Intermission
Member
We left the slip at Aeolian, and went to Angel Island on the 11th of September. The smoke was horrible; my eyes burned; visibility, piss poor. I actually contemplated canceling our trip, but felt better once we were bow and stern moored in Ayala Cove. Out the Gate the next morning, in thick fog, hugging the north shore till abeam Mile Rock, quick check of AIS and a rapid perpendicular crossing of the shipping lanes, and our leg to Pillar Point, and almost a month down the coast had begun.
In the 1980’s, in my twenties, I had crewed on a couple boats going up and down the coast between Santa Cruz and the Channel Islands, for men who were my age now. I had also bareboat chartered three times; once out of San Diego and twice from Santa Barbara. Getting back down there, took me almost forty years, but I never forgot the clear water of the islands.
Last summer, we spent ten days going down to Monterey Bay and back, as a trial run for this year’s trip. We made two large changes; we got an autopilot, and we didn’t bring the dog. Our dog Rascal loves us, but sailing, not so much. Dogs are also not allowed ashore on the Channel Islands. We love being at anchor; Rascal prefers slips.
Our tiller pilot Otto, was a new crew member who didn’t eat or complain much. When I first got this boat, I was all hot to put a Pelagic autopilot onboard, (a motor control template is still taped up in the lazarete), but after getting to know the boat, I decided to save the Pelagic for the next boat. Never in my imagination would it have taken me this long to polish her up and move on, but with a long trip and some long legs, a dumb old ST2000 was installed days before departure. At first Otto steered way too large, but after three or four sessions of configuration, I managed to get him to steer smaller.
Some people hug trees, I hug coasts. The plan was a week down, a week in the islands, and a week back up, stopping every night, at anchor or dock, thereby making each morning a new decision, as to whether to keep moving or not. My ultimate goal was to see Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel island, my minimum goal was Morro Bay. This year was atypical of what I remembered. We had flat seas and no wind going down the coast in mid-September along with fog, smoke and lots of kelp. We had a wonderful broad reach for a couple hours between Points Arguello and Conception, doing sixes and, sevens, but most of the time we were motor-sailing in soup, while dodging kelp. We stopped at Pillar Point, Santa Cruz, Stillwater cove, San Simeon cove, Morro Bay Yacht Club, and Coho, (in the lee of point Conception), before crossing the Santa Barbara Channel to San Miguel island. Once our anchor was set, we got in the dinghy and rowed to the beach. Like two shipwrecked castaways we climbed a short dune and reveled in the first clean air and blue sky we had had in weeks. The down slope winds in the NW anchorage of Cuyler are nothing to sneeze at. All night the wind howled in our rigging, and the next morning the wind had erased all trace of our basking on the beach. In fact, it was so windy we decided to spend a 2nd night at Cuyler, before moving on. Again the wind had erased all trace of our second beach excursion
We then went on the Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands before going in the Santa Barbara to re-provision, so that we could go back out to the islands for a few more days before heading home.
We used lots more fuel on the way down than expected, and we ate out or ordered take-out every time we were in port, but still our overall expense for two was fairly low. I’ll talk about those numbers, and our trip home in part two . . .
In the 1980’s, in my twenties, I had crewed on a couple boats going up and down the coast between Santa Cruz and the Channel Islands, for men who were my age now. I had also bareboat chartered three times; once out of San Diego and twice from Santa Barbara. Getting back down there, took me almost forty years, but I never forgot the clear water of the islands.
Last summer, we spent ten days going down to Monterey Bay and back, as a trial run for this year’s trip. We made two large changes; we got an autopilot, and we didn’t bring the dog. Our dog Rascal loves us, but sailing, not so much. Dogs are also not allowed ashore on the Channel Islands. We love being at anchor; Rascal prefers slips.
Our tiller pilot Otto, was a new crew member who didn’t eat or complain much. When I first got this boat, I was all hot to put a Pelagic autopilot onboard, (a motor control template is still taped up in the lazarete), but after getting to know the boat, I decided to save the Pelagic for the next boat. Never in my imagination would it have taken me this long to polish her up and move on, but with a long trip and some long legs, a dumb old ST2000 was installed days before departure. At first Otto steered way too large, but after three or four sessions of configuration, I managed to get him to steer smaller.
Some people hug trees, I hug coasts. The plan was a week down, a week in the islands, and a week back up, stopping every night, at anchor or dock, thereby making each morning a new decision, as to whether to keep moving or not. My ultimate goal was to see Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel island, my minimum goal was Morro Bay. This year was atypical of what I remembered. We had flat seas and no wind going down the coast in mid-September along with fog, smoke and lots of kelp. We had a wonderful broad reach for a couple hours between Points Arguello and Conception, doing sixes and, sevens, but most of the time we were motor-sailing in soup, while dodging kelp. We stopped at Pillar Point, Santa Cruz, Stillwater cove, San Simeon cove, Morro Bay Yacht Club, and Coho, (in the lee of point Conception), before crossing the Santa Barbara Channel to San Miguel island. Once our anchor was set, we got in the dinghy and rowed to the beach. Like two shipwrecked castaways we climbed a short dune and reveled in the first clean air and blue sky we had had in weeks. The down slope winds in the NW anchorage of Cuyler are nothing to sneeze at. All night the wind howled in our rigging, and the next morning the wind had erased all trace of our basking on the beach. In fact, it was so windy we decided to spend a 2nd night at Cuyler, before moving on. Again the wind had erased all trace of our second beach excursion
We then went on the Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands before going in the Santa Barbara to re-provision, so that we could go back out to the islands for a few more days before heading home.
We used lots more fuel on the way down than expected, and we ate out or ordered take-out every time we were in port, but still our overall expense for two was fairly low. I’ll talk about those numbers, and our trip home in part two . . .
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