Change of plan. We were due to head down to Morro Bay this morning, a 24-hour trip, but a couple of things have led to us sticking around in Monterey for another day. The forecast is still showing significant swell coming in from a large storm off Alaska, which is due to die off tonight. Large swell like this out in the open ocean isn’t generally a problem, but it might be uncomfortable – especially with the winds forecast at 20-30 knots. The wind is coming from the same direction as the swell, which means it’s not going to be the worst case of wind-against-swell, but that’s still quite a breeze. Also, Rose has received more information by email that lets her get some illustration work done, and with a deadline of the end of the month it makes sense for us to stay here for a day where it’s calm and we have internet.
Here’s what the wave forecast looks like for today (bright green : 4-5 metre swell off the coast of Big Sur, central California):
… and for the same time tomorrow, down to a more reasonable 2-3 metres:
Sitting here in the marina, in the sunshine and calm breeze, it doesn’t feel like there’s much weather out there, but we’re tucked right in the corner of Monterey Bay where it’s more protected. Let’s see what tomorrow brings!
We’re on our way! 150-odd sea miles from Alameda, we’re tucked into a visitor slip in Monterey Harbor. The trip from Tiburon took just under 24 hours. At 8pm on Friday, after dinner at Sam’s Café, Rose, Ali and I sailed out under the Golden Gate Bridge in a nice breeze – which unfortunately dropped off before we’d cleared the shallow area outside the bay, which meant we were motoring into a large choppy sea without the wind to stabilise us. The boat was rolling, pitching and twisting over every wave, which wasn’t comfortable. But soon the wind picked up a bit, and as we got further out into the Pacific, we managed to sail for a few hours. Wind from the south again, like our last trip to Santa Cruz! It’s supposed to come from the north around here … but a cold front is passing through so again we’re close hauled, tacking down the coast. In the early hours of the morning the wind dropped off again, so the engine came back on.
Adios, San Francisco!
Ali and I took casual turns on watch through the night, Rose taking some rest below, not feeling too hot after the early bumpy ride. Our first Pacific dawn was pretty good – the sun very briefly splashing the bottom of the clouds with pink before poking its head up over the land.
Pacific dawnAli snugged up warm after a night at seaSouth, to Mexico!
About mid morning we were motoring along, rolling with the glassy swell, gradually making way towards Santa Cruz. I looked aft and saw a load of disturbed water, almost as though there was a puff of wind catching us up. Dolphins! Hundreds of them, riding the face of a wave, jumping clear of the water and looking very excited to see us. They stayed with us for about half an hour, riding the bow wave and getting a good look at us. At one point they all charged off to the left together, did a big loop around, and approached us again from astern. Magic. Looking in the book later, we think they were the Pacific Common Dolphin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large pod.
At lunch time, off Pt Ano Nuevo, the wind picked up from the north – whoopee! We rigged the jib out on the pole to starboard and the main on a preventer to port, and enjoyed classic downwind sailing all the way to Santa Cruz at nearly 7 knots. Hopefully it’ll be like this all the way to Mexico…
We spent the night at the fuel dock in Santa Cruz, and then met Kate and the kids in the morning – they’d driven down from San Francisco for the day. Family time! We headed out into Monterey bay to see if we could find some whales. No luck this time, but we had a great sail in the sunshine and wind.
Dropping off the family back on the dock at Santa Cruz, we made a sharp turn around and dashed south back across the bay towards Monterey – making the most of the sun and wind. The 20-odd miles took us just over 4 hours, starting off as a reach before the wind backed a bit. Close hauled we still made our course, and on the way saw a pod of Risso’s dolphin – huge things that we thought were whales until we checked the handy guide given to us in Monterey Harbor. As the fog closed in around us at sunset, we saw spurts of vapour from another great beast, and then the flukes of a huge tail disappearing below the surface. Whales! Rose thinks they were gray whales. So much wildlife out here.
Just before arriving in Monterey the fog cleared and the wind dropped, leaving us to motor gently into the harbor under a starry sky – about 8pm. It’s noisy and smelly – the pontoons opposite are heaving under the weight of sea lions, barking and shouting. Rose rustled up some pasta and then I crashed out, exhausted.
Today has been a relaxing day around the harbor and town, a bit of work in the morning, stocking up on more snacks from Trader Joe’s, and sorting pictures. We’ve not really made a dent on the snack stock that we got a couple of weeks ago, but something in me says we are going to be needing all the treats we can get for morale and energy over the next few days. Healthy tasty snacks = happy energetic crew! Tomorrow morning we leave at first light for Morro Bay, about 110 miles south.
Alameda to Monterey through Sausalito, Tiburon and Santa Cruz
Almost a year since we moved to the USA, we’re back in Sausalito. We spent last night in Clipper Yacht Harbor, only a couple of slips down from where we spent winter and spring. Familiar territory. It brings our time here in the bay to a good closure, and we’re now ready to move on.
The past month has been heavy on transition – a bridge between travelling in the van and voyaging on the boat. Tonight we head out under the Golden Gate Bridge and make the Big Turn Left, south towards warmth, adventure and a whole bunch of new, exciting experiences!
There have been a number of things to get done to make the boat ready, Rose has been doing some illustration for the BBC, and I’ve squeezed in a short trip to the UK for work. We’ve gone through another cycle of purging possessions to try and thin things down a bit, and I took a few things back with me to leave at mum’s place. Being back in the UK office full time for a week was strange. It felt like I was starting a new job, learning lots of new things – and coupled with the jet lag, it was pretty exhausting. I’m joining the development team for a while, going back into the code. I moved on from this years ago, got used to handing over to a team of engineers, and in some ways picking up the tools again feels like a step backwards. But there’s still a lot of work to be done, and it’s going to be great being able to contribute while also traveling.
Removing the California registration, she’s now a British Ship!Heavy dew in the mornings, and a chill in the air. Time to head south.
Last weekend we came over here to Sausalito to pick up Shane and Amanda for a weekend of sailing, and to make sure everything was working OK on the boat. New dinghy, new outboard engine, spinnaker and chart plotter all needed a shake-down. All systems go! For our tender, we ended up buying a Portland Pudgy, which is a hard plastic boat that, with an inflatable “exposure canopy”, also doubles as our life raft. Unsinkable, unbreakable, and no worries about non-inflation. I’ve heard too many stories about inflatable rafts not opening, or leaking, having spent months baking in their canister on deck. It’s a load heavier than I was expecting, and the original plan of storing it on the foredeck was going to be troublesome, so on the way back from work last week I popped into the local used parts shop to see if they had any davits (crane arms which fix on the stern of the mother ship). They did! So Thursday and Friday were consumed by a last-minute heavy engineering project to get them installed, with monster backing plates, and some custom stainless steel brackets. It’s now easy to drop and hoist the dinghy. And now that we have the extra weight on the stern to balance the chain and anchor on the bow, the boat has almost leveled off.
While anchored off Angel Island on Saturday evening, we performed a naming ceremony for Rafiki. When changing the name of a boat you need to make sure you’ve got Neptune’s approval, and also his sidekicks the four winds. Boreas, ruler of the North Wind, Zephyrus, of the West Wind, Eurus, of the East Wind, and Notus of the South Wind. According to legend, the name of every boat is recorded in the “Ledger of the Deep”, so we first needed to purge it from that with a de-naming procedure – which involved writing the name down on a metal washer in water-soluble ink and throwing it into the sea along with a generous dose of champagne. More champagne thrown into the sea on all points of the compass, a load of weighty god-appeasing words, and we’re all clear. Rafiki is ready to sail the oceans!
Just before we left Alameda for the last time, we stopped in at the pinball machine museum – what an amazing place. They have over 85 machines, from the mid-fifties through to modern times, all free play once you’ve paid your entrance fee. Rose and I were hooked, and spent hours flipping ball bearings around.
This morning we motored the dinghy around the corner to Bayside Café for breakfast with Joe and Brooke, and did some laundry. I need to pop into town to pick up some spare tools, pay a cheque in, get the AIS system working properly, and then we’re off to Tiburon for the afternoon and evening.
As we’re going to be away from the boat for most of the next 4 months we figured it didn’t make much sense to keep her in Sausalito – the slip is expensive and we don’t need liveaboard status. I thought it would be cool to be near the city, so checked out one of the marinas right next to the baseball stadium, but that also worked out pretty pricey. I found a place at Fortman marina in Alameda at less than half what we were paying in Sausalito. Rose and Anna brought the van around while Ant and I took Rafiki.
Not enough wind to sail, so we motored all the way. I still haven’t had a chance to use the new spinnaker so I was hoping we’d get the opportunity to use that while Ant was around, but no joy. We’ll run it through its paces when we’re back in September to make sure everything checks out OK before we head south (with a following wind) to Mexico.
Fortman’s is just next to Grand Marina which is where Rafiki was based when we surveyed and bought her almost exactly a year ago. It’s quite a way from the bay – perhaps a 30 to 45 minute motor before you can get any decent sailing in – but it’s a good place to leave her while we’re travelling, and a place to leave the van while we’re in the UK.
The girls got to the marina just before us, and were met by a friendly chap from Alameda Yacht club which is based just next door. Seems like a nice casual place where everyone says hi. Quite a few liveaboards too. Pretty basic compared to Clipper, where we were before – regular key entry rather than electronic fobs, but that’s fine with us.
With the ladies safely left at the bus stop in Santa Cruz, Ant and I headed back to the boat. We weighed anchor (with the new windlass which hauled in all 30 metres of heavy chain with no stress at all), and headed out to sea!
The skies were clear the whole trip, and of course we had to take a load of sunset photos.
Don’t panic, I found a safe place for the beersPowering over the ocean swell
Back at the dock in Sausalito, it was hot hot hot and still as a mill pond. Time for grilled trout on the BBQ!
Leaving San Francisco the weather was cloudy, overcast and grey, with not a lot of wind. We’d left Sausalito a little too late, which meant we were fighting the incoming tide as we headed out under the Golden Gate bridge. No big deal though, we have plenty of time. Just outside the bridge we saw our first WHALE! The grey whales are migrating back north again. We’d failed to see any on their journey south during our trips out of the bay last autumn, so it was pretty cool to see one so soon.
As we headed down the coast, the weather didn’t really improve. The wind was from the south, which is not supposed to happen! It never really picked up much, so we ended up doing quite a lot of the trip under power.
Rose snug in her new jacketA hearty meal for sailorsAnna tucked up in the sea berth under a duvet
We arrived at Santa Cruz around 11 in the morning, about 19 hours from SF. We tied up to the fuel dock in the harbour, where we were going to be staying overnight too. After a shower and freshen-up, it was time to explore. Dodging rain clouds, we found ourselves in the Santa Cruz museum of Natural History, trapped by a particularly vicious downpour. Hey Santa Cruz, you’re supposed to be all sunny and hot and Californian!
At the dock in Santa Cruz harbor
The night on the dock was pretty noisy and bumpy- the swell wrapping around the breakwater washing up the harbour channel making the boat jump around on its lines like a beast trying to get loose. We decided to head around into the bay and spend the next night at anchor.
At anchor off Santa Cruz
The sun came out, we had a relaxed, warm lunch in the cockpit and then decided to pump up the dinghy and head ashore. The wind had picked up loads, which meant that it was going to be almost impossible to row the few hundred yards to the wharf. Hmmn.
A guy on a motorboat had been motoring around throwing his anchor off the front of his boat periodically, waiting a while, then hauling it up and trying again somewhere else for about half an hour. We weren’t sure if he was practicing or just not getting it quite right. At one point he dropped it just upwind of us and was drifting directly down towards us before (fortunately) deciding he’d not got it quite right and moved on again. He swung past us, Ant and I rowing furiously into the wind, and asked if we wanted a tow to the wharf. Yes please!
The welcoming party
We arrived at the landing dock and had to shoo off a load of very vocal sea lions. They are pretty intimidating up close, but with a good shout and lunge they are easy enough to move on. Once we’d broken through the lines of sea lions, we had to break through the lines of tourists… Leaving the dinghy locked up under the watchful eyes of these curious beasts, we headed into town for the night – we’d spotted a live gig that sounded worth a visit, and were keen to see what Santa Cruz nightlife was all about.
A solid meal, a few hours of rock music, some night skate boarding and a short row downwind brought us back to Rafiki to tuck into bed. The wind had dropped, but the Pacific swell was still casually rolling into the bay which meant that the boat was rocking a fair bit. Not as bad as being at the dock, though.
On Monday we rowed the girls to shore so that they could catch a bus back to SF. The weather looked good for the trip back, but we’d decided that it would be better all round for the boys to take the upwind leg while the ladies explored the city and spent a calm, comfortable night in a hostel.
Some moody shots from out on the bay last night. The wind ranged from calm to 38 knots, visibility ranged from excellent to less than 50 metres in the fog, we started in full sunshine, and finished in pitch black. Life would get boring if it was calm and sunny every day.
Just some shots from Sunday when we took the boat into the south bay with Mum, David, Mike and Rachel.
David’s first time at the helmPilot MikeEnjoying the wind, sun and ciderShooting for a Trader Joe’s commercialSF skyline from the southMike and Rachel looking comfy
We’re sitting peacefully at anchor at Paradise Cove as the sun rises over San Pablo bay. We arrived last night and dropped the hook a few yards off the end of the pier.
The morning high speed ferry powers past, sending a wake to the shore. The waves roll under the boat, making it rock; the cupboards make the click-clunk noise so familiar when out at sea in a swell. The half finished bottle of rum from last night nearly slides off the galley onto the floor- it’s just rescued in time by falling into the sink. A minute later, the waves crash on the beach, and then all is calm again.
A man is taking his morning swim in front of the huge, luxurious beach homes. Rose and I try to decide which is the ugliest house. She tells me about her studio mate back in Sausalito, a lady in her forties who was born and grew up in this area. The two of them were out with our kayaks the other day, Maude saying how when she was a kid, there were no houses here, and how they found old arrow heads in the dirt, wondering whether it was an old Indian settlement. How much things have changed, in not very many years. There’s hardly a spot of spare land on this peninsula now.
The sun has decided that it wants to be the boss again today, and burns away the morning cloud by ten. I’ve only connected one of my solar panels up so far, and it’s starting to do its job, trickling some charge into the batteries. Rose is getting on with her knitting, and I’m just enjoying being out here.
We’re only half an hour away from our dock, but I feel we’re well and truly down the road towards self-sufficiency, a taste of future adventures a long way away from people and civilisation. Yesterday I finished installing the new alternator, which means that, when both solar panels are also connected, we’ll be covering all our electrical power needs without any help from the outside.
Last night’s wind has all but gone, with only a light zephyr blowing from the north. It brings with it the faint sound of trains and ships, making their busy way back and forth across on the other side of the bay in Richmond. Not a hundred yards away on land, the green hills are filled with bird song, and every now and then I catch a snip of conversation between the men fishing on the pier.
Mum arrived a couple of days ago with David, and one of the first things we had to do was get the boat out for a sail! We rode the ebb tide under the Golden Gate bridge and out to sea. I’ve stopped taking pictures of “the most photographed bridge in the world”, it feels too familiar now. Though it did make a nice backdrop to our lunch time anchorage, just inside point Bonita.
Road and Ocean 