Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz

When we tuned into the weather forecast on Sunday evening after a great day on the beach with the Berkeley Yacht Club, venturing out into the sea on Labor Day looked daunting with 20-35 knots of wind, 8-10 foot waves every 11 seconds, and 3-4 foot wind waves with small craft warnings until 9:00 p.m. Instead of taking a left and heading south Worrall Wind stayed tucked in the Half Moon Bay Harbor with a handful of other boats that decided to wait for Tuesday when the seas would be more friendly. It's grand to not have to go back to work and just take our time.

Russ and I spent a wonderful, quiet day on the boat with lots of a little projects we hadn't had time to complete before our departure, like inventorying the ditch bag, medical bag, medicine chest, connecting switches, attaching safety bars, route planning, etc. We barely ventured outside on the deck as the chill winds blew and spume from the crashing waves shotup against the breakwater. I kept the anchor watch GPS by my side to make sure we didn't drag. Thankfully we were good and stuck. Our neighbors however drifted and got quite close before they realized they were dragging. They pulled up their anchor and motored elsewhere. My guess was a slip in the harbor. Our only casualty was our flag halyard snapped from the wind, and we lost our Seven Seas Cruising Association flag.

The sardine balls in Half Moon Bay made for incredible feeding frenzy entertainment. Harbor seals gracefully conducted a synchronized ballet, dove, leaped and slid under the water to grab their breakfast.Pelicans dropped bill first like cannon balls all around us. It was quite the show. The sardines must have been greatly diminished by the end of the day.

We awoke early on Tuesday morning. The wind had died down, the water was flat, and there was a morning mist. Even the deck under the bimini was soaked. We left Half Moon Bay and headed south, motoring in less than 2 knots of wind, 3-5 foot swells every 10 seconds. By noon we noticed some ripple on the water. We pulled up the main, turned off the motor, and poled out the jib and sailed wing on wing. We heard nothing but the water against the hull and an occasional sea bird, NOT QUITE....along with all the things not secured well inside the boat crashing to the floor when the boat caught side waves and lolled and rolled from one side to the other. Once we got everything stowed properly, then we heard just the water and the sea birds.

We arrived in Santa Cruise about 3:00 p.m. We wanted to anchor off the pier by the boardwalk. We tried dropping and setting the anchor three times (2 different anchors) to no avail. Both Russ and the windlass were exhausted (the next project). We made arrangements to go into the Santa Cruz small craft harbor. Here too, the otters, seals, and pelicans entertained us as we cleaned up after the sail and Russ worked on reviving the windlass and cleaning the ailing shower sump pump. It's a good thing Russ knows how to do all of these things. I think this sump pump must be the only thing we don't have a spare part for. Wouldn't you know, so it's off to the chandlrey we go.

We may spend two nights here depending on whether Russ can get what he needs at local chandlery. Our running lights don't seem to be working well, and if we want to do a night passage around Point Conception, we need to get these in working order. We will either spend 2 nights here or 2 nights in Monterey. In the mean time, we are having fun! Check out our tracks on Where in the Worrall?? in the left column.