August 1 - 3
While at Smugglers, we headed off further south in the dingy, to a place named Yellowbanks. This is an anchorage that has less protection from prevailing winds, but it sure is pretty. Shallow waters extend off a long white sand beach, giving the water a turquoise blue color. Well, maybe its not pure white, hence the name "Yellowbanks". But it's almost white, and the water really was a pretty color. We made our first true beach landing in the dingy, following one of the smaller waves into shore.
Not a total disaster for our first time. We are going to try a slightly different method next time. We will both paddle into slightly deeper water, Jodie will use an oar to keep the boat pointed into the waves as I drop and start the engine. Most importantly, I will try not to do three things at once. We will see how our new method works. There are only so many things you can learn from the how-to books. At any rate, we both got a good laugh out of the ordeal and we will be removing pebbles and sand from the dingy for the next few days.
August 4 - 5 The south swell has finally calmed down, so we decide to make the run to the southern portion of Santa Cruz. The anchorage we head to is called "Coches Prietos", which means, well I have no idea what that means. Just kidding, it means "Black Pigs" and many say it is the best anchorage on the island. Anyway, in the cruising guide it is described as a small cove anchorage with the best beach on the south side of the island. The anchorage is only 9 miles away from Smugglers and we motored over mid-morning. The seas were flat and glassy with only the slightest hint of wind. The water was very clear and we could look down into the rising kelp beds that grow in 30 to 80 feet of water. We worked our way carefully through the kelp beds as we turned around the southeastern corner of the island. While we are motoring we do not want any kelp to be drawn into the raw water intake of the engine, nor do we want any around the propeller shaft. I know at some point it is inevitable that I will have to dive over in the middle of the ocean to clean the shaft of kelp or fishing nets, but we will try hard to avoid any hazards as much as possible. When we sight Coches, it has 4 boats already inside and a large trawler anchored at its mouth. It is a rather small cove with a reef on the westerly side of the opening. We slowly make our way inside and discover that there is still some reasonable space for us to anchor on the east side of the cove. We drop our bow anchor into 35 feet of water and set the stern anchor out, almost into the breaking waves (2 footers) of the beach.
Our concern was if something was to go wrong with the main anchor rode it would take less than 2 minutes before Savannah was either going into the rocks on the side of us or onto the beach behind. We also knew that yesterday the swell continually hit us hard for 6 hours. That's a lot of pounding and wear and tear on our anchoring gear. We decide things were better in Smugglers and it would be prudent to leave the anchorage. Mark Twain said "Put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket". Well we are taking our basket out of here. We say goodbye to our neighbors, telling them it's just not safe for us. They are planning on cruising next year and were hoping to get some tips from us. Well, tip #1: Protect your ship, it's your whole life; #2: If you don't feel safe, you're probably not; #3: If you can leave, go. In 30 minutes we are pulling up our last anchor and heading back to Smugglers. As we round the corner heading east, we can see that the anchorage next door, "Albert's", is completely empty. Albert's has a 500 foot rock wall (200 high) that extends out from the island providing a natural barrier to the prevailing wind and swell. When we had arrived at Coches yesterday, there were boats present there. We turn in and take the prime spot back along the wall and 150 feet off the beach. At anchor, we can see the wind and swell as it rounds the rock wall and contacts the shore, 300 feet to the east of us. It actually forms a visible line in the water. We are nestled in a relatively calm and flat area, between the wall and where the swell is breaking at the shoreline. We settle back happily, knowing that we did the right thing and surprised that a safe anchorage was available right around the corner, less than 500 yards away. The beach at Albert's is half the size of Coches, and for the rest of the day it is all ours.
Here you can see the beginning of the cliff that extends to the south (left) and the sand beach. Note the last rock slide reminates at the base of the cliff and the lack of any breaking water on the beach.
August 6 - 9 We enjoy our new spot and spend the days snorkeling, lying on the beach, and exploring the south side of the island by dingy. After several days, a power boat comes in with a family aboard and anchors adjacent to us. Normal protocol when someone comes in is to acknowledge them with a friendly hello or wave. But this boat was anchored a little too far away and we didn't do the normal greeting. Nor did we have any contact the following day. So we were quite surprised when on the evening of the second day the owner comes by and invites us to the beach for some homemade ice cream. WOW! I love ice cream. Really, really love it. Jodie is well aware of this fact. In fact, since we have been out at the island for 2+ weeks now, I mention almost daily how I wish we had some ice cream. For some reason it wont keep in the freezer. This is a common trait of 12 volt freezers. It doesn't melt in there per se, but it won't stay hard or even semi-hard. Kinda like a thick milkshake in consistency. Jodie quickly jumps into the kitchen and makes some apple turnovers to go with the ice cream. Happy, happy days. So good. So yummy. This will probably be one of my fondest memories of Santa Cruz Island. The ice cream was even made with fresh eggs from their guest's farm. Heaven.
August 10 - 12 We head back to Smugglers for a one night stay. We decided to reprovision in Oxnard, returning to the Channel Islands Harbor for 2 days. We were originally planning on going to Redondo Beach Harbor to reprovision, but Oxnard won out. Things are much more convenient at Oxnard, having West Marine, grocery, laundry, hardware, and bank all within ½ mile of the docks. Our special meal: Round Table Pizza, delivered to the boat. The bonus for Logan: He gets to get off the boat and roll around on the concrete dock. He loves doing that. That ice cream we had at Albert's was so good I didn't even want any from the RiteAid (lowest price scooped ice cream, try the medieval madness) that we passed. We passed several tall ships enroute to Oxnard and again when heading down to Catalina Island. They were making their way south to Los Angelas for their next show.
Notice the crew aloft on the spreaders.
August 13 - 18 We leave Channel Islands Harbor with calm seas and a slight breeze from the west. These benign conditions would remain with us during our 12 hour passage, only breaking when we got within 2 miles of Santa Catalina Island. We continued to motorsail to our destination, Emerald Bay, located along the east side, 4 miles down the island. To our surprise, we see Andy and Joslyn on a mooring.
Summer is in full swing here at Catalina, a sharp contrast to our time spent here 3 months ago. We anchor next a large power boat, providing plenty of room. By the weekend, all of the moorings (several hundred) on the east side of island were full and there were a dozen other vessels anchored around us. We overheard harbor patrol on the radio commenting how this anchorage has never had this many boats anchored in his 12 years of working here. Just our luck. Our time went without incident, except for another sail boat who kept insisting that they had "heavy chain" and didn't need more than 2 to 1 scope to anchor. We watched him migrate slowly around the anchorage as the winds kept building from one direction, then another. At one point the wind changed direction and the front of his bowsprit was less than 10 feet away from our stern, forcing him drop another 20 feet of chain out. When they finally (thankfully) left, we figured out why they were so reluctant to put out chain. They had an old manual windlass that requires pumping a handle to raise the chain, inch by inch. It took a crewmember ½ hour to raise the 110 feet that they had dropped out (while the owner sat and watched). Entertainment comes in many forms on the water. Not wanting to spend another weekend with kids in dingys doing laps around us, we pulled up anchor to try another location. I can hear the parents now "Sure it's ok to take the dingy out. Just stay out of the moorings but don't go outside into the ocean." And around they go, again and again. Two miles further south is the Isthmus Cove side of Two Harbors. We had spent the first part of our trip on the Cat Harbor side (west side of the island), walking the ½ mile to Isthmus (east side) to get groceries and do our laundry. Isthmus Cove is the second most developed area on the island, the primary area being the city of Avalon. At Isthmus, there is a small cove that you can anchor outside the mooring field, located on the southern end of the bay. It is not general knowledge that you can anchor there and we find just two small boats when we arrive. Nearby, in the deeper water of the bay, there are several larger boats, but none in the southern cove. The two boats here are bow and stern anchored into the swell and we will follow suit, placing ourselves between them. The wind is blowing from a different direction however, across the beam of the boats (perpendicular), so we have to anchor in stages. First we set the bow anchor near the front of one of the boats (upwind boat) and drop back to a location that will still allow us to swing the stern clear of the bow of other boat (downwind boat). We then drop the stern anchor back in between the two boats, placing it at its utmost length off our stern. We take in the stern rode, which swings our stern in, till we end up between and parallel with the two boats already here. Believe it or not, we did it first try. Just as if we knew what we were doing.
August 19 - 26 On the Isthmus side of Two Harbors, we have settled in for our last stay here at Santa Catalina Island. The island is a sharp contrast to our time spent at Santa Cruz Island. There is just so much activity taking place here. Boats come and go very quickly, sometimes staying for a few hours, then leaving again. Two exceptions are Ed and Suzanne on "Adory" and Jim on a 28 foot Columbia "Malolo", who are anchored near us. Jim has lots of energy and puts out good vibes each time we see him. I think he was bit surprised by Jodie and myself when he met us. We are starting to get the feeling that we are not who most people expect us to be. They see the boat, and get some preconceived notions about us. Those notions are, we hope, quickly dispelled when they get to know us. Jim arrived and anchored adjacent to us. At the time, we were one of only two boats in the anchorage. When I came out to do the normal greeting, he commented how he might be a little to close to us within the open anchorage, etc. I told him not to move on account of us, we actually liked him there. We have learned that if one boat is close, no one else will try to squeeze in between. Come Friday and Saturday, people are going to try to anchor in any little spot and its better to, in a manner of speaking, shut the door. So I tell him "Don't move, it'll be better with you there", and he is pleasantly surprised. Jim turns out to be an excellent neighbor over the next week, well anchored, quiet, and a pleasant guy all around. Our other neighbors for the week, Ed and Suzanne, have been spending most of the summer here with their grandkids. They come out for 2 -3 weeks at a time from their home port in Los Angeles. Ed is quite a character, a retired hay farmer from the Yucca Valley desert area in California. At the age of 60, he decided to build a steel ship at his farm. From scratch. It only took 6 years to get it done if you're thinking about building one yourself. "Adory" is a 50 foot motorsailer with a ½" inch thick steel hull! I think if he came across a reef someplace, he could just smash his way through it if he wanted to. Ed is proud to show off his ship and my hat goes off to him. So much work goes into getting a boat cruise worthy. I can't imagine actually building the ship itself. Ed has a picture book cataloging the building process over the 6 years and we had a lot of laughs talking about the effort. Think of what his neighbors thought of him as they would come by to purchase hay and drive past the steel skeleton in the "shipyard" next to the barn. Yep. Crazy old man building a ship in the desert. Some took to calling him Noah! Currently he is a young 70 years old and he just grins and laughs about it. "Look at me now!" he says. What a guy! This weekend a 30 mile paddle board race is starting from Isthmus. That means boats, lots of boats. Sure enough, by the end of Saturday there was small power boats anchored all around us. More than I could have imagined. They were all being responsible by placing two anchors out, fore and aft, but man, they were stacked up inside the anchorage. On Sunday, we got a new guest. A friendly sea lion has decided to make our dingy her new home. She was very cute and Logan found her quite interesting. Swinging the dingy with the painter was all it took to get her moving along. We saw her later in the day making a another new home in another dingy. She seems to enjoy the soft rubber dingy to a hard rock. Can't say that I blame her.
On Monday, guess who sails by us? That's right, Andy and Joslyn with two of their friends aboard for a weekend diving excursion. They are grabbing a mooring close to the dock and we tell them we'll swing by later. We head out for a hike around the island and before we go back to Savannah we stop on by. We set up some dinner plans for the following day. This is the last time we will get to see them out here before the end of our shakedown summer.
The afternoon before we leave, we are the only boat remaining in the anchorage. Then this dingdong shows up and drops his anchor close to ours (which is fine, sort of, since there is a lot of room out here at this point and there was no good reason to be on top of us). I go out and tell him where our anchor is located and he proceeds to drive right across our anchor chain to set out his stern anchor. "Hey! You're now across our anchor line. Don't drop there." I yell at him from our bow. Now I hate yelling, but what are you gonna do? He then decides to drop it on the other side of us. He is now in the mooring field area. This doesn't seem to bother him and he settles down for a meal. It does bother harbor patrol however. They come by about an hour later and tell him to move it. Long story short, over the next two hours (yes, two hours) this guy anchors and re-anchors and re-anchors his bow and stern. In the end, he ends up in the worst of the locations possible, with so much rode out that he drifts back and forth across the entire cove. He is no threat to us, so I keep my mouth shut.
August 27 - September 1 The next morning we depart Isthmus, our last view of the cove is the same guy re-anchoring again. This time dropping a third anchor in the spot we had just vacated. Three anchors for a twenty foot boat. I wish I could be there to see what happens when people start showing up for the upcoming three day weekend and anchoring around the guy. I'm sure it will be quite a comedic spectacle. Our trip to Dana Point is uneventful, with no wind, and we end up motoring the entire way. It is a nine hour trip and we arrive around 5 p.m. The anchorage area inside the harbor is relatively empty with only three other boats. We drop our anchor in only 15 feet of water and are surprised when we fail to set it. We try again with the same result. The boater next to us tells us that the floor is gravelly and they had trouble as well. So on the third attempt, we choose a different location and got it to grab on the first try. Since we'll be staying over the holiday weekend we chose a spot as close to the edge of the anchorage limits as possible, hoping to avoid some of the craziness that is bound to occur. As expected, the anchorage fills up over the weekend. Funny thing is it's full of boaters from the Dana Point marina. Of the 50 boats, at least 40 of them have left their slip and anchored here. Say you live in an apartment complex. Then once a year, all your neighbors pitch a tent in the parking lot in front and camp out. Kinda like that. Well at least they are using their boat. Although the anchorage wasn't that big, everybody who came from far and not so far away found a spot. So the weekend is here and the parting begins. Live bands, loud music, bikinis, boats dragging anchors, screaming matches, know-it-alls and mega-yachts. Hey, we got it all. We pretty much kept to ourselves and had some sundowners with our immediate neighbors. Harbor patrol did yell at me to slow down in my dingy once. I did and gave a friendly wave and smile, my equivalent of the bird when dealing with The Man. Sunday afternoon I went around to the adjacent boats to let them know we were planning on leaving at 6 a.m. the following morning. So that loud engine next to you and the mast you see out the portlight is us. Sorry. It is going to be a 10-12 hour run down to Mission Bay (just north of San Diego Bay), the next anchorage south of Dana Point, and we don't want to arrive late in the evening. Even though we're familiar with the area, we have never made the approach by water. It is a golden rule that you never enter a harbor or anchorage at night if you have never been there. Hence our early departure from Dana Point. Pulling up the anchors required some finesse with the close proximity of the other boats. There was a slight breeze coming across our bow, which meant that we would swing downwind when I went to retrieve the stern anchor. We pulled up on our bow anchor so that our stern would clear the boat next to us as we swung. Everything went as planned and we wound our way though the maze of anchored boats as we departed.
As we had hoped, by the time we arrived in Mission Bay most, if not all, of the other boats had left and gone home after the three day weekend. We dropped our hook and in an hour we were onshore hunting down some San Diego burritos. We had been missing them so much this summer. There is no substitute. We found a taqueria and for less than 4 bucks piece we each had in our hands a big burly S.D. burrito. Fantastic. We thought there was no way we would be able to eat both of them, but they were so good we didn't stop till they were gone. Exhausted and now full, we made our way back to Savannah. SeaWorld is located in Mission Bay and we kept ourselves awake for the nightly 8:50 p.m. fireworks show, the last one of summer. Untill next Memorial Day, the fireworks will be held only on Friday and Saturday nights. The bright bursts of color filling the sky was a fitting end to our shakedown summer. We know it wasn't the case, but it was like the city was celebrating, welcoming us back saying you made it, job well done. We will return to our old marina and put Savannah in a slip during most of September. We'll be visiting our families and saying our farewells. It will be a long time before we see many of them, a worthwhile expense for us. The site will be dark for the month of September. Please come back in October as we head into Mexico to begin the real adventure. South, south, south! Michael
Kisses!
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Smugglers
is a short sail down the east side of Santa Cruz island. It is a
large open anchorage and quite picturesque with eucalyptus trees
growing in the valley and two olive tree groves along the
hillside. We arrived and set anchor at 10:30 a.m. At 11,
two of the boats anchored alongside us, closer to the middle of the
anchorage, pulled up anchor and left. I felt that we were a
little too close for comfort to the beach and adjacent rock
outcroppings, so I decided it would be prudent to re-anchor to a spot
with a little more breathing room in the middle of the anchorage now
that there was more space. An hour after we resettled into our
new spot, two new boats rounded the corner and started to fill in the
anchorage. We had moved just in time. No significant
wind was in the forecast that would have threatened us, but I felt a
whole lot better in our new spot.
Sand
between our toes, with shells and mother of pearl remnants hiding in
the warm sand, the whole place was our own and we had a terrific time
exploring the beach and the surrounding area. We decided it was
time to leave and we now had the task of getting back out into the sea,
against the breakers this time. Things start out well enough,
timing our entrance into the water with the smaller of the wave
sets. We jump into the dingy in thigh high water, I try to lower
the engine, start it and put it in gear in one quick set of
motions. But it won't drop into the water for some reason.
I try again and this time it works, however precious seconds have been
lost and another wave has come in, swinging us sideways. I pull
on the starter cord. Nothing. Now the engine won't
start. What is going on? She always starts first
pull. Second try and she fires up, but more time has been
lost. Larger waves are now coming and we are being pushed back on
the beach. I put it in gear and the prop throws a mixture of sand
and water up and out towards the beach, in the very shallow water we
now find ourselves in. I continue to gun it until we meet the
next wave with some forward momentum and we punch through, into deeper
waters.
We
eat some lunch and go for a swim along the near shoreline.
Afterwards we return to Savannah to find that the south swell has
picked back up sending 2 - 3 foot surges into the cove. Back and
forth we are being pulled, as first the bow gets pulled taunt then the
stern, as the water surges in and out of the cove. I had the
rubber snubber on at the bow and I decide put some extra chafing
protection on the stern rode at the cleat. I wouldn't describe
the surge as a violent motion, but it is constantly pulling us back and
forth. By 7 or 8 that evening, things have mellowed somewhat and
we do our best to try to get some sleep. The following day, the
same conditions begin to develop. We were planning on going
ashore for a hike, but we were very concerned with leaving Savannah.
We
plan on leaving Santa Catalina on Wednesday to head over to Dana Point
Harbor on the mainland. We had a great stay here - lots of
The
slight breeze became a little stronger around 9 a.m. and by 10 we were
able to shut down the engine and sail under full canvas. We
continued on till about 4:30 p.m. when the wind started to fail.
We stored the mizzen sail and motorsailed the last 45 minutes to
Mission Bay. There was quite a site we caught on tape. I
believe it is a marlin having a good time. It took us 30 seconds
or so to get the camera rolling and he was around 200 yards away 