On The Sea Again - To Sunny Catalina

After returning from Italy on September 30 where we spent a wonderful 10 days in Tuscany, Venice, and the Cinque Terra enjoying quaint fishing villages and spectacular sunsets on the Mediterranean, we returned to our new reality.

Nephew Mike  picked us up at LAX at 11:00 p.m.  and took us to his home in Woodland Hills where we enjoyed a midnight supper prepared by niece Teresa.  With exception of an overnight layover in London where we got some rest, we had been traveling for 48 hours and were exhausted.  Their hospitality was most welcome.

October 1 - In the morning, we rented a car and continued to Ventura Isle Marina where Worrall Wind had been cooling her keel for the last two weeks.  While we were gone, our refrigeration and freezer system were completed.  Yeah! but now our head had a vacuum leak.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  So goes it on a boat....another project.


October 1- 3 - We managed to unpack and forced ourselves to stay awake.  We caved at 7:30 p.m..  By the next morning we were almost back to normal.  We spent Friday and Saturday catching up on laundry, shopping, and our obligatory stops at the marine stores for little project stuff. Russ installed two more opening portholes in the lower saloon and just in time. During the project we had gapping unportected holes into the cabin.   We filled the freezer and refrigerator for the next leg of our voyage, tentatively scheduled for Sunday.  Mike and Teresa came to dinner on Saturday evening minutes after the last porthole was installed and the groceries were stored.

October 4 - Saturday night the wind started to pick up and by Sunday morning the wind was howling.` We closed the hatches and the new portholes.  We were really glad that project had been completed.   There was so much beach sand blowing around, we got it in our mouths, ears, and hair.  Needless to say we decided to postpone our trip to the Channel Islands, particularly after watching some brave boats making their way in to the harbor.

We recorded sustained winds in our slip of about 40 miles per hour with gusts upto 50!  The surf was breaking inside the entrance channel to the harbor.  We rocked and rolled in our slip through out the night.  By Monday morning, the harbor was a glassy pond and Worrall Wind was in need of a  thorough wash down.

October 5 - We left Ventura on Monday after lunch and headed for Santa Cruz Island.  Sailing conditions were beautiful and we marveled at what a difference a few hours make.  We glided out on fair, but slightly brown seas, raised the sails, and turned off the the motor.  In about 4 hours we arrived.  We anchored in Smugglers Cove in about 40 feet of water, making sure our anchor was well set.  Smuggler's cove is open to the ocean and constant sea swell.  We could see the waves crashing on the beach and rocks and wanted to make sure Worrall Wind didn't find herself on the rocks.  Several times during the night, the anchor alarm went off.  We dutifully checked to find that the wind had only shifted and our drift was within the scope of where we thought we should have been.   With a full moon, we had good visuals to check our movement.


October 6 - On Tuesday morning, just as the sun was rising in the east we heard a helicopter overhead. We looked out the ports to discover that a fishing boat had gone on the rocks the night before and was being checked out by the Coast Guard.

Transmission on Channel 16 verified that the Coast Guard was trying to determine if the skipper and crew were still on board.  Apparently they were not on board the Lady Frances.  Through out the day we watched in morbid fascination of the saving,

sinking,

resurrection,

and

salvaging of the Lady Frances. 


Boat US sent out rescue boats from Ventura (about 22 miles away).  Not knowing what the procedure is for "salvaging" a boat, we don't know whether they purposely held off sending out the big rescue boat until late in the day or it was tied up in other salvage efforts earlier in the day as a result of Sunday's horrific wind storm.  The Coast Guard was present all day in a standoff position once the salvaging began.  We felt sorry for the skipper and saddened by the whole affair.  They worked into the night long after our ability to shoot open exposure photos on the rolling sea.


October 7 - After another rolly night and some unpleasant dreams about the day before, we pulled up the anchor at day break as the sun was rising over Anacapa Island and headed towards Catalina, nearly 60 miles away.   Yesterday was now a memory and a reminder of the importance of a well set anchor.

We had a long way to go so started off motoring until the wind came up.  Unfortunately, the wind didn't pickup well enough to move Worrall Wind until we were just outside of Isthmus Harbor on Catalina.   The Isthmus is like the blow through the Golden Gate Slot.  And of course by this time, we now had to think about mooring in gusty winds.   During the day, we saw lots of pelicans, a lone dolphin, and a baby flying fish that landed on our deck and died before we could throw it back in the water.
 
During the long motor, we fired up the auto pilot so we could attend to some little projects while underway.  We started up the watermaker for the first time and it worked!   We made about 2 hours worth of fresh water (28 gallons).  It tasted good and our little water tester indicated that it had less salinity than the water currently in our tank.  Go figure! 

When we pulled into Isthmus Harbor, we were introduced to their 2 point mooring ball system and immediately became the evening's entertainment for those yachties already moored up and sucking down their Buffalo Milk.

Floating about 10 feet in front of tightly place mooring balls, there is a small ball with a tall quill.   The strategy is to sneak up on the quill after dodging the other mooring balls and boats; pull up the quill and ball which is attached to a looped line leading to the mooring ball, drop the quill back into the water, grab the looped line and hook it on to a bow cleat.  There is then yet another line attached to the looped end with lead weights that a crew member walks back to the stern of the boat.

Upon reaching the stern, the crew member continues pulling up on this line until another looped line appears which is then tied to the stern cleat, dropping the weighted snake line back into the water.  After is all said and done, it seems pretty straight forward and clever, but the first time it's a little scary because newbies are not sure where all these under water lines are and if they will get caught up in the keel, rudder, and prop.  In the meantime, crew mates  (Russ and I) are yelling directions at one another that may or may not make any sense.  Well, we made it on our first attempt, but not without a few choice words, switching positions from helmsman to quill yanker, a little sweat and nearly mowing over a couple of mooring balls (that would be me).  We were glad to have had the practice in the off season with only every third occupied mooring ball as witness and audience.   I can only imagine what it is like when all the balls are occupied.  There is only about 20 feet between the beams of all the of the lined up boats. 

Once we were snug in our slot, we took the dinghy to the landing and headed for the bar for a hamburger and beer.  The specialty on Catalina Island is Buffalo Milk, no not the kind baby buffalo drink.  We decided to wait until the next night to try this treat while we watched newbies moor.

October 8 - We spent a lazy day Thursday enjoying the sunshine, reading, taking a walk across the Isthmus to Catalina Harbor on west side and relaxing.  We had cell service and  Internet connection, so we took care of the first of the month stuff and making phone calls.  During the course of the day, we met up with two other boats and their crew that will be on the Baja Ha Ha, the Bob and Alice Ann Phillips from Crescendo, Challenger 50 ketch, and Scott and Monica Stoner on Scott Free, a 44 Gulfstar.

Both of these boats came down from Washington state and were resting up on Catalina before heading down to San Diego.  Catherine and Doug Hounshell, Berkeley Yacht Club friends and fellow Baja Ha Ha'ers from Galatea were on the other side of the Isthmus in Catalina Bay participating in the Island Packet Rendezvous.  There were probably other boats as well, but if they didn't have their flags up we wouldn't have know about them.

Our raggedy Baja Ha Ha 2009 flags are becoming badges of honor.  The more tattered they are, the better the stories they have to tell. At least this is what we believe after the long awaited Buffalo Milk and a couple glasses of wine.  So what's a Buffalo Milk?  Crushed ice, a shot each of vodka, creme d'banana, creme de cacao and cream blended together, topped off with whipped cream, nutmeg, and a shot of Kalua. I think it might even be better than gelato, which we sampled once, maybe even twice a day while in Italy.

October 9 - Friday a.m. we were up early.  Check out time from the mooring balls is 8:00 a.m. and the harbor patrol starts cruising and reminding folks that if they want to stay later, they've got to fork up more dollars.  We turned on the motor and headed out toward Avalon.  We were told that Avalon on a weekend can get pretty crowded so we wanted to get there early and with less of an audience to witness our tie up show.  As we rounded the last point, we saw a huge cruise ship anchored outside the Avalon harbor. It was at least 12 stories high and would probably disgorge more passengers than Avalon residents and all the yachties combined.

A harbor patrol boat met us at the breakwater and collected a check from us for two nights in the amount of $90.00 in exchange for a map to our mooring ball and dye pellets for the heads to make sure we were not discharging into the harbor.    Now old pros, we found our spot, snagged the quill, looped the bow, walked the snake line, and tied up the stern much to the disappointment of some of the onlookers who were eating lunch topside and looking for some afternoon entertainment.

We too ate lunch and relaxed on the boat and enjoying the harbor views,

not too eager, to rub elbow with all the cruisers in the T-shirt shops.  We waited until 4:00 p.m. when the cruise ship sounded its "gitty up" signal.  At that point we, dinghied to shore and enjoyed a lovely afternoon walking around.  I spied a beauty salon and inquired about a haircut.  Russ was a little disappointed as he had been training with our Colfax stylist and friend Beth to crop my mop.  But I wasn't quite ready yet to give him free reign with the sheers...maybe Mexico on some deserted beach when I'm desperate. Renee, a native Catalinian, did a great job cutting my hair.  I'm set now until that deserted beach.  Tomorrow though, Russ gets a cut from moi. We plan to take a hike and then on Sunday we will head to Long Beach and our continued journey south.