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