Day 54: Arrived in San Diego

We left Avalon before sunrise yesterday, and anchored in Mission Bay (Mariner's Basin), San Diego last night around 6PM. After motoring the 65 miles from Avalon, we arrived at shore just as a thick fog bank rolled in, making for some navigational teamwork (Matt + Rachel + radar + ~25 boats already in the bay). We plan to spend a few nights here taking care of our final preparations before heading to Mexico.

Moon-set over Catalina Island

Recap: Avalon, Catalina Island (w/ pics and vids!)

We had a great 6 days moored in Avalon at Catalina Island (for the price of 2!!). We had a very fast sail from Marina del Rey to Avalon on a beam reach with 15-20 kt winds. Just before arriving at Avalon we caught a very nice sunset over Catalina Island.

We spent our first day at Avalon walking all over town, since our habit is to invest some time up front to scope out a new place. We walked up to the Botanical Gardens, and over to the beaches neighbouring the harbour. We found some awesome $1 tacos and Matt made a delicious prawn curry dinner at the boat (complete with home-made mango lassi!).

The next day we took a shuttle from Avalon to the Catalina Airport, and hiked the 10 miles back to Avalon along the Trans-Catalina trail. We disturbed the slumber of a wild buffalo resting along the trail TWICE, a bit of an adrenaline rush as we tried to casually walk away and appear as unthreatening as possible. The funniest incident was when we were about to walk past a buffalo who appeared to be on the other side of a fence, only to watch him walk through the fence right in front of us!! Lots of great pictures of these guys and the views from the different ridges along the island.

We spend the next few days doing chores: laundry (basically washing everything we own before heading to Mexico, apparently on a once a month laundry schedule!), internet research about crossing into Mexico, boat chores, wedding chores, and taking care of some loose ends.

We did manage to squeeze in our first snorkelling experience at Lovers Cove, which was pretty great, since we just walked over to the cove and into the water and were able to see plenty of fish and kelp beds. We also managed to get in some karaoke and dance partying in Avalon's bustling night life (there were 2 bars open on Saturday night!).

Avalon, Catalina Island Album

Recap: Los Angeles (w/ pics!)

We stayed 4 nights at Marina del Rey from October 19 - 23. Matt's uncle Steve was a wonderful tour guide and showed us all the sights of L.A.: Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Palos Verdes... We were graciously invited to a wonderful dinner party with Table Three and company. We had Steve over to the boat for breakfast (our first boat guest since we left!) and went to catch Matt's cousin Stephanie's play "Old Black Magic" at the Found Theatre in Long Beach - very entertaining! It was great getting to spend some time with family in sunny L.A. (except it was cloudy the whole time we were here).

Los Angeles Album

Day 47: Arrived at Avalon, Catalina Island

We have just arrived from Marina del Rey - had a great sail over on a fast beam reach. Turns out that moorage here is pay for 2 nights, get FIVE nights free, so we may stay a little longer than planned. We will update on our L.A. visit soon!!

Day 44: Arrived at Marina del Rey and Channel Islands Recap (w/DOLPHIN pics and vids!)

After heading out of Santa Barbara on Tuesday, we had a nice upwind sail to Fry’s Harbor on Santa Cruz Island, where we anchored for the evening in a small cove with another catamaran and small fish boat. 

Wednesday morning we motored out to the Painted Cave, which is the largest sea cave in North America. We got in reasonably close to the shore with AEOLI, but couldn’t get a very good look in order not to put her on the rocks – though we did get some nice pictures.

Afterwards, while motoring east along the coast of Santa Cruz Island headed for Anacapa Island, we had our first dolphin encounter! Since the wind was so calm, the water was smooth and we were able to see 10-15 dolphins swimming alongside the boat with us. They really enjoyed racing in a pack with the bow. We were able to get a pretty good video and lots of pictures of the incredible experience:

At sunset we arrived at Frenchy’s Harbor on Anacapa Island to anchor for the evening. Anacapa had a much more interesting natural landscape than Santa Cruz Island and the anchorage was pretty and isolated (though not particularly protected).

Thursday morning, we woke to some strong, unexpected east winds and headed out of Anacapa Island for Marina del Rey. As we passed the easternmost tip of the island trying to get a nice shot of Arch Rock,

 

we got some kelp wrapped around the propeller.  Since there were a few mechanical sounding noises, we weren’t sure if we’d damaged anything (or if we had sheared another shaft key…), so we decided to head for the closest marina on the mainland: Channel Islands Harbor. Fortunately the east winds were kicking and allowed us to sail all the way into the harbor, and we were able to deal with the propeller at the marina (Matt dove to check out the propeller, but we had managed to expel the debris after working the motor in the marina channel).

Thanks to Matt and Sara Ferguson for the sweet rigging knife (/kelp remover…and the board shorts (circa 2003)…haha!).

Our unexpected pit-stop at the Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard wasn’t all bad. We finally found a decent cheap seafood place (Fisherman’s Catch) which grilled up all kinds of fresh fish. We also walked through the suburbs of the town which is connected by canals, and everyone has a private dock behind their house - an interesting housing development concept that we haven’t seen before.  

Friday we had a long, gentle downwind sail to Marina del Rey, also captured in a video.

We arrived in Marina del Rey around 7PM, and went to dinner with some new boat friends, Tim and Kathy, from S/V Rhythm - very interesting to meet people on a similar trajectory.

Channel Islands Album

Day 40: Departing Santa Barbara

We are finally managing to pry ourselves away from the sunshine, beaches, restaurants, and night life of Santa Barbara - headed for Santa Cruz Island for a few days.

We rented stand-up paddle boards and tried to surf them at the Leadbetter beach break. We walked up to the old mission (*twice). We also found the only Monday night dance club in Santa Barbara!!

Mukilteo Bear enjoyed his first time at the beach...

Recap: Monterey to Santa Barbara (w/ pics/vids!)

About 30 miles out from both Santa Cruz Island and Santa Barbara, we changed our minds about anchoring in serene solitude on an island, and headed for the Santa Barbara marina instead. We were welcomed by the 11th annual Santa Barbara Harbour and Seafood Festival, which happened to be going on as we docked at the marina, and we were conveniently able to get fish tacos after having sailed 200 miles to get past Point Conception from Monterey Bay.

We have been thoroughly enjoying FINALLY having good weather and went to the beach for a swim in the Pacific Ocean this morning, followed by Indian buffet lunch (clearly we are roughing it!).

We left Monterey about 2PM on Thursday, after a lengthy visit at the fuel dock waiting for two fishing boats to fill up. It was our first fuel stop since Neah Bay, and we've used 28.5 gallons of diesel since our Everett departure. Since there was no wind, we motored until Friday morning when some light northwest wind picked up. We broad reached under full main and genoa for a few hours before setting just the C-0 sail. We sailed a moonless night under beautiful stars. When the wind died down Saturday morning, we changed our minds and headed into Santa Barbara.

Friday afternoon we had our first whale sighting and managed to get a pretty good video of the experience. The whale was huge and surfaced right next to the boat - we had heard distant plumes for a while before we actually saw it.

Warm(er) weather sailing seems to feel different than coming down the Washington/Oregon/Northern California coasts. Somehow, not being cold all the time made our bodies adjust to the seasickness differently. Rachel had a pretty uncomfortable run, consuming more ginger than the entire run down to San Francisco. Light downwind and motoring pushes the exhaust into the cockpit, which helps contribute to the overall queasiness. Hopefully the run down the Baja will feel better than that!

Monterey to Santa Barbara Album

Day 35: Departing Monterey

We are departing from Monterey, heading for the northern Channel Islands. We may be offline for about a week, but it depends on the coverage.

Recap: Monterey (w/pics!)

After saying farewell to San Francisco Bay, we anchored one night in Half Moon Bay, then headed to Monterey, where we have stayed the past few nights. Monterey is proving to be a wonderful town where the sun is always shining (not typical for this time of year, we've been told) and there is a bike/pedestrian path along the water anywhere you need to go. The marina is next to Fisherman's Wharf, 1.2 miles from Cannery Row, and just a short walk to Alvarado Street (which has some nice restaurants and an awesome farmer's market that we happened upon). We visited the excellent Monterey Aquarium with the Loys, and rented another tandem bike to do the scenic 17 mile drive. We've really gotten acquainted with the town, having lunch at a quaint cafe, good eats at happy hour, and Matt finally got his crab!

 

Monterey Album