Monterey 2015

After concluding that the boat would just not be ready in time for the Haha this year (again!), to console ourselves, we decided that we had to get the boat out on the ocean for a while before the winter storms started.  We didn’t have much time left before the storm risk ramped up—about two weeks.  We decided that we wanted to use those two weeks to go coastal cruising at a leisurely pace… given these constraints, the obvious destination was Monterey Bay.  Monterey Bay with its very clear water and abundant sea life (both due to the upwelling created by the mile-deep Monterey Canyon) has always been one of our favorite sailing destinations on the California coast.

So, we made a short list of things that we would really like to get done to make a coastal cruise more comfortable and safe.  We got the liferaft repacked, reconfigured the emergency tiller so that it would actually be useable, got an EPIRB, repaired the dinghy, and got the shower in the aft head working, got the diesel boiler for the water and cabin heat sorted out, and some other misc creature comfort things.  After spending a day moving tools and boat parts off and loading provisions and gear aboard, finally we— Deb, Jim Bonlie, and I were ready to go.  The gallery below captures some of highlights (hover over the images for details).  A brief narrative of the trip follows the gallery.

We left the dock at RYC friday October 9, bound for Monterey Bay.  Arrived in Santa Cruz Saturday 10/10.  Was a pretty quick trip from Half Moon Bay.  Breezed up to 20+ knots around Wadell Creek (south of Anu Nuevo), carried that breeze most of the way to Santa Cruz.

Under winged-out genoa and full main cruising past Waddell Creek, We hit 11 knots several times surfing down the bigger swells (we were only seeing ~6’ NW swells, and they were pretty confused due to a superposition of a smaller southerly swell, so I was happy to see that we could surf on those smallish confused swells).  As we began having more frequent 10+ knot bursts,  I was concerned that the wind might continue to build, so we tucked in a reef.   After reefing, we furled the jib up with the intent of gybing and redeploying the pole and unfurling the jib on the other gybe (we are still working out a short-handed, clean pole gybing technique that avoids the pole slamming against the headstay… furling the jib up was the solution for now ).  During the gybe we got our new Wichard boom brake fouled so badly that the main would not gybe but was locked down to weather.  After we got that sorted, I noticed that we were cruising along at 8-9 knots under main alone… so we got lazy and decided to go bare-headed until the breeze mellowed a bit.  [We do like the boom brake, it just takes some time to get used to setting the tension up correctly to avoid problems.  The issue here was that we had put so much slack in the line that it was able to tie its own hitch on the friction mechanism, pinning the boom. We had this on loan from Scott Easom, and we wound up buying it…good piece of safety gear, especially for short-handing downwind when the breeze is up]

We could have easily kept going with the jib poled out, there were no control issues, in fact, the boat was better balanced with the jib poled out… just lazy and not yet completely confident with the boat and some of the newer rigging.

We had called ahead to the Santa Cruz Harbor Master to inquire on the state of the harbor channel, as mentioned previously there was some southerly swell and this harbor approach can get kinda scary with southerly swell running.  They said entrance was fine, not breaking.  Well, it wasn’t breaking in the middle when we got there, but it was breaking pretty good occasionally on both sides.  We studied it as we approached and decided it was OK so we ducked into the very intimate little harbor of Santa Cruz – love this place.

Laid back in Santa Cruz for a day, Jim’s wife Gail and son Alex came to visit.  Dinghied around the harbor and  did a lot of people watching… lots of coming and going in this little harbor, SUP boards, dinghies, keelboats, fishing boats… sea otters and seals.  A great place to spend a day or two.

After Santa Cruz, sailed across to Monterey, very mellow sail… lots of napping going on in the cockpit… the ocean can be a very peaceful place 🙂 But, Mark disturbed their slumbers by suggesting that we set the asym and see if our temporary outside gybe wand was going to be long enough to catch the lazy sheet so we don’t run it down.  Did get the asym set and did a few gybes, but because we didn’t really have the tension on the boom brake worked out very well, the timeing of the gybes was never very good so we didn’t yet figure out whether out wand length was enough.. but, we got a start at this at least.

After goofing off and doing some yacht maintenance in Monterey for a couple of days (fixing a hot water leak), sailed up to Moss Landing to commune with the Sea Otters, we did see lots of otters, but even more belligerent Sea Lions who have been taking over the docks there….. Moss Landing, if you haven’t been there is a bit rough…not your typical California tourist destination; it is home to a substantial commercial fishing fleet and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (Several MBARI research vessels are home-ported here).  But, somewhat surprisingly, there are some good restaurants….. Phil’s Fish Market has great seafood and is not to be missed when you are in Moss Landing.  Nothing fancy, in fact, denizens of the bay area may think it’s a bit red-neck, but the food is great.

While in Moss Landing took the dinghy up the slough a ways.  Lots of wildlife, quite a few Sea Otters.  The gallery shows  a pic of one of the otters, not a real good shot, was overcast and this appears a bit out of focus, but at least you get some sense of the little guy.  They are pretty shy, this was taken with a telephoto lens and the image was enlarged.

Next day sailed tp Santa Cruz now from Moss Landing.  Was a pretty wet sail, wind piped up to 20 knots on the nose… reefed the main, rolled up the genoa and set the staysail.  The Centurion does not seem to go upwind quite as well as the Pretorien, did, but not many boats do.  It was very nice to be able to warm the boat up with the diesel heater and dry things out… also very sweet having hot water without running the engine!  Jim had to leave us in Santa Cruz to honor some previous commitments.  We spent a day people and wild-life watching again, then left for Monterey again.

Smoking trip from SC to Monterey.   We were motoring out of the harbor at 12:30 and got to Monterey before 3:30.  Sailed the entire way, harbor to harbor.  That is the fastest we’ve ever done that trip… we averaged a little over 7 knots.  Wind was ~8-10 to begin and a close reach, boat speed was ~6 knots, about 10 miles out it had built to ~18 with some higher puffs and went to a broad reach.  Boat was then churning along averaging over 8 knots, full big jib and full main, sailing very comfortably 🙂

The next morning after our arrival in Monterey we were greeted by a sea otter lounging on our dock.  I’ve never seen a sea otter hanging out on a dock before.  See plenty of Sea Lions around here dominating the docks… especially at Moss Landing.  Anyway, this little guy was on our dock this morning in Monterey.  Shot was taken from the foredeck of Chance, Deb was actually walking along the finger, not 3 feet from him when the shot was taken…. pretty unusual, other people on the dock were also commenting that they had never seen an otter on the dock.  Most of the sea otters we’e seen are pretty shy and keep their distance from humans, not sure if this guy was sick, or perhaps one that was kept at the aquarium for a while.  Anyway, a few seconds after this was taken he was back in the water.   Talked to several of the locals and apparently, of late, the sea otters have taken to occasionally resting on the docks.  I guess it has been over 5 years since we’ve sailed to Monterey, the sea otter community here seems to losing their timidity.

After spending a day in Monterey, we sailed back up to Santa Cruz, then left the next day for Half Moon Bay.  The weather prediction for the leg from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay was supposed to max wind of 10 knots.  Turned out to be more like 20 from Ano Nuevo to Pillar Point, got a little wet, but not bad.  Spent the night at Half Moon Bay, fueled up the next morning and headed back to SF bay.  Got to our berth at RYC by 5PM.   Stayed the night on the boat and packed things up and headed home the next day.

All in all, a very, very nice two weeks on the ocean…. finally!!!

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