We arrived in San Diego on Sunday morning, and spent most of the day being lazy because we were up all night crossing down from Catalina Island. The Harbor Police Docks on Shelter Island are OK, but bathrooms and showers leave a lot to be desired. On Monday morning, we tuned in to the cruisers net on VHF, and found out about a coffee klatch at Downwind Marine scheduled for 10 AM. So we put the motor on the dinghy and drove over to a nearby beach, and walked the rest of the way. While there, we met some other cruisers, and from one couple we learned about about a great deal on a slip that they had found. Calling that marina, we were able to get a slip for 2 weeks for $261. So we moved the boat to Bay Club Motel and Marina, and this is a great spot!

It is about a 1/2 mile walk to Downwind Marine, and also to West Marine. I am amazed at how many marine businesses are here - it's a whole industry here! Today I splurged and bought a fishing pole, which I plan to use once we get south of the border (I have a Mexican fishing license, but not one for California). I see fish tacos in my future!!

Ed has been working on getting insurance coverage for Mexico, and finally got that secured this morning.    We have researched the paper chart options and have decided to go with the Yachtsman brand; the book that covers the west coast of Mexico costs $100. Not a bad price, but they are not as nice as the Maptech paper charts that we used on the way down from Astoria. Even though we have a chart plotter at the helm, and Ed has charts in his laptop computer, the paper charts were indispensable in making the trip. Every hour, we would write down our GPS coordinates, speed, and heading on a log that I created. Then we would put a X on the chart and note the time. This way, if the electronics fail, we know where we were at the last hour as well as the speed and heading since then. Paper charts also helped in planning. Before departing from any port, we would look at the chart, decide where we wanted to go, and chose the waypoints for each leg. Then we would measure the length and heading for each leg, and after programming the waypoints into the chart plotter, we could check the headings and distances against the chart. Don't leave home without it!

Not sure what I will do with all my time here - we are not leaving here before Nov 1. Maybe I'll slip the line in the water behind the boat and see what kind of fish are swimming around. I have been walking every day and getting at least a mile, usually 2. We have a list of chores to do on the boat, including washing it inside and out, and some repairs to do.  Last night, Teri and went to a seminar to learn about cooking meals in pressure cookers. There were about 40 people there, and the 2 guys with the pressure cookers did a great job. I learned a lot and look forward to practicing some of it! We are planning to take Ed and Teri's grandsons sailing on Saturday! Hope I can still remember how to sail!

I am going to try to change how this blog looks for this post:

A bison on Catalina Island

Arriving at Avalon in the fog!

Mai Tai's at the Bay Club Hotel and Marina on Shelter Island

Just trying to figure out how to upload photos, now that I have a great internet connection!

Santa Cruz and Santa Catalina Islands.

We departed Santa Barbara on Monday morning in a very thick fog, headed south for Santa Cruz Island. It's 20 some miles, and the wind soon picked up to about 10 knots from the west, so we set sails and shut off the engine. The fog cleared and we had a great sail across the channel at about 5 knots. We did see one whale but it was a ways away. Arriving at the north side of the island, we turned and headed around the east end, because we were headed for a place called Smuggler's Cove on the southeast corner of the island. We were met head-on by hundreds of what we thought must be dolphins headed west and jumping on every stroke of the their tails. But they did not appear to have dorsal fins, so we think that they were Northern Fur seals.

We anchored here in Smuggler's Cove with a few other boats, and we decided to blow up the kayak for the first time on the trip and see if we run into any issues doing it on the boat instead of the dock. It went well, and we soon had a kayak to play in! Because Roxie has not learned to do her business on the boat, she needed to be taken ashore, so Ed and Teri decided to take her. Ed got in the kayak first, and held it against the stern of Sea Moore. Teri sat down on the swim platform and put her feet into the kayak. Now, I understand the desire to be graceful, but I think it might have been better for her to have gotten on her knees, and then into the kayak. I didn't have time to  get my camera….. as she pushed into the kayak, it went away from her, and she rolled backwards into the resulting gap between the boat and the kayak. Her PFD soon brought her to the surface, choking and sputtering, and totally soaked! The second attempt worked better, and off they went. Given that the surf looked pretty big and that none of us have ever landed or launched an inflatable kayak in the surf, I figured that I might be in for a show. So I filled my water glass and got a bag of potato chips and sat in the cockpit with binoculars to watch. They did fine, both landing and launching, and Roxie was soon back onboard a happy dog. Teri put some rice on to boil, and I baked 2 cod fillets and fixed some broccoli. We enjoyed a scrumptious meal and then watched a movie before bed.

The next day, we enjoyed the sights and visited with a few other cruisers who were also anchored there. I took the kayak and started getting used to being in the ocean in an inflatable kayak. I didn't try to got through the surf though. After dinner I went up in the cockpit, and looked around. It was warm and calm, and 2 new boats had anchored nearby, so I decided to kayak over and meet them. I visited with some people on a big catamaran, and then headed towards the surf to get a closer look at it from the ocean side. Before I got there, though, the breeze started coming up, and I looked around and saw a wind line cutting through the cove. I immediately started digging towards SeaMoore, which was upwind on my port bow. Within just a few minutes, the entire cove had whitecaps. I was seated towards the back of the kayak, and it was hard to keep it pointed into the wind. I was also nervous that the wind might get under the bow and tip me over. As I got closer to the boat, the wind increased and it seemed like as hard as I could paddle was not making progress. I thought about what was behind me - 6 miles to Ana Capa Island, which was only 10 or 15 degrees wide, but beyond that it was about 30 to 40 miles of open ocean. I changed my heading a little into the wind, so that I could paddle on both side without loosing my heading, and started making a little headway again towards the boat. When I finally got there, Ed and Teri were both waiting for me and rooting for me, and were very concerned. I drove the bow into the stern of SeaMoore and Ed caught my bow line. I just sat there and rested for a minute before climbing out. We have a home weather station on the boat, and as soon as I got aboard I looked at it; the wind was 25 -28 and the max gust was 29mph. So that is about 25 knots. The folks on the catamaran were dragging anchor, and it took then 2 more tries to get a good holding. SeaMoore held well, but we were very vigilant for the next couple of hours till the wind slowed down. Another strange thing about the wind coming up was that when it did, the temp went up from 73 to 80 degrees. We were in the lee of Santa Cruz Island, and I considered that the temperature increase could be due to compressional cooling, but I don't think it would warm that much just blowing over and island and not raining on the windward side. Anyway, we got up this morning at 0300 to head for Santa Catalina Island. The wind had dropped to nearly calm, and it was a beautiful morning with a full moon and 75 degrees. 

We left the next morning, and are now enjoying Catalina Island, which will be the subject of my next post.

SoIt's our final day here at Port San Luis Obispo, about 4 pm. The wind is howling outside at about 20 knots, and the sky is clear and warm. The forecaster says that the wind will slow down a little tonight and tomorrow morning around Pt. Arguello. I am hoping that she is correct, because looking south at the sand dunes down toward Pismo Beach, I see a huge cloud of sand being blown up, and looking at the ocean I see lots of sheep grazing out there. So we are planning to leave in the morning before 4, with the intent of getting around the points by noon and therefore hopefully before the wind pipes back up. Assuming that it goes down.

I just discovered that my MacBook has a jack for my earphones, so I can listen to Robin Trower's "Bridge of Sighs" as I write this, without subjecting Ed and Teri to it. Next up: Billy Bob Thornton!

Heretofore in writing blog posts, I have written the entry after a passage and then uploaded it. I am trying something different this time; by writing this initial piece prior to departure, and then as we are enroute I will add to it. It's 90 miles from here to Santa Barbara; 18 hours at 5 knots, 15 hours at 6 knots. I'll be back.

So, we left last night - early this morning, actually - at 0130. we have made it around Points Arguello and Conception, and we are in the Santa Barbara Channel. It's 1247, and I am wearing a tee shirt and shorts. Bright  blue sky and bright blue water. The swells are passing under us about 8 seconds apart, and they are about 2 feet high. The wind is on the stern at about 6 knots, so we are motoring. This morning around daylight, we were abeam Pt. Arguello and the wind was from the north at 15 and the seas were 10 - 12 feet at about 8 seconds. It's called the "Cape Horn" of the west coast for a reason, I suppose! 

We are headed east, and off to the south and southeast I can see San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz Islands. We have sailed past some oil platforms that are huge! Even from several miles away, they look huge. There is a lot of oil in this area, and the chart actually shows "oil springs" There must be some, too, because we have seen miles of water with oil floating on the surface. I suppose it's okay if it's natural and not there because of a human action. Since when were humans not natural? The wind is completely calm, and the water is glassy.

We arrived Santa Barbara this evening at about 1845 hrs. Since there are no slips available, we have anchored east of the marina in 5 fathoms of water. It's a little rolly, but I will sleep well because I'm tired. Ed and Teri have taken the dinghy to shore and may be getting groceries. If not tonight, then tomorrow! We are running low on some basic provisions, and we had quite a grocery list. Things like nuts, eggs, fresh vegetables, potatoes, hummus, etc. Interestingly, we have not had a real discussion about where to go next. The only 2 place we are going for sure soon are Santa Catalina Island and San Diego. I suppose tomorrow we'll talk about where to go next. It is a huge relief to finally get past Pt. Conception - we have arrived in southern California!!! 

We are still sitting at Port San Luis, waiting for the conditions to improve. It's sunny and windy outside, slightly cool, and I am sitting in the bar where I can get internet reception. I am sitting on a stool, at a table, looking out the window towards the bay. It is a little bluer than what I would see in Oregon, but still has a silver quality to it. The wind is creating a lot of texture on the surface, and there are many boats sitting there at anchor. The sky is mostly blue, with low level cumulus clouds in the distance. Way out to the south, on the horizon, I imagine that  I can see Pt. Arguello, which with Pt. Conception makes a huge cape that we have to get around before entering the Santa Barbara channel.
I realized yesterday that I have not been in a car or on a highway in quite some time - a revelation that pleases me. Pondering this, I started thinking about how much I have left the world behind - and it occurred to me that I have not seen any news since we left Portland on September 8th. Am I okay with that? Thanks to Facebook, email, and my cell phone, I am still in contact with my people, and so I don't feel detached from the world. So I suppose it's fair to say that my world is my people, or my people are my world. I sympathize with people having problems in the wider world, but right now, there's just nothing that I can do to help them, so it doesn't bother me to not really now everything that's going on out there. I am happy to work on my relationship with my boat mates, with the people that we meet along the way, and with my people that I remain connected with through the internet. I truly believe that we are all connected - in fact, that we are one - and even with this belief, it's amazing how much I miss seeing some of my loved ones back home. You know who you are!
And yet, there is no other place that I would rather be, and nothing that I would rather be doing. This is one hell of an adventure!

I write this from the comfort of the settee in SeaMoore's salon, on a stormy morning on 5 October. We are on a mooring ball in San Luis Obispo Bay, and it's raining and blowing outside. The waves are making the boat pitch and roll and overall it's a pretty wild ride. But we are safe, and the only real threat is that my coffee cup may fly off at any given moment.

I think I last posted to this blog from San Francisco. We had a decent sail from there to Monterey, about 20 hours enroute. Monterey is a great place to go when transiting the coast, and as we approached the harbor we were welcomed by sea lions, seals, sea otters, and dolphins; and of course the ever present  pelicans, cormorants, and sea gulls. Monterey has thriving tourist industry on the wharf, with seafood restaurants packed side by side on both sides of the length of the wharf. They are basically "fish and chips" places and the day that we were there, they were hawking clam chowder, free calamari and $3.95 drinks for happy hour. We did splurge by walking landward several blocks to a Mexican place. My fish tacos were excellent! But, a result of the global economy, the fish in my tacos was tilapia, and was most likely imported from southeast Asia in a refrigerated container aboard a container ship to L.A. or San Francisco, and then hauled in a truck to Monterey. Such is the world in which we live.

We left Monterey after spending one night there, and headed once again southward along the desolate and rugged coast of central California. I was at the helm, sailing with a wind at my back, when I heard a great exhalation of air to my port side. "Thar she blows!!" It was a Humpback whale, a hundred yards or less away. The last I saw of it was it's entire tail, silhouetted against the horizon, as it dived to deeper waters. On my next watch, which was from 0300 to 0600, the was very little wind and I was using the engine. I still had the genoa poled out, but was not getting much help from it. I noticed a faint spot on the radar, at a close range, at a relative position of about 1 o'clock. I looked and looked, and finally got a visual. The lights indicated that it was another sailboat using her motor, and I hailed them on the radio. No answer. Eventually I did talk to another boat that was behind us, who told me that the boat in question was a single hander (we had met this guy in Monterey) named Carl. Any way, I was a little faster and overtaking very slowly, and his heading was kind of wandering around a bit, I don't know if it was because he was using a wind vane for steerage or if he was just driving while asleep, but he was hard to pass because he kept turning in front of me. I eventually got past him when he turned more to port in front of me. I turned about 45 degrees right and added power to pick up another 2 tenths of speed or so. I think he eventually went into Morro Bay, as did several other southbound cruisers that we heard on the radio.

The fuel dock here at Port San Luis is on a wharf with really tall pilings, so when tying up we were way below the dock, and had to get our dock lines around the pilings to hold the boat. Then we climb a ladder to the dock. It's not what we're accustomed to in Portland, but we saw the same thing in Eureka, and I'm sure will see it a lot more as we continue south. After getting fuel, we picked up this mooring ball, and here we are waiting out this storm. Looks like we'll be here for a few more days. I am enjoying the adventure - we take the dinghy to the dinghy dock to get ashore, and this bay is full of sea otters, seals, and sea lions. I got some really good close up pictures of pelicans yesterday when we were ashore to shore and use the free WiFi in the bar. Today will bring more adventure I'm sure! Ed is cooking some eggs, so I think I'll sign off for now and get to the business of the day. Sea Moore out!

dinner with a view

We spent our first night anchored in Richardson Bay, near Sausalito, and then moved the boat to the guest dock at Clipper Marine in Sausalito for the second night. It was good to get a shower on land and have an internet connection. Marin County has a reputation for being a bit expensive, and our 24 hours there validated it. We spent one night at  the dock, and the next day we headed south towards San Francisco. Towards the south end on Richardson Bay, the wind was on the starboard beam at about 8 knots, and Teri was at the helm. I asked her if she wanted to sail, and of course she said yes. So I unfurled the main and genoa, and away we went. Within 5 minutes, we were in San Francisco Bay with 20 knots of wind on the beam and were doing over 7 knots. It was a great sail across the bay, and as we approached the San Francisco side, we furled the genoa and then the main and motored into the Aquatic Park. The signs at the entrance say something like "Motorized Vessels Prohibited" and "Caution: Swimmers in the Water". After getting inside, we realized that we needed to pump out the black water holding tank, we started up and motored out and west a half mile to a marina with a pump out station. After pumping out, we headed back to Aquatic Park, and this we sailed in and anchored. It turns out that it is OK for a sailboat to use a motor in there, and also to use an outboard on a dinghy. They just don't want the place to fill up with power boaters. 

Aquatic Park is directly in front of Ghirardelli Square and adjacent to Fisherman's Wharf, and from the water we had a priceless view of the City. There is a sandy beach and lots of people enjoying the water on a nice day. Some swell runs through the anchorage, and we could see and hear the waves breaking on the beach. Just little ones about a foot high. Teri and I jumped in the dinghy and rowed to the beach. We wondered around Ghirardelli Square, and we did happy hour at McCormick and Kuletto's (everything inside said Schmick's). We headed back to the dinghy and were happy to find it there on the beach were we had left it. It is an 8 foot rubber raft. We dragged it back down to the water and talked about hour we could get out out past the breakers. They were now about 1.5 feet high. This was our first time ever doing something like this, and we both got soaked! Roxie, the boat mutt, didn't like it either. But we learned from it, and the next day we didn't get wet. Ed and I went through the Maritime Museum while Teri and Roxie explored Fisherman's Wharf, and then we met up for lunch and further exploration. We went back to the boat in the afternoon and hung out. For dinner Teri cooked a chicken and noodle pesto dish and I sautéed a skillet of swiss chard. We had garlic french bread and wine with it, and ate it in the cockpit while enjoying the view of San Francisco nearby. It was a perfect evening; warm, fun, great conversation and food. 

I awakened this morning to a chorus of very deep sounding and very loud horns. Some were closer and some were farther away, and they did not all have the same pitch, so it is a cool sound the hear. I laid in my warm bed and listened to them, and decided that it must be foggy outside and they must be fog horns. Sure enough, when I looked outside it was very foggy. I could not see Alcatraz,, and I could not see the Golden Gate Bridge. 

We are planning to leave today, although the wind is supposed to be from the south. We plan to go south about 20 miles to Half Moon Bay. Possible subsequent stops are Santa Cruz, Monterrey, Morro Bay, and San Luis Obispo. We will not stop at all of them. Then we will face the double capes of Point Arguello and Point Conception, and head east in the Santa Barbara Channel. But that's a few day to a week away, and I'm sure I'll be writing again before we get that far.