st night, a few of us stayed overnight and fueled up in Port Angeles, but eventually all of us made it into Newport, Oregon.  Since Paul and I are only a crew of two, we opted to spend an extra night in Newport to get much needed rest and prepare for our journey to Eureka.  We left port on a beautiful morning, passing the ever-present sea lions, traveling through the often tricky bar, on our way out to sea.  We were about 20 miles south when Paul noticed we had ZERO oil pressure.  Our engine was the original that came installed on our boat when she was built in 1978.  She had been having an issue over the previous week, but had a complete oil change, and we were keeping an eye on the situation.  Once he realized we were in trouble, Paul alerted the Coast Guard and we did a quick 180 to head back to Newport.  Less than 3 hours later, we were once again entering the bar to head into port.  Unfortunately, our engine died as we were halfway through.  We motioned and radioed for the other vessels to pass us.  Knowing it would ultimately sacrifice our engine, Paul told me to see if I could start her up.  It worked.  She made it...well, as far as the Highway 101 bridge.  She died again, this time for good.  Fortunately the current was with us and it kept our momentum in a positive direction until we eventually got to within less than 200' of the NOAA research vessel.  We informed them we would be dropping anchor as we needed to stabilize our boat and situation.  They thanked us and slightly changed their course to avoid getting too close.  We were towed by some good samaritans into the marina.  It is extremely difficult to find our engine type still in existence, but we were completely lucky in finding one in Portland.  Sadly, we will have to put our trip on hold until we can completely rebuild this (new-to-us) engine, and we will try again next August 2017.  If anyone would like to help offset costs, we have a GoFundMe page set up with a little more detail of our setbacks from the beginning of the adventure.  Thanks for reading and God Bless.

gofund.me/3k8eig

Much Love,

D~

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