We have returned home for Christmas. I couldn’t tell you earlier this week because it was a surprise for Larry’s mom! Her party is tonight, so here’s a picture:
Archive for the ‘Ports of Call’ Category
Hi All,
Larry was kind enough to grace all of us with his spectacular voice, which is yours to listen to right here. Click on the linke below, then again on the same link on the next page.
Depending on how your computer is set up, you might be asked to download the file before playing it, but it should work just fine. We’re working on making this a lot less complicated, but wanted to get this wondeful song up here as quickly as possible.
Take it away Larry! (with accompaniment by Muggs, of course)
Well. We set out Monday and headed toward the beautiful little cove called Puerta Balandra about 7 miles north of La Paz. We arrived about mid-afternoon in a cove of exquisite beauty and flat calm. As we arrived, a catamaran was leaving from his anchoring spot in the north end of the cove close to the beach and a well-known landmark there called Mushroom Rock. Our friend Rod of Proximity, who was already there, hailed us on the radio to say that he had just paid this guy 200 pesos to leave so we could have the best spot in the anchorage! LOL. Well, we anchored closer to the north end than Proximity, but not as far north as the cat had been. We wanted more depth. We anchored in about 15’ of water in a sandy bottom. We put out 75’ of chain.
There was not enough daylight left to go snorkeling. Rod and Elisabeth of Proximity had been there already for a while. Elisabeth was in the water, but she said it was getting a little too cold already. So we launched the dinghy and rode over to their boat for a little chat.
We returned to our boat and made dinner – a treat of fresh fried potato slices, asparagus, and very small hamburgers (from leftovers.) Cookies and milk for dessert – Heaven! By now it was dark (after 6:00 pm). Larry wanted to play some backgammon, so we got the traveling backgammon set out and read the rules. We understood about 80% of them, so we proceeded to play.
Our backgammon play was actually kind of silly and fun. We had finished three games (I think) when we heard a sound outside that sounded as though someone was moving the dinghy around. We had left the dinghy inflated, with the engine attached, but we had put the halyard on the bridle and raised it about two feet out of the water. The sound didn’t make a lot of sense, so we went up to look. We saw nothing unusual, so we went back down.
I proceeded to wash the dishes. We heard the sound again a short time later, and Larry went up again. He still saw nothing, but now he stayed up there. By the time I finished the dishes, you could hear the wind in the rigging. It had been coming up very slowly, and we had been (stupidly) unaware of it. Sometime soon after the start of the wind and waves, we put the halyard on the dinghy and raised it up onto the deck. We took the engine off and hung it on its mount at the starboard aftdeck railing. We replaced the halyard on the dinghy and tied it off securely. Smartest thing we did all night.
Now Larry turned on his gps so he could watch and study our anchor tracks. Until this time, he had been certain we were not dragging, but it was becoming impossible to be sure. We had the additional challenge of nearly complete darkness. There was no moon, only the ambient light of La Paz over some low hills.
We had both noticed that a boat that had started the evening north of us had moved and re-anchored west of us. Since the cove opened to the west, this put him between us and a direct exit path out of the anchorage. His lights were initially confusing (he eventually corrected them). He had two sets of colored lights – the deck level running lights and the masthead tricolor. Only one set of these lights may be on at a time. He had his anchor light on AND his steaming light. (The steaming light indicates that he is underway and using his motor.) And he had his spreader lights on. These would have been OK IF he was at anchor and trying to work on his deck. We used our spreader lights to good effect before the night was out, but they went off as soon as we started making headway.
Anyway, the cove was not oversized and we were all at a minimum distance from each other. It took about fifteen more minutes of increasing winds, now big, rolly waves, and finally the tracks on the gps before Larry decided we were, in fact, dragging. This was a tricky determination to make in the dark. We decided to haul up and reset the anchor. We had walkie talkies we had used in the earlier part of the trip, but they stopped working around Turtle Bay (and, yes, we changed the batteries – more than once). So we decided to use our pair of hand-held VHF radios. We put them on a conversation frequency, channel 68, tested them, and they worked well. At this point, the bow of the boat was starting to spring up and down, not as violently as it would, but it was getting our attention. (This is called hobby horsing.) This is in addition to the back-and-forth rolling which was considerable. The waves and wind were coming from the southwest. The waves came in directly through the cove opening, plus they were deflecting off the south point and rolling in on top of the other waves. It was fast becoming a mess.
Larry went forward – he always does the deck work, I handle the helm – and, I later learned, he had to deal with the snubber chain popping off PLUS the chain itself hopped its track, so to speak – it came right off the bow roller. The boat was pitching forward violently, and we were getting green water (the phrase used to describe more than white water spray) on the foredeck. Larry told me on the radio, “We are going to leave the anchorage. ” I had become momentarily disoriented because of the violent vertical motion combined with the side-to-side motion. I realized that we were headed straight for Proximity, ready to T-bone them. Larry said, “Hard Right. NOW.” I did that, and we did clear Proximity without colliding, but we were very close – probably less than a boat length. Later, Larry told me the only thing I did wrong was to not give it more throttle. The boat needs a little push, so to speak, to respond to the rudder at low speeds.
Larry came back to the helm when he had stabilized the situation at the anchor. He got us safely out of the anchorage without endangering any other boats, and we both breathed a big sigh of relief. I made the amazing (LOL) observation that our slip at the marina was probably empty, and they would probably be happy to see us slip back in in the middle of the night to retake it, so that is what we did. We returned to La Paz using that afternoon’s gps waypoints.
The waves were still fairly rocky-rolly as we headed back. We were getting them square on the beam now. Our forward vision was severely constrained by the dinghy. We needed to get the hull pontoons deflated. That meant a trip on deck on a boat that could still roll fairly violently. BUT, the dinghy was directly in front of the dodger, so I didn’t have far to go. First thing I had to do was to clean the salt spray off the dodger – Windex and a rag quickly found. Then, I had to figure out how to secure myself to the boat. In our trip preparation, we had neglected to set out the jacklines. I am actually embarrassed to admit this, but there it is. We didn’t plan for the worst, and it became a serious problem. BUT, I did know where the lanyards were – right there in the cockpit where they did me the most good. I tied myself directly to the dodger frame with one lanyard and then to a handrail with the second lanyard. Problem solved. I hoisted myself up on the cabin top so I could reach over and into the dinghy to open the air valves (a feat that I am unable to achieve at the dock!). As I opened each side’s valve, the hull immediately deflated – Wow! Worked like a champ. Now we could see forward.
Next challenge was to find the channel buoys for La Paz Channel at night. We eventually found two pairs which were impossible to distinguish (which was closer, which was farther) until we were within about 50’ of the near pair. No harm done – we kept our path inside the path defined by both sets. As we proceeded down the channel, at one point Larry said to me, “Honey, is that a boat in front of us” There was a shadow about 60’ away with a dim light on it (maybe) – hard to be sure. Then I realized it was the red buoy we were supposed to be leaving to our starboard! We were headed right for it, so now it was my turn to say to Larry, “Hard left! NOW.” We passed the buoy, leaving less than 30’ clear between us. Way too close for comfort.
We found the marina easily enough and made our way to our old slip (actually one over, but a who’s counting). A security guard saw us coming and ran down the dock to help us. We got all tied up and, voila! We were safe! There was no sign of wind or waves inside the marina, by the way. Flat as a pond on a hot, still, summer day.
We stayed two nights, including Monday, at the marina and have now moved out into the anchorage of La Paz. We have several bits of business to take care of, and this event took more out of us than we probably want to admit – at least emotionally. We have decided that for the immediate future, we don’t know when and where we will go next. There is a wonderful community of cruisers (and lots of other ex-pats) right here in La Paz. If we wanted to, we wouldn’t have to leave here at all. But that is not what we want to do.
Last night, we had fun with a couple we knew from Alameda Yacht Club – Jean and Roger Wise. We went to a nice restaurant with great Mexican food, and then to a different place with a jamming band of about 8 ex-pats. The band was pretty good – the review on the singers was mixed. If we go back there, we will give you further reports.
Until our next report, this is Muggs and Larry of sailing vessel Peregrine, signing off.
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I recently read a web post by another cruiser who referred to being sucked into the vortex of La Paz and having to work hard to break out. It is very true! We came for 7 days and will finally leave tomorrow, Monday, Dec. 7, on day 12.
Larry fixed the starter problem (mostly) by fixing a loose connection on the solenoid valve of the starter. It starts much more reliably now – not quite 100% but a great improvement.
We waited for some weather, then got involved in the bilge again. This time, there was a LOT of water in there – all fresh! Larry found the leak below the galley sink and fixed it fairly easily. Then it took a day of pumping the bilge water into buckets, traipsing them up and out to our dock cart, and then over to the bilge water disposal station. Then, the worrisome thing was that they would not actually accept most of our bilge water because it was not oily enough! They made us pour it in the gutter – yikes!! We put about four buckets’ worth into their disposal barrel, the rest into the street.
Once we cleaned out the bilge, Larry investigated the bilge pump which had been working incorrectly. He thought he needed to replace the sensing switch. We had brought one with us so he put it in the circuit. Nothing was changed. Then he tried replacing the pump (also brought with us) – nothing changed. So we went to the largest chandlery in La Paz and found replacement panel switches. Replacing this didn’t help, so he finally considered that there was a problem with the wiring. He ran all new wiring (through the short hall between the aft stateroom where the pump was located and the panel which is in the engine room), and voila!!! It worked! Yayy! So then he disconnected and reconnected all the wiring through the bulkhead and the engine room bilge. He had to have me hold him back from slipping into the bilge while he made some of the connections. I was helping!
Since this is the most exciting, or at least important, stuff we did the last two weeks, it’s too bad I didn’t take any pictures while he was working. Oh well, we did take a few pictures. We took a tour in a small van to a town called El Triunfo which has an approx. 200 year old mining history. We were joined by four other cruisers, and our guide spoke good English. He was a very well-educated man and taught us a lot about culture, geography, history, birds, and cactus. It was actually a pretty interesting day. The highlight was an unexpected tour of a cactus sanctuary.
For reasons that I forget, this tower and some other structures in Baja California were designed by Gustav Eiffel – yes, that Eiffel. I guess a man’s gotta make a living.
The English cemetery. There were separate cemeteries for each ethnic group that worked in these mines during the 1800’s.
Larry with Jose, the guide, in the background.
Jose explained the biology of these large cacti to us and then showed us in the local homes and businesses where the woody interior structure was used to good effect as a building material!
New cactus “sprouts” (my word) on a branch of a mesquite tree.
A woodpecker in the cactus! The green exterior plant tissue dries away over the years, and the wooden interior becomes the base of the largest plants.
One of our friends who went on this trip invited me to walk up a nearby (to the marina) hill to the top this morning (Sunday). I took my camera, and we saw a lot of nice examples of the same cacti we had seen in the sanctuary plus others and some different aspects:
Can you see how the “bark” of this bush is flaking off like paper. (Can’t get the computer to type a question mark all of a sudden – excuse that.)
Elisabeth took this picture of me with the cactus. I didn’t see it until I got lower on the hill. We were going down at this point, and the footing was a little tricky – I was looking down at my feet and missing the sights.
Small puffy little cacti with beautiful red flowers. The scale here is that the blossoms are about an inch long, the small cactus barrels about 4-6” tall.
The branch sticking out from Elisabeth’s feet at about a 20 degree angle is pretty much pointing at our boat in the marina below. This picture is looking at La Paz Bay with La Paz in the distance on the left. The picture looks southwest.
A little cactus in a crevice.
This afternoon, we rode our dinghy to downtown and watched this very fine, large sailboat arrive at our marina as we returned:
Notice the very unusual rig – the aft mast is the main mast with a boom. The forward mast has a sail rigged to unfurl from the top of the mast – you can see the corner of it sticking out of the back of the mast. Each mast has two forestays. In case you’re asking, we don’t know what this rig is called.
We take taxis for most of our trips to town. They’re cheap, and most of the drivers pride themselves on knowing some English. They also seem to enjoy helping me with my Spanish, so that is improving. The bank ATM machines work fine, the large grocery store is more like a grocery/department store, and we can find whatever we need without too much trouble. Chandleries are a different matter – there are some here with a few items in them but nothing like the great selection of types and sizes at home.
That’s all for now. We will go to a small bay called Balandra tomorrow. We will try out our new snorkel suits and give you some underwater pictures (we hope).
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We finally left Cabo San Lucas on Sunday, the 22nd. We arrived at a beautiful cove called Los Frailes late that day. The next day (yesterday) we inflated the dinghy and went to shore. This is a very remote place, but there appear to be about a dozen family groups living here in everything from a nice RV to a corrugated makeshift hut. The nice RV’s belong to gringos – US and Canada – and the huts are occupied by the fishermen. The road is 11 miles of gravel to the main road. Its condition varies from wretched to passable depending on recent weather.
There is beautiful snorkeling at one end of this cove. We snorkeled for most of the afternoon. That evening I cooked fresh dorado which had been given to us by a fellow cruiser that morning. And Larry ate it and liked it!
This morning, Nov. 24, we departed around 7 am and motored to a cove called Los Muertos (the “dead ones” is a reference to a 19th century-style mooring). Back in Cabo, as we left we again had problems with our starter – Larry thought it was the solenoid valve. Then he got to thinking it might be the push button itself. It just so happens that we had a starter button on the boat which is fairly new and we are not using anymore – for the electric head. We had changed it over to manual at some point in our travels down here.
So, he changed out the starter button and, voila, it started on the first try! But at anchor in Los Frailes, we had the same headache again – wouldn’t start, but he could correct the problem by beating on the solenoid!
This is a long way of explaining why we never shut the engine off between Los Frailes and Los Muertos. There was actually a brisk breeze the whole way up, but most of it was on the nose, so we would have had to go a considerably greater distance if we sailed.
When we got here, Larry cut the bottom of his foot while he was putting down anchor chain. We will leave tomorrow morning at 4 am in order to get to La Paz before dark. We need to get the boat fixed, and Larry can’t go in the water until this wound is mostly healed.
While we were on the hard in Cabo, Larry got the second butthugger installed:
On the hard in Cabo.
Back to the water. Finally!
Leaving Cabo!
At anchor in Los Frailes.
What an amazing sky!
Sunrise, leaving Frailes
We haven’t taken any pictures of Los Muertos yet. Maybe they will show up when we post from La Paz!
Well, there is no progress news on the boat. We assume that the yard people are working on having new parts made. Meanwhile, everything works at a no wikiwiki pace (to use a Hawaiian phrase). So we are cleaning the boat and polishing the stainless steel in the morning while it’s cool, taking a break (read “siesta”) midday, and then swimming and having a drink and snack somewhere in the evening. Since we are in a yard with electricity, we are watching movies in the evenings.
I have finally found a special connector that one of our cameras requires for downloading pictures which are in the camera’s memory instead of on a memory card (I don’t understand this stuff – bear with me). We figured out weeks ago that some of our favorite pictures were on this camera, but we couldn’t get to it. Now we can, so we share them with you:
Larry took these pictures while we were on the hook in San Pedro Harbor (Long Beach – LA). The first picture is through the cockpit screen, so it’s fuzzy but I sure enjoyed the posture of the bird! He acted like he belonged there. We had to hit the standing rigging a few times with a boat hook to scare him off.
For those who don’t understand what they are looking at, the pelican is perched on our port-side solar panel!
Then there are pictures of the oil rigs in the Santa Barbara channel which are fairly impressive (the rigs, not the pictures – the pictures are barely passable – sorry!):
The second picture shows a burn-off flame. The first one is a pair with an interconnecting bridge plus some interesting sky.
There are more. I will be back, so stay tuned!
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Edit from Gilligan: I cleaned up the four pictures so that they’re a bit easier to see. I think the sky lost the color you were trying to show, but the clouds are clearer this way.
22 degrees 53’, 109 degrees 55’
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It has been over three weeks since I have posted, probably the most interesting and exciting three weeks yet, so here we go:
The Baja HaHa left San Diego as scheduled on Monday morning, Oct. 26. We had four people on our boat – Larry and I, Joel Tuttle, and Harry Reppert. Joel and Harry are both very fine and experienced sailors. We were fortunate all along the way to have them.
A fireboat sprayed firehoses for our exit from the harbor, and I did my best to take pictures that showed the incredible HUGE fleet of nearly 190 boats leaving San Diego Harbor at the same time:
It’s really impossible to take a picture from boat deck level that shows even a significant portion of this fleet!
So we were off, and many of the boats flew spinnakers at the start or soon after:
Again, the picture doesn’t do the scene justice.
So off we went, but we kept our engine on as did many other boats because the wind was very light. We had a weather prediction for some big winds and big seas in about 24-36 hours, and we didn’t want to be in that stuff more than necessary. Speed was the answer (we thought.) Muggs didn’t get seasick (thank heavens for small miracles), and she even managed to heat up the first meal we ate underway—thanks to Harry’s great cooking! Crewmember Harry cooked about five LARGE meals for us and brought them to San Diego in his car in a cooler with dry ice. We had to do no elaborate meal prep during the two week Haha – only sandwiches and cereal needed to be added to the mix. Here’s Muggs using her propane stove underway for the first time. You cannot appreciate what a big deal that is from this picture. Please add the motion of a bobblehead doll in your imagination!
The first portion of the HaHa travels from San Diego to Turtle Bay which is approximately 350 miles south. It generally takes about 50-60 hours at boat speeds around 5-6 knots. After the first night, we all checked in by radio with the Grand Poobah (Richard Spindler, founder and editor of the magazine Latitude 38 which originated and still partially sponsors the race/rally). He suggested that boats that wanted to wait for better weather, thought to be coming in about 24 hours, could wait out the night in one of several large anchorages along the northern Baja coast. Most boats pulled into Bahia San Quintin, including us. Wrong! When we went out the next day, we had as bad or worse for the rest of the distance to Turtle Bay. Boats that didn’t wait had a better time of it. At the time, I thought we had made a good decision anyway, because we were all tired and needed the rest.
We arrived at Turtle Bay, cooked one of Harry’s fabulous meals, shared a bottle of wine, and hit the sack. The next day, there was a pot luck on the beach. We inflated the dinghy and took in chocolate cookies and brownies which were a big hit! (Baking on the boat – I’m getting pretty good at this stuff!)
Turtle Bay is beautiful, and there is a small town here. We were able to buy groceries and fuel. The boat which sold us fuel had a good filter right there on his boat. I found more shells like the large one Larry had found last year. I wanted to stay longer, but the HaHa stayed only two nights, then moved on.
Next stop was Bahia Santa Maria, another beautiful anchorage. Here, there are about a dozen very small fishermen’s shacks and a larger building (maybe 15’ x 20’) which is used as a schoolhouse for the fishermen’s children. The fishermen and other people from La Paz (across the peninsula – check a map) brought a live rock and roll band and a great meal for our party here. The meal was served cafeteria-style in the schoolhouse, and the band played just outside for tips.
The Band!
The crew!
Harry and Larry!
Sunset
The next day, the fleet was off to Cabo San Lucas on the final leg of the trip. Now the weather would be truly Baja HaHa weather – gentle breezes from behind, small seas. We left early the night before because we expected to sail a lot (finally!), and we wanted plenty of time. Good choice! At around 11:30 pm (2330 in sailor talk), I was at the helm (the wheel) when the most gawdawful mechanical-parts-breaking-and-crashing sound came from below. I shut down the engine, but the sound continued. Larry was awake, Joel and Harry were awakened rather rudely by the noise, and all three went to investigate. I don’t remember the complete sequence of events now, but eventually we set all the sails and the broken part (the flange connecting the prop to the transmission had sheared) was “repaired” by one of Boy Scout-Larry’s amazing knots:
I apologize for the shaky photo, but it’s the only one I took. This part has since been fixed, but Larry’s knots held everything in place for 8 days. Amazing what ropes can do!
We sailed for approximately 36 hours. During the first daylight, we raised our spinnaker and sailed with it for nearly 10 hours:
On the morning of the second day, the wind died. It was also terribly hot. We knew that we would not get to Cabo by that evening without a tow, so we made the decision to request a tow after spending a couple of hours flogging our sails and making no progress. This was a difficult decision because there are risks in towing, and most sailboats are not really designed to do this. There was another boat in our fleet which had requested a tow earlier that day, and a boat not in our fleet had been towed by one of ours about two days earlier into Magdalena Bay. We decided to call for help, and we had more than one offer. The closest boat to us was a relatively small boat (32’ to our 45’), but they had towed before and were up to the challenge. This boat, Joya, towed us for about three hours. In that time, Hello World caught up with us and took over. They were concerned about the mismatch in size. Hello World is a 40’ Caliber, and they towed us uneventfully in the anchorage at Cabo San Lucas:
The tow line was lengthened quickly:
Hello World towed us into and through the anchorage (very scary for me as I was at the helm again). They called for help from one of the anchored boats, and Lost Horizon came out in their dinghy to help us pull down on the anchor – something we could not do without an engine!
We were anchored right after sunset:
We never did take any pictures of the boat at anchor, but we were there for nearly a week. The yard was too busy to deal with us on Friday, our first full day. Harry left us on Friday, and there was a beach party that day. We had to go to immigration to get Harry his visa so he could leave, so I was fully dressed to impress (as much as a cruiser can). At the beach party, they had the “From Here to Eternity” contest where couples re-enact the beach make-out scene complete with a roll in the surf. Larry really wanted to do this very badly, so I was a good sport, and we did it in our street clothes! I think the winners were Rod and Elizabeth of Proximity. I mentioned them before when we met them first in Monterey (at least I hope I mentioned them!). Anyway, they are a darling couple on their way to do the Puddle Jump (sailing to the South Pacific in March). Here they are at the costume party in San Diego:
We were at Cabrillo Isle Marina in San Diego together, and they celebrated their 7th anniversary there. (Note to my sister: on Oct. 22!) Rod told the story of how they met – on a plane flying to or from Lithuania (I’m not sure which). She was reading something about serious biological research – the sort of thing where laypeople don’t understand the title. He asked her about it, she put the book down, and by the time they landed, he was completely in love and knew he would marry her! What a great story!
The next day, Saturday, Larry and Joel and I took a ride on a Yellow Submarine glass sided boat. You sit in the lower level, the boat lowers itself (sinks) about four to six feet, and you watch the fish through windows – like that old Disneyland ride. Only the fish are real and completely amazing:
As are the views above ground:
A crew member took this picture of us. It pretty much shows how we are feeling now – tired, but happy!
Joel flew home on Sunday. Monday morning, Larry got a case of La Turista. We treated it with immediate dosing with Pepto Bismol, and it lasted only one day. So we didn’t go to the boat yard until Tuesday. We had our boat towed in to the boat work dock at their request. They were able to find the part (on an old transmission somewhere in CSL), determine a slight mismatch, machine a correction, and install the part in about one day. Pretty amazing, we thought. But then the bad news – our two forward motor mounts were also broken! To fix this, they really needed the boat to be hauled. Since there are no OSHA-type safety regs in Mexico, Muggs and Larry rode in their boat while it was hauled! Not on purpose, mind you – it just worked out that way!
Can you tell that the boat is up in the air in this picture?
In the yard, we were placed next to Blue Swan which was the other HaHa boat that had been towed. His shaft had actually sheared! Much scarier than our damage. Robert, the boat’s owner, had planned to continue on to La Paz for more cruising, but he changed his mind after the repairs were done. He is now headed back to San Diego all by himself!
Now we are spending a three-day holiday weekend in Mexico (Revolution Day) on the hard, trying not to melt in the heat and humidity. We have certainly learned that the people who live in the tropics have got it right – work hard in the morning and evening, siesta from 12 to 3!
We know that the boat took a beating during the first leg of the trip. The motion was relentless, and there were several hard slams of water against hull and vice versa. We surmise that the engine mounts broke during this action. There was so much noise from the surf and the boat against it that we might not have heard this happening.
With two broken engine mounts, the engine was literally dangling from the rear engine mounts. The connection at the transmission, which is undoubtedly original (35 years old) finally gave way. This is our theory.
Last week we went to Telcel, the Mexican cellular phone company, and bought a gizmo that gives us internet connection from our own computer right here on the boat. I don’t have to take the computer off the boat, which makes me very happy! That is why you are just now getting this report. Hopefully, in the future, our reports will be a little closer together. There are places in the Sea of Cortez – our planned cruising ground – where cell phone coverage isn’t available, but coverage is mostly pretty good. Hasta la vista!
Muggs and Larry
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Muggs and Larry are safe in Cabo at anchor. The flange on the drive shaft broke on their way down, so they currently have no motor and are evaluating their options for repair.
I have pictures to post, but I can’t get to them right now (cable problems). I will put together a better post in Cabo San Lucas, around November 6-7-8.
The San Diego harbor fire boat will escort this massive flotilla of boats (about 200) out of the harbor on Monday morning. If anyone gets TV from San Diego, we’ll probably be on TV!
Gotta run – I’m busy burning through the last few dollars we have to finish outfitting this boat – I guess it will be done on Sunday, no matter what!
Muggs
Position: 33degrees 42.858’ N 118 degrees 16.858’ W
We left Ventura around 1030 hours Thursday Oct. 15 heading for Santa Cruz Island. We hosted a herd of dolphins on the way over. Muggs took a lot of pictures, but only this one even starts to show the magnificence of what we saw – a couple dozen animals at least, playing and leaping:
About half way over the wind and swell started kicking up and we decided to change our destination to Cat Harbor. We reached Cat Harbor around midnight. There was no room at the anchorage, no moon, and too many mooring balls so we headed out to Long Beach Harbor.
After a long night in the Catalina channel (waiting for time to go by—we didn’t want to enter in the dark) we entered Long Beach Harbor about 0700 hours. There was no room at the inn so we anchored in a very nice anchorage. Each boat in the anchorage has to register with the Harbor Police, no fee.
After sleeping almost all day and all night, I woke up to a gorgeous sunrise followed by thick fog an hour later.
We will stay here two more days, and then we will go to Oceanside on Monday.