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.

Out the Gate and Hanging a Left

After years, months, and weeks of preparation, we cast off the bowlines for our Worrall Cruise about 8:00 a.m. on September 5, 2009, exactly as dreamed and planned. Mark Twain would have been proud! We were really keyed up and ready to GO! The night before we said goodbye to friends at the Berkeley Yacht Club and paid our inactive dues for the coming year. Doug and Catherine, provided us with a much appreciated packet of harbor maps from their recent southern California cruise. We will catch up again with them in San Diego for the Baja Ha Ha.
Brother and sister-in-law, Ted and Marian, arrived at 6:30 a.m.to help with final prep and cast off. Russ discovered a little leak after we started the motor which we thought might set us back, but after a few minutes in the engine room, Russ decided it was only an annoyance not a problem. Phew!

I picked up crew, Garyn and Jessica, at the Berkeley BART station. They had driven their car to Half Moon Bay the night before.

BYC friends Jack and Linda, and also new residents of our Emery Cove slip, took lots of pictures and escorted us out the GATE in their boat. There were several marina neighbors waving us off. We had been and still are receiving email bon voyage sentiments and phone calls. Jean and Bruce were standing on the Emeryville pier waving us off as we went through the break water. Carolyn and Bob and Wayne and Carol were waving to us from Sausilito and Fort Baker. Because of the incoming traffic in the shipping channel and the fog, we decided it would be prudent to stay on the southern border of the shipping channel which was a bit far from Fort Baker and Sausalito.
Here are some photos of us getting ready to go under the bridge, going under,

and looking back.

We did wave, but don't know if anyone saw us. We were deeply touched by all of your good wishes, lovely sentiments, and parting waves. A special thanks for those of you who drove from your homes many miles away to send us off! Even if we couldn't see you and you couldn't see us, we knew you were there (or thinking of us from afar), and you made the day a very special one for us. Thank you.

Despite the cold and fog (which we promised to ourselves to remember when we are baking and steaming in the tropics), there was no wind. It was bitter sweet knowing that it would be some time before we sail in the San Francisco Bay again. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at sailing, we wound up motoring to Half Moon Bay. By the time we arrived in Half Moon Bay, the sun was out and the water had just a few breeze ripples. Jessica did a terrific job at the helm most of the way down the coast.We put 6 hours on the engine and arrived around 2:30 p.m. We had only a couple of glitches along the way. Our wind generator and solar panels were producing so many amps, our engine alternator got very confused and kept cutting in and out. Russ wound up temporarily disabling both our wind and solar, and then the engine alternator seemed to work fine.

I started our SPOT tracking device just before we left the Marina. If you click on the Where in the Worrall?? in the left hand column of the blog, you can see our tracks and follow our cruise as we progress. When you get to the map, it's more interesting to click the satellite/hybrid view and zoom in. Don't be alarmed by track spots 26 and 27. Despite what you see when these two spots were connected, we did not sail our boat across the land into the harbor. The Spot sends coordinates every ten minutes. From point 26 we traversed south and came in through the break water. By point 27 we were in our anchor location horizontal from 26. The tracker connected the two points, but it looks like went through the shoals and over the breakwater to our anchorage.

When we got to Half Moon Bay, we dinghied into Princeton, Half Moon Bay Yacht Club, where Jessica and Garyn had parked their car nearby. We had a nice dinner at the Brew Pub, then Russ and Garyn took a ride to a hardware store to pickup some toggle switches for solar and wind power while Jessica and I walked around. By the time Garyn and Jessica left, about 5:30, the fog had come back in. They were going back to Emeryville to pick up our car and ferry it up to the house and park it in the garage. They still had several hours ahead of them.

We on the other hand, finally felt free, no time constraints, no "must do" chores, or last minute preparations. What a great feeling!

Russ and I visited with some BYC folks having dinner at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club and then worked our way back through the fog to our boat. Visibility was really poor (50 yards), but we did find Worrall Wind calmly sitting where we had left her shrouded in a thick mist. By 9:00 p.m. we were sound asleep, lulled by the fog horns and only a few breaks in the still water by surfacing harbor seals around our boat.

Today there is a BYC beach party. Tomorrow, depending on weather we will be turning left instead of right when the BYC cruise out is over. A dream come true!

Today's the Day!

The moon is brilliant with the approaching sunrise. There are some clouds and fog
this morning. Worrall Wind has blue sky directly above at the moment, but this may not
last. We still plan on leaving around 8:00. Until we meet again, we're off!

Cast Off Tomorrow!

Forecast tomorrow looks like patchy low clouds and fog tomorrow morning. If it was like this morning, the visibility will be pretty good below the fog. We'll have to see, but are still planning on leaving between 7:30-8:00 (probably closer to 8:00ish). Will post again tomorrow morning.

48 Hours and Counting

After numerous trips home and back to the boat, we are loaded to the gills! We have spent the last couple of days stowing all the stuff! What a job. Russ and I are closing in on all of the projects that will allow us to cast off. We still plan to leave on Saturday even though our refrigeration/freezer system are not installed. The refrigeration folks will be driving down to Ventura and installing while we are attending our son's wedding. I will be doing final provisioning with lots of canned goods and non-refrigerated packages. We still have our teeny-weeny icebox which we will use for most critical foods. A lot of projects will continue as we sail and probably for the next six months!

We are taking our general ham license tomorrow. I think we are ready. Final chores on Friday and final BYC bar-b-que, then off on Saturday morning. Slack at the "Gate" is 8:49. Looks like the weather will be ok. Not sure about the fog though. We plan to leave Emeryville between 7:30 and 8:00. Remember the Bay Bridge is closed this weekend for any of you who are planning to wave goodbye. Garyn and Jessica will be accompanying us to Half Moon Bay, pick up their car and head back to Emeryville where they will pickup our car and ferry back home for safe keeping until we return.

Got to go! Still lots to do. But it's looking good for Saturday! We will confirm Friday night and again on Saturday morning. Stay tuned to the blogspot.

Vindication and New Sails

Hello All,

Since we saw many of you last at our party, it's been non-stop work and organization on Worrall Wind and the home front. Before I move on to what we have been doing the past two weeks, I wanted to share a couple of shared party pictures. One is from niece Teresa, the Worrall Family; two is of wedding party 1969 by cousin Dot, and third photo is from friend Alexis which vindicates me from the cake in the face incident. It's a terrific pictue of the real culprit. The expressions are priceless. Thank you all for sharing your day and photos with us.

After the party, we tore the boat apart once again! We have been busy wiring solar panels, wind generator, anchor lights, fans, etc.. It's exciting to see that our solar panels are producing amps! Yeah!

Our wind meter is broken so we are looking into a replacement for that. The original was made in Germany and it seems we can't get the replacement part we need so it looks like a whole new unit. We bought two large coolers for the back deck which will serve as seats and deck boxes. Russ refloored the engine room and made a battery box out of starboard for our new golf-cart batteries. Looks terrific and clean. We'll see how long that lasts.



Kami from Pineapple Sails installed our three new sails and one refit mizzen sail as a riding sail to keep us from swinging while at anchor.We are almost finished assembling our ditch bag which is about 1/2 the weight of our lifeboat, and all of our travel arrangements for our trip to Garyn and Jessica's wedding in Tuscany have been completed along with finding a berth in Ventura for the boat while we are away. Still outstanding is our boat's refrigeration system. It's now three weeks behind schedule, and we are getting a little concerned that this will stall our departure date. Russ is working on this challenge today. This week we will be back and forth to the boat, offloading things we no longer need, and loading stuff we need and want to take, getting final innoculations and medications. Only 13 more days until we cast off. We are looking forward to stopping the schizophrenia of having one foot on land and the other on the boat.

TRIPLE WOW! Retirement, Anniversary, Bon Voyage

We don’t know where to begin to express our delight and appreciation to over 150 family and friends who came to our triple triumph party at the Berkeley Yacht Club, Sunday August 9, 2009 to celebrate our retirement, our 40th wedding anniversary (married August 9, 1969) and our Bon Voyage on our Worrall Crusier!
It was so wonderful seeing all of you! We know the majority of you traveled great distances, fought the Bay Area traffic, and cunningly found parking places within a mile of the Yacht Club! Sunday was one of the most beautiful summer days on the Bay and sailors were at the marina in force. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day, however a few more parking spots would have been nice.

We would like to especially thank family and friends who came early to set up, picked up cakes, drinks, ice, and stayed late to clean up, and who were on hand throughout the day to keep the table filled with food, ice chests filled with drinks, sign people in, take photos, run errands, carry stuff to and from the boat.

Speaking of photos, many of you took photos with your own cameras, and we would love to have digital copies sent to us, particularly when Russ and I were cutting our anniversary cake and our cameras all seemed to mysteriously lose their power at the same time. What a sweet surprise to have our friend Marshall, play the wedding march on his harmonica. And just so you know and I can vindicate myself, I didn’t purposely smash cake into Russ’s nose. I had an unexpected elbow pump from our mischievous son. Really!

Our only real regret of the day is that we didn’t have enough time to talk with anyone at great length or even a short length. Many folks were not able to attend because of other difficulties including heavy traffic (no they weren't all coming to the party). When we returned home on Tuesday, there were 15 messages on the home phone from people who found out they could come after all (it would have been fine to come without an RSVP), couldn't come, or lost directions. We are sorry we missed your call and you at the party. We will have to do a better job at checking the home messages in the future. Please keep in touch with us and check the blogpot to see when we will be in the vicinity. We will look forward to getting together with you in July, August, January, and February (or parts of those months). Ask us for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and we will share our slides and stories. Your continued support and love along with the wind will propel us on our journey.

Nevertheless, the party was truly wonderful, and we hope those of you who made it, had as much fun as we did. Too bad there wasn’t enough food! What a feast. Thank you for your generous contributions of hors d’oeurves. We will have to have another party just to consume the wine and Champaign many of you gifted us with. We read through all of the cards on Monday morning and enjoyed the sentiments and personal notes. Don and Diane gave us a card with a sailboat and the sentiment "The Adventure Continues". What a treasure.

Thanks Ted and Marian for the rubber ducky thermometer and ship in a bottle kit, Linda and Gary for the compass, Margo and Dave for the Creative License Guide and sketch pad, Mary and Bob for the cousins photo album, Johnny and Bev for the boat cushions, Mom and Dad for the onboard games, and Linda and Bill for the Left at the Golden Gate Travel Bug. We’ll log it in and out at caches along the way www.geogaching.com . Thanks for taking care of our cache "In and Out" while we are traveling.

Chronology of the week before the party:

Thursday:

We finally got Worrall Wind scrubbed up from the boatyard grit, 250 gallon water tanks filled up, out of the boat yard, and over to the BYC dock on the Thursday evening before the party. But the rebuilt alternator wasn't working as well as it should possibly having suffered from saltwater damage from our mishap to Richmond the beginning of July. So Russ has added another little project to the “short” list.

Friday: Russ taught at Cal while Roz cleaned, oiled and polished inside of boat. There is no running water at the BYC dock so outside cleanup was limited. That’s why we scrubbed down at the shipyard before we left.

Saturday: We worked on several little projects that would make the boat presentable for Sunday – stained some teak rails and steps, installed solar panels, installed a blade on the wind steering system, re-installed the hardware and the front part of the aft bimini, and finished inside cleanup.

Our children and their significant others (Garyn and fiance Jessica, Abby and boyfriend Neal) gave us an eleventh-hour-hand polishing the boat and raising our convertible Ampair wind/water generator late Saturday afternoon and early evening, before we all enjoyed a family dinner. It might be the last time the six of us are together in one place for a while.

Sunday: Along with our regular flags, we raised our Baja Ha Ha 2009 flag for the first time, Seven Seas Cruising flag, and our Time Flies When You Are Having Rum - Jolly Rogers Flag, that we picked up in the Caribbean last year, decorated for the party, and spent a wonderful afternoon with family and friends.

Monday: We spent the morning leisurely reviewing the previous day, opening cards, putting things away, and securing the boat for her ride over to Emery Cove. I drove the car and Russ motored Worrall Wind over to our berth. The Bay was absolutely flat with no wind.

This week, we anticipate that our refrigerator, freezer, and new sails will be installed. We both need to turn our attention to studying for our general class HAM license that is only a couple of weeks away. Russ is almost ready, but woefully, I am far from a passing score. We have a lot of home chores and details to attend to. I hope to get around to writing individual thank you notes, but it may not be for a while, maybe I’ll have some time from the Galapagos to the Marqueses. In the meantime, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing our trimple triumph with us. Love to you all.

Out of the Shipyard!

Yeah! Worrall Wind is back in the water. Her masts are up. Russ motored her over to the Berkeley Marina for our Bon Voyage party. Now we are getting all of the shipyard grime off her decks and things back in order. At the end of each shipyard visit we receive a bottle of wine with our invoice. We got two bottles of wine this time...proportionate I guess to the invoice! Seems to me we should have gotten a case. Our refrigeration system should be completed next week and our new sails installed.

Some of these things won't be ready for the party, but it looks like we are on target for launch on September 5. There is an ebb tide the morning of September 5 with slack current at 8:49. If all systems are go, including favorable weather and no fog, we anticipate sailing or motoring under the Golden Gate between 8:30 - 9:00 in the morning for any of you who wish to watch us go out. Be sure to bring a light colored flag, hanky, pompom to wave so we can spot you at Fort Point or on the bridge. We would love it if you share your videos or photos with us. On the evening of September 4, I will confirm our intentions. By 6:00 a.m. on September 5, I'll post again in the event there have been any changes. Please check the blogspot for updates. In the event it is a foggy morning, we may delay departure until later in the morning.

Check out the new feature in the left navigation bar called Where in the Worrall. That's it for now. Back to the scrub brush. More after the party!

Masts are down. Water line pushed up.

Little by little Worrall Wind is getting dolled up for the big cruise. Despite a chill summer wind, the yard rigger was lifted to the top of the masts on Worrall Wind where he wrapped a harness around each mast. The crane first lifted the mizzen, then the main mast laying them in separate horizontal cradles that were rolled to the mast yard for a rigging refit. Having stepped masts made this a much easier operation than pulling a mast that goes through the deck. Nevertheless, the downed main looked like a tangle of spaghetti.

Russ immediately mounted two brackets on the masts. On the main, he mounted a bracket for a radar reflector. On the the mizzen, he mounted a bracket for the ampair wind/water generator. In the meantime, I worked on cleaning, polishing, and painting the propellor. Thankfully, the bottom painter had already taken most of the growth off the propellor, an ugly - dirty job! He gave me an air pressured drill with wire brush to polish and score the prop. He took pity on me as, I was trying to clean the prop with Brasso and a wire brush. The air drill was amazing, zip, zip and each blade was incredibly shiney. Kind of sounded like a dentist drill so I turned up the IPod and rocked out. Yippee!

Over the course of the weekend, I painted on a base coat and 4 coats of this prop paint that drys like rubber cement and is supposed to keep the critters from attaching.

In between coats, I used the heat gun to strip varnish off the back rails. By the time I was working on the back rails, the sun had come out, and we exchanged out our jackets and earmuffs for sunscreen and wide brimmed hats.

While Russ and I were busy with our tasks, the bottom job painter, was busy raising the water line on Worrall Wind. We are using Trinidad Pettit bottom paint, applying two full coats and a third coat 18" from the water line down. We know once we load on our gear we will need that line raised a little or we will be growing a beard on the gel coat. Our starboard side was already pushed down with the weight of the diesel tanks. Once the painter was done on Friday, Russ scrubbed the boat down on Sunday morning, preparing to polish, but got sidetracked taking off the swim ladder and mounting brackets on the transom for the Hydrovane windsteering system. We didn't head home until dusk and were exhausted. Polishing will have to wait until our next trip down.

Hauled Out and Torn Apart

Another holiday at the dock. The July 4th holiday came and went as we broke the boat down for a haul out, bottom job, and standing rigging refit. The bimini, beautiful and completed was broken down and booted up. It took me about 45 minutes to unzip the sunscreens, unpin the front bow, fold the back bow and put the boot on. With practice the two of us could do this in 15 minutes.

We took off the mizzen boom and disconnected the antennas and radar which meant Russ had to climb the mizzen. We replaced three hatch covers with new tinted plexiglass. Russ continued to work on installing the water maker. He has a few more electical connections and that project will be complete. In the mean time the boat is totally torn apart on the inside. Walking around with floor boards up is quite a balancing act. The refrigeration experts are in the process of reinsulating our old well frig, rebuilding our upright frig and enlarging it, and installing a freezer under the starboard settee. We are having two Frigoboat keel coolers installed which should be energy efficient and give us plenty of space for storing foods that need to be cool and frozen.

While Russ worked on the watermaker, I fired up the computer and started listing all of the boat's equipment with model numbers and serial numbers. Apparently, this is important to have in case the property is ever stolen it is easier to recover. We were going to take the boat over to the boat yard on Sunday afternoon, but the wind was blowing 40 knots and would have been difficult to handle and dock single handed (I would be ferrying the car to the boat yard). The last time we did this in a high wind, it took two dockhands from KKMI to tie the boat down. No one would be there on Sunday afternoon to give us a hand so we decided to wait until Monday morning. We got up early on Monday, disconnected the electricity and water. Russ left early Monday a.m. It takes about 10 minutes to drive and 1 hour and 20 minutes to motor the boat from the Emery Cove Marina to KKMI in Richmond. We left the boom and main sail intact in the event of an engine failure. Russ checked his beautifully refurbished engine and pristine engine room half way through the short journey and everything looked and sounded fine. When he pulled into the slip at the dockyard, there was a lot of exhaust smoke/steam coming out the back.

Holy smoke! The hose clamp from the exhaust hose wasn't tightened enough and slipped down sometime between half-way and the end of the short hop; but in that short time, the entire engine room was covered with diesel soot and saltwater. Needless to say, we had our work cut out for us. We weren't expecting to spend the entire rest of the morning scrubbing an cleaning, but that's exactly what we did. What a mess and it still needs more scrubbing. Russ was heartsick. Fortunately, there was no real damage. Russ got some better clamps and cranked them down...a lesson learned.

Once we got the engine room cleaned up, we took off the main sail, boom and vang, unscrewed saftey pins and screws in the turn buckles, and did as much of the prep as we could. Both of the masts will be removed during the haul out. Russ will be stringing new radio wire and antenna wire. We would also like to install a multi-directional night vision video cam on the top of the main mast and brackets on the mizzen mast for a wind generator. Of course I will have the scrub brush out. Seems to be my new lot in life. Two days into retirement and I've broken every nail (not that I had that much anyway), so I cut them way down and filed them close to the skin. We are going to have to invest in a lot of rubber gloves.

The boat was hauled late in the afternoon. The bottom paint still looked good, but there were a lot of critters and growth on the props and zincs that will need to be cleaned off and brushed. Russ is looking forward to cleaning and polishing the hull. While out of the water we will have the boat surveyed for insurance purposes. Hopefully if all goes well, we will be back in the water in two or three weeks and finish up with the Hydrovane, wind generator, and solar panels. The list is getting shorter, but so much to do.

Our list of vicarious sailors is growing! Hey jbarker0 are you out there? You left a comment for us on the last blog, but we had no way of contacting you since you had not established a profile. For a response, check out our return comment on the same blog. We love to hear from folks and are happy to answer your questions, but will have to do so on the comment section if you don't provide us with an email address or establish a profile. One month and 30 days from our sail away. We'll keep you posted. Wishing you a fresh breeze.