Matthew Small, The fog. (October theme: Weather)

Early on in our meandering across the pacific we were definitely somewhat winging it and learning how trans ocean sailing worked as we went along. A few nights after clearing US customs we were off down the wild west coast of Oregon, and this is where we all experienced the steepest learning curve of the trip. After a few days of pleasant slow sailing mother nature threw us some gale force winds and showed us just how powerful offshore swell can be. On that note if you have ever wanted to feel the raw powers earth holds, I recommend heading out to sea and loosing sight of land for a few days. We were tired, with our bodies fatigued from slow adjusting to life at sea, months later a few weeks at sea and a couple of hundred nautical mile trip would become come the norm, the boat would seemingly work as a well oiled machine, the four of us working round the clock to keep us moving in the right direction 24 hours a day 7 days a week, dealing with problems as they came and went. The thought of an extra night in a marina was just to tempting so despite the fog thickening throughout the steam into the harbor we voted and each of us decided it was safer to push on at this point then risk heading back out to sea and waiting for the for to clear. With all four of us on deck strapped in, eyes pealed we can hear the fog horns haunting us from every direction of the busy harbor with such limited visibility we can barely see stern to bow and are yelling commands and messages across the deck. Tanker ships glide past threatening to cross paths with us, but we much stay calm, trust each other and our instruments. I quickly shot this photo as we straightened up towards the golden gate bridge (37.86, -122.77) and although I liked the image a lot, I never showed it to anyone outside of the crew. Half for fear of scaring our loved ones back home and half because although we handled the situation fine as a crew we aren't exactly proud of our mistake. After this experience we definitely all took valuable lessons opting to never enter unfamiliar harbors under limited visibility and to keep closer eyes on our tide and weather chats to ensure we are out of the "hot zones" of the harbors safely. We all toned down our aussie "she'll be right" attitudes after this experience and opted for the "we've already been out here for 21 nights, what's another few" approach. Included is a portrait edit of the shot which I feel highlights the ghostly feeling of "sailing blind".

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.