Santa Cruz'in

So, Lisa Chapin signed up to do the Santa Cruz Rally with Club Nautique (who I'll be teaching for in a few weeks). She asked us to join her on the Hunter 380 in Sausalito to sail the 75 miles down the coast. We were really excited, and I did a ton of research for the trip and I brushed up on my coastal navigation. We got to the boat Thursday evening, did some work in the boat and shoved off at 3am to catch the ebb tide under the Golden Gate Bridge by 4am. I didn't sleep much due to excitement. We were the first ones out the Gate because we didn't want to dilly-dally in the commercial traffic lanes. Lisa reported all the commercial traffic we did see to the rally organizers and she reported the thirty five sailboats doing the really to Vessel Traffic Service, which was the captainly thing to do.



Kim's brother Jon immediately got seasick, even though he had a scapalomine patch on from the night before. That made Kim sick, so they ended up going down below for most of the day. Lisa and I were doing OK, even though the ebb tide was fighting the south westerly breeze. We had eight foot waves for most of the day. Since the wind was from the wrong direction, due to a low pressure system out in the Pacific, we ended up tacking way out to the traffic lanes, then back to within a mile of the coast. On each roll-call, we found that most of the boats were making considerably more southerly progress than we were. We decided they must be motor sailing.



We noticed that our reefed sails had cut our tacks from 90 to about 50 degrees, making our southerly progess even slower. I had been carefully logging the latitude, longitude, and time of all of our tacks, so I was able to plot our course on the chart. Over the VHF, we heard that a lot of boats were giving up on Santa Cruz and were ducking into Half Moon Bay for the night. We decided this was a good plan for us too. We finally started motoring when the headland of Half Moon Bay came into view because of the shoals and rocks on the approach. We called into the harbormaster for a guest slip and backed her right in. There were several ralliers there on the dock to help us. Once we got the boat put away, we had our congratulatory cocktail and headed into town to give the folks with seasickness a little stationary footing for a change. We headed into Ketch Joanne's for a drink before heading back to the boat.

I plotted our course and reheated the mostaccoli I made last week while everyone took a nap. We then crashed pretty hard after dinner.

Saturday morning, we checked out Half Moon Bay after deciding that Sant Cruz was too far for a SSW wind. We knew that the ralliers that had motored down there were coming back to Half Moon Bay for the north leg of their trip, so we'd just wait for them to come in. Half Moon Bay is a lovely little working port, so we got to see a bunch of fisherman working on their boats. I grilled sausage and marinated chicken for dinner in the cockpit.

Sunday, after a great breakfast at Ketch Joanne's, in true cruiser fashion, we bummed a ride down to Half Moon Bay proper and checked out all of the shops and caught the bus back to the marina. Very relaxing. I messed up reheating our dinner, so we ran back to Ketch Joanne's for dinner. We knew we would be getting up early to leave, so we all crashed.

Monday, the seas were about six feet, but the wind was light and of course to the north, directly in our path, so we motor sailed at 7 knots NNW. I had overdosed on the seasickness medication accidentally, so I spent most of the day down below. We got back to Sausalito pretty early, fueled and pumped the boat out, gave her a good cleaning inside and out so she'll be ready for the next SailTime member, and had a beer in the cockpit. Kim and I headed home to shower and pickup the dog. Teri, our faithful dog-sitter came over for dinner, sparing us having to make a run out to Fremont. I cooked the dinner we were supposed to have on the boat Sunday night, curry chicken and stir-fried rice, and crashed early.

Kim and I slept in a bit and then have been playing catch-up all day. My hopefully last hand surgery is tomorrow at 6am, so wish me luck. I've also been horribly remiss in wishing my best bud Mike Maloney and his twin sister Mindy in St. Louis Happy 40th! Miss you guys! I'll post some pics of the last few weeks ASAP...



I forgot to mention that it was about 55F the entire trip.

37.45°N 122.41°W