Zabels At Sea

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We finally left Monterey on Tuesday morning, Oct. 6.  The plan was to get to Port San Luis in the daylight on Wednesday morning.  That is exactly what we did.  We continued to motor as any wind we would get was either from straight in front of us or behind.  To sail would have cost too much time (requiring us to sail at an angle to the rhumb-line course, thus sailing farther).

We have met a couple named Rod and Elizabeth on a beautiful Swan 41 called Proximity.  They are also headed to San Diego to do the HaHa.  We believe that they left Monterey not too long after we did with the same plan.  Rod came over and visited us in the anchorage at PSL.  It turns out that we anchored in the mooring area which is a no-no, but no one ever told us we had to move.  We decided to leave around 10pm this night (Oct. 7), staying only long enough to get a catnap and take showers (on the boat – we are at anchor).

Muggs at the helm during her first nightwatch, 6 to 9pm on the way to PSL.  Her first sunset at sea:

The Skipper had a nap:

Larry was a sweetie, and spent his offwatches sleeping in the cockpit.  There were several times when I had questions or concerns.  Fortunately, there were no real problems!

Muggs, on the other hand, spent her offwatches in her amazingly comfortable aft berth down below.  The Skipper got along quite well without her.

Next morning, we had our first sunrise:

(I’m pretty sure I have the sunset and sunrise pictures in the right order based on their relative location in the pictures file, and their location relative to the part of the boat that is visible in each picture.)

We had two similar problems on each of these night passages (Monterey to PSL and PSL to Santa Barbara) – the autohelm stopped working, probably because the wave action around some of the points was too confused for it to keep a steady course, and the windows of the dodger fogged up!  The cockpit enclosure works so well at keeping a comfortable atmosphere inside that we had to wipe the windows down two or three times during the night passages.

We were lucky that our first night passages were made with a nearly full moon.  Even around Pt. Arguello and Pt. Concepcion, when the clouds rolled in, the moonlight filtered through the clouds enough so that visibility was never zero.

Larry reported that the wind was 25 knots and waves were 12 feet as we rounded Pt. Arguello.  Muggs slept through it!  Yay!  I finally slept – my first sleep on an offwatch.  Then I got to take us around Pt. Conception which was a piece of cake – winds 14 knots max., waves no higher than 3’-5’.

Rounding Pt. Conception we sighted our first oil rig at night – LOTS of very bright lights.

We got a slip (the last one, we were told) in Santa Barbara for the night of Oct. 8.  We had contacted Betty and Eric Flavell, and they met us at the harbor and kept us wonderfully entertained for the evening.  (Eric and I have known each other since we were five years old.  Our fathers went to Stanford together.)  First, Betty took us back to their home which is beautiful.  Their backyard is more interesting and beautiful than anything I have ever seen in Sunset magazine.  AND they have a full-fledged greenhouse on their roof!  With a very cool circular stair for access.  The greenhouse was full of orchids.  They have been active orchidists (is that a word?) for lots of years.  Eric has a beautiful shell collection which I must strive to match in our travels.  I’m sure I won’t be able to.

After the house tour, they took us to dinner at The Fish House.  We all had a great time, and the evening had to end too soon.  They returned us to the harbor where we gave them a tour of our boat.  Tomorrow they are off to Hawaii for a week.  We have promised to have mai tais and margaritas for each other.

They kindly took a picture of us together, so here it is, our first:

Today, Friday, Oct. 9, we have motored over to Ventura to meet up with our friend Robin Matt.  Robin was the commodore of the Ballena Bay Yacht club when we first joined many years ago.  He has always been a great friend, but now he lives in Ventura so we had to travel for nearly two weeks to see him!  This harbor is quite beautiful, and the yacht club facilities are great.  I am using their free wifi to send this missive to you.  I have been disappointed, frankly, at how rare this is.  We are very grateful!

We will be meeting up with him tonight for drinks and prime rib dinner.

Life is good!  Which reminds me – I tried to meet up with a high school acquaintance who lives in Morro Bay, but we missed her.  She may be traveling with her husband.  We had exchanged emails three years ago (I had forgotten how long ago it was until I went back and looked at the emails!).  If you read this, Lynn, we are very sorry we missed you!  Perhaps we will catch you someday on a return trip.

Our next post will probably be on Monday after we finish (hopefully!) trouble shooting an electrical system problem.  The engine wouldn’t start this morning in Monterey, that is until it did.  The whole thing is a little mysterious, but the skipper is on it.  I have no doubt it will be fixed by midday Monday.  Meanwhile we will rest and restock stores in beautiful Ventura this weekend.  Robin has offered to share his rented car with us which is very generous.  We feel very privileged to be part of the amazing fraternity which is the sailing and cruising community.