12:00 As the final call before disconnecting our phone, I gave in and ordered the 1992 Coast Guard user fee decals. A lady named Judy took my order, charged $100 to our Visa account, and gave me a confirmation number, 1062913. That's $100 that the Coast Guard will never see because it goes diretly to the general fund but with us traveling up the coast we're too exposed to boarding not to have it. The fine is pretty steep.
12:25 Lines cast off and we're on our way. My first engine room check finds a small leak in one of the pipe fittings I'd just installed with the rebuilt water pump. I should have given it one more turn. Other than for that, everything looks perfectamente.
1:15 We drop our hook in Glorietta Bay across from the old Coronado Hotel's towers. It's a pleasant spot with a golf course next to the anchorage and, because anchoring is limited to 72 hours, very few boats. It's also away from the traffic and in a 5 mph zone.
We got down the Metz (The tire repair stuff we sprayed inside the starboard tube is holding air in great shape) and started the Johnson for the first time since we got back to the States last May. After a few pulls it came to life and ran like it had only been yesterday. When Tuck was here last month we pulled it apart and installed a new water pump which now throws a lot more water. That should solve our overheating-while-idling problem.
That was about it for the day. We watched the news on television, had a big shrimp salad for dinner, and went to bed early. In the middle of the night a grunt came by and entertained us with his sound. Haven't heard that for almost a year.
09:30 We'd only planned on going as far as Mission Bay today but as we approached the entrance things are going so well that we decide to keep on trucking to Oceanside, 30 miles north.
10:45 I'd had the radar on and it was doing a good job early this morning, but when I check to see how far off shore we were I found it doing the jitterbug. From the sound it makes I think the little synchronous drive motor which turns the display is sticking. One more thing to work on.
12:00 Passing the SDG&E power plant at Carlsbad, I called Oceanside to check on entrance conditions and slip availability. The harbor police answered and said the channel ahd just been dredged and slips were available. It looked like we'd be all settled by 1:00 o'clock but, again, with the seas running about two feet and the wind still on our stern, it seemed a shame to stop. So, I plugged the coordinates of Dana Point in the Satnav and Loran and on we went for another 21 miles.
16:00 We follow a fishing party boat into the Dana Point harbor entrance. There's a small anchorage shown on the charts at the far western end of the harbor so we went to take a look. Yeh, we probably could have parked there, crowded between a pier and another boat, but it didn't look very comfortable so we went back to the harbormaster's slips near the entrance. No one in the office, but a friendly fisherman pointed us to an empty slip and we settled down for the night. The weatherman is predicting a storm to hit on Thursday so we may be stuck here for a few days.
We got quite a bit of work done today. I put a couple of more hose clamps on my leaking hose which should corect that problem. Then I took the radar apart hunting for the cause of the jittering. All seemed to move freely in the display unit until I'd turn it on, then it would get the jitters again. I tried tightening the toothed belt a little but that didn't seem to do any good, so I went topside and took the radome off the antenna which sounded as if it too had the shakes. As soon as I did things seemed to smooth out. In several tries after that all seemed to be okay. I hate it when a problem goes away before I understand it, but it's better than having to call a professional. I put a little silcone grease on the belt driving the antenna and we'll try to give old Raider more frequent exercise. That might be his problem.
We also lubed the outer end of the flopper stoppers which had been getting so sticky that we could hardly get the poles out. I found that by freeing the inner shackle I could drop the poles down to water level. So we put the Metz in the water and I worked on the bolts and fittings while sitting in it. We also put a can of tire fix stuff in the port tube of the Metz. Hopefully that will make it hold air for more than a day or two. Finally, Lois put another patch on the Ranger cover. I think that covers all our fix-it work for the time being. The weatherman is predicting the first of a series of storms to hit tomorrow so we may be here for a few more days.
Tomorrow is the day of the annual Swallows Day Parade and today all the merchants were getting cranked up for it. Dozens of "Sheriffs" wearing black western hats and vests, boots, and big star badges on their chests were enforcing the wearing of Swallows Day buttons which they sold for $1.00. They had a portable "jail" for any not cooperating and would fire their pistols to celebrate each sale. It reminded me of Centinela Days in Inglewood as a kid. Dad got thown in jail once because he didn't have a mustache.
We got our Amtrak schedule at the station, then walked a few blocks to a shopping center to pick up some bike parts before catching the bus back to the Dana Point. There, we stopped for lunch at Harpoon Henry's and got home just in time. The storm hit about 2:00 with strong winds and heavy rain pinning us down for the rest of the day. Waves were crashing over the breakwater as we listened to the Coast Guard trying to help some idiot who had left Avalon harbor headed for Dana in a 26 foot sail boat and was being blown ashore at Laguna. I wouldn't have wanted to be out there at all today.
Clouds & rain mixed with sunshine today. The winds were down but the seas were still running high so we stayed put. Called Kris & Bob in the morning to let them know where we are, then walked a while, read a while, and in the afternoon when the sun came out bright rode our bikes down the road a piece. Another storm is predicted for tomorrow. We may be here for a while.
The train ride was a new experience for us. We've ridden the Mexican, Costa Rican, and Panama trains recently, but neither of us has been on a U.S. train since we were kids. They've sure improved the ride and noise level. The train wasn't crowded and the tracks follow the shoreline most of the way to San Diego so we got another view of that stretch of coast. AMTRAK takes about and hour and a half to make the trip, with stops at Oceanside and Del Mar. We got to the San Diego Station about 2:30, walked across the street to the trolley station, and were in Chula Vista before 3:00. At the "H" street station we lucked out as the rain took a break long enough for us to walk the half mile to the Marina. The drive back up I-5 was fast in spite of on and off rain, so we were back at the boat by soon after 4:00. All in all a very nice day.
We had dinner at DELANEY'S, a restaurant adjoining the police docks. Vickie, our waitress, was super -- the food was so, so. We'll probably not go back.
Our destination was Fallbrook, to deliver the remains of our Entertainment coupon books to Shan & Bob, and I thought that there ought to be a back road across the San Mateo mountains. No luck. There either isn't one, or we couldn't find it. We ended up taking Hiway 74, Ortega Road, which follows winding San Juan Creek from Capistrano almost to the summit overlooking Lake Elsenor, then I-15 south to Fallbrook. It was a pretty drive today. The hills are all bright green with new grass and wild flowers everywhere along the road.
Found Shan at home with the little ones. She had some good news. They've fallen into a deal to live in a house near Don and Shirl's while they fix it up for sale. It will save them the rent they are now paying and they may even make some money when the house is sold. She sounded really happy about that.
Called Kris this evening and found that now Bryan is planning on coming Saturday. Still didn't have a flight number but he'll be flying into San Diego sometime in the afternoon so we'll have to hang in here another night. Our storm that was supposed to hit today materialized as only a few rain showers and now we're supposed to have a few days of nice weather. We hope so.
(Note for future reference: you don't have to take the cover off before demounting the antenna. Just take out the four bolts on the bottom of the mounting plate and the cover off the connection box, unhook the wires and take the whole thing off.)
That was about it for the day. I relocated a 120V receptacle under the helm and finished Ernie Gann's book, "Twilight for the Gods". A really lazy day.
10:00 Passing 14 mile bank and everything seems to be running fine except the radar. It's still got the jitters. No nead for it this day. We've got Catalina, 20 miles to the west, in sight. Lots of fishermen here on the bank. I thought about putting a line in the water but they all seemed to be bottom fishing and we wanted to keep going.
11:00 We'd been pointing our nose toward Ismuth Harbor but when I got the 10:30 weather update and found that they were talking light and variable winds for the next two days, I decided that we might as well try Catalina harbor on the seaward side of the Ismuth. So, change of heading. We should still be in by 3:00 o'clock.
12:30 Passing Church Rock on the easterly point of the island. Bryan is playing with his Game Boy. We haven't seen much sea life, a couple of pods of sea lions but no dolphins.
14:30 Around the last point and approaching Catalina Harbor according to the Satnav and Loran, but when we can't find the entrance light that is supposed to be on top of the hill I get a reminder of how nice a working radar is. We were almost on top of the entrance before we could confirm where it was.
15:00 Dropped out hook in about forty feet of clear water just outside of the rows of mooring buoys filling the harbor. I a blow I wouldn't feel secure, but there's no point in paying $20.00 for a buoy on days like this.
Bryan and I went to work on the radar again but couldn't find the problem. I'm beginning to think that my original idea was correct -- that the little drive motor for the display is failing. If so, we may have trouble finding a replacement. Ah well, maybe I'd better start shopping for a new radar, one with all the modern bells and whistles.
07:55 Dolphins, the first we've seen since leaving Dana Point. They are too busy feeding to play with us though.
11:00 Passing Santa Barbara Island we decide to drop the fish lines in the water. Bryan and I spend almost an hour getting them untangled. We had flaked them into the bucket as usual but, over nine months of getting tossed around, they'd managed to get pretty well mixed up. Didn't do us any good either. We dragged them all day and got nothing.
14:00 Into Anacapa Passage. After studying the books, I'm heading for what sounds like a nice anchorage on the north side of Santa Cruz called Lady's Cove. We've had light wind from the west all morning long and about a one foot chop on top of a long two foot swell. Just a very comfortable ride. Now as we pass in the lee of Santa Cruz Island, the wind is picking up and seems to have shifted to the north. Well, we'll see what it's like when we get on the north side.
15:15 The farther we go the bigger the waves. It's obvious that the north side of the island isn't going to be the place to be. So, 180o turn and back to Smuggler's cove on the far west end of Santa Cruz. We drop our hook on a sand bottom in thirty feet of water with the wind whistling over the green hills above us. The weather people are still saying that winds in the Santa Barbara Channel are 10-12 knots while we are reading 25-35.
Wasn't much point in doing anything else so Bryan and I took the radar display apart again. After yesterday's inspection I was convinced that the problem is in the display drive and, when we got it apart again we did find that the bearing for the rotating coil was gummed up with some very old black grease. We took it out, cleaned it up, and, after quite a few mis-steps, got it back together again. No luck. It still sticks. For the record the info on the motor is:
Berger Lahr Synchomotor
RSM 47/8
220V 50/60 Hz 375/450 U/min
Cb0,12/0,1 mF 350 V~
Bv 502
D 7630 Lahr
Germany
We'd been the first into the cove but were soon joined by others, an urchin boat, a fisherman, a sailboat, and finally a Coast Guard cutter, the POINT CAMDEN, which tied to a big buoy in the bay. That made Lois feel a lot better. She always likes to have company around when the wind is howling. The cutter also made a good reference; he kept his lights on all night and was outlined against the point. About 11:30, when the wind was peaking to 40 knots, I got up, dropped another 50 feet of chain, and put the snubbers on. An hour later the wind had almost died. I think we'll hang in here tomorrow until we understand this weather pattern.
09:00 Hauled a clean anchor out of the sand bottom and waved goodby to the Coast Guard guys still tie to their buoy. As we round the northeast point we find some leftover swell from last nights winds but otherwize the sea is glassy. We cruised close to the shore at sightseeing distance, sometimes marveling at the forms the sea carves in these sandstone walls. We passed Potato Harbor and I can't imagine what led me in there back in 1987. I sure wouldn't have tried it today. Of course, that day the wind and sea was from the opposite direction. We said goodby to Chinese Harbor, pretty quiet this morning even with the swells rolling into it.
The guides list a dozen or more "anchorages" on the north side of Santa Cruz but today very few would have been usable. Pelican, just west of Prisoner's Harbor looked very good. A sailboat was parked there and there were lots of caves, arches, and little coves around that would be fun exploring, but Lois wanted to stay on Santa Rosa tonight so we pressed on. Another bay which looked good even in northwest seas was Fry's Harbor, but that was about it. All the rest looked like they'd be very rolly, if not downright dangerous.
13:00 Dropped our hook near the north end of Becher's Bay near the fishing boat JACQUELINE from San Pedro where a guy was mending his nets. We dropped the Metz in the water, dug out our dive stuff, and got ready to go over the side. Bryan brought his windsurfing wet suit and his new fins, mask, and snorkle which he wanted to try out -- he's just starting a dive class. I wanted to take a look at the bottom. It was quite a struggle getting into my wetsuit -- I think I've put on a few pounds since the last time I wore it -- but with a lot of help from Bryan and Lois I got it on. I't forgotten how nice the feel of cold water is after being in that heavy suit for even a few minutes. The bottom looked really good. There is a thin scum of brown algae wich wipes off easily but no barnacles. The prop has a very few tiny barnacles but nothing that will affect it significantly. The colder water sure makes a difference.
After the bottom inspection we ran over to a couple of kelp beds for some sightseeing. That was a bit disappointing to Bryan who remembers snorkling in the Baja with the colorful reef fish. We found some schools of small fish in the kelp, anchovies and something which looked like small sea perch, but they are all dull colored and the visibility was less than ten feet. It was fun diving anyway. On the way back we stopped by the fishing boat and the fisherman gave us a pile of crab claws, huge ones which he'd pulled up in his halibut nets. We had them for dinner. I'm not sure what kind of crab they were -- I didn't think to ask -- but they aren't as sweet as Dungeness and have very hard shells, sort of like the crab we found in the San Blas Islands.
05:40 Anchor up and on our way this bright sunny morning. There's a gentle breeze out of the north and the weatherman has lowered his forecast winds in the area from 10-20 to 8-18. We round the reef and point SEA RAVEN's bows into the long swells rolling down the Santa Barbara Channel. Good visibility today, we can see the hills above Point Arguillo, 40 miles away.
08:00 Well out in the channel now and there are waves from the west running across the swell and making things a bit rolly so I drop in one flopper-stopper. That does the job and on we roll toward Point Conception. We hear two ships, the American Condor and the Pacific Span, on the radio talking about entering the channel so I call and let them know there's a little guy crossing. Later they cross far behind us.
10:00 Point Conception off our starboard beam. We're making pretty good time in spite of dragging the stabilizer, about 7.5 knots. The Loran is kooky though. As we pass this known location we get a fix which puts us about five miles back. Can't think of anything which could cause that kind of an error. Oh well, we've been working with nothing but the Satnav for five years anyway.
12:00 Passing Vandenburg Air Force Base at Point Arguello with 36 miles to go. The huge building above the point has an American flag and USAF painted on the side. We've been in the Pacific Missile Range for some time now but there seems to be no activity. As a small boat our only obligation is to maintain a watch on VHF Channel 16.
14:00 Just a couple of hours out now and still no significant wind. Ten to fifteen out of the northwest is about the max we've had. We're running about three miles offshore and as we pass a fishing boat the skipper askes us to move out a little farther, saying that there are hundreds of crab traps laid all the way from here to Port San Luis. We comply.
16:00 Port San Luis. It's been a long splashing ride and we're all pooped. We anchor where we did in December of '87, just behind the breakwater outside the mooring buoys. It's a good spot, protected from all but an unusual southerly. We went to home configuration, picked up some of the stuff which had rolled out of place, had a drink, put down the Metz, and went ashore for dinner at the FAT CAT. Tried calling Lou and Helen in Santa Maria but got no answer. Found that we can rent a car for a day cheaper than getting Bryan back to Dana Point on the train, so that's our project for tomorrow. Called Bob and told him to come down and show us how to fish California waters. Good, productive day!
By ten o'clock we were headed south on US-101. It's a pretty drive from here as far as Ventura, particularly now after all the rain of the past couple of months. The hills are all green and the flowers are in bloom. Today the sun was out bright so the sea along the coast was clear and blue. North of Santa Barbara we could see our route of yesterday from Santa Rosa Island to Point Conception. From Ventura south it wasn't much fun, and the trip was longer than I had thought. The odometer was showing almost 300 miles and it was 2:15 by the time we rolled into Dana Point. We gave Bryan a few last pointers on the truck, wished him well, and started back.
The trip home wasn't any shorter or faster. We were at the peak of afternoon traffic as we came through L.A. but, fortunately, although traffic was slow it kept moving. About 7:15 we were back at the harbor, more than an hour after the water taxi quit, and again our guardian angel was with us. Diamond Jim, the guy who runs it -- Ray, the old salt who was here before, retired -- was filling his pickup at the gas pump and consented to give us a ride back to the boat -- for a double fee of course, which we were happy to pay. The price is $2.50 per head now as opposed to $2.00 Ray charged in 1987, still not a bad deal.
While all that was going on I ran the Metz over to the shore and did some calling about the radar. I batted out here and with Bill Diltz, my radar guy in Seattle -- no answer on his phone -- but a helpful lady named Julie at Radar Communications in Morro Bay said she knew of a guy who had a SEASCAN radar which he wanted to get rid of. She said he lived on his boat and didn't have a phone but she'd try leaving a message for him. With that info we decided to keep our little Misibishi for another day and drive over to Morro Bay in the afternoon.
It took us all morning to get the wash done and the clothes dried but we had some good help from the weather. About 10:00 the sun came out, bright and warm, and by 11:00 the wind was picking up. By noon it was hitting 20 knots and the clothes dried quickly. We ran the SEA RAVEN back to her parking place behind the breakwater, put out 200 feet of chain, and then took the Metz back to the marina, following the shoreline to stay out of the chop. Almost to the freeway, I noticed a sign saying SEE CANYON ROAD. That sounded kind of interesting so we turned left and followed it. I'm glad we did. The next thirteen miles were some of the most scenic we've found. The road winds up a narrow canyon filled with apple orchards, all in bloom at this time of year, then tops out high above Los Osos Valley and Morro Rock. From there we could see fifty miles of valleys and mountains, from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay, all painted green and blue. The hilltops are all range land covered with bright green new grass with patches of blue Lupine, and along the edges of the gravel road are scattered the bright orange California Poppies. We only met a couple of other cars as we crawled along, enjoying the scenery.
Coming down the other side we joined the Los Osos highway which leads to Morro Bay by way of the south bay, another pretty drive. We found Julie in the store and, still accomodating, she spent half an hour on the phone finding out for us where her radar man was located. She finally got the name of his boat and where it was moored and gave us directions on how to get there. Her help paid off. On a little fishing boat called AGELESS we found Maelikaih who did indeed have a SEASCAN radar with a busted magnatron which he offered to give me if I'd take it off the boat for him. I didn't want, or need, the whole radar so, gambling that the drive motor is good, I offered him $20.00 for just the display unit which is easy to remove. Deal! So now we have an extra display unit, dirty and unused for who knows how long, but at least giving me a good chance at repairing ours. Stopped for groceries on the way back to the port, then back to the boat the way we'd come, following the shoreline to stay out of the chop. All-in-all a very nice day.
On the other side of the coin, while we were sorting out stuff in the forward stateroom we found a lot of it was soaking wet. Turned out the port port has been open, probably since Tuck visited us last month. Water was splashing in all the way from San Diego. Not only did it soak the mattress, it ran down into the forward bilge which had finally gotten dried out from the leak in the water pipe. Now we have a quarter of an inch of salt water in the bottom. We spent the morning drying things out then stripped the sheets and took them to the laundromat and washed them.
We did some more driving around today, out to the east in the San Luis Obispo/Pismo Beach/Arroyo Grande triangle. There's sure a lot of pretty country around here and the poppies must be just about at their peak. Big splashes of bright orange are all along the roads and up on the hill sides. One steep mountain side a few miles south is so bright it looks like it's on fire. We'd planned an early dinner and Bob had recommended two barbecue places near here, Alex in Shell Beach and Jocko's in Nipomo. We tried Alex's first but they didn't start serving until 4:30 so we ran on over to Nipomo. Bob was right. They had great barbecue, cooked over oak fired pits and served with a sauce unlike any I've ever tasted before. It was great.
Gennie has been varying speed quite a bit under load, and sometimes dropping the voltage as low as 105. So, after we were through running her this morning, I moved the control spring in what I thought was the direction for more sensitivity and adjusted the speed until the voltage is about 130 under no load. Seems to be working pretty well although I'm not sure just how fast she's running now. Our frequency meter has given up and I don't have a tachometer on board.
After morning chores were finished we went ashore, got in our little Mitsibishi, and wandered down the pike toward Santa Maria where we'd heard this was the final day of the annual Bluegrass Festival. We stopped in Guadalupe and had a beer in the Far Western Tavern -- Bob was right, it isn't such a raunchy place after all -- then, on a hunch, swung by Lou and Helen's place out in the north end of Santa Maria. They were home, just back last night from Bermuda. That's the reason we hadn't been able to reach them by phone. We had a nice visit, arranged for them to come down and see the SEA RAVEN tomorrow morning, then left them to their unpacking and headed for the festival.
Nothing much was happening at the fairgrounds when we got there. Quite a few people were wandering around, but no musicians on the stand even though the schedule called for a group to be playing. The next one on the schedule didn't start for almost two hours, so we were feeling a bit cheated even though our senior admission was only $6.00 instead of the regular $14.00 per head. We bought some beer and popcorn, and were wandering around the craft booths when the ACOUSTICATS showed up, an hour earlier than scheduled, and put on a very good show. We carried a bench from the show barn out onto the big lawn in front of the bandstand and sat in the sun while we listened. The whole affair was a very easy going, loose operation. And the weather was perfect, about 70o, sunny and breezy, just right to sit outside and enjoy.
On the way back we decided to check into the Far Western Tavern a little further and stopped there for an early dinner. It was clean, pretty crowded with very respectable looking people, and the steaks were good, but the prices were almost double those of Jocko's and they didn't even have barbecue on the menu. I'd give the nod to Jocko any day.
The wind still hadn't risen much by 11:30 so we all rode in to the dock together. We waved them goodby, then got in our Mitsibishi and headed off for another Sunday Drive. This time we took the camera with us and took the See Canyon Road again over the hill, taking pictures all along the way. We drove to Morro Bay via Taylor Road which winds over the hills rather than along the bay, and stopped at the Morro Bay Park Marina for a hamburger and beer. It's a small marina with no space for transient boats.
From Morro Bay we headed out to the northeast on Hiway 41 and, with a few side trips, followed it and Highway 258 on a big loop though the Santa ????? Mountains. As before, the green hills and abundant flowers made it a beautiful drive.
The forecast is sounding a little better tonight. If it stays that way tomorrow we may be able to run on Wednesday.
Back at the boat, we went to work dismantling the scanner. It's a pretty well built unit with lots and lots of screws holding things together. We salvaged the primary power supply board, the video board, the receiver, the drive motor and belt, and the magnatron (Maelikaih said that someone had told him it was bad but I really doubt it. There had been a short near the video board and I suspect the unit could have been easily fixed by someone who knew waht they were doing.) We already had some of the parts as spares -- now we are really in good shape to keep old Raider working until we find a good buy on a new one.
08:05 White sided dolphins join us as we pass Point Buchon and Morro Bay. There must have been a dozen or more, and they stayed with us a long way, jumping in unison as if to celebrate our passage. Our raday is working beautifully, better than it ever has, but the Loran is still kooky. Today she's about three miles off. I'm beginning to believe that it's an operator problem but I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing wrong.
11:40 San Simeon. What a contrast to when we left here after a miserable night of rolling in December of 1987. Today as we tuck in behind the reef the anchorage is flat calm with one small sailboat anchored and a couple of fishing boats hanging on moorings. A handful of people are playing or sunning on the beach in front of the old mission buildings and the Hearst Castle sits high on it's green hill overlooking the bay. This is really a very pretty place.
We anchored, went to "home" configuration, I fixed the bilge pump switch which had gotten stuck on the way, then we settled down for an afternoon of reading and relaxing. We've got a long run tomorrow, eighty miles or so to Monterey, so we'll be up early.
06:00 Daylight coming on, and with it the wind is rising and we are starting to take spray across the bows. Surprizing that there's wind and wave so early. The pattern has been for quiet mornings. Oh well, we're still heading right into it so it's not so bad.
08:00 Blowing a steady 20 knots now, and every now and then we dig our stem into a sea and send a load of water rolling down the foredeck over the windows and into the lower aft deck. Lois discovers that the buckets back there have dumped over and plugged the scuppers causing the water to come up as high as the rear door threshold. When I went back to check I made the mistake of opening the door. As the boat pitched a wave of water invited itself in. Well, we slowed down and I waded down the side to clear the scuppers which solved that problem; but then, we discovered that the Metz wasn't strapped down and was blowing off its rails. Both of us had forgotten the straps when we put it up on the deck -- you sure get rusty when you don't do a job regularly. Out onto the pitching deck again to get a strap on it. By the time I got that done I was thoroughly soaked. I went in and changed clothes only to discover a few minutes later that the tiedown for our 75 lb spare anchor had come loose and it was flopping around on the deck. Out again to secure it.
10:00 We've been running at 1100 rpm for the past couple of hours and making about six knots by my calculations. Then, suddenly, the wind is down, the seas are down, and we are able to come back up to our normal cruise speed. It's hard to explain the sudden changes in wind and wave but we won't complain.
12:00 Point Sur. All morning we've been running parallel with the steep, green hills of Big Sur. It's a spectacular range of mountains whether you're driving it on Hiway 1 or cruising by, as we are now. This morning the sky is a clear blue and the sun shines on the green green hills.
14:30 Wind up a little again now as we pass Carmel Bay, but we've been running on a different heading since passing Point Sur and are quartering the waves a little more. At 1250 rpm we're doing pretty close to seven knots and should be into Monterey on schedule.
16:00 Into Monterey Harbor. Lots more boats in here now than there were in December of '87. We made a pass through the mooring buoys but couldn't find one that looked like it was both sturdy and not regularly used, so decided to anchor out. There's no room inside the harbor for anchoring even though it's designated a "Special Anchorage". Privately owned moorings and floats fill it. But, on the outside of the main pier near the beach there is a fairly quiet spot to anchor. After a couple of tries we found a spot to drop our hook and called it a day.
Called Kris and Bob on the radio telephone -- that system here is "privately owned" and they bill you separately for making the call, $2.55 for the first minute, 85 cents for each additional -- and invited them down for the weekend. They'll be here tomorrow afternoon. Great.
I had the same trouble here as at Port San Luis with power on the dock, the danged breaker kept tripping when I'd hook us up. So I fixed that problem once and for all, I think. I lifted the shore power ground in our main distribution box. There's not any real advantage to being tied to the shore ground anyway and marinas which use ground fault breakers seem to be more common in this area. Anyway, for the record, our system is no longer tied to the shore power green lead.
Talked again to Kris this morning and found that they won't be down until morning -- they're pouring concrete today and have to stick around to keep it wet. So, after we got all our work done we took a walk along the shoreside to "Fisherman's Wharf" Monterey maintains a wide, two mile long concrete walk along the shore, all the way from downtown to Pacific Grove out toward Point Pi|os. Along the way are dozens of little parks and benches where you can sit and watch the Sea Otters and Sea Lions at play in the bay. There are lots of both here. Hundreds of Sea Lions cover the breakwater itself, barking continually and making quite a stink if you happen to be down wind of them. The Sea Otters are mush less obnoxious -- they just swim along on their backs, or do 360o rolling turns to show off their swimming skills. We had dinner at the Red Snapper, a nice place on the wharf overlooking the small craft harbor. Very pleasant day.
I was back at the boat in the middle of cleaning up the mess leaking batteries had made of our direction finding radio when Bob and Kris showed up. They'd gotten a late start then had a little trouble finding the marina. I set aside my radio and we played the rest of the day. Walked down Cannery Row almost to the aquarium, had a bowl of chowder in a little bake shop, then back to Fishermens Wharf where we checked over fish caught by the incoming party boats. Not a big day but there were a few salmon caught. The sea lions are evidently a problem. One skipper told us that they'd had five fish on but only got two in. The others were taken by the sea lions. Another skipper didn't even bother to go for salmon and fished for rock cod instead. We'll go out fishing in the morning but I decided it wasn't worth the $8.50 it costs for a one day out of state licence. Bob and Kris have their's and we might cheat a little and hang another line in the water if no one is around. Bob has four poles ready to go.
11:30 Started Gimmy again and ran over to Point Pi|os to try a little rock fishing. Here things went a little better. Bob picked up a blue fish almost immediately, not big but better than nothing. Soon he had another, then another plus a fair sized red snapper. That was great but he also had the line I'd dropped over the side just in case. It only had a six ounce weight on it while he was using 24 ounce weights with his multiple hook rig. It's been so long since I fished this way that I'd forgotten that that kind of thing is a no-no. What a mess! It took Kris and Lois a half hour to get things untangled.
14:30 The ladies are in the galley making cevichi out of the rockfish fillets when we decide to give up and head home. As we do, we pass thirty or so sailboats attempting to race with a squirrely wind blowing and a drizzly rain coming down. Didn't look like much fun to me but sailors are almost as crazy as fishermen.
Back at the dock I called for Nan, got John, and asked him to have Nan send our mail to Kris and Bob's place about Wednesday -- they've invited us for Easter Dinner. Also called and left a message for Tuck to investigate flying directly to Kona, rather than Honolulu.
Had dinner at a Mexican place called Consuela's -- very good!
11:45 Off the dock with just a little adrenaline flowing as the breeze threatened to blow us into the neighboring boats. Old SEA RAVEN doesn't turn very well to the left and we were in very tight quarters with that the only way to go. By kicking her around very hard I managed to miss the other boats by a few feet and breath a sigh of relief as we headed out of the bay. Outside the sea was a big undulating glassy pool with big, long swells coming out of the northwest, probably generated by the storm in the Gulf of Alaska a thousand miles away.
12:45 I'm sitting in my helm chair, daydreaming and watching the big rollers lift us up and let us down, when I suddenly find myself falling into Lois. The screws holding my chair pedestal, which she and others have been warning me about for years, had pulled out of the floor. I went crashing down, the arm of the chair hitting the corner of the counter and breaking a piece of the wood trim off and Lois yelling, "Are you all right?" I was, only a small bump on my hip, but I sure felt silly. Ran the rest of the way to Santa Cruz either standing up or sitting in the other helm chair. Guess I've got to break down and put through-bolts in my pedestal like I did with Lois'.
14:30 Santa Cruz. It's hardly much of an anchorage, just an indentation in the shoreline, but on a day like this there was enough attenuation of the swell by Santa Cruz Point and the long pier jutting out into the bay to make the roll tolerable. We anchored just behind the pier and settled down for an afternoon of watching people having fun in the amusement park on the beach. It's a big one, with roller coasters, ferris wheels, loop-the-loops, and all the other rides. There were a surprizing bunch of people there for a Monday afternoon, even considering the warm weather. Must be Spring Break for many of the schools.
I made a halfhearted attempt at fixing my chair but it was too dirty a job to do on the boat, especially with a rolling sea, so we'll have to make do without tomorrow. I'll get us fixed tomorrow afternoon when we're docked at Half Moon Bay. Instead we stayed up 'til 11:00 o'clock watching a TV movie, "Broadcast News". It was good enough to make me put up with the commercials -- that's saying something.
08:00 Passing the big cement plant at Davenport. It sure sticks out like a sore thumb on this otherwize almost deserted shore. Here the grass green hills are topped with crowns of dark green forest. We're getting back to timber country.
09:30 A|o Nuevo, the half way mark. I had to throw in one of our flopper-stoppers even though there's no wind -- the angle of the waves was making us roll a bit -- but we still made good time, about 7.5 knots. I'm running Gimmy a little harder, at 1400 rpm. The guys at Chapman told me he'd be happier if I did. We'll see how it affects our mileage.
12:30 We follow a commercial fishing boat into the harbor at Piller Point. I'd forgotten that there is a double breakwater there, an outer one which encloses the entire harbor and another around the Piller Point Marina, so it is very well protected. I had called in and been told to end tie to B dock so we were soon parked and hooked up to power on the dock. On the way up to the office to check in I called the Spud Point Marina in Bodega Bay and found that their rate for us would be $240 per month. Here it would be $270 but we'd be a lot closer to Tiburon and the San Francisco airport. I think we may decide to just stay here until we get back from Hawaii.