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| Sunrise in Coho. |
Way back on the 29th of September (which feels like
about 2 months ago instead of just two weeks ago!) we pulled out under the Golden
Gate and said goodbye to San Francisco.
One thing we hadn’t really thought about was how long getting down to San
Diego would take as we were so focused on just leaving and getting down to San
Francisco. Well San Diego is another 450
miles away and when you only go about 6 miles per hour, it takes a LONG TIME to
go that far! We’re hoping to be (and it’s
looking like we will be) in San Diego by October 17th.
So in our travels thus far, one thing I can definitely tell you is
that the days of wonderful, quiet anchorages where the boat barely moves all
night are GONE, GONE, GONE! Welcome to
the new world of serious bobbing and rolling around at anchor! I cannot believe (having never been in it)
how much the boat rolls from side to side and forward and back in the frequent
combination of ocean swell, wind and tide. Think about a cork in a big bowl of water
being shook by a 3 year old and you’ll have the picture. But I’m pretty happy to report that it’s amazing
what you can get used to. While it was
disconcerting at first, we quickly became used to it and thankfully most places
get a little better at night – so at least you don’t feel like you are going to
fall out of bed!
While we’ve stayed at many spots as we’ve been making our way south
to San Diego, one of our favorite spots was Santa Cruz. We anchored right off the beach to the south
of the big pier – so we had a great view of the big amusement park on the
beach. We ended up staying two nights so
that we could walk into town and re-provision (have I mentioned what a good
workout it is to schlep all your groceries 2 miles back to the boat?).  |
| One of MANY! |
One of the craziest things about Santa Cruz is how many sea lions
there are here. I have never seen so
many of these HUGE creatures in one place and man do they make a LOT of noise! From where our boat was anchored we could
easily see about 50 of them at any given time and the sound of their barking at
each other is incredibly loud – and pretty much never ceased. They definitely own all of the space around
the pier – so landing or getting back to your dinghy can get a little interesting.
Which brings me to…….THE GREAT SEA LION
FACEOFF! Yes, my handsome husband had to
go to battle with one of those huge sea lions so that we could reach our dinghy
and take our provisions back to our boat.
This guy must have weighed over 800 pounds and he was positioned
directly below the ladder that you have to climb down to access the dinghy dock. So we walked down to the spot right above the
ladder and there are like 10 other people there looking at all the sea lions and
taking pictures (because there were actually about 5 of them on the landing
area – but only one between us and our dinghy) and we’re like uh oh…..he’s totally
blocking us……this could get interesting!
So Brett tries talking the beast off the dock, which definitely doesn’t
work and only seemed to be upsetting the big guy as now he’s starting to show
us his rather large teeth. Then Brett
starts waving his arms and showing the beast HIS teeth. This approach definitely is NOT effective and
now the sea lion is really getting pissed (and did I mention how many folks are
watching this whole exchange?). So there
is more barking/yelling and waving and nothing is getting any better until
Brett realizes he must make bigger noise and appear more threatening or we will
never get back to our boat. So he pulls
off his flip flop and starts banging it on the metal ladder above the sea lions
head. More teeth, but clearly the big
guy is feeling a little threatened. So
Brett shows his teeth and bangs even louder until finally the beast dumps off
into the water and the path is clear.
Have I mentioned how much I love my man?
My hero! I’m pretty sure various
versions of that story will be told by the tourists that watched for years to
come…
After Santa Cruz we had an absolutely fantastic sail over to Monterey
– which is just across the bay about 4 hours away. We stayed there for several days and I think
we must have put on at least 15 miles walking all over the town. What a great little place and it’s amazing
how much they have put into the parks and historic information so that you
could learn as you walked. There is also
a very large aquarium here, but at $70 for the two of us, we decided we’d be
better off seeing the marine life in person through snorkeling down the road.
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| Note Hearst Castle on the hill. |
Originally we had hoped to sail from Monterey directly to the
Channel Islands, but after about 24 hours (which was a fairly rough go
overnight with some higher winds than we like) we changed our mind and decided
to just do day trips down the coast – so into San Simeon we pulled at
dawn. This is a beautiful spot and is
also the location of the Hearst Castle – which looks pretty amazing perched
high up on the hill above the bay.
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| Daybreak Ocean sailing out of Coho anchorage. |
After San Simeon we made our way to the bay at San Luis Obisbo and
to our delight discovered our new friends on Daybreak Ocean. Frank, Caroline, their daughter Lea and their
Portuguese Water dog are great and we’ve enjoyed spending time with some fellow
cruisers. Since we were only staying overnight,
we had them aboard for drinks and then made plans to “buddy boat” around Point
Conception (often called the Cape Horn of southern California due to the high
winds that often occur there) and then have dinner together. We
had a great sail the next day (it’s always a race when two sailboats are
involved!) and as we pulled into the Coho anchorage we discovered the winds
were not going to die down much at all as they were about 20-25 knots even when
we were tucked in close to the beach. But
thankfully our trusty Rocna anchor was set in no time and we were good to go. We had a great dinner on Daybreak and
thoroughly enjoyed their company.
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| I can touch him? Seriously??? |
Next stop after Coho was Santa Barbara – which is actually where
we bought Bella Vita (though she was Carpe Diem at the time). How bizarre to pull into a place that we
actually recognized! I found myself
wondering if Bella Vita could tell she was back at her old home? After one night there it was on to Ventura,
where we got to stay at the lovely Ventura Yacht Club. We have been trying to make the most of our
membership with the Seattle Yacht Club by enjoying the privileges of reciprocal
clubs as often as we can as our dock access will be extremely limited (too
expensive) after we leave California. We
are able to stay at the yacht clubs for FREE, so it’s a great way to travel and
it’s fun to see and compare all of the clubs with SYC at home. Plus there are showers (REAL showers where
you don’t have to worry about how much water you use and the hot water is
seemingly endless!), we can get rid of trash and we meet LOTS of friendly
boaters as most of the guest docks are right in front of the club, so everyone
stops by to chat on the way to their boat.
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| So cute! |
We have seen an amazing amount of wildlife, including a few whales,
beautiful brown pelicans (one was so used to people I even touched him!), more
dolphins than I can count and some really cute sea otters. The sea otters are so fun to watch as they
could do something completely boring and still be adorable doing it. As long as they are in the water and not on
your boat that is! The fellow in this
picture had a friend that followed him everywhere he went – I think hoping to
get some of the castoffs as he was working on smashing up a crab he had caught.
Speaking of which – we had the weirdest thing happen when we
arrived at Marina Del Ray. That evening
we are sitting below and we start to notice this really weird noise – kind of
like a snap, crackle, pop sound. What
the heck? So we start investigating, but
we can’t figure it out. Come to find out
it’s crabs! Apparently small shrimp like
to dine on the algae that grows on the boats and then the crabs come along and
eat them. The clicking we were hearing
was their claws on the hull as they grab the little shrimps. I can hear them right now as I'm typing - bizarre, huh?
As I write this we are staying at the Del Ray Yacht Club in Marina
Del Rey and I can honestly say it is the nicest club we’ve stayed at yet! Beautiful wood interior (with LOTS of
trophies), super nice people and they even have a pool! This is our last night here and we have
thoroughly enjoyed our stay and have met a LOT of friendly club members and had
lots of good conversations. It’s amazing
how interested people are in what we are doing.
We also hear many stories – like spending a few hours with Bruce
Kessler, who bought us lunch and told us about his adventures in being one of
the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a powerboat. Bruce was also a Formula One race car driver
and a director of TV and films – some of which you might recognize, including The Monkees, Mission: Impossible, Marcus Welby, M.D., The Rockford Files and The A-Team. And he bought US lunch! What an interesting guy who has led an
amazing life – and he couldn’t have been nicer.
Thanks Bruce!
Tomorrow we’ll be at Dana Point and then it’s off to San Diego for
final prep before the jump into our first official new country! Better start boning up on my Spanish,
eh?
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