Channel Islands to San Diego

San Miguel Island!

 I arrived here after a long and beautiful day from San Luis Obispo. As I was sitting in the dark, (probably having a rum n coke) I could here this prehistoric sort of croaking and growling coming from the shore. The wind was absolutely howling through the anchorage and coupled with the strange sounds from shore, added to the feeling of "being a long way from Kansas Dorothy!"

I woke up the next day and went to see where all the noise was coming from and met a whole group of very cool Elephant Seals.....

 Hi there.....

This was my first "tropical" island. Sand, sun, and a palm frond! So friggin' cool...

After the rough and fog filled north coast, it feels like I've finally arrived in paradise!

 San Miguel Island is known as the "Queen Charlotte" of the Channel Islands as it's the most isolated and gets the worst weather. You can see the fog to the north and it's finally behind me! Yeah!!!

I left San Miguel Island and headed to Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south.
I had a perfect 15 knots of wind and sailed on a broad reach the whole way! Awesome!

I ended up in Forney's Cove. A small little nook of paradise at the northwest tip of the island. A rough, lonely, and gorgeous place.

Just before the sunset, an abalone fisherman came into the anchorage and dropped 4 huge mesh bags that were full of his live catch, overboard for the night.

That night I got treated to a fantastic sunset... So the Pelicans and I just hung out and absorbed the beauty of it....

I left Santa Cruz Island in the dark and got this shot of the rising sun.... You can't see them, but I was surrounded by dolphins all the way to Santa Catalina Island.... Awesome!

These are two whales I almost hit!
I saw these two and got this quick shot of them. The next time they surfaced, they were only 30 feet from the bow and heading at right angles to the boat! I thought for sure I'd hit them so I braced my back against the cockpit and waited for the hit. They must have just missed my keel and I was both surprised and relieved to have missed them.....
After a long slow day, that shot of adrenaline woke me right up! haha!

It was a long day.... not enough wind to fill a sail...
Coming into Catalina Island just as the sun is setting.... beautiful....

Coming into the busy center of Avalon Harbor, Catalina Island. It was quite a shock to the system after all the lonely places I'd just been. But cool. I walked around all the shops, then just kept walking! Glad to be able to move again!

I "slipped my mooring" (sailor speak!) the next morning a 4:30 to be able to get into San Diego with some daylight. I spent the day dodging tugs, freighters, and Navel war ships!

The end of my first BIG sailing trip! Yeah!!!!
Point Loma, with San Diego in the background!

South from Santa Cruz

When I think of the stretch of coast from Santa Cruz to Point Conception.... I think of fog..... It was beautiful, wild, windless, and foggy. I saw Orcas, thousands of Sea Lions, hundreds of Dolphins, and Elephant Seals.

I saw hundreds of these jellyfish as I was going along too.... ( I took this pic at the Monterey Bay Aquarium though....)

This is the Monterey Harbor. The place is absolutely chalked full of seals and sea lions....You definitely want to be upwind of these guys.....

Sunrise coming out of Monterey.....

A little friend I found taking a break on a clump of seaweed, about 6 miles off the coast.

My neighbor in San Simeon Bay. It's just below the Hearst Castle. I got in just before dark and it was an unexpectedly gorgeous anchorage.

I dropped the hook, and as I sat outside with a rum n coke, these dolphins came over to say hi... (Actually, they were just swimming around, but I decided it was all about ME!) It was awesome just sitting in this wild place, watching the sun set, and having these dolphins splashing around the boat.... This was my favorite anchorage on the coast....

My other neighbor...

I left San Simeon Bay in the dark, and about 15 minutes after the sun came up, I was engulfed in fog. Visibility was down to 200 feet at times, and never more than 1/4 mile. So I sat looking at a radar screen for the next 12 hours until I got to San Luis Obispo. I came into the anchorage, and all of a sudden - I could see! It was sunny! Wow.... cool..... in the photo above you can see the thick fog just beyond the sail boat.

This was the highlight of my day..... a fog rainbow....

Sunshine Lady was my closest neighbor.... a good ol girl....

So, one of the things that happened on the foggy trip down, was the toilet broke.... The LAST thing I wanted to do once I got to San Luis Obispo, was take apart the toilet.... but no one else was going to do it, so, grumbling away to myself about "the stupid fucking toilet".... I took it apart. Well, what I found was this little guy clogging the intake....and I started laughing.... just when I thought MY day was not so great, I thought of the odds of this little guy, swimming miles offshore, with dolphins, tuna, and sharks the whole way, surviving all of that, to get sucked up a toilet intake! Now that's what you call a bad day!

Leaving San Luis Obispo the next morning was the same. I was ready to go at 5:30am but waited until 6:00 because I literally couldn't see 10 feet in front of the bow to get out of the anchorage.... by 6:00 I could see about 20 feet so crept, very slowly, out. This pic was taken a couple of hours later once the sun was up.

The fog started to lift in the afternoon. This is the first oil platform I came across, just before Point Conception

This is a group of dolphins that came to play in Merkava's bow wave for about 20 minutes. I went and sat on the bow to watch them....

I was pretty happy.....

This is a pic of coming into San Miguel Island. The most northern of the Channel Islands. I was pretty jazzed when I saw there were sand dunes!
The first time Merkava had ever been anywhere where there were sand dunes! How cool is that......

Santa Cruz

These are some photos of my time in Santa Cruz. This anchorage is all about the California Sea Lions that live under the pier beside the boat. They swim around the boat in packs of 10 to 20.... all coming up for air at the same time.... it's cool to wake up to. Dolphins too!
The Sea Lions live on the dock that I tie my dingy up to every day and they let me know that they really don't like it when I come or go. It's a bit unnerving coming home late and having to wade through a crowd of these guys, all YELLING at me, to get to my dingy in the pitch dark.... but they're cool.....

All my buddies at the dingy dock...

Buds.....

This one's for Chloe-cita

I think this guy knew he was getting his picture taken... 

I met Steve and Melissa the first time I came through Santa Cruz with the trailer. Then Yuka and I stopped in the next year, and happened to be there for a Christmas party they were throwing. Well, this time, they were having another party just as I was there.... I don't know if I'm just lucky, or these two are always throwing parties! 

Robert kept us all going with some awesome guitar....

 My last look at Santa Cruz as the fog rolls in.....

Victoria to San Francisco

 I got in to Sausalito yesterday at 1:30. Got my dingy off the deck and in the water, then went and registered. (I'm staying at the Sausalito Yacht Club for FREE, as the Blue Water Cruising Club has an arrangement with them....) I had a loooong hawwwwwt shower, then a beer and a meal (that I didn't have to cook!) and got back to the boat at 4:30. At 4:32 I was dead asleep and didn't wake up until 7:30 this morning..... I feel like a new man today! I can't believe I'm here with my boat! AND, I get to do this for a looooong time! It's very cool. I look out my window at Alcatraz and downtown San Francisco.

The trip down was.... cool, exciting, terrifying, anxious, magical, surprising, eye opening, and humbling.... For the first 4 days I motored. There was practically no wind and I wanted to get this first kind of "hardcore" bit of coast over with as quickly as I could... and it's a good thing I did.....

By the end of the 4th day, I was just past Cape Mendicino (the crux of the whole trip, where the weather can be NASTY, to say the least) and the weather forecast was saying that the wind should pick up the next morning to a leisurely 10 to 15 knots. Great! I thought. I'll finally be able to sail and turn this bloody engine off. Just as it was getting dark the wind picked up to about 15 knots. I thought, cool! it's here early. So I got the sails up and hooked up the windvane (which steers the boat just using the wind) for the first time. It took about an hour to get it working, but it seemed to be doing well just as darkness was falling. The wind kept picking up more and more, and I kept reducing sail until all I had up was a little scrap of sail at the front. By this time it was pitch black. And I mean BLACK! I couldn't see a thing. No moon, no stars..... BLACK!

The wind by this time was up in the 25 to 30 range, but there were these "gusts" that would last for 20 or 30 minutes that were in the 35 to 40 range. Just enough to start blowing the tops of the waves off in streamers..... I just kept thinking, what if this just keeps picking up more and more?  To say I was scared shitless would be a huge understatement!

Needless to say, I didn't sleep a wink the whole night! I just sat up and watched, bug eyed and mesmerized, at these huge (to me) waves breaking all around the boat, and wishing the dawn would come so I could see what the hell was happening.... WHAT a night!

To experienced sailors, what I went through would "just be a bit of a blow." But to me, it was the biggest seas I've ever been in, and it all happened at night. Thank god for the windvane! It steered to boat the whole night, and much better than I could have OR my autopilot would have. It steered us for the next 2 1/2 days, right into San Francisco without a hiccup. It's cool... I like it a lot.... in fact, I think I might be falling in love.... but I've maybe been out alone just a little too long....!

Merkava was incredible. She really loves it out here. I kept thinking, wow it's like she's made for this. Then I'd think, of course she was you idiot! But really, she took everything so well. I can see why everyone raves about the Fraser 41's for offshore sailing. Merkava is comfortable at sea. She takes everything well and with ease. I didn't know it at the time, but I couldn't have been matched with a better boat.

So when I got to San Francisco,  I was a little tired. The one night I had the weather, and then the next night I couldn't get any sleep because I was by then in the main shipping channel into San Francisco and was kept busy dodging freighters all night. But I'm sooooo glad I'm here. It's so cool.

I think I'll hang out here for awhile and then head to Santa Cruz to visit Steve and Melissa, a surfer and his soon to be wife, who loves really, really good wine. I'm hoping to get some surfing in while I'm there. Then I might head to Santa Barbera and maybe explore the islands off that coast. Then! off to San Diego.

My neighbor in Sausalito. (Merkava in the foreground) A nice guy... came over wanting to borrow some wax.... go figure....
This yacht was the "talk of the town" while I was there. A Russian billionaire owns it and was reported to cost in the 300 million dollar range.

Merkava approaching the Golden Gate bridge.

Just a little psyched! Approaching the Golden Gate bridge, a lifelong goal of mine. A little bleary eyes after more than 2 days without sleep, but extremely happy!

Point Reyes, San Francisco. First sight of land since Washington! I got a real San Fran welcome.... fog! Only 4 more hours to go to Sausalito!

This little bird was sooo tired. 
It came to say hi when I was 110 miles offshore.

Inside the boat got to be a bit of a shambles

Day 5, after night 4. It looks calm in the photo, but the seas are still in the 8 foot range....

Freighters, freighters..... always fucking freighters.....

Leaving Westport in the fog. The last piece of land I saw before San Francisco was only 1/4 mile away. By the time the fog cleared in the afternoon I was about 30 miles offshore.

Surfing Westport Washington. 
It felt like I had officially started into my new life of a sail/surf bum!

Merkava parked in front of the Empress hotel, downtown Victoria

A gorgeous, blood red sunrise leaving Salt Spring Island