Oct. 27 - 29, 2006: After a wonderful summer with Wirewalker enjoying the brisk winds of San Francisco, it was time to take her south. With work (and limited vacation) as a critical consideration, we looked for a good weather window to sail around Point Conception ... while also being a weekend ... while also being late October. We were in luck. This weekend was a "go"!
Our son-in-law, Greg Foley, joined us for this sail, his first off-shore experience. He was awesome, asking the right questions, handling his watches well, effecting repairs. Thanks Greg!
With 14 kts. of wind, we sailed out under the Golden Gate, a great start. Within an hour, the wind had died down to less than 5 kts, where it would remain until Conception. That's okay, we have engines. Unfortunately, our efforts to get the bottom cleaned before we left were unsuccessful so we travelled with a very dirty bottom. The effect was probably a knot in speed ... a lot over the course of 400 miles.
View Larger Map
Somewhere off the Central Coast Diane did her magic. One of her fishing lines managed to find the mouth of a 5 lb. or so Blue Fin Tuna. Umm-umm. Greg and Diane worked together to bring it in and clean it, then prepare it for eating. Life doesn't get much better.
Point Conception really is a challenge to round, no matter the weather. Where our trip up was against 25 - 30 kt. winds, here we had 10 - 15 kt. stern quarter winds. The currents make the waters really agitated and to make sure you're having enough fun, there are enough bouys and oil platforms at that corner to make it feel like a pinball game!
Navigating at 3:00 am through this field was interesting. Just about the time we thought we were through, we saw 2 lights that didn't match the charts. Hmm! On closer inspection, they were ships, freighters, coursing along the southern edge of the Point. Sure enough, the North Conception chart doesn't show the shipping lane, but when you switch charts to the South Conception chart ... there it is!
Sunday morning broke beautifully, with clear skies and 10 - 12 kts from astern. We set the spinnaker and enjoyed 12 great hours of spinnaker running before the wind faded such that it had to be put away.
Several of our friends had joined aboard Gary and Sandy's pilot house cabin cruiser, Sea Chantey, and met us just before we entered the Los Angeles breakwater at 9:00 pm on a Sunday. They provided us an escort all the way to the Long Beach Yacht Club where we took up guest berthing for 2 weeks.
At 11:00 pm we were tied up to the dock and celebrating with our good friends the success of our first leg back south. 400 miles in 57 hours.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment