San Francisco, USA - Morro Bay, USA

Susan

The first chapter left us in San Francisco Bay (Sausalito). We woke up one morning after another rolly sleep to discover that we had been planted in the same spot for three whole weeks. How did this happen? Would we be able to get our anchor back? Maybe it had sunk to China in the mud. What had we been doing for three weeks? Well here’s a quick run-down. We took the computer to San Francisco on the bus to be serviced. Wayne replaced the starting solenoid which took a couple of days what with wrong parts and all. We did the laundry twice which was a bit of a feat given that you have to carry all of your laundry on your back a couple of blocks from the dinghy to the laundromat. We did a fair amount of visiting with our boat neighbors. Some days our anchorage could have been renamed “little Canada” for all the Canadian flags flying. We went to a movie and rented one as well. We did a lot of grocery shopping at one of the world’s most expensive grocery stores. Wayne also replaced all of the fuel filters and bled the fuel lines which initiated another maintenance nightmare when one of the bleed screws broke. Wayne went hither and thither looking for a replacement but ended up having to fabricate one himself. We installed the GPS’s permanent mount and this again initiated a maintenance nightmare when our wind instruments, that are mounted beside the GPS, quit working. As you can see we were busy but it was still time to move on. Anywhere!

So finally on September 19th we filled up with fuel and water at a Sausalito marina. We did finally get our anchor back after much pulling and cleaning and once again we thank heaven for our electric windlass. We spent that night on a buoy, or shall I say buoys at Angel Island. Here you are expected to tie up to two buoys, one at the front and another at the back. Having never done this before and also having not thought very hard about it first, made us the evening’s entertainment for everyone else. At least no one fell overboard. We left early the next morning for Berkeley and an hour later anchored off the Berkeley pier which looked like a good idea at the time. Five hours later the wind had picked up considerably and the waves had arrived making us buck like a bronco horse. It was time to move on again. Unfortunately because of how shallow San Francisco Bay is, there isn’t a lot of good anchorages but there are a lot of marinas. We, of course, are too thrifty (read cheap) to stay at marinas. We finally ended up at Treasure Island which along with Yerba Buena Island makes up the center of the Oakland Bay bridge. It is a wonderfully protected harbor but it is marked as a prohibited military area on our charts. Some sailing friends had mentioned that since the military was sizing down and shutting down areas that they didn’t mind anymore if you wanted to anchor there. We stayed for a couple of days and worked on the boat. Fixing our instruments (YAHOO! We are electrical geniuses!), soundproofing the engine room, and painting some spots on the mast.

From Treasure Island we headed up toward the delta. This is the area off of San Francisco Bay where the Sacramento River enters. We had heard that it was warm there and we really wanted to go somewhere warmer. We found what we were looking for in a place called Montezuma Slough. The trip up was fast, as it was a run (with the wind behind) the whole way. We had one scare with a crazed ship that didn’t seem to know where his side of the channel was. Wayne really got a kick out of what is known here as the “Mothball Fleet”. It is an area on the chart marked as Fleet Reserve and it is just that, a whole fleet of ships waiting in reserve. They are anchored in rows of 7 or 8 ships rafted together. There must have been at least 7 rows. It was eerie to sail in amongst them. They are huge! The Slough was great but a bit on the shallow side especially at the entrance, but everywhere is shallow here. We’re getting used to it. If you would have told me a couple of months ago that I would become blasé about anchoring with only 2 or 3 feet of water under the keel and weaving through crowded shipping lanes, I would have thought you were insane. At least the bottom is mud and not rock. Anyway Montezuma was wonderful. The water is mostly fresh because of the rivers and it was HOT! We lazed about for a day in our bathing suits and even blew up the air mattress and went for a swim. After a long day in the sun we were rewarded with our first shower since leaving home where you didn’t have to conserve water. We stood on the deck in our birthday suits and had bucket showers. It was great! Unfortunately our time here was limited and we had to head back to Sausalito to pick up Wayne’s contacts (he had torn one). Of course, we paid for the downhill run on the way to the Slough with a zig zagging day full of beating on the way back. It was hard work but it was satisfying as most people just give up and motor after the 400th tack in the narrow channels with bridges and ships.

After a one night stop in Sausalito for contacts, laundry and groceries we returned to Treasure Island to prepare the boat for the trip down the coast to San Diego. One of our preparations was to spend a whole evening making tons and tons of lasagna to heat up along the way when we don’t feel like cooking.

There must have been quite a school of fish food out there as there were also billions of sea birds, sharks and porpoises. Later that night on my shift, a whale surfaced and blew very close to the boat. Of course it was too dark to see much and that gave me quite a fright. Later that night we were once again inundated with fog (Note to potential cruisers: do not leave home without your radar). The radar was called on duty and we had to radio a couple of fast moving ships to be sure that they had seen us on radar and were not going to run us down (they had and they weren’t). The fog continued all night and into the morning which made arriving at Santa Cruz a bit tricky. You may be saying to yourself “weren’t these people heading for Monterey?”. Yes, we were but shortly after leaving San Francisco we discovered that the fridge/freezer was not working and had in fact not been working for a day or two and everything was fast defrosting. Also the GPS had been acting very strangely so we had been dead reckoning and using the Sat Nav.

Santa Cruz was a great place. On the evening that we arrived, they held a spectacular fireworks display to celebrate our arrival (well okay, so it happened to be the city’s anniversary). It was held on the beach right near where we were anchored and the noise was deafening. Twiggy was sure that the world was coming to an end. This display also turned our fairly quiet anchorage into a parking lot for two hundred boats. Thankfully they all left after the fireworks and returned to wherever it was that they had come from. We spent the next night on the dock (the first one since leaving Sooke) so that the refrigerator repair guy could get to us. We also took the GPS to an authorized service center and discovered that something about the satellites had changed 4 or 5 days previously that would necessitate our GPS getting its software changed. Unfortunately it had to go back to the factory for this alteration and we were assured that it would be feeling good enough to join us again in San Diego. Until then, we are rediscovering the lost art of dead reckoning and using the Sat Nav.

On the morning of the 4th we were set to leave Santa Cruz and found out that there was a tsunami warning in effect as there had been an 8 point something earthquake in Japan. It was scheduled to arrive at 4 pm that day. Tsunamis are very dangerous for boats in shallow water as they often leave whole marinas a half mile or so inland. Off we went to the deepest water that we could find by 4 pm between Santa Cruz and Monterey. Thankfully there is some of the deepest water on this coast just out from Monterey in a tremendous trench that is equivalent to the Grand Canyon in size. Unfortunately the weather gods were out to get us this day. We had 10 hours of the most “memorable” sailing that we’ve ever experienced. We had it all! The wind was from the SW which is exactly the direction we were headed. This is also the opposite direction of 99.9% of the winds along this coast. It was also a little strong for our liking (for those of you that care, we saw winds up to 37 knots on the anometer). This lively wind produced the most loathsome swell and waves that we had to beat directly into. We were sailing straight into the wind and 7 or 8 foot waves. This was really uncomfortable as we had waves on deck as high as the house-top and a fair bit of water down below (Note for potential cruisers: be sure your dorade vents seal up completely)! We’ve never been so wet! Near the end of this nightmare trip the lightning and driving rain began and this was really terrifying. Most of it seemed to be right overhead and looking hungrily for a mast to hit. We pretended to be brave but several of our instruments made frightened squealing noises whenever the lightning got too close. We finally made it to Monterey at about 9 pm and anchored in the dark. We have never been so thankful to be safely at anchor. We found out the next day that the tsunami warning was canceled during the afternoon.

We spent a couple of days in Monterey harbour. It wasn’t the most protected anchorage but it had its charms. Sea otters frolicked about the boat and wrapped themselves in kelp to catch a little shut-eye. They are soooo cute! Gigantic sea lions swam about and barked like dogs. The water was so clear we could easily see the bottom in 20 feet. This is the first really clear water we’ve seen so far. We wandered around Monterey and visited the aquarium. Of course all of the touristy stuff had to wait until we had spent hours cleaning up our sopping cockpit and interior and hung everything we own out to dry. We looked like a laundry. We also sealed up the offending leaks so that this doesn’t happen in the future.

On October 7th we left Monterey for Morro Bay which is 115 miles south. We had a wonderful trip. We’re finally getting the hang of sailing downwind. We had lovely clear weather and there were bizzillions of stars that night. We arrived the next afternoon sailing along in perfect warm (for the first time) winds. This is a lovely bay but there is limited anchorage and we were unable to find a spot to anchor for the first night so we took a mooring buoy at the yacht club. The Morro Bay Harbor Patrol went above and beyond the call of duty in helping us to find a suitable place to anchor for the rest of our stay. It’s a nice town but a bit on the touristy side. The weather has been gorgeous with temperatures in the eighties and nineties. We’ve met up again with some great people that we had met before and met plenty of people from other boats.