November 17, 2011

The front came through Pillar Point in the wee hours on Friday, and I spent the day anchored comfortably enjoying my cozy new propane heater/fireplace.  The winds outside at the Half Moon Bay buoy were 14-29 knots; I was glad I was in a snug harbor!  By Saturday morning things had cleared up and I weighed anchor and headed for Santa Cruz.  Little wind and left-over swell made the trip less than smooth, but nothing truly unpleasant.  By 4:30 that afternoon I was dropping the hook next to the pier opposite the famous Santa Cruz amusement park.  While it was pretty, the lack of wind and the leftover swell made for an unpleasantly rolly anchorage.  While I could have put out my flopper-stopper, it just didn’t seem worth the effort for a short overnight stop.  I left Santa Cruz a little after eight the next morning.  I had decided to head to Monterey where I could wait out what looked like as much as a week of unfavorable weather.  High pressure could potentially create gale force winds and large swells for the next few days, and when that subsided, the next storm was expected.  With the next segment a long passage along the treacherous Big Sur coast (which offers no shelter from heavy weather), discretion is the better part of valor.  Moreover, there’d be lots to do in Monterey while I waited.  Well, out of the frying pan, into the fire.  Six to eight foot swells were coming through Monterey Bay precisely parallel to the rhumb line from Santa Cruz to Monterey, and there was too little wind for the sails to do any good.  After enduring some pretty nasty rolling for the first couple of hours, I altered course about 10 degrees which helped significantly.  Once in the lee of Cypress Point, things calmed down nicely.  I called the harbormaster and was assigned a transient slip.  (So now I’m not only an unemployed, homeless orphan, I’m a transient as well!)  Do to the crosswind, I missed getting into the slip on my first try.  Not a big deal in itself, except I found myself being blown crosswise down the channel toward a very nasty-looking pier and unable to turn the boat around into the wind in the narrow channel.  On the verge of panic, I made a last-ditch effort to back the boat out of danger.  It worked.  I made it into the slip on the second try, although I did get blown a bit into the corner of the leeward finger.  Fortunately, it was well padded and there was no damage at all.  Later I watched the big commercial boats get into their neighboring slips under similar conditions.  The trick is to turn in like you are going to clip the windward finger; the wind blows the boat down enough to clear and you make it in beautifully.  At least you do if you’ve done it a thousand times in the same slip.  Once tied up, I checked in at the Harbormaster’s office.  Very helpful and friendly.  Only $30/night, too.

I spent the next few days exploring Monterey on foot, getting some needed provisions and gear, and doing a few little boat projects.  Getting further south is going to be tight at best, but it might be possible to get around the point to Carmel on Sunday afternoon.  From there I’d need to make a marathon 85-mile passage to San Simeon and then the next day hustle down to Morro Bay to wait out the next storm expected to arrive midweek.  (San Simeon Cove is open to the south, which is where storm winds come from, so it’s a suicidal lee shore in a storm.)  In the meantime, Carol is going to drive up from LA to spend a few days with me, which will really be a treat.  I expect her to arrive some time this evening.

That's about it for this week.  I think there is wifi available near the Harbormaster’s office; if not I spied a Starbucks in town, so getting this posted should be less of a challenge than it was in Pillar Point.

Well, there was indeed wifi at the Harbormaster's office, so I did this post while doing laundry at the coin machines just below the office.