We are enroute to Seattle - Back in the Saddle again!

Thursday, August 19, 2010
Leaving Monterey, CA bay where we anchored last night for Santa Cruz,CA.
It was pretty rolly last night, not the most comfortable anchorage but it was free so can’t complain. Overcast, mildly chilly. Saw a shark cruising around as we were motoring out of the bay. Eerie. Panic, our chartplotter (Raymarine C70) started acting up and blacking out or showing just part of the screen, so we checked connections, turned it off/on and turned off the breaker and on again. Had to remove connection and clean off and blow dust out and then restarted a turned on breaker and it worked again, RELIEF. It is why we need to enter waypoints in our backup hand held GPS unit as well. It is no good to fly/sail blind, especially if there had been fog, yikes. Arrived in Santa Cruz, tied up across from fuel dock. It closes at noon, go figure, must be a surfer eh. Anyway, we went and got laundry done, water filled and trash out, new sheets on bed and bought 2 overpriced Santa Cruz local homemade burgers while we did our laundry. Nice place, live Jazz music tonight and lots and lots of boats, mostly sailboats. Lots of fit looking CA folk, nice place.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Today we left at 5:45 a.m. from San Simeon, CA for Monterey, CA. We had a long day of motoring and trying to sail when we could. The tack hasn’t been that great as we’re heading right into the winds (on the nose they call it in nautical lingo). I wish we could sail more, I dislike the fumes the engine seems to dispel in the air inside our dodger where we sit when we sail. Oh well, at least the engine runs, thank the Grandmothers for that one eh. We had a decent nights sleep and the day was nice after the fog lifted. We could see Highway 1 that runs along the coast and the hills that are on the other side of it. It is stunningly gorgeous overall. I saw lots of campers that must be on vacations or maybe retirees and adventurers enjoying the trip. They probably look at us and we at them and both envy each other a bit, but we are both enjoying the same thing, just from different perspectives. There were cool looking bridges here and there where big ravines/canyons meet the sea along Highway 1. Some of the homes on the cliffs above the ocean were amazing. I would hate to see what an earthquake or tsunami would do to them, but what a view and beautiful place to live anyway. I guess it’s like when I lived in Hawai’i, you just take your chances and enjoy the day (ie. Volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc. ) There are many trees on these hills and I’ve seen a few cypress, most a lot of eucalyptus, some kind of tall pinion pine things and I think pecans as there are nut shells under them. Anyway, I’m loving the vegetation, especially in contract to the sparse deserts we’d seen in Mexico, (where we travelled anyway).
We arrived at 11:30 at night in the harbor and were lost but a man was somehow up and in his little rowboat/dinghy paddling right near us and directed us of where we could anchor. Perfect timing, the angels are watching us I think. So we motored to the right place and anchored down. Very rolly anchorage. I showered in lukewarm water (not too bad) and we laid sideways in our bed to adjust for the side to side motion of the boat. Finally I moved to the couch as I felt claustrophobic for some reason. We finally both fell asleep and it was BLISS again.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
We got up and Scott blew up the tandem kayak for us and we loaded our trash sacks (2) and computer and headed towards shore. People were on the beach enjoying the day in the W.R. Hearst park (beach) and there is a rental kayak business and people were renting kayaks to take a paddle out where our boat was safely anchored. We luckily landed ok on the beach. There were pretty decent waves breaking on shore so we felt glad not to have gotten wet. We dumped the trash in a can onshore and with backpack on headed towards the road. We wanted to go to Cambria which was supposedly 3 miles from San Simeon. We had called google info on our cell phone and found out that there seemed to be no internet café or café at all that was open today. The little town market was closed for the day, bummer. We got out onto the highway 1 heading south, cars driving by us, probably thinking we were bums and going to try to thumb a ride. We finally saw a road sign and it said Cambria was 6 miles away. This made us rethink the walk and I didn’t want to hitch a ride really so we turned and went back and headed north down a road that shot off the highway, back from the beach park and went into San Simeon, which was only ½ mile. What a cute little town, there were hacienda type homes on the beach side, beautiful and elegant. There was an old winery that seems to still be in business. The general store that was closed had the door opened so we went in, hoping they’d changed their minds and open, they weren’t. But there was a counter like a bar where there was wine tasting, we abstained as it was not only morning but we had stuff to do and wanted to get back to the boat safely later in the kayak and had to have our wits about us to do that. In the back of the cute and antique laden store there was a tiny little post office window and a lady there. What a sweetheart she was, we told her what we were trying to do and she said we’d have to get to Cambria to find the internet there. We needed to check the weather on our passageweather.com site to know when to leave. We were half kicking ourselves in the butt because the weather so far looked perfect but we didn’t know if it was going to last and this was a long passage. The Postmaster told us that there was a new route for the Green Trolley that runs people to the Hearst Castle for tours and that it came through San Simeon now and would go to Cambia and then back later in the day. PERFECT. Since we needed cash for the trolley, we bought a few stamps and got cash back. Then we went out onto the porch on the front of the store and sat on a wooden bench in the sun to wait for the Trolley. It came round the bend and we waived it down and got on, handed him our fare and sat down for the ride. It was an enjoyable little trip to the town of Cambria and we unloaded and headed to the coffee roasting café and found out about the internet, they had wireless, Yeah! We were starved by now and decided to go down the street for sandwiches and come back and order drinks at the Cambria coffee roasting café so we could use their wireless. We got on and downloaded the wind and wave files we needed and ate our delicious turkey/cranberry sandwiches. There was a young woman, maybe 18 that was blind sitting with her mother and her mother’s friend I believe at the café. She was teaching them Hawai’ian and spoke beautifully. She had a little keyboard thing too in front of her. I didn’t have time to speak to them but thought it very interesting and she seemed so smart and alert and observant, quite impressive. Hawaiian is no easy language for most and to be blind and learn it, cool!!!. We left the café and walked around the cute tourist type town until it was time for the Trolley to go back came and we boarded it. I got to chatting with the driver who was Hawai’ian it turns out but he had been adopted by a family in the military as an infant and moved with them from Oahu to the mainland then. He said his birth mother was still there and expressed interest in finding his roots and culture there. I encouraged him to do so and told him how much I love Hawai’i and the culture there, it is beautiful. I hope he finds some peace and takes the journey. He said he could never be a sailor as he gets seasick but he encouraged us to have a good sail.
I just keep attracting Hawai’i into my life in small ways, it seems, interesting.

We got dropped off the Green Trolley at the mouth of the road that turns up to Hearst Castle, off Highway 1. We would have looked at the outside of the castle at least, but the weather we saw on the internet made us want to take advantage of a weather window and get going, so we only saw Hearst Castle from afar, dang. My mother said my grandmother had seen this once and loved it. I’ve seen pictures of inside and loved them as a child. Crazy to be so near the castle, but be out in the sea. We crossed the highway and down the road to the beach and our kayak which we had padlocked to an old gate so no-one would steal it. We hauled the kayak down to the shore and loaded everything in. Then we removed our socks and shoes and grabbed paddles, watching the wave sets and waiting for the right opportunity to launch out. We thought we were golden but as we were to paddle through a wave the kayak went sideways to it and we were hit hard, Scott got knocked out of the kayak, I held tight but was soaked, Scott made it to shore and I got out and pulled kayak up on the beach. Both of us soaking wet. Scott had to retrieve 2 of our 4 shoes from the surf and we then emptied the kayak and reloaded and tried again with much trepidation. Luckily this time we made it and paddled furiously back to our boat so we could strip down and get warm. We made it back, tied up to the boat and unloaded. I was worried about the camera, phone, laptop but thank goodness all 3 were ok as I’d put the camera and phone in ziplocks and the laptop was in a dry sack. Yikes, I will now backup all my files before taking my laptop off the boat again, because you never know. I rinsed off our sand/salt water sogged shoes and bagged our wet laundry for our next laundry run. We try to conserve to reduce laundry but things happen. We both rinsed off the saltwater on us and got into clean clothes and all was well after all. We decided to leave in the morning instead of today and spent time ready-ing the boat and such. This bay is so beautiful and quaint, it rates one of my top favorite places so far. Very peaceful calm anchorage as well. I am feeling a little better finally.

Monday, August 16, 2010
Today we are again anchored here in San Simeon, CA. It is such a beautiful little bay with eucalyptus I believe and some kind of pine (cause I can smell it!) lining the shore. There are beautiful white birds that I believe to be cranes that nest in the tree tops. Up on the hill (when it is uncovered from fog) is the famous Hearst Castle in all its splendor, it is huge and quite majestic sitting way up on top. There is a long jetty dock where people walk down to the end and just look or fish a little. There is a nice smaller beach where people launch off in their kayaks and where kids play and squeal with delight doing what kids do. It is almost picture perfect.
We slept in, the first time in a long long time and covered up good as it is getting plenty chilly here at night. BRRRR, we’re going to have to get a heater soon. Luckily the fog lifted and the sun warmed us up, as well as me cooking and heating up things on the stove for a good portion of the early afternoon. I made a delicious vegetable soup but used a chicken stock from a whole chicken we had made and eaten up. It was so hearty and yummy. Scott had a refill on his. Just right for a chilly day it the bay. He was going to go to shore and take the garbage and get me some Excedrin (I’ve had some kind of flu bug or something, usual sore joints, a killer headache, stomach ache and nausea, no fever though) but we can’t find the gas line for the dinghy that goes between the gas can and the outboard engine. Scott spent the better part of the day tearing through the boat trying to find it but to no avail. We thinks it must have been sloshed off the boat perhaps. Hmmm, anyway this is no good as now I guess we’ll have to buy a new one and in the meantime blow up the tandem inflatable kayak to take the trash to shore and paddle in. Not the end of the world of course but it will be awhile before we can replace it as we need to find a store that has one and this stretch of the coast (along beautiful Highway 1) isn’t too populated and doesn’t have many stores at all. Hopefully we won’t need the dinghy for an emergency, it will float but we’ll have no gas for the engine. Details, details huh. I cleaned up a bit as we’ve been sailing in rough stuff for awhile and it’s hard to do when you under sail, actually almost impossible as I can’t hardly stay down to use the head (toilet) let alone clean. I hurry and fix things for us to eat as needed too but time DOWN UNDER is limited, it also makes me sick when the seas are rough and when the engine runs you can also smell fumes and that makes me nauseous as well, ugh!!!! When we anchor we shower up and brush our teeth and sleep deep. It feels nice to just be put once in awhile.
I couldn’t find an internet signal here to update our weather and the weather the VHF radio gave us isn’t being very accurate for us, it had said 10-15 for yesterday and it was more like 20-28 knots, so we want to check a website we use for more details of exactly where the winds are and how fast in more detail, it is called passageweather.com. It’s been pretty good for us when we’ve been able to get it downloaded.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

We left about 9:40 am from San Simeon, CA to try to make Santa Cruz but after 7 hours had only made 18 miles progress, the waves were big, 6-12 feet and the wind was 20-28 knots. We were already exhausted and decided to head back to San Simeon before dark and anchor again. It only took us 2.75 hours to get back and that was sailing only, it was wonderful going South, we used no engine except to anchor. Oh well, it is lovely and I’m glad to come back and get some real rest.
Hard rough tiring day. The boat gets an air bubble in the system when we heel to port and overheats, we know how to get it out but also need to figure out how to redo it to fix this little/big glitch. Otherwise, we’ve been golden for awhile. Fuel system working like a charm. YEAH!!!!

We didn’t stop in San Pedro, CA as intended to visit our friends as I have been dealing with a nasty flu like illness and I am in no shape to visit or be visited and I don’t want to pass this onto anyone. I am very disappointed that I was sick, it is lingering too, not a short lived virus or bacterial version, ugh. So much pain, almost like a migraine and feeling like someone has beat you with a bat all over your body and in my stomach too and horrible nausea, not just sea sickness but real flu like stuff. I must have caught it on the plane (that person coughing behind me?, hmmmm) or in San Diego somewhere, the laundry mat, store, taxi, airport, who knows? Scott barely got it as I gave him some Zicam spray as soon as he felt sick and it went away, he seems to have a hearty immune system overall, lucky man.

Saturday, August 14, 2010
San Luis Obispo to San Simeon. We left at 9:35 a.m. and added 15 gallons to our tank for good measure. It is cloudy. Arrived at San Simeon, darling cove at 6:55 p.m. just before sunset approximately. Beautiful and the air smells of eucalyptus and pine, YUM. Hearst Castle sits up on the hill, way cool.

Friday, August 13, 2010
Today at 8:00 a.m. we left Coho (south of Conception Point) to San Luis Obispo.
Left originally at 3:30 a.m. but engine overheated so we headed back. Only an air bubble again and we also added some more coolant to the radiator. Arrived in San Luis Obispo at 7:30 p.m. around dark. Cute place. I am starting to like the looks of the terrain/vegetation and homes in this region.

Thursday, August 12, 2010
Leaving Santa Barbara for Coho Point at 6:15 a.m. Arrived at 2:45 in the afternoon, not bad except the winds were 35-30 knots. Overcast mostly. Calm wind and seas. In our travels today we passed numerous Oil Derricks, out in the ocean. As we neared a specific one we saw oil all over the water’s surface and you could smell the oil smell. YUCK, we called the U.S. Coastguard to alert them of this and they said they’ve been watching that one for years and that it is “Natural Seepage”, hmmm, even so, you’d think someone would clean it up. The poor dolphins we saw in this area can’t be liking it too much. The dolphins lately have white bellies, must be a certain species. I’ll have to look it up on internet when I can. They are so cute, we haven’t really seen that many dolphins on our journey thus far, or anything like we used to. Few seals, dolphins, almost no whales, weird. We do see birds floating on the kelp patches and just on the water, taking arrest I imagine, cute.


Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Left at 12:15 in the afternoon from Santa Cruz Island to Santa Barbara, overcast but sea was flat. Scott had to remove KELP from our PROP by diving under the boat in his wetsuit and belt-weight, knife in hand!!!! This is why we left a bit later than scheduled. He got it all off and dried off after and got warmed up. We saw some seals in the morning. We were able to actually sail a bit without the engine on and that was nice. It was a very nice sail and we both enjoyed it, nice and quiet, no fumes, lovely! Made good time too, good winds and angle for once.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Cat Harbor (Catalina Island) to Santa Cruz Island, CA. Left at 11:35 in the afternoon and arrived at 2:26 a.m.. While traveling along in the light of day, we had a bird which I think is possibly a white tern with an orange beak kept circling the boat in a wide circle and would act as if it was going to land once in awhile, getting closer to the stern of the boat. So cute. We were sailing and motoring in the dark and noticed a big barge on the screen and what appeared in radar to be something large behind it. Luckily we radio’d the Captain of the Barge, and he answered, because he had a 200’ Cable behind his boat and was towing a 1500’ barge. We would have headed right into the middle of the cable had we not slowed down and waited til they passed across our path. Pays to check the radar and it is lovely when people answer when you hail them on sea in the darkness, he was very nice actually. By Santa Cruz there were giant KELP beds but luckily we seemed to have avoided it barely. Scott saw a 3-4’ manta ray just off the boat side when flashing his spotlight in the water.


Monday, August 9, 2010
Finally left good ‘ole San Diego, CA and the police docks for Catalina Island and Two Harbors anchorage. Left at 7:50 a.m. with overcast skies, calm wind and seas. We added a quart of oil as when we arrived as we had started ½ quart low anyway. We got in at 3:00 p.m. Familiar Territory, this is where Scott had recouped from his broken leg (While biking last year on the Island) for a month or more. I am still fond of this anchorage. We motored all the way from San Diego. Beautiful weather. We saw dolphins and whales but in the distance only. The whales looked really large, maybe Blue whales, which I guess are getting to be quite rare, sad huh. I love whales. We had a peaceful night’s sleep and slept well.

Sunday, August 8th, 2010
We walked back to San Diego and Rosecrans Street and took a bus way down to where we could walk and shop for food. We ate lunch too, as we had no food yet really to speak of, it was nice to just sit and eat and relax, if only for a moment. Nice not to have to fix a meal as well for a change, I love to cook but it’s always nice to have a break it seems now and then. We then shopped at “Ralphs” a local grocery chain store, trying to decide menus and keep costs down, sure wasn’t as cheap as Costco but the ride there was long and would have been too far for the bus route and too far for taxi’s, the price quotes were ridiculous, so we shopped where we could. After shopping at Ralph’s we then called a taxi after to haul us back to the police docks marina. The driver was Hawai’ian and I talked story with him awhile on the return trip, very Aloha! Seems I’m always bumping into something Hawaiian. Yes, I still miss Hawai’i, always. We loaded up marina carts and wheeled them down the dock to the boat and then Scott passed the bags up to me one at a time, then we spent a good 35 minutes or more putting stuff away in the pantry and cupboards and refrigerator. We were pooped and ready for a rest before heading out.

Saturday, August 7th, 2010
We elft San Diego, free anchorage in A-9 by coast guard and headed for the Police Docks, for $10 a night, for 2 nights to get water, wash the boat, empty garbage, wash windows, shine brightwork, shop for food and load onboard, get propane and diesel for extra jerry cans, fix the air mattress (again), fix our bilge pump, call the kids, chart our coarse for leaving on chartplotter, We also had to haul all our laundry (sheets included) from our trip and what we left when we went and do it, so we dinghied as close as we could, which was the Pearson Fuel dock area (where they had helped us install new fuel tank before we left San Diego for visit), then we backpacked and got it done, came home and put it all away and made the bed.

Friday, August 6th, 2010
We spent the day putting away all of our suitcase items and organizing, cleaning etc. There was a bit of mold on a few doors but nothing like I expected, which was nice. I freshened the fridge up in anticipation of getting some food to put in there again. Scott saw a guy in a dinghy and he came over and they got talking and he had just been north and was heading south to Mexico so we traded books with him and picked his brain. I even made Tuna Noodle casserole and he and Scott ate hefty portions (even though Scott swears he hates casseroles!!! Hee hee) while discussing boats and all that goes along with them. They spent a good few hours and then it was back to just us again. Seemed weird being back on the boat and not having family around again. Slept good.


Thursday, August 5th, 2010
We arrived back home, making our stand-by flight on Delta. Flight was delayed but we were just happy to have gotten on. Cameron and Kirra had given us a ride and I’ll sure miss all the kids and grandbabies again. That’s the hard part of course, missing family. We enjoyed many meals, camping, hiking, etc. together and look forward to our next time together immensely. Time went too fast as usual. After we retrieved our luggage in San Diego, CA we decided to save cab fare and walk, even though we were farther out and from our boat than when we had left for Reno on Alaska Airlines in June to visit my family. I went into the ladies room at the airport and changed into comfortable clothes and my tennis shoes and socks for the walk. We had a bit of a time getting all our heavily packed suitcases down the sidewalk for miles, talking many breaks in the shade when possible. We finally made it to the dock and since we didn’t leave out dinghy tied up and had gotten a ride from our boat to shore before we now had now dinghy with which to ride back on with our suitcases. But we had the luck of seeing some people midday on their boat down the way, so Scott walked down and yelled over to see if they’d give us and our luggage a ride for $10 to our boat. They agreed and came over shortly and the driver, an old salty dog who wanted to be called TURTLE gave us a ride, after his wife got off and ran some errands I suspect. We got the bags on and off again, no small feat as they were so heavy,