Aries 32 - Thistledown
I'm in san diego now, just 70 miles from my first mexican port (ensenada). The sailing is still slow going, with primarily light winds. We've been trying to rely on sail power, except in tight quarters, which seems to be a-typical of cruising sailors... Most people seem to motor whenever the wind is light. I've only been using the motor to help navigate in tight harbours where there isn't room to tack. We've been getting better at sailing in tight quarters, and we were able to sail in and out of a slip at the public dock in san diego. I haven't used the engine since catalina harbour now, although I'm currently working on fixing the gearbox. I've considered getting rid of the engine, although most people have engines in boats this big. One person suggested that I could use a dingy with an outboard to side-tow in and out of slips when/if necessary, and it would free up a lot of storage space if I did get rid of the engine. I might even be able to get a bit of money by selling the old engine. My water tankage is limited to about 30 gallons, a problem which will have to be remedied before trying to cross the pacific, and which might be helped by the extra space. I'll probably at least replace one of my fuel tanks with an extra water tank.
From santa barbara, we sailed first to smugglers cove in santa cruz island. It's called smugglers cove because it's out of sight of land, and trading ships used to hide here to avoid tarriffs. Our cruising guide says that more recently there have been drug busts in the area, and other smuggling activities. We ate a pot cookie, and then saw a tiny helicopter buzzing around in the bushes, flying really low all over the island. We started coming up with all kinds of ideas about how they were hunting some coke dealer hiding in the bushes. We then saw a bunch of guys running around in short shorts carrying rifles... so we decided to row to shore and check it out. As it turns out, they were just hunting pigs; the island is overrun with them. There was also a big sign warning us that the island is closed to recreational visitors, meaning we couldn't even explore the island. we did anyways for a little bit, but with the helicopter buzzing around we didn't stay long. oh well.
From there we sailed to catalina harbour on santa catalina island. It took a couple of days to get there because of light winds, but there were some strong winds (in the wrong direction) on the way into the harbour. We tacked back and forth all night into a little wind-funnel of a harbour, until we were right in the opening where we started up the engine to help figure out the mooring procedure. We used a mooring ball for the first night, but when someone came out to collect $24 we decided we were better off dropping the anchor.
We picked up some fishing gear at a store on the island, and caught our first fish, a small mackeral, which we ate for lunch. We've met a lot of other sailors with similar cruising itineraries. There were three couples with boats anchored there, all heading down the coast. One couple (greg and bonnie) built there boat "willow" from scratch over the course of a few years... it was an increadibly well thought out, and well built boat. Six of us on three boats all sailed off our anchors in the morning, "racing" to a bar in avalon (a town on the island). We came up with the race rules the night before after a few beers: "no motoring, don't raise your anchor before sunrise, first pair to bar-stools in avalon wins." In the light winds we drifted along at pretty much the same pace all day long. Greg from willow jumped in his kayak and paddled back to visit us, after getting a little ways ahead. None of us ended up actually making it to Avalon. One boat, "sereia" with peter and antonia took advantage of some decent wind and veered off for san diego, willow dropped anchor in the lee of the island, and we headed east for long beach. It was a fun day though, and a fun start to the trip to long beach.
We were going to do some work on the boat in long beach, in part because I have a couple of friends who live there, but it turned out to be not such a great place to stay. As we came into the harbour I checked the chart for the anchorage, verified it in the cruising guide, and in the coastal pilot, but saw no other boats anchored there so called a nearby marina. They confirmed that we were in the right place, and just said it was the off season. We asked if they had a dingy dock we could row to, but the response was "no, we don't have any guest slips." A little confused, I hung up, we dropped two anchors and rowed to shore. upon landing the dingy on shore, a life gaurd met us in a truck on the beach, who told us we couldn't anchor where we were. We explained our checks with the guide-book, coastal pilot, chart, and marina, but he kept saying we were in the wrong place, and that even if we were in the right place they wouldn't let us stay very long. Confused, we rowed back out, hauled both anchors, sailed the short distance to the "correct" anchorage, and rowed back to shore. We stayed at a friends place, and the next day when we got back to the boat there was a note from a "petty officer" in the coast gaurd saying I had to have my anchor light on. I think he was wrong, I don't think a boat as small as thistledowns isn't required to have an anchor light when anchored in a designated anchorage marked on the chart, but I flipped on the light anyways, happy about the note since at least he wasn't saying I had to leave. He'd even put a little glow stick on my back-stay so I would be seen... but then I noticed he'd messed with my anchor rode. I was furious, but I don't think there's anything I can do about it. He'd adjusted the amount of line I had out, putting the safety of my home in his hands, with no warning. He'd shortened my line, reducing the amount of swinging room I took up, but he'd done it slopily in a way that strained things I didn't want to have strained. I was at least a quarter of a mile from any other obstruction, and I'd put out two anchors to reduce my swinging room anyways. I'm still pretty confused about why he would have done this. Either way it gave us a bad vibe, so we moved on.
On saturday the 17th, we sailed out of long beach headed for san diego, and sailed into a slip at the "police dock" in san diego on monday afternoon. There are lots of people here getting ready to sail south, and I finally caught up with my friend from the appalachian trail, obi, who's sailing his chinook 34 "araby" down the coast. This trip feels a lot like when I was hiking the appalachian trail, with the whole moving comunity traveling together down the coast. A lot of people are hoping to meet up in "turtle bay" in mexico for new years eve, although I'm not sure if we'll make it there in time.
We met one guy who built his 82 foot schooner in 97, and was returning north from the "baha haha," a yearly cruiser-rally. He said it took him about 3 years to build the boat. He had 20 people on board, and everyone had a bunk. It was a classic looking ship, like something out of a pirate movie. It's known as the "coffee boat" for picking up 10,000 lbs of coffee in nicaragua on her maiden voyage.
I've been thinking that I might want to build my next boat, since there are so many things I don't like about the production boats I see.
I met a guy who works with transmissions, who said he'd help me with my gearbox problem. I moved my boat to the "cruisers anchorage" where I'm allowed to leave the boat for a longer period of time, and I pulled out my gearbox and gave it to him. He's going to bring it into a shop on monday, and hopefully it will get fixed for real this time. Once I have that back in, and I stock up on some more supplies that might be hard to find in mexico, we'll continue to ensenada, and then turtle bay. The plan is to find a nice anchorage in mexico for relaxing and working on the boat all winter, in preparation for a spring sail across the pacific.
While the gearbox is being worked on, we'll be gathering supplies, and getting paperwork done. We need mexican fishing licences, tourist cards, and a temporary import permit for the boat. I'm going to try to get a bunch of spare fuel filters, impellers, and other engine parts. I've already picked up about 500' of spare line, and quite a few shackles, blocks, etc. We're considering getting a life-raft and EPIRB, which will make the trip a lot safer.
Tomorow will be my first christmass spent away from home, but there are a lot of cool people to hang around with here, and I have a box of presents to open tomorow that I picked up in long beach, delivered from my parents via my friend Jim.