Exploring California – Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina

November 3, 2022sailingsolsticetide Leave a comment

Sunset on transit from San Francisco to Santa Cruz

That is a lot of Santas! We continued our exploration of the California Coast, stopping first at Santa Cruz. We had intended a short stop over at Half Moon Bay after leaving San Francisco, but the sailing was great and we decided to push onto Santa Cruz instead. We arrived mid-day on October 18 and anchored in front of the amusement park and just off of the pier. Rolling a bit in the constant pounding surf, we were constantly serenaded by the hundreds of Sea Lions that live under the wharf – they are a raucous bunch!! We dinghied over to the landing at the pier (a beach landing is not even a possibility in that surf!), and wandered around – this is definitely a beach town and other than the pier and amusement park (which was closed), didn’t seem to have a lot of activity. We could see how spending a few days here in the summer, hanging out at the beach and trying out the multitude of restaurants could be appealing. If you are a surfer, it is likely a great destination – those waves which are so intimidating for us with our dinghy are likely great fun on a surf board!

October 19 we were under way again – after a very long wait for fuel (the power boat putting 400 gallons of fuel in ahead of us took a while – sure glad we weren’t paying his bill!) we headed out across Monterey Bay and had a beautiful slow sail all afternoon. We moved very slowly all through that night and the next day (having flashbacks to our departure from Eureka!) We knew that we had weather marching down on us but it sure wasn’t reaching us!! Our original plan on leaving Santa Cruz was to go directly to Catalina Island. However, after so many days of slow sailing, we were quickly realizing that we were not going to make it ahead of the weather – instead, we determined to head to Santa Barbara. I don’t know why, but I had not wanted to go to Santa Barbara at all – some review I had read had put me off and I was quite upset that we were going to have to detour there. The wind filled and died all through the night on the 21st – this was our first experience with offshore oil platforms and trying to maintain a course clear of them and the traffic lane, while trying to make sense of the crazy lights on shore (it was a highway – the crazy lights were vehicles – took waaay too long to get that straight!) made for a long night. The next morning, as we ghosted along to Santa Barbara, both of us exhausted from too little sleep, Owen glanced around and was horrified to realize that the water was full of oil – we were about to call in and report a spill when Owen did a bit of googling and discovered that Santa Barbara has always had an issue with oil bubbling up from underground reservoirs – a problem that seems worse now as decommissioned offshore sites were not capped properly and the natural fissures are leaking more oil because there are fewer rigs drawing it up. Whatever the reasoning it was sad to see (and smell) and certainly did not make us want to go swimming!

As it turned out, we LOVED Santa Barbara – it is a pretty, warm city with palm trees and Spanish style architecture. We found the BEST mercado where I was actually able to buy my lime fritos (I have been anxiously awaiting our arrival in Mexico so that I could get my hands on them!). We spent our first night there wandering on Stearn’s Wharf and then off to a great local restaurant for dinner. We weren’t entirely clear on the why, but there was a group of people dressed up as zombies performing the Thriller dance all over town – we had caught the show on the pier and then had the fun of them dancing all around us in the restaurant!! Day 2 saw us again putting the miles on our feet as we sought out the Precidio – a Spanish Military base built in the 1700’s as well as enjoying State Street – which is shut off to traffic and packed with restaurants, shops and bars. We were sad to leave Santa Barbara but excited to head out for Catalina Island finally!

Owen was coveting this little boat! A business idea for when we get home??!!

We timed our departure from Santa Barbara mid-afternoon so that we would arrive at Catalina Island in daylight – we opted to head first to Catalina Harbour as we were confident we could anchor there. It is so sparse – like the surface of the moon. We walked over the isthmus to check out Two Harbours and can’t claim to be at all impressed. It is small “village” that seems to have been built in the 70’s or so and not maintained since then. Apparently this end of the Island is more geared to camping, hiking and water sports so other than a restaurant/ bar, small store and shower/laundry, there is not much here. If you are so inclined you can spend $175 to have a palapa or $25 for a chair on the sandy beach – otherwise there is a small strip of rocky beach to access. The store is insanely overpriced and the washrooms are dated. We hung out at Cat Harbour for a couple more days, getting some boat projects done and generally just enjoying some down time.

The barren coast of Santa Catalina Island

We finally headed off to Avalon with mixed emotions – we had heard so many good things about it but I was worried it was just a money-grab – nearly every inch of every harbour in the vicinity of Avalon is choked with mooring balls (at $50 a night) – the only anchorage area is very exposed and apparently in 150 feet of water!!! Additionally, the mooring balls are packed in super close and are a bow/stern set up – something we have never seen before. Owen made sure to watch the “how to” video and we headed in. Our first pleasant surprise came when they let us know that their “winter rates” were in effect and once we paid for the mandatory 2 nights on the mooring ball, we were entitled to stay an additional 5 nights free. The harbour patrol boat gave us our mooring assignment and sent us on our way into the packed harbour. Thankfully, he must have sensed we really had no idea what we were doing and followed us in – the current of course managed to take our stern around while Owen was trying to wrestle up the bow line and get the “sand line” in hand – the harbour boat was there to give us a little nudge and get us back inline with the stern line – finally, with a lot of sand and muck on the boat, and Owen, we were able to get ourselves secured fore and aft and take a look around. It would seem that Avalon is where all the water on the island is funneled – there were lush plants and palm trees climbing up the hill. The actual town is just one square mile with some houses built up the hills surrounding the town. It was pretty and warm and just about the picture perfect town we had envisioned! I was sitting in the cockpit just enjoying the show of boats coming and going when the chimes rung to signify 5pm – followed by nearly every other vessel in the harbour blowing their horns – apparently this is to signify the 5pm happy hour and who am I to disregard such an edict?!

After a couple of hours of entertaining ourselves with the harbour comings and goings, we headed into the pier – the boardwalk was crawling with people – I had expected it might be a bit more quiet so late in October but obviously the weekend traffic is still high as is the energy! We had dinner at Luau Larry’s – complete with tiki hut tables – in a front row booth giving us a perfect spot to people watch and boat watch.

Sunday we went back in and walked pretty much every inch of the town – from the Ferry Pier right around to the Casino. The Casino – ahhh – that had been one of my sticking points about going to Avalon – I didn’t want to go somewhere that was geared to rich guys bringing their big boats over to gamble for the weekend. Turns out casino means “meeting place” in Italian and it is not in fact a “casino” but instead a building with an old Art Deco theatre on the main floor and a circular ballroom on the third. Sadly it was not open for us to take a look around in but just a peek of the murals outside and the crazy beautiful box-office was a good glimpse.

Monday we got a mandatory laundry day in, shipped our non-functioning wind sensor back to B & G, and then spent most of the day at the boat. We were planning to spend another few days here – with Dias de Las Muertes events occurring on Tuesday (including a free tequila tasting!) we had wanted to stick around. Our original plan had been to leave sometime on Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, we were chatting with some other boats and they mentioned a fairly big change in the weather was incoming – with winds expected to start to build on Wednesday night and those winds to be hitting the 30’s on Thursday morning, we realized that we either needed to get out of there on Tuesday, or we would be stuck until at least Friday – while we thoroughly enjoyed Avalon, we didn’t think there was enough to hold our interest for another week (especially as we noted it was much, much quieter during the week). All things considered, we made the decision to leave late morning on Tuesday and head to San Diego — this will be our last stop in the States and then it is onto Mexico!!!

Exploring California – San Francisco

October 28, 2022sailingsolsticetide 2 Comments

We left Eureka, California at about 4pm on September 30 – bad timing on our part as it meant that we passed over the Humbold Bay Bar on an ebb tide – making for huge standing waves against us as we passed out – it was a bit scary and more that a couple of times I suggested that perhaps we should turn around and try again the next day, but after 5 days in Eureka, we were more than ready to get on our way. We held on for dear life, with the boat completely battened down and finally made it over the bar and out into a messy sea state. The holding on for dear life was just starting! Sitting up in the cockpit required holding onto a winch to be sure you weren’t flung onto the floor every time the boat pitched and rolled. There was virtually no wind to help us make our way through the waves and everything was very, very uncomfortable – not a promising start to this next leg of our trip!

October 1 continued with light wind, overcast skies and cold temperatures requiring us to do just 2 hour shifts. I was down making dinner and warming up when Owen shouted for me to come up on deck – 3 grey whales were headed right for our bow – we were finally sailing at this point, but still slowly – Owen was concerned that if he tried to turn away from them, they would run right into the side of our hull so he held course and hoped they would move away – just at the last second, two of then dove right in front of the boat and the third continued along the side of us, his tail was meters from the boat when he finally dove!!! (of course neither of us thought to grab a camera in that moment!)

October 2 continued the light wind theme, requiring us to motor for a few hours, both to charge the batteries that were fast being depleted as we had not seen the sun in days, and also to get us moving – we had thought we would make the run from Eureka to San Francisco in a couple of days and here we were bobbing along making almost no progress!!!

The wind finally began to build on the evening of October 3 and by 2 am we were running ahead of 20 knots of wind in very sloppy seas. It was a wild, cold night but we made amazing progress!!! We had thought we might duck in behind Point Reyes to regroup before continuing onto San Francisco but come morning, as we were rounding the point, we realized that continuing on would put us at the bridge at nearly the perfect time to cross the bar so we continued on – slowly as of course the wind had died as fast as it built the night before!!

Finally, at about 4pm on October 4, 2022 we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge – what a feeling! For years, this was the “moment” that I had dreamed about and in my mind it marked the end of the delivery and the beginning of the adventuring! We made our way through crazy afternoon water traffic – boats, ferries, wind surfers, kite surfers – everywhere you looked someone was enjoying some part of the bay!!!

We anchored in Aquatic Park – an amazing little protected anchorage that does not allow power boats!!! The Park is used by open water swimmers as a training ground and as such, you are allowed only to motor to set your anchor and dinghies are not permitted to use anything bigger than a 5hp outboard – we loved it!!!! Coming into the anchorage I commented to Owen that we needed to keep a sharp eye out for swimmers – his response was that there was no way anyone was swimming – after all, he was wearing 2 toques! As it turned out, there were 50 or more swimmers in the water that evening – none of them wearing wetsuits!!! The Park is in an ideal location – out the entrance we were staring at Alcatraz and on shore, Ghirardelli Square.

For the next couple of days, we rowed into shore, stashing our dinghy up on the beach (no dinghy dock here!) and explored the City. We checked out Ghirardelli Square (mmmm – hot fudge sundaes!), Fisherman’s Wharf, and Pier 39. While the Wharf and Pier are really just a collection of restaurants and shopping, it was a fun energy and as a bonus, the Blue Angels were in town for an Airshow that weekend and were practicing overheard all day.

We took Friday to visit Alcatraz – what a place!!! It is eerie and disturbing – knowing that not only the convicts – who in most cases earned their way there with their behavior in other prisons – lived there but also the guards and their families was hard to believe. The island has a sinister feeling to it – the jail is cold and foreboding and at the same time, the prisoners would have been able to see and hear San Francisco so close. I had not realized the Island was originally a military prison and only learned of the Indian Occupation that occurred in the 70’s while touring the Island. To top off our visit, the first of the weekend’s airshows started as we were exploring the Island and continued while we took the ferry back to San Francisco.

Saturday we had planned to do some more exploring until we realized how crazy the anchorage was going to get!! By about 11am boats were descending on the anchorage in order to watch that day’s airshow – in an anchorage designed for 14 boats, we were suddenly seeing three times that number of boats and it was very clear that many of those boaters didn’t usually leave the docks – finally with 2 boats anchored within meters of our bow (and surely over our anchor) and another just off our stern, we decided the wiser course of action would be to hang out and watch the airshow so that we were there to take action if our anchor was taken up when the boats tried to leave. As it turned out the bigger show was in watching these inexperience sailors coming in and out of the anchorage all day, as well as watching the harbor patrol chasing out any power boat that tried to come in – the actual airshow was sadly lost in the day’s low lying cloud cover. We spoke to a local a few days later who confirmed that for many Bay Area boaters, there are only 3 days of the year that they might anchor – the opening of the season, July 4 and the annual Fleet Week Airshow.

As we were only permitted to be in the Park for 5 days, we decided to head over the Alameda on the Sunday – we spent 2 nights at a marina and another 3 in an old fish packer’s basin, waiting for some mail to arrive at the UPS store and getting a few jobs done. One of the items we were waiting on, and one of the jobs to be done, was parts for our diesel heater – unfortunately we had not remembered to plug the exhaust when we left and somewhere in the crazy weather we experience before Eureka we had drowned the blower motor for the heater. Owen had tried to fix it but everything was so corroded we had no choice but to order a new blower motor – luckily Planar had them in stock and were able to immediately ship one to us. Lesson learned!!!

We spent a day wandering all over Alameda – while there are not many attractions in Alameda, they do have a beautiful waterfront walkway, meandering between marinas and housing complexes. One of the marinas had a really cool houseboat village. They also have possibly the largest chandlery we have ever seen – Svendson’s had at least one of everything you could ever require for your boat!! It also appeared that they stocked the entire Harken catalogue! We finished up our day of exploring with a turkey dinner on the boat to mark Canadian Thanksgiving.

Once all our mail had arrived we contacted the Aquatic Park Harbour Master to request permission to go back to the Park, even though we had not yet passed our required 7 days out of the Park – he consented and we immediately headed over to San Francisco again.

One of the gripes we had had in San Francisco was the weather – it had been fairly consistently cool, overcast and very windy and cold in the afternoons. The weather at home meanwhile was georgous – high twenties and all sunshine!!! During our stint in Alameda we had experienced some much nicer weather so, as we headed back across the bay and the clouds descended, the wind built and the temperature dropped we did wonder why we were moving!!!

Back in San Francisco we were able to get another day of exploring in, finally getting in a Cable Car ride, a visit to a fantastic local bookstore (Russian Hill Bookstore – so awesome!), a very uphill wander to to the top of Lombard Street (the steepest street in San Francisco) and another steep walk to Coit Tower (where the elevator was out of order, requiring us to climb 13 flights of stairs!!). We were definitely walked out by the end of that day!

Lombard Street – the steepest street in San Francisco

Aquatic Park from Coit Tower – Solstice Tide is anchored at the right of the picture

Resting up before heading back to the boat!

Our final day in San Francisco saw us doing those mundane errands that sadly don’t go away just because we are adventuring! – laundry and groceries and getting everything battened down for our next leg.

tjsailing

Follow us as we prepare to cut the dock lines

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Exploring California – Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina

Exploring California – San Francisco