Santa Catalina Island to Santa Cruz Island to Morro bay

We left early on Wednesday from Isthmus Harbor on Catalina as we knew we had a long trip back to Prisoners Harbor on Santa Cruz Island. Most of the trip was uneventful and easy but as the afternoon wore on the winds started to pick up.

Anacapa on the right, while conditions were nice:

As we got into Anacapa passage late in the afternoon they really started to howl, eventually gusting to over 35 knots. The seas got very rocky very fast. We only had about 4 nautical miles to go until our anchorage but we had to slow down our speed to about 3 knots. It took us over 2 hours to cover that distance and it was definitely the biggest seas we've seen on this boat. I'm happy to report the boat handled great and we learned a lot about what to do in those conditions.

I'll jump in here with some details, since this was the heaviest weather we had for the whole trip. Winds picked up to about 20 knots out of the West-NorthWest as we entered Anacapa Passage (which happens to be a notorious shipwreck area from back in the age of sail and steamers). The area is known for strong currents and wind which is exactly what we experienced on our second run through this area (it was relatively calm on our trip down to Catalina). As we rounded Point San Pedro at the far Eastern tip of Santa Cruz Island the seas got really steep and the wind coming around the North end of the island piped up to 25-30 kts. We ended up slogging through short steep head seas of 8-10 feet at 10 seconds or so (our bow rail is about 8 feet off the water). The waves got even steeper around the corner as we worked our way up to what we hoped would be a lee from the wind and waves at Prisoners Harbor. I think the worst we saw was 10 feet at 8 seconds with every few waves breaking, and wind sustained at 30 kts. Not a very fun ride, but the boat handled great for the conditions. We managed to get the stabilizers deployed as we headed into the bigger seas which helped dampen the ride quite a bit. We buried the bow to the anchor every few sets for a while, but the deck stayed surprisingly dry, as did the wheelhouse which is set well back from the bow. Also the autopilot was a champ and steered the boat better than we could. Not having to hand steer through the waves was great- all we had to worry about was modulating the throttle as we dropped off the bigger waves to avoid stuffing the bow too hard into the next one. Overall, the boat felt very solid and very safe- definitely a good test. In retrospect, there was clearly some current running against the wind to create such steep seas. We could have turned and run up the South side of the island, but there didn't seem to be much protection there, and with sunset coming I felt more comfortable anchoring somewhere I had been before in case we arrived after dark. We made it to Prisoners Harbor in one piece and anchored way in the corner of the cove behind the only other boat in the area, a Coast Guard cutter who was probably wondering what we were doing bashing through that weather after dark. Unfortunately the only video I have is early on in Anacapa Passage in about 4-6 foot seas with winds around 15kts: 

Lesson learned: Turn on the camera when things get hairy so we have more video to go with our sea story! -PB

The next morning we again left early as we wanted to get to Coho anchorage which is right inside the lee of Point Conception, which is known for high winds, quirky currents, and generally sloppy sea conditions. We were told by many people that Coho was a great spot to anchor while waiting for good conditions to get around the point (which usually occur in the early morning hours). The day went smoothly except at the very end when we were less than 5 miles away from the anchorage. We had the downriggers out and realized our speed had dropped off. Usually that means there is kelp on the paravane lines. Peter went out to investigate and to his surprise found that we had caught a derelict crab pot line on the port stabilizer and had been dragging the crab pot across the ocean floor for some unknown period of time. Yeah, that will slow you down. On a good note, we know the downriggers are strong. After dislodging the line, we cruised into our (private) anchorage and had a nice dinner while admiring the sunset and listening to the trains as they rolled by. Cojo is a really neat spot: wide open, sandy bottom, well protected from the NW swell, beautiful bluffs and beaches, and not much development-except for the Amtrak train line that follows the shore.

Got up super early the next day and were happy to see that the winds and waves were down and conditions were good for going around the point so we picked up anchor and headed out. Again, we had a very smooth cruising day.

This part of the California Coast is mostly empty of development with the exception of oil platforms and mysterious looking military stuff...

This is a huge missile launching facility run from Vandenberg Air base:

A nice easy ride for the entire crew:

More Dolphins!

Our destination for the night was Morro Bay where we planned to tie up at the local yacht club and meet up with my friend Mim who lives in San Luis Obispo. As we approached the entrance to the harbor we pulled up our paravanes a little too early and proceeded to get rocked hard by the large swell as we made our way in. We ended up zig zagging our way in and realized afterwards that the proper approach to the entrance was a bit further North. This would have avoided us being parallel to the prevailing swell. Should have paid a little closer attention to the Coast Pilot regarding the approach. Lesson learned.

Morro Bay entrance channel. Morro Rock on the left.
Cant miss those big smokestacks from the old PG&E plant:

The yacht club was full so we called the harbor patrol and met Scott who told us we could pull up at Tidelands park for the night. He met us there (along with a couple of friendly otters, and a few other locals) and immediately recognized our boat as a Diesel Duck. He's a very friendly guy and he made us feel very welcome.

Mim was also there - was so good to see her! We spiffed ourselves up a little and went out for a nice seafood dinner with a great view of Morro rock. It was a wonderful evening.

Woke up the next morning (our 15th wedding anniversary) and briefly thought about staying around for a day. Morro Bay is really cute and it would be nice to relax and explore but the weather forecast really did not really lend itself to staying for another day. We currently had a great weather window of low winds and waves to take us all the way home but that window started to close up Saturday night. If we stayed the extra day we would still be out Saturday night instead of safe in our slip back home, so we once again told ourselves we'll be back as we slipped our lines and headed out early Friday morning with Kona at the helm. Our last leg had begun.

Santa Catalina Island, Rippers Cove and Isthmus

After Whites Landing, we headed over to Rippers Cove as we heard there was good snorkeling. A short cruise up the coast got us there and anchored and in the water shortly after lunch. We had a great snorkel around the cove and saw some beautiful fish and abalone shells.

As we were cocktailing on the back deck I noticed something brown on the hillside amongst all the green shrubs. It was a buffalo. Very cool to see one from your boat. Back in the 1920's they used to film movies on the island, and the movie studios brought a whole herd of them over to film a western but never brought them back and they've been roaming around every since.

We were planning on spending the night there but right around dusk as I was making dinner, the swell picked up and we started to rock. We had the flopper stoppers out however the swell was so strong they had a hard time keeping up. We made a quick decision to pull up anchor and head over to Two Harbors as it was only 30 minutes away. We pulled in right before dark and grabbed a mooring and proceeded to have a lovely albeit late dinner.

While making breakfast the next morning the harbor patrol boat pulled up and we met Tom and then Halle who both work for the harbor. They were both admiring our boat as they also live on a steel vessel and Halle likes cats so of course she had to meet Kona. Afterwards we headed over to the USC Marine Center cove to do a little snorkeling. The researchers there were just headed out for a dive and were super friendly, offering to let us use their dock to swim from. A friend told me there were usually Leopard Sharks there and though we didn't see any, we did see an amazing array of different fish. The highlight was snorkeling under the pier - it felt like you were in a fish tank.

Later in the day Pete tried his hand at fishing off the dinghy. He did catch quite a few small sand dabs and a sheepshead but did not keep anything for dinner. The wind started picking up and we were starting to get a little wet fishing off the dinghy so we headed back. Isthmus is across a small saddle of land (about half a mile) from our first Catalina anchorage (Cat Harbor) - that's why they call the area Two Harbors. The Isthmus side has a little beach resort area with a store, bar, and restaurant. All very low key.

We decided to go "into town" to have a last cocktail at the restaurant.
Someone told me to try the Buffalo Milk and it was tasty. After, as we knew this was our last time on land for awhile we took a stroll up the hill to get a nice view of the harbor. It was lovely. We were definitely sad to leave Catalina as the weather and water were beautiful and there was still so much to do. Will definitely be back.

Santa Catalina Island, Avalon to White's Landing

Greetings from the ocean...

Our two nights in Avalon were filled with eating out, small hikes, and a little snorkeling around the casino waters. We played around in the dive area directly in front of the casino. Lots of fish, but there was a swell running and the viz was not the best.

We also had a visit from our friend Alicia who lives in L.A. She came out on Friday evening on the Catalina Express out of Long Beach and stayed overnight. Played some music and enjoyed the "scene" at Avalon.

The next day we decided that though Avalon is beautiful and fun we wanted to move on to a quieter anchorage and explore more of the island. We dropped our mooring lines and headed a few miles up the coast to Whites Landing and picked up a mooring there. Whites landing is a very pretty spot, with a nice white sand beach, and a newer pier and dinghy dock. Clear water and great swimming too.
There is a YMCA camp on the beach and we spent some quality time watching the kids get tumbled in the surf before going ashore to do some exploring. There were also a couple of yacht club cruise-in facilities on the beach. Members only, but nobody around and apparently not strictly enforced.

We got quite a big surprise when we noticed another boat named Kama Hele moored right across from us. We dinghied over to say hello but they didn't seem too interested in chatting.

Later in the afternoon we took the dinghy and motored the 4 miles back to Avalon to drop Alicia off at the ferry. We were sad to see her go but it was great to catch-up with her. She definitely seemed to enjoy her weekend of living the cruising lifestyle. While ashore we got our ice cream fix and then headed back to Whites Landing. As we were settling into a relaxing evening suddenly large cannon fire was sounded. Than a lot of the boats in the anchorage started blasting their horns. Turns out there was a party at one of the yacht clubs and things were just getting going. Luckily we weren't too close and it didn't disturb our serene evening. The next day, the kids went home on a small chartered ferry and we had the cove to ourselves.

The weather has been beautiful. Clear all day and all night with daytime temps in the upper 70s to low 80s and water temps in the low 70s. About as perfect as you can get, with no change in the forecast anytime soon.

We're now headed out to the quieter West end for our last couple of nights on Catalina before making our way back North.

Santa Cruz Island to Santa Catalina Island, Cat Harbor and Avalon

Greetings from the Channel Islands

We left the placidity of Prisoners Harbor to go explorer other anchorages on Santa Cruz. First, we had a swim off the boat. The water was very refreshing – cold at first but you get used to it. So incredible to swim around your boat for the first time. Kona followed us from the deck amazed the whole time. Then we pulled up anchor and headed to Coches Prietos a recommended anchorage for the south side of the island. We had a beautiful cruise over to the other side before pulling into the anchorage.

Coches Prietos is a beautiful spot, but is subject to surge from S and SW swells. Our first thought on arrival was "this seems a bit small for our boat". A reef on one side, a rock wall on the other and a beach with large breaking waves right behind us. But the book said it was a very popular spot for lots of boats & we assumed the surge would settle down overnight. 

We decided to use our stern anchor for the first time to keep us pointed into the swell coming over the reef at the entrance to the cove. It seemed to work and we turned off the engine and relaxed. Unfortunately soon after dinner we realized it wasn’t holding so we pulled it up in case the surge got too hairy and we had to get out in a hurry. Now we were swinging on our main anchor. Both Peter and I were pretty unsettled about how close we seem to be to all the obstacles and we spent a sleepless night taking turns on anchor watch up in the wheelhouse to make sure we didn’t drag our main anchor. Not a fun way to spend your night. At first light we picked up our anchor (which I’m happy to report kept us in place) and got the heck out of there. It felt great to be out in open water again.

 We tried to pick our next spot more carefully but ended up in a place called Potato harbor. A very beautiful spot that again had 2 walls of rocks and a beach behind but there was a lot more room and the surge was much less. We also thought it would be good to try our stern anchor again. This time it held for over 10 hours but once it got dark and the wind changed directions it let go and we started swinging. We felt ok that our main anchor would hold but it was uncomfortable to have the swell on our beam all night and another restless night was had. At 3:30 am we decided enough of this & pulled up anchor and left. As it was very dark you couldn’t see the rock walls or the narrow entrance and had to steer via the radar. A new experience for me and a bit nerve wracking as I’ve driven off shore at night but never so close to land. Luckily it only lasted a few minutes (and Peter was there to calmly talk me through it) before we were out in the open and headed to Santa Catalina.

We need to get a smaller stern anchor set up that we can deploy easily from the dinghy! -PB

Overall the 10 hour passage from Santa Cruz to Catalina was lovely. Beautiful conditions, more dolphin frolicking - time for some catch-up rest as we were both pretty tired.

A little after breakfast when I took the helm the engine room bilge alarm went off. I woke Peter (who had just laid down for a nap) and he checked the engine room. It only had a little bit of water in the bilge, nothing much but he decided to pump it out. He went into our hallway and opened up the hatch to get the hand pump and discovered our hallway hatches had over 150 gallons of seawater being pumped into them courtesy of our new water maker. Those bilges are the only ones that don’t have alarms in them and it was some of that water leaking into the engine room that set off the e/r alarm. What a mess it was pulling all the soggy supplies we had in those hatches out (goodbye extra toilet paper & paper towels) and then had to clean out the hatches to makes sure we got all the saltwater out. Most of the floors in the galley and stairs & wheelhouse got fouled while we did this. A big clean-up effort ensued:

 On a good note, Peter was able to fix the issue which turned out to be….

I'll jump in here with a quick explanation of our water maker issue.

Basically turned out to be a missing hose clamp which I attribute to operator error - something I should have caught when commissioning the system. There is a lot of plumbing for the water maker and a lot of pressure in some of the lines. I'm kind of surprised the hose didn't blow out as soon as we started up the watermaker. We probably made water for at least six hours before this issue came up. The line that blew was the feed line from the primary pumps (which pull in seawater and pressurize it) to the Clark pump, which boosts the pressure to about 100 PSI to push the seawater through the membrane that removes the salt. The leak was on the lower pressure side of the clark pump, but still enough pressure to fill the bilge under the passageway pretty quick. This bilge was storage for filters, engine and hydraulic oil, and TP/paper towels. All the oil products were well sealed and just needed a quick rinse off of the containers. The filters (drinking water, fuel, and oil filters) had varying degrees of moisture inside the wrappers so we unwrapped and rinsed everything well with fresh water, then dried them out for a few days. The tp and paper towels at the bottom of the bilge were toast. Fortunately we had overstocked on these so there were plenty to get us through the rest of the trip. A few hours work, and we had the bilge pumped, rinsed, and salt free.

Some lessons learned (besides check your critical plumbing installations at least three times): 

Keep everything stored in the bilges in plastic bins- no cardboard boxes. We had done this and it made clean-up much easier. Have some options to assist in dewatering quick. These guys made this whole situation much easier to deal with:

There is a 1" threaded fitting welded into the bottom of the division between the passageway bilge and the engine room bilge. I had this closed off with a pipe plug, so I replaced the plug with a valve (that will be left normally open). With fitting open, it allows any water leaking from the clark pump and membrane housing on the watermaker to drain directly to the engine room bilge where it will immediately set off the bilge alarm and can be pumped out with the ER pump.

Gotta say, we love the watermaker. Makes all the sweet fresh water we need and we have not been wanting for fresh water showers on the swim step. Doesn't make the best coffee (apparently not enough minerals left in the water to pull all the flavor out of the beans) but otherwise a big thumbs up. Back to the story...

We arrived at Cat Harbor late in the afternoon and immediately fell in love. Very protected, room to swing, no stern anchor needed and very pretty. We took a walk to a bench that overlooked the harbor and our boat. What a beautiful sight. Went home, had dinner and fell deep asleep for 10 hours.

The next day was spent cleaning and doing some exploring of Two Harbors. We walked over to the other harbor which was quite close and discovered the little town of Isthmus. We treated ourselves to lunch out and an ice cream at the local store. Then headed back to our harbor and boat and relaxed and swam the afternoon away. It was delightful.

In this contented state, we awoke the next morning to head to Avalon. We headed out of the harbor and immediately got pounded by large swells on our beam. It's amazing how well Cat Harbor is protected from wind and swell. Had to turn into the seas for a bit (not the way we wanted to go) and deploy the downriggers before we could continue in the right direction. Love those downriggers – was able to make breakfast underway and make decent time around the south-east end of the island.

We arrived at Avalon around noon. As we had never used a dual mooring arrangement (fore and aft lines for each mooring) we were a bit apprehensive doing it in such a busy anchorage but overall it was fairly easy. The harbor patrol here is very organized – they come over to you and get all your info, charge you and then assign you to your mooring. They gave us one smack dab in the middle of it all. We headed over, very slowly, and except for a slight misunderstanding as to which side to pick it up from, all went well. My favorite line of the day came from the patrol guy who told Peter to use his stern thruster as we swung a little bit out while maneuvering – we don’t have one. As we are 55’ we are in with the big swanky yachts and I guess it’s just assumed.

Once parked (it feels more like we’re parked than anchored) we met our neighbors Sheridan and Jim who wanted to know more about our boat. One thing for sure, we do not look like any other boat here & do get noticed.

After lunch we headed into town and took a walk up Avalon Canyon Rd to the Nature Center and Botanical Gardens and Wrigley Memorial. It was uphill and hot but the cool breeze at the end was well worth it.

Headed back into town and picked up some supplies to make margaritas and then proceeded to get very happy indeed on our back deck as we watched the endless stream of dinghy’s, boats, and other "watercraft" go by (8' pink flamingos?!). This place sure has good people & boat watching.

We're in there somewhere...

Planning two nights here in Avalon, with our friend Alicia coming out on the ferry on Friday to spend a night with us. Until next time...