Weather building to the west.

Sometimes, you don’t know you’d like to visit a place until you unexpectedly find yourself residing there for a few days.  Who would willingly cross into a bay where the bar entrance is so fickle that one could remain trapped there for days on end waiting for favorable conditions? Sail in we did, and now that we’ve been here for a week, it’s easier to say that we’ve always wanted to spend some more time in the fading lumber town of Eureka, California.

Carson Mansion

Part Victorian seaport, part revitalized and decaying timber town, part urban-camper epicenter of northern California, Eureka reminds us of both Port Townsend and Port Angeles. Much of historic old town and downtown has been restored in a fine fashion; the buildings are beautiful. Many of the storefronts boast colorful bagel, coffee, book and artisan wares of the sort found in most small university and tourist towns. Many empty windows beckon for entrepreneurs, and many would-be customers fade away on bus benches and beneath historic trees, too cold and tired from spending another damp night on the streets to look for work, or even to beg, much less buy a cup of coffee or a bagel. Old town Eureka is all dressed up, waiting for the next economic boom to whirl her into prosperity.

Whistlin’ by the dock of the bay

Eureka and its sister town, Arcata, have yet another side to them: that of a thriving university community. While it may be true that the public library is at times seemingly full – up with people down on their luck, the same hourlong visit to this gem of a place reveals activists and students, working together to make their town a healthy place to live.

When we left Port Angeles, another sailing cruising couple was heading south about the same time.  As most of you know, I’m not particularly outgoing, but it has been really enjoyable to meet up with other people who are doing this same crazy thing. We’ve sweated over the wind, wave and bar reports together, gone to church, grazed on Italian and Thai and cookhouse lumberjack dinners, shared a harbor cruise aboard a historic ‘mosquito fleet’ type of little ship, and most importantly, laughed a lot over our unplanned hiatus in Humboldt County.

LuLu Belle, crewmember on our historic harbor tour, steals Wade’s heart

This portable cruising community makes itself at home wherever it lands. Rick and Connie have been to Tahiti on Rhino, their gorgeous Westsail 32 which Rick fitted out from a bare hull. They are generous with their experience, and make us feel like old salts too as we exchange our trepidations and successes. There’s a family with two teenage girls on a boat much smaller than ours berthed next to us, and the laughter trickling out at regular intervals reminds us to lighten up and enjoy the present. A German man from British Columbia is docked here too – he bicycles to and from town with a gas can balanced on his lap to bring diesel to his boat. A young man in his early twenties is soloing with an old sailing boat to Mexico – he flies a BaHaHa flag from 1973.

We’ll meet all these kind sailors again, and others, in a different port town we never planned on visiting, but will love to find ourselves in for a few days. Our community is drifting south with us on the wind and tides, so just about any harbor on this western shore could wind up feeling like home for a while.

Pelican Moon sunset