We had a perfect 24 hour run down to San Diego. Flew the spinnaker for about 8 hours into the night, then under a bright starry sky continued on with main and jib through the night. This was our first passage since the gale, and as the day ended and we prepared to sail through the night I felt some trepidation. I watched carefully for signs that the weather was deteriorating, waited to see if the breeze was strengthening but no gale was imminent. We sailed on through the night and as the 3 hour watches ticked by I became increasingly comfortable with being on passage. I was able to sleep below, rather than lying there anxiously listening to every noise (of which there are many on a moving boat). By 6am (Jacob's watch) I watched Orion's Belt setting in the NW and knew this night passage was coming to a close.

After a week at Cat Harbor moored in a town of 200 people coming into the San Diego channel was breathtaking, there were boats everywhere-big power boats zooming by, sail boats tacking across the channel, kayakers, anchored boats fishing, military boats and we even saw the tall ship Californian crossing paths with an America's Cup boat.

We are currently at the municipal docks in San Diego. We will be at the dock for about a week to do some boat work that we didn't get finished before we left San Francisco, get more food and top up on water, diesel and propane before making the next leg into Mexico.

Here's our view when I poked my head outside this morning.

32'42 N 117'14 W

Here we go!

9AM in the morning, and the wind was already blowing in the high 20's, and we were down to our staysail crashing away to windward. We'd both been up all night, stuck in a tight anchorage that quickly became a lee shore, leaving us hanging from our stern anchor with the bow only 4 boat lengths from some nasty looking rocks. We left the anchorage in a hurry before dawn, and the boat is not put away for this 65 mile passage between Santa Cruz Island and Catalina. Below decks clothes and cushions are everywhere, topsides we haven't run our jacklines, put the trysail on deck, or the other checklist of things we normally do. On top of that, we have our stern anchor and 250 feet of nylon rode sitting on the cockpit sole, and the Monitor self-steering is out of commission due to a nasty interaction with our stern anchor line during the night.

Despite our state of relative disarray we were happy to find the wind as we went through Anacapa Passage, it was great to be sailing in the sort of wind Pisces loves, and given the weather forecast for a primarily light wind day with local isolated heavy weather, we both jumped at the opportunity to get some good sailing in before we passed out the other side into more light air.

An hour later and the wind and seas had continued to build steadily. Average wind speed was now solidly in the 30's with gusts higher, and the seas were becoming steeper. At this point we knew it was time to take care of some of the boat 'chores' that we had put off. Turn downwind, lash the anchors at the bow, run a jackline, get the trysail onto it's track on the mast, and drop the staysail.

Now it's decision time. We can run before this building gale towards the S, taking us far offshore. We can gibe over onto starboard, run before the storm and attempt to find refuge behind Santa Cruz Island to the W. We can head back upwind and try to continue making way towards our destination, or we can heave to and wait it out. At the core of our decision was the belief that this must be an extremely localized weather phenomenon, which led to a disbelief that this could really last very long. Running off to the S would take us far out of our way, and possibly prolong our exposure as we rode along with the moving system. Running towards Santa Cruz Island was a decent option, but we both had some trepidation about approaching an unknown coastline during these conditions. After several hours of trying to make way upwind, we didn't think we could continue to hand steer for much longer. Heaving to seemed our best option: the boat would take care of itself without the need for one of us on deck, we would stay closest to our destination, and presumably the weather we were experiencing would pass over us quickly as we lay stationary. 10:38 AM, up went the 70 square foot storm orange trysail, lash down the helm, and get busy waiting.

NOAA weather radio reporting wind speed at Anacapa Island Buoy (approximately 15 miles to windward) of 40 knots continuous, gusting to mid 50's. Leecloth set below, Julia seasick. Motion below is okay, following a pattern: quiet and surprisingly comfortable for a minute, then a larger set of waves rolls through, boat lifts up up up, down quickly into the trough, the bow falls off to leeward leaving us more beam on to the following wave, which grabs us and corkscrews us more violently. I spend about 45 minutes on deck trying to adjust the trim of the trysail and the tiller to get us to head up more, no luck. It is extremely cold, 48 degrees before wind chill, spray everywhere, everything is soaking wet already. Finally I go below and convince myself to lie down in the quarterberth and get some rest, a minute later we lay down slightly more than normal, and gallons of water pour down the closed companionway, drenching our charts and hitting me squarely in the face. So much for rest.

At 2PM NOAA is reporting winds at Anacapa of 45 knots continuous, gusting to 57 knots. Conditions where we are have changed as well, the waves are much larger and steeper now, with the top 3-4 feet of some of the larger ones breaking and curling like you see on a beach. It's raining now, and when I go up into the cockpit to try and scan the horizon for other boats the rain is hitting the winches so hard it's making a 'pinging' sound like hail. Looking around is bleak, the horizon in every direction is just angry sea. To windward you are stung with rain and spray and see nothing but steep waves, to leeward you see the foaming backs of the rollers, and the wind just ripping across the surface of the water, flattening down the backs of the swells and blowing foam off the top.

4PM, we can't wait passively anymore. Maddeningly, only 20 miles to the N and 20 miles to the E winds are light, and here we are stuck firmly in a Force 9 gale that is giving no signs of abating. There's one hour of daylight left, and neither of us are happy about the idea of continuing this fight into the dark. We try motor-sailing to windward, and while we can make about 3 knots to the E-NE it's absolutely brutal work. Wearing wool socks, seaboots, foulie pants, pants, long undershirt, wool sweater, hoodie, foulie jacket, scarf, wool beanie, and it is still freezing cold. Harness clipped in, one hand on the tiller, the other wrapped around the windward winch for stability. You get good at anticipating when a wave will hit the boat and ducking your head so that the brunt of the spray hits the foulie hood rather than your face. Helming requires constant attention, there's no way to sustain this for long, especially not with daylight ending. We try running before the waves again. Over 6 knots with the trysail alone, helming is even harder. A slight misalignment to a wave and we get laid down 40 degrees on our beam. That's the end of that, and at 5:30 PM we heave to again.

6:00PM, since heaving to we have not been able to get the boat to lie comfortably, and the occasional wave breaks hard against the hull, on the deck, or in the cockpit. At one point we take a good deal of water in through a dorade. At this point Julia comes up with the suggestion that we run the engine in slow forward to help drive the bow up to the wind. This helps greatly, bringing us to about 60 degrees off the wind, not perfect, but far better. For the next hour I sleep below while Julia takes a watch.

7:00PM, the boat tacks itself through the eye of the wind for the second time. Even through our exhaustion we realize this must mean conditions are abating. Back up on deck to find wind down in the mid 30's. We can make way against this, and we jump at the window to get further east away from the storm. Over the rest of the night conditions continue to moderate as we motorsail towards Catalina Island.

9:00AM, After a long night running on adrenaline and coffee we are safely moored at Cat Harbor on Catalina Island. It's been about 48 hours since we got any real rest, but it's sunny out and we have this mooring for up to a week. Put the boat away, lunch, and then 18 hours of sleep. It's been exactly two weeks since we started cruising.


Postscript:
While we would never go out seeking weather like we got, now that it is in the past we both see it as an invaluable experience. Pisces proved herself beautifully, as did the gear and decisions we had made prior to leaving. Let me tell you, a piece of safety gear that costs $500 seems like the biggest bargain in the world when you are in the kind of weather we saw. Having trust in your boat and equipment is crucial, and we give heartfelt thanks to Gary for building such a strong boat, Joe at Leading Edge Sails for building us our Trysail, Jason at Argo Yacht Rigging for doing our rigging, and Ethan at Engine Rite for our beautiful little Beta.

One of the most interesting things we learned from this experience was the necessity not only of storm tactics (running, heaving-to, etc.) but also the necessity of storm strategy. We did the right things, but in retrospect we never took the time to develop an overall strategy of how we would deal with this unexpected storm. For example, we hove to early on, hoping to wait out the storm even though early in the storm might have been the best time to try more active tactics, it was daylight, we weren't exhausted, the wind and waves were relatively small. Later in the day when the frustration had built and we wanted to switch to active tactics all these factors were stacked against us. It is crucial to take the time early in the storm to create an overall plan factoring in how to minimize the impact and duration of the storm, what order to attempt different storm tactics, and how to ensure the crew is fed and rested.

Like any good sea story, there's much more to it than we could fit above, and as time goes by it's possible the wave height will grow a bit, the wind will become just a wee bit stronger. If you're interested, we're glad to share more of our experience and what we learned, but, as also befits a good sea story, drinks will have to be on you.

33 26' N 118 30.2' W

A couple of nights ago we were anchored at Santa Cruz Island with our friend Greg on Nightcap. He had sailed out to meet up with us from Vintage Marina at Channel Islands Harbor. The plan was to spend a couple of days at anchor, dinghy ashore, explore the island (which is primarily National Park), do some hiking and generally enjoy the island.

We'd been listening to the NOAA weather radio forecasts about the nasty storm that was supposed to sweep the west coast bringing gale conditions and big seas but when we finished dinner and went to sleep that night, the gale warnings were forecast for the outer waters, not the inner waters where we were. By the time we had coffee the next morning the gale warning had expanded to include our anchorage and so we decided to head back to Channel Islands Harbor along with Greg for a few days until the storm blew through.

So we are currently at the harbor where we first saw Pisces, had her surveyed, hauled and prepared her for the trip back up to San Francisco. Our initial thinking was to stay at the anchorage and tough out our first storm at anchor. It has to happen sooner or later right? Greg made the point that if there is a storm approaching and a harbor available, then the prudent action is to take advantage of the harbor. Being on shore and leaning into the wind made me really glad we were in the shelter of a marina rather than on constant watches at anchor, ready to slip the anchor if we started dragging. We are less than two weeks into our cruise, and are grateful to have the flexibility to head into a harbor at this point when storms come through. After spending the afternoon yesterday on the bus to Borders bookstore, we are ready to get back out to enjoy the isolated beauty of the Channel Islands.

There is another storm forecast for Monday, so we will be here until that blows through and then head back out, probably to Santa Cruz for a few days. Until then we are enjoying being here, last night was the lighted boat parade in the harbor, and afterward we went back to Nightcap, drank scotch and Greg gave us a primer on celestial navigation and showed us his sextant collection.
Today I will dinghy over to the farmer's market, do some laundry and we will get some diesel before heading out again.

We have some photograph galleries that we are updating as we go along. The current one is our California Coast gallery.

Thanks also to Jeff from Fancy for the great pics of us (looking really nervous!) heading out under the Golden Gate.


34 10.5' N 119 13.4' W

It's been a week since our departure from San Francisco and we are definitely working hard to acclimatize ourselves to passage making and cruising. It's been a long week (or a short week if you ask Julia) with a ton of 'firsts': first night on passage, first windy night at anchor, meeting our first cruising character (John in Morro Bay on his Waterworld-ish trimaran), first time walking miles to the grocery store, first time using our spinnaker offshore, first on-deck shower, and on and on.

A lot of the cruising experience has been similar to what we expected, but there are a few things that have surprised us, so in honor of one week of cruising, we present 'A Retrospective - Week 1'

Light Winds + Swell = Unhappy
On the San Francisco Bay light winds means either motor, or just enjoy a slow but steady sail to your destination. On the ocean, light winds can still be accompanied by swell. This combo makes for a very unhappy boat (and hence an unhappy crew). As you are picked up by a swell the apparent wind rushes forward, causing the sails to backwind. As you are dropped down into the trough the wind returns to it's original position, causing the sails to crash back to where they started.

The sound of the boom doing this over and over can drive you insane, but if you drop the main, you may find yourself rolling from rail to rail. Before leaving on the trip we knew we would need a preventer setup for heavy weather sailing, but this week has taught us the preventer is possibly even more important in light winds to minimize the slatting of the sails.

What matters is When, not Where
We thought the hard part of navigation would be the getting to your destination without running into anything or getting lost. So far, what has actually been hard is getting where you want to go, when you want to be there. It's never a great idea to enter an unfamiliar harbor or anchorage at night, so, in these short winter days you have a narrow window of time at which to arrive. Couple that with a large spread of possible boat speeds, and you end up with a tricky situation.

As an example of the sort of planning we have been consumed with, the trek from Morro Bay around Pt. Conception is about an 80 mile trip. If you maintain an average speed of 6 knots VMG (velocity made good) if it's a good strong wind or you are motoring, it's a 13 hour trip. If you maintain an average of 3 knots VMG if the wind is light or from an unfavorable direction, it's a 26 hour trip. Ideally you would round Pt. Conception during daylight, but not in the late afternoon when the wind picks up. So what time do you leave Morro Bay? Further, this 80 miles doesn't even include the additional distance to a suitable anchorage (which of course you don't want to arrive at in the dark)!

Steering
Hand steering is brutal. It's cold, tiring, and boring. The Monitor windvane is worth it's weight in stainless steel (which seems to cost roughly the same as gold).

Weather Forecasts are Wrong (but nice to have)
Not having instant access to multiple sources of weather information over the internet can be a bit anxiety producing. We are learning strategies to cope, including finding alternate sources for weather information, such as NOAA weather radio and calls to local harbor masters. Although 'knowing' the upcoming weather is a relief, so far the forecasts seem to be batting 0. We had an evening of light winds out of the South West, when the forecast was for strong winds out of the North East to drive home the point that weather forecasting involves a good deal of art rather than science.

Wildlife
The California coast is absolutely vibrant with life. Being so close to nature has been a true highlight, and already we feel privileged to have been allowed to play silent observers to the coastal marine life.

Between Half Moon Bay and Monterey we started noticing some strange shapes in the water. Quickly we realized that we were sailing among a school of thousands upon thousands of Jellyfish. There were groups of hundreds of babies the size of your fist right near the surface, and below them in the deeper water, the somber form of the adults with tentacles up to 15 feet long.

Off the Big Sur Coast we saw a feeding frenzy of seals, breaching out of the water and breaking into what looked like teams that would sweep across from one side to the other in a line, no doubt herding their prey. Minutes later a line on the horizon turned out to be hundreds of dolphins rushing towards where we had left the seals. They were leaping out of the water, often 5 and 6 feet clear of the swell. Groups of them swam right under the boat. Standing on the bowsprit we had an amazing view of them passing below us, and it even seemed that you could hear their calls.

Leaving Morro Bay we were the lone boat among hundreds of sea otters, lying on their backs cracking mussels. We have had night watches accompanied by dolphins, and anchored in a cove surrounded by dive bombing pelicans.

And that's it, we are currently crossing the Santa Barbara Channel headed to Prisoner's Harbor on Santa Cruz Island to meet our friend Greg on Night Cap. After that we will probably head to Catalina Island where we plan to wait out a storm which is dropping down from the Pacific Northwest (or so the forecast says).

Lat 34 Degrees 14' N, Long 119 Degrees 50' W

Our first overnight passage of this trip is in the books. We left Half Moon Bay Saturday mid-morning, and made the ~30 hour trek down to Morro Bay (and in response to Sanjay's question: Yes! It gets very very cold at night). During my night watches I kept thinking what I would say if someone suggested I sit on a grey Northern California beach all night staring at the water to make sure nothing appeared, and then I would ask myself why I was gladly doing the equivalent 12 miles out at sea. Further motivation to keep moving South, eventually it has to warm up right?

Yesterday afternoon we arrived at Morro Bay, and are currently tied up at the Morro Bay Yacht Club, which is clearly very experienced at dealing with cruisers: 'Showers are there, here's a map to the supermarket, wireless code there, laundry is over there, garbage is there, you can use the water on the docks, etc."

Today we are off to a slow start, but have lots planned, not the least of which is to do our 50 hour service on the engine (did I mention there was no wind on our trip down? We currently have to hand steer whenever we are running the engine, which quickly gets brutal, but on the flipside is a good motivator not to burn fuel).

The picture is of Pisces with the 'famous' Morro Bay rock in the background. We will be here for a day or so taking care of chores, and watching the weather for a good rounding of Pt. Conception.

After going back and forth on a variety of last minute projects, and some spares we wanted to buy, we decided that enough was enough, it was time for us to leave. In fact, it really was our mental state that dictated when it was time to leave, as opposed to the boat, we were done even if the boat wasn't quite.

Leaving was very strange. We turned in the key to the marina, packed up the shore power cord, hose, dock lines and we were off. It seemed like we were going out for a daysail, as opposed to an open-ended cruise. Chips and Jeff from Fancy joined us near the Golden Gate and escorted us out underneath the Golden Gate. It was much appreciated, as it made us focus on something other than the fact that we were leaving!

We had a great sail from San Francisco, light winds, tweaking the windvane and finally getting it dialed in, steering Pisces better than either of us would have. We spent a good bit of time in silence, and a bit of time saying things like 'can you believe we are doing this?' or 'wow, that swell is really big.' Added a few things to the to-do list, and overall were very happy with how Pisces handled out in the ocean.

We are now anchored in Half Moon Bay, which is the perfect spot to start a trip, a big open protected anchorage, only one day from home. For anyone out there planning a cruise, we can't recommend enough the wisdom of 'leaving' your homeport and only heading to somewhere few hours away. If you are at all like us you will need another day or two to stow the results of your night before Costco trip (2 carts!), finish a project or two, and just get your head straight after the weeks of frantic preparation. We arrived here at 4, had the anchor down by 4:30, dinner, and then asleep by 8 for a solid twelve hours working on the deficit our preparation had created.

Today we stowed the aforementioned Costco goods, used some free wireless internet (courtesy of the Oceano hotel), and relaxed in the sun with our friend Sikander, who brought his crab nets and helped us catch a bucket of crabs that later become a great crab taco dinner.

Tomorrow it's off again, this time for an overnight trip down the Big Sur coast, with a stop at either San Simeon or Morro Bay depending on the time of our arrival.

This blog post comes from from outerspace! Courtesy of the Iridium satellite phone system and UUPlus email system.

This is how we will stay in touch while we are gone (which is any day now).

Very cool.