When we arrived in Brookings the Coast Guard came over to inspect our boat. We have the greatest admiration for the U.S. Coast Guard; all of their employees are very courteous and are the most helpful people that you can imagine. Officer Hess and Officer Harrison came aboard Cat’s-Paw IV and inspected her, they were the consummate professionals, and after the inspection was finished they gave us some useful tips on where to eat and what their town had to offer

They explained to us that one of the reasons that had come aboard was because when we were boarded previously by the Coast Guard the fellow had put us down as a U.S. boat and now we had claimed to be Canadians and they needed to figure out what was what. Officer Hess got a charge out of the look on my face when he said they thought we were Americans, he said it wasn’t THAT bad!!!!

We had a few repairs to do in Brookings, and managed to find the needed spacers for the gooseneck. We also discovered we had bent a piece that connects the boom vang to the boom, so Barry had to take that out and straighten it out so we could reattach the vang, fun and games.

We motored all the way to Eureka, California, it was calm with very little swell. We will wait here for a couple of days before we attempt to round Cape Mendicino. We are going to rent a car and go and see the redwoods and perhaps explore the coast a little. We are waiting to get a car, the one place that will deliver cars doesn’t have any at the moment and it will cost almost a days rental to take a cab to the airport to rent another, so we wait, and you all know how well I do that.