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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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...
Wow your blog is very nice! Thank you so much for your informative blog. Your Mooring in Catalina blog is very helpful for me. I got some good information about mooring in Catalina. I also looking for a best place to know how to pickup a mooring in Catalina.
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