Category: Travel

Now that it’s light, I can clearly see two separate sets of swell; one coming in from the south and another from the northwest. The southerly swell must be coming from a storm out in the pacific somewhere, and the north westerly swell is being driven by the local winds over the last few days. Waves from one swell meet waves from the other, combining to form a nasty steep face and often a spiteful little breaking section of white water. It’s uncomfortable, but there’s fortunately enough wind to hold the boat heeled over which reduces the rolling a bit. Every now and then a larger wave from the southerly swell comes along from the right, lifts the bow and takes it off downwind, the sails lose their power and we go through a few rail-to-rail rolls before coming back on track.

9 hours ago my alarm went off at midnight. I could hear rain on the cabin top, and the wind in the rigging sounded strong. Didn’t want to get up. But we’ve got a 75 mile leg down to San Diego, and I want to arrive before it gets dark tonight. Turning on the instruments and poking my head outside, it turned out that it’s not so bad. Time to go. I cast off the mooring at Long Hook on Catalina Island, and motor into the dark drizzle, unable to see anything apart from the little ship icon on the rain-spattered chart plotter, guiding me out to sea. For the first couple of hours, there’s no wind, and to stop the main sail slamming back and forth and probably doing itself some damage, I get it down. Without any sails up we’re rolling all over. Ugh. At about 3am, the wind kicks in, 20 knots from the northwest. I experiment with the sails to try and reduce the rolling, but nothing really works. The wind is dead astern, so the jib is pretty useless, flapping in the wind shadow behind the main sail. Having just the full main up in a lumpy sea isn’t great for the boat’s balance, but the autohelm is doing amazingly well, steering way better than I ever could, hour after hour. I reefed the main down when the wind rose to about 30 knots, and then just after dawn shook the reef out and unfurled the jib. We’re now cruising along at a decent 6 knots, still rolling but much more comfortably than before. Fewer of those southerly waves coming through. Rose is snoozing below in the sea berth, and San Diego is coming up over the horizon.

We spent a couple of days in Marina Del Ray, Los Angeles – a day working and a day exploring on rented bikes, along Venice Beach to Santa Monica. Almost every dock we’ve stayed at has had a team of sea lion hanging out nearby. Noisy, disgusting, smelly beasts. They bark almost all night, release vile smells, and make a mess everywhere. On the guest docks here, they were only a few yards away, a cacophony of shouting, snoring, burping and wheezing. I’d be happy never to see another sea lion again. Also at the dock was a pretty little green boat we’ve seen a few times since Morro Bay. Clearly a boat going places. On board are a couple of buddies sailing south to Mexico, one then flies to Aspen in Colorado for a winter season, while the other continues sailing around the world. No doubt we’ll bump into each other again further south.

I took the opportunity to rig up the exposure canopy on our dinghy to make sure everything worked, and I knew how to set it up. The inflatable canopy, along with a sea anchor to hold the bow into the waves, turns it into a life support vessel should we ever have to abandon ship. Strong, unsinkable, and easy to deploy. The canopy is now tucked away inside one of the compartments in the dinghy, hopefully I’ll never need to get it out again.

We left the marina yesterday morning and sailed across to Isla Santa Catalina, picked up a local mooring for a few hours, painted our faces for Halloween, watched a movie, and then got a few hours shut-eye before continuing on to San Diego.

Last Wednesday we left Monterey harbour reasonably early in the morning, for the 120 mile leg down to Morro Bay.

For most of the day we powered along under double reefed main and poled out jib, under cloudless skies. Dolphin and sea lion playing in our bow wave is now becoming a regular event, but today they didn’t stick around for as long as they have done before. Plenty of huge kelp islands floating around kept us on our toes, I’m not sure how much we’d pick up if we ran straight over one – but some of them look pretty solid. Not much we can do at night of course, but may as well dodge them during the day.

Stunning sunset.

Overnight on one of my watches we were visited by more dolphin, but this time I could only hear them, and see fizzing sparkling shapes of phosphorescence under the water. No moon meant it was fairly dark, so it was just the stars, the boat, dark waves, and a mind blowing sub-sea light show.

The wind kept up through the night, which meant we arrived off the Morro Bay entrance a few hours before dawn. I didn’t fancy trying to find our way in during the night – the entrance is known for swell, rogue waves and currents. So at 0400 I started long tacks back and forth across the bay, waiting for light. For an hour or so before the sun rose, we had a solid 30 knots of wind, which made things a little more tiring. As the light strengthened, we motored into Morro Bay, past the breakwater where large swells where crunching away at the huge boulders. Glad we waited. It would have been OK coming in at night, but finding a place to anchor would have been a bit harder. Once we got the hook down, we both fell deep asleep for a couple of hours.

We dropped the dinghy in, rowed ashore and spent the day exploring Morro Bay and the surrounding beaches.

Next morning we woke to thick fog. The odd light from the town forced its way through the greyness of early dawn to reach us in the middle of the anchorage. The still, misty damp night has left a thick dew on deck, soaking the cockpit cushions we left out. The bay is silent, apart from one or two fishermen leaving port for the day, puttering past in their small boats. We’re not far behind them, pulling up our anchor and motoring out, past Morro Rock, the base of which is now only just visible below the cloud. The waves have died down since we came in, but there’s still some swell coming through. No wind though…

But within an hour or two, the engine is off, the sun is out and we’re sailing again. We’re due to round Point Conception late in the afternoon – the “Cape Horn of California”. It’s got a reputation for being gnarly, with strong winds and lumpy seas, and marks the beginning of the warmer and calmer waters of Southern California. We didn’t quite make as far as the point before dark – at Point Arguello (the point before Conception) I headed below for a couple of hours rest before the night ahead and Rose took command of the ship, sailing along at a decent 5 knots under just the full jib. I fell asleep instantly, and before I knew it, a couple of hours later in the early hours of the morning, we were around the corner and into the Santa Barbara Channel, dodging oil rigs. My turn on watch again, keeping the stars and waves company for the rest of the night.

Dawn over Santa Barbara was stunning – the sky bleeding with over-saturated reds, oranges and pinks.

 

We decided to pull into the marina here so that Rose could get some work done. It’s also pretty tiring doing a night sail, and we’ve tended to find a marina rather than an anchorage after each leg longer than 100 miles. Marinas come with showers and guaranteed flat water, which means no rocking at night. But there’s a price tag, and it’s not so idyllic being parked in among hundreds of other boats. Plenty of time for remote anchorages when we get to Mexico.

We explored Santa Barbara for a couple of days; our first taste of Southern California. Not as brash as I expect LA and San Diego will be – but still with the characteristic palm-lined beach front, surf dudes and yoga mat-toting girls. After a night in the marina and a morning working, we popped out to spend the night at anchor east of the pier. Managed to sneak a quick kayak in before dark. I picked up some rope and PVC pipe from a hardware store in town to make a boarding ladder – realising that with the dinghy on the stern, we can’t get the swim ladder down, and can’t get on and off the boat!

Rolly. Really rolly. Strong winds out in the west end of the Santa Barbara Channel (around Point Conception) were pushing some decent swell through the anchorage, which made for a very uncomfortable night. The boat was rolling so much I had to move into the main cabin in order to lie sideways (athwartships) and be tipped head-up, head-down rather than rolled sideways. It’s a bit more comfortable like that – you don’t need to be constantly working muscles to stay in position, which makes it a bit easier to sleep. In the morning, we made the short 27 mile hop across to Santa Cruz Island, where we spent last night.

Rafiki is sat rocking at anchor in Smugglers Cove on Santa Cruz Island, creaking and squeaking. Every now and then when a larger set of waves rolls through, we rock a bit harder, ropes clank on the inside of the mast and the boom swings back and forth making the spring in the vang squawk like an old trampoline. A few seconds later, I hear the waves hissing on the shore just a few hundred yards away. The sun’s just gone down, and Rose is getting dinner ready. Smells amazing. I’m feeling fresh after a swim in the crystal clear sea, checking our anchor, testing the new underwater camera and just enjoying being in the water. It’s warm enough for just boardies, for half an hour or so anyway – amazing.

We’re getting into the rhythm of things – being on the boat at anchor, making passages, stopping in at marinas and generally moving further southward. This morning just before dawn I hauled up the anchor with the windlass and motored out of the bay into the brightening skies, east towards Los Angeles, while Rose got our morning cuppa sorted. Passing Anacapa Island, the sun rose to join us. It’s amazing how fast it shoots up out of the sea; within seconds the whole disc is well above the horizon and warming everything up.

The 56 miles to Marina Del Ray took us just over 12 hours, half under engine power and half with the spinnaker up. I’m glad I picked that up off eBay – it’s going to save a lot of dreary donk-donk-donk-donk engine running as we head south with light winds behind us. Pretty photogenic, took too many pics…

Arriving at the guest dock, Rose goes forwards to kick the fenders off the side, just like we do every time we come into port. This time the splash was a bit louder than normal. Fender overboard! I spun the boat round and we rescued our lost man without trouble, then docked the boat in a visitors slip. Sea lions on the docks AGAIN. Shouting noisily, making a ruckus. I think we’ll still sleep pretty well.

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.

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.

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.