San Diego At Last

I have been so busy these past 2 days that I forgot to post again. Ted wrote me an email and said I should let everyone know we made it here safely. When I last posted, we were crossing Monterey Bay. The conditions from then until arrival varied from 15 foot following seas to being able to see the reflection of the shore because it was so calm. It was mostly the former, not the latter, however.

Thursday afternoon we passed Pt. Sur.....or Big Sur as the town is known there.
You can see here that the seas were not that bad. It was a shame that there was haze in the air so the view was not as clear as it could have been. No, it wasn't smoke, just haze. The only fire we saw during the entire trip was up near the California, Oregon border.
This is what we did mostly when off watch and awake. Steve read several books during the trip. I didn't get to read much. When not sleeping, I was keeping track of our progress and answering emails and phone calls when we had good wireless service. We used Verizon and the coverage was not too bad. I was surprised that we got better cell/wireless coverage off the Washington and Oregon coast (up to 15 miles offshore) than we could get in Southern California. I could not connect or make a cell call until a mile off the outer buoy in San Diego. It is beyond me.
This is the moon rise. We were north of San Luis Obispo when this was taken. The full moon was awesome to see, especially when the high swells would pass beneath us. The peaks and valleys of the water with the white caps glistening were beautiful.

Thursday night the wind howled and the waves were large. It was dark so I don't know how large they were, but we were surfing again and Steve reported a 15.5 knot highest speed. Again, this was with the boat set to run at about 8 knots. I never felt like the boat was out of control and none of us were ever afraid or apprehensive about our safety. We did talk about the fact that we were the only vessel out there and if anything were to happen, we would be on our own. Fortunately we did not have to use the immersion suits, EPIRBS, or life raft.

Friday morning found us rounding Point Conception. Immediately, the seas quieted and the winds died. We motored on in foggy, but calm conditions. Some time in the early afternoon, we crossed the shipping lanes and passed by Anacapa Island.
This was a bit of deja vu for me. My first experience cruising was aboard a friend's 21' Venture sailboat on a cruise to the Channel Island in 1970. The bug for cruising bit then and it still is infecting me some 37 years later.

Our track took us very close to Catalina Island and there were numerous tugs, sailboats, and motor yachts coming and going almost all night. It was the busiest any of us were during the whole trip. It amazes me how some people will sail along at night without any lights on. We saw no less than 3 radar targets that we finally saw in the moonlight that were out there with no lights. Two were sailboats and one was a small fishing boat, maybe 25 feet long. We managed to avoid running them down.

We entered San Diego harbor at about 8AM on Saturday morning. My good friend and fellow yacht broker, Dan Peter of Cabrillo Yachts had arranged a slip for us at Sun Harbor Marina at Harbor Island . We first pulled in to the pump-out dock and Dan soon came down and guided us to the slip we will occupy until we leave on FUBAR next Wednesday, November 7th.

A shower, clean clothes, a hearty breakfast at a local cafe and we were soon feeling human again. Tom had a flight home Saturday afternoon and Steve went of to visit old Southern California friends so I was left tidy up and prepare for Jan's arrival on Tuesday.

On Sunday morning, I snapped this picture taken from up on the flybridge. The redness of the sky is due to the fires, no doubt.
It was sure pretty, but a huge price to pay for beautiful sunrises. I would rather have gray skies I think and leave the pretty sunrises for Hawaii.

All in all, the trip has been a tremendous success (so far). The boat has performed far beyond our expectations. We only had one major equipment failure that threatened the continuation of the trip. Fortunately a jury rig solution was found and we escaped a fate worse than abandoning ship or encountering pirates, or even death for that matter.
About the 3rd day out, the new Mr. Coffee coffee grinder gave up the ghost. No amount of coaxing, tapping, jarring, or talking sweetly to it would make it grind our beans. Fortunately, we had some very talented people aboard and after much discussion, an alternative solution was found. A Ziploc baggie and a plastic mallet. We just put the required number of beans in the Ziploc bag and take it into the engine room where I could tap the beans lightly until they were the right "grind" and we soon had our requisite morning coffee.

Thanks to all of you who have been encouraging my rambling musings. I am going to take a break until the FUBAR begins next week. I am not sure how good the internet connections will be in Mexico, but I will journal the happenings and get them up here on the blog when I can.

Hasta luego!!!

Surf's Up....Dude!!!

Everybody’s gone surfin’ down Californ-i-a….. This was taken out the back door earlier today. We estimate the swells to be running about 12 - 15 feet.
It’s Thursday afternoon and we are crossing Monterey Bay, south of San Francisco. Conditions for the past 2 days have been 10-30knots of wind out of the north with 6-15 foot following seas. We have been averaging over 10 knots for most of the time with bursts to 15+ and this is with the engine set at an rpm that should deliver 9 knots. Surfing down the waves is exhilarating. You can feel the boat accelerate down the wave much like the feeling you get when you catch a wave body surfing. I know…..not really a fair comparison.

I spoke with Bruce Kessler (Spirit of Zopolite) earlier today by cell phone and we both agreed that the articulating rudder makes all the difference in the world in following seas. He put one on several years ago on Spirit of Zopolite. The rudder angle indicator shows the autopilot is hardly working, maybe 2 or 3 degrees of rudder required to handle the largest waves. The long keel also helps with tracking.

At present speeds, we expect to be in San Diego on Saturday morning, hopefully not too early. All systems are working well. Today I fired up the Village Marine watermaker for the first time (other than tests) and we are filling the water tanks at a rate of about 24 gallons per hour.

We have seen several whales migrating south. Some go to Mexico while others go to Hawaii. Researchers have determined that some whales will go to Mexico some years and then to Hawaii on other years. They don’t really understand why. One year, a tagged whale was observed in both Mexico and Hawaii in the same season.

We keep pushing south, making the best time that we can. We had planned to average 8 knots but our weather forecaster (Bob Jones of Ocean Marine Nav) has told us that the bad weather is following us south and we should stay ahead of it. We have been running 9-10 knots and so far have out run the gales.

With our delays in Westport, I now will stay with the boat rather than fly home. Jan will join memore on Tuesday and we will provision and prepare for FUBAR.

Tom watching a ship go by....

Underway again…..at last. We spent 6 days in Gray’s Harbor waiting for decent weather so we could cross the bar and resume the trip to San Diego. The weather didn’t seem all that awful, especially these past 3 days, but the Coast Guard cautioned us against leaving as the bar was treacherous.

Speaking of treacherous bars, we found the Islander, a neat place in Westport that had a big screen TV so we watched the ALCS and the Boston Miracle. The food was pretty good as well. Another great spot is Tachahachi, a seafood restaurant right across from float 6 where we were docked.

But back to the trip…… We crossed the bar this morning at about 9AM, an hour and a half before high slack water. On the way out, the Coast Guard called us and asked how long we were as the bar was closed to traffic under 40 feet. The swells were running about 10-12 feet. Nor’wester handled them with ease, gently climbing up one and down the other side. The run out to the outer buoy took about 45 minutes and then we turned south.

Seas have been quite lumpy all day and I have more or less stayed put here in the pilothouse. Wireless (Verizon) coverage is good using my Blackberry as a modem. We have been able to keep up on the buoy reports as well as business email.

As I write this, it is about 7PM and I am going on watch soon. I will stand the 8 to midnight watch. We will dog the mid-watch so that Tom and Steve will only have 2 hours each and that breaks it up except that I only get 4 hours sleep before going back on watch. Dogging the watch changes the schedule so that you don’t end up with the same watch each day.

So here is the sunset from tonight……More tomorrow.