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Asuncion was touted as being a step up from Turtle bay, so it was with great anticipation that we prepared the dinghy for our trip ashore. Kathy was a little nervous due to the roar of surf breaking on the beach, but I assured her that it sounded worse than it was, and with careful timing we would get ashore without any issue. We wanted to find an internet cafe, or some wifi so we could attend to various tedious matters that were pressing back home.

So let me paint two somewhat different perspectives on what happened next, see if you can work out who is who.
1) Great we’re off to town, might get some internet, and do some decent shopping. First get makeup on, look smart and get into the dinghy. Next thing it’s as if someone has jumped out from an alley, and thrown an icy bucket of water all over your head, then they are pushing you into a swimming pool backwards. Not much fun.

2) Wow were off to explore a new place, and we get to go in the dinghy, brilliant, big surf, exciting, wonder if we can ride a wave right up the beach, better just wear swimming trunks, with any luck I can have a little swim. Woosh, what fun.

Of course Kathy wasn’t happy when the big wave hit her full frontal, and then to top that there was nothing in the town of interest, the internet cafe had just shut and the shops were very basic. Still it was a pretty little town.

Abreojos
The next day we did a short hop to Abrejos, which means ‘open your eyes’ . The pilot guide says this is because there are many rocks and dangers on the route there. Our plan had been to find a local panga (Small run around boat) owner who could take us around the nature reserve lagoon where whales return every year to calf and nurture their newborns. However we were a few weeks early and the pangas were nowhere to be seen. On top of that the weather wasn’t great and the surf on the beach was worse than at Asuncion, and Kathy had no interest in going ashore. so we stayed on board, and had a lazy afternoon.

Bahia Santa Maria
The next day we headed off doing an overnighter to Magdalena bay. This was a 140 mile trip, not a lot happened on this passage, but once we arrived near the bay, we opted to overnight in Santa Maria Bay, a lovely quiet spot and for the first time since we left the USA we were out of the pacific swell.
For those who don’t know there is a difference between swell and waves. Swell is caused by large storms or gales that happen out in the oceans, where waves can be mountainous in size. Once the weather clears, the big waves calm, but continue to travel across the ocean as a long period undulations on the surface. When you look at the surface it appears flat close up, but as you look further away you can see the rise and fall of the sea. When the swell is hitting us side on, the boat rolls terribly, the boat has a resonant frequency for swinging, and if the swell is near this the boat can end up swinging quite violently, with just the slightest swell. We often have the mainsail up, even when there is little wind, as its inertia helps reduce the swinging.
Swell tends to get into everywhere, as it wraps around headlands and reaches into what you would think of as protected bays. It was great to be so far around the headland here that the swell was almost zero.

Mag Bay
From Santa maria Cove we did the short 30nm hop into Magdalena bay itself and anchored off the town of Magdalena Harbour. Here we were also very sheltered and had a lazy few days swimming, kayaking and walking the pristine beaches in the bay.

Belcher Point
From the town we moved down to Belcher point in order to be ready for the long passage down to Cabo San Lucas, which would be our next long passage.
Belcher point is a small strip of land that once had a phosphorus plant, a small airstrip and a cannery. Now all that remains is a lot of broken concrete and a small camp some temporary fisherman that have set up there. I went ashore in the kayak and found the place a bit depressing, the temporary camp was very basic and quite bleak.

Onwards to Cabo San Lucas
We left at first light for the overnight passage to Cabo San Lucas. This port is at the bottom of the peninsula, and marks the end of the Baja Haha Rally, which completed a few weeks back. We were hoping to get a few nights in the marina there and restock. It has everything you expect of a modern town, with several big box hypermarkets out of town.

We arrived mid day and anchored off the main beach in front of some flash looking hotel complexes. The water here is amazingly clear. Cabo is very popular with Americans who come here for the water based activities, sailing/fishing/glass bottom boats/Paragliding, all the usual stuff.

On our way here I felt a glitch in the steering while we were on autohelm, next the autohelm was broken, the motor was whizzing around, but the wheel wasn’t connected anymore. I managed to look in the lazarette and could see the chain had come off, due to a short length of rope that had fallen into the locker and got caught up in the cogs. We had a long way to go so I hooked up the Monitor wind vane steering and that took over for the next 20 hours. In the morning the wind was dropping and I realised that if it dropped much more we wouldn’t be able to sail, and would have to hand steer for the next 6 hours. I had a closer look at the autohelm, and could see that the drive shaft was not connecting to the motor, in fact it was hanging out of the casing. This looked like a major failure, and I was resigned to spending many thousands of pounds getting a new system. I expect my current system is so old it won’t be possible to get spares.
We did end up hand steering for the last three hours doing 30 minute watches, which wasn’t so bad.
While at the anchorage I was able to dismantle the motor and gear/clutch assembly. The shaft had ripped itself out of the clutch mechanism and the key had fallen out stopping it from engaging. Miracuously all the bits went back together, the main problem being two circlips that had been stretched when it broke. It took a few hours, but eventually it all went back together and has been working fine since. Phew!

So we moved from the anchorage into the IGY Marina, a very expensive place, but we haven’t been in a marina for so long we felt like treating ourselves and ended up staying three days.
The town is built around the marina with the main boardwalk/Malecon running around the inner basin that contains three marinas. All around the marina you are constantly being offered boat trips/Tequila tasting/fishing excursions/trips to the famous arches/Cuban cigars, and even weed and coke. Thankfully a ‘No Gracias’ is all you need to say to most of them.

Passport problems
So Cabo is a port of entry and has a harbour master, as do most mexican ports. It is a requirement to clear in and out with each harbour master, or ‘Puerto Capitan’ so off we went up the hill on a very hot day to log in. The bag below had all of our paperwork and our passports in it, it also has a slit down one end where things like passports can slip out when your least expecting it, and be lost forever, which is just what happened.

Now losing your passport in a far away place is something I have always dreaded, and not only had I lost mine, but I lost Kathy’s and my previous expired passport, which I keep as it has my 10 year B1/B2 USA Visa in it, this wasn’t easy to obtain.
I had the receptionist at the Marina write a little note for me that I could show to all the vendors/bars I had passed between the boat and the captains office, it said something like ‘I have lost three passports, has anybody handed them in to you, por favour’
I had seen some unfortunate people approaching me, looking very sad and holding a bit of paper asking for money to alleviate their plight’ now I was in the same boat, in as much as looking miserable and pleading for help! Of course I was fortunate enough that I can just buy my way out of the problem, not an option they have the luxury of.

So I was able to get travel documents issued to me by the authorities here that allow us to move around Mexico without issue. Kathy needs an emergency passport to be able to get home in January, so we have to travel to the capital of Mexico, Mexico City, and visit the British embassy where Kathy will be interviewed, before she is issued the relevant papers. I just need to apply online and they will post it out to me here. I presume Kathy will need to answer the British Citizenship test, she better start brushing up on how many overs there are in a test match, which way to pass the port and who will be ‘getting brexit done’. In a way it’s no big deal as we get a holiday in the City, Kathy was flying via there anyway, so it’s just the cost of a few nights in a hotel, and we get a free trip to the big city.

We went looking for a restaurant that night and found an Indian one, which is usually a safe bet for vegans, besides fish I am mostly vegan now as well.
It was closed but next door had a lovely restaurant where the staff made a fresh salsa to our design as a free starter to our meal.

We had a walk around town the next day and there was a small market with some street performers. Very pleasant

On our last day we had a walk around the marina and Kathy ended up trying some magic creams that the street vendors are constantly pushing. It was quite funny, but the poor guy didn’t get any business from us. Later we looked online and this ‘poor guy‘ had scammed many unsuspecting ladies out of a small fortune by quoting in Peso’s and billing their card in $US, a 20:1 gain. Also a lot of people had bad skin reactions after testing his creams. To be fair we couldn’t be sure it was this particular guy, but that seems to be the MO of the sellers here.

Next we leave Cabo San Lucas and make our way around into the Sea of Cortez. Some bad weather is on the way so we are going to hide for a few days. We won’t be heading any further south this year. In fact we are in the tropics now, but will move back out of them by the time we reach La Paz.

Paul Collister.

Ensenada has the largest flag I have ever seen. It has pride of place at the centre of the small town square on the waterfront. We could see it billowing in the wind as we approached Ensenada Marina on the morning of Friday 8^th November after an overnight passage from San Diego. For most of the way we had been hearing frequent marine reports on the VHF from the San Diego coastguard, delivered in clear and concise language relating to weather, things to watch out for and the odd ‘pan pan’ call. In the early hours of the morning during my watch I was in the cockpit looking at the shoreline of Mexico in the far distance when I was startled by a cheery ‘Hola’ from one of the fishermen on a nearby boat and realised that the American broadcasts must have ceased at some point during the night. We were truly in Mexico now. By the time Paul came on watch at 8am more boats, or pangas as they are called here, had appeared and the shoreline was getting nearer so it didn’t seem worth going to sleep.

The flag was now clearly visible as Mexico’s colourful national flag and made a captivating sight high up as it was and moving gracefully in the wind. We hadn’t bothered calling in to report our approach because we’d already been allocated a specific berth. I was looking out for it through the binoculars, waiting for the pontoon letters to become clearer when I noticed two men standing on the one at the outside edge. They beckoned us over, took our lines and one of them bid us ‘welcome to America’ (just Victor’s little joke – he’s not a big fan of the US). Victor, the manager at Baja Naval Marina proved to be an efficient, friendly and helpful guy as we got to know him. It was he who, after we’d freshened up a little, escorted us to the places we had attend to check in for immigration, customs and with the harbour master. Victor acted as our interpreter, tour guide and instructor as we were hurried through the dusty streets after 20 minutes of passing forms and sheets of paper back and forth in his tiny office. First we had to visit a shop in order to change a bank note so that we would have the exact money to pay the various authorities. I hardly had time to take in my surroundings as he and Paul strode on ahead. I did, however, come to notice one of the first differences in Mexico from Canada and America on those streets. Crossing the roads was hazardous! If I fell too far behind due to taking photographs and Paul and Victor had crossed a busy road ahead, I found myself struggling to work out the ‘green cross code’ equivalent for getting to the other side without being mown down.  If no lights were in operation to halt the traffic you simply had to wait for a suitable lull and take a chance stepping out and hurrying across before the next car got too close. I also noticed the pavements were in a state of disrepair, with rubble, gaping holes and uneven concrete slabs providing more hazards to avoid. Victor appeared to know every stall holder and passer-by we came across, shouting a cheery ‘bon dia’ to them as he marched us forward.  

We chatted to him along the way, telling him where we were from, where we were heading and asking questions about where to find things in Ensenada. Arriving at the building slightly out of breath and sweating from the heat (I was anyway), Victor guided Paul to the relevant desks and told him what papers to show, translating and explaining and selecting the money needed to pay for permits etc. I was a bit superfluous to most of this so took the opportunity to sit and rest while watching the proceedings and marvelling at the fact that Victor has to do this several times a day for foreign boat owners, both for checking in and checking out. Small wonder he is so slender, but he’s also unfailingly cheerful, witty and appears to have endless energy. Our energy was diminishing rapidly by the time we got back to the boat. We hadn’t had much sleep and the heat, walking and all the bureaucracy had taken it out of us. We would have two weeks to explore Ensenada so were in no hurry to do too much on our first evening. A promenade runs along the length of the waterfront from the Cruise Ship Terminal to end of the harbour. This walkway is lined with restaurants, bars and shops, the square being roughly in the centre.

The square is lined with fast food stalls and has a stage for performances. As we got ready to go for a short walk the unmistakeable sound of brass instruments reached our ears. The mariachis were tuning up – actually they were playing tunes, it just sounded like they were tuning up to me. I’m not a fan of music with brass instruments, especially trumpets, and there would be no escaping this considering our position in the marina. It seemed every eatery along the prom had their own band or a recorded performance emanating from it, causing quite a cacophony of sound. As we walked along each and every restaurant had staff placed outside urging strollers to come in to eat or have a tequila/margarita/mojito/beer/.  Since this was to be our main route into town it looked like we’d have to get used to simply politely declining several times and hope they’d remember that one of us was one of those weird ‘veganos’ while the other was a ‘sin alcohol’ person.

Naturally, as in most of the places we visit on a coastline, the food on offer in most restaurants and shacks is predominantly seafood. One afternoon during our time there Paul decided to try the highly recommended tacos in a tiny outdoor cafe just off the main street. It was clearly popular with both locals and tourists and there was a man busily working behind the counter to keep up with demand, flushed and sweating from the heat of frying and ladling the various fillings into tacos. While we waited for Paul’s order I watched what other customers were doing with their plates of food. It seems there is quite a ritual involved in putting it all together. Once you have been handed the plate, you then add things like chopped onions and tomatoes, green chilli sauce, and a selection of various dressings to pour on top of it. It all looked a bit of a messy affair to me. I’m sure I would have ended up with a multi-coloured face if I’d attempted to eat one by hand as so many were doing. Paul enjoyed his chicken one with the aid of a fork – a pic of his dish below.

Ensenada’s Hermosa Beach is described in our National Geographic guide as a popular place for horse riding but goes on to state that the horses there look ‘rather miserable’. We saw those horses when we walked to the beach on our first Sunday in Ensenada. It was a hot morning when we set out for the 30 minute walk and we planned to find somewhere to have a drink once we reached the beach. The walk was adjacent to the main highway and we passed a ranch type establishment which had a group of horses tied to a fence near the road.  Horse-drawn carriages ferry tourists from the cruise liners on pleasure trips along the road so they are probably used for that purpose as well as beach rides.

As we neared Hermosa Beach, I could see that while there is a vast stretch of sand and the beautiful glistening Pacific, the similarity to California’s beaches ended there. This is mainly because of the lack of money to add ‘finesse’ to the surroundings. For example, the beach wasn’t tidied or maintained so although it wasn’t filthy, there was some litter and horse droppings to avoid. Deserted and industrial-looking buildings and barbed wire fences in-between the beach and the main road gave an overall downbeat vibe to the area. The sand was dotted with brown, palm covered tables for picnickers and the odd makeshift tent selling beers and drinks from a cool box. A line of passenger-laden horses was being slowly led along the edge of the beach, on a path set away from the people on the sand. I’m not sure about the accuracy of the miserable-looking description. The owners must make sure they are adequately fed and watered but they certainly didn’t look groomed or ‘perky’ with their heads down and their mottled coats…and some of the riders were not exactly slender.  

At the end of the sand there were a few buildings selling seaside articles such as buckets and spades and windmills but a distinct lack of anywhere to get a drink, apart from the cans being sold on the beach. We sat for a while watching families and visitors make the most of the balmy weather and decided to walk back along the sand. In hindsight, I realise I was judging Hermosa harshly having so recently left California’s pristine resorts, which isn’t really fair. The distinction between the two countries is obvious. America has money in place to make the most of its waterfront locations. Mexico’s economy has no budget for leisure like that of the US. We bought a book about customs and culture in Mexico and learned that 40 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and the majority are not far above it. Leisure is important in this hard working country, especially on Sundays which is, and always has been here, a day for families to spend time together. An afternoon on the beach is made the most of, however it looks. I would clearly need to refine my expectations if I was going to make the most of my time here.

I have never thought about owning a grain of rice with my name on it but we were constantly being asked to buy one whenever we walked past the street vendors. On Monday I ventured out on my own to get a few things from the supermarket. The streets were very crowded and without Paul’s expertise on crossing busy roads, I found myself pathetically sidling up to other people waiting to cross and tailgating them to the other side. Along with the rice sellers were the usual street touts, urging you to go inside shops and buy genuine Mexican souvenirs or into bars and restaurants. Several of the establishments in the town have signs outside welcoming cruise ship passengers, so I guess they are likely to be Ensenada’s main visitors. The supermarket shop was pleasingly cheaper than any in Canada and the US had been, although I hadn’t got used to converting pesos yet and I had to call on my very limited Spanish to understand what was being said to me at the checkout.

Our stay in Ensenada lasted two weeks so we got to know the town quite well. We paid a visit to the nearby museum and the cultural centre one sunny afternoon. We declined the option of a guide to show us around the museum, preferring to read the exhibit signs ourselves. It would have been churlish, however to refuse one young guide’s kind offer to lead us into one of the private balconies above a hall on the upper floor so that we had a view of the area where a casino used to be. He told us in his limited English that rich Americans used to flock there during the prohibition to drink and gamble.

The cultural centre had a Spanish-style square with stalls selling handmade crafts and gifts. We sat there after buying drinks in a very impressive old style bar enjoying the sun and admiring the products on sale.

Later that day when we’d just found a laundry recommended to us by the marina staff, a man approached us to tell us that it was an excellent laundry with lovely staff. He then produced a flower he had fashioned out of palm reed and asked us to buy it. He had a young boy with him and explained that he was trying to teach his son that you don’t get money just by asking. Paul told him he admired that, gave him some money and said he liked him. We were surprised by his retort; ‘well I don’t like you’. He followed with a laugh that it was only a joke, but there was just enough in his face for me to wonder, and then he held his hand out and asked for more money and we decided it was time to make a polite retreat into the laundry. Thankfully that was an isolated incident. We’ve mostly been greeted with smiles and waves and experienced good humoured interaction everywhere we’ve been.  

It was good to see the celebrations for revolution day while we were there. The weekend before the actual day on the 19^th, there was a performance in the square on the Saturday evening. We went along to have a look at the dancers which was very similar to line dancing. The music was quite good, too in that it wasn’t dominated by trumpets. We weren’t quite as keen on the female singer dressed up as a bullfighter who let’s just say, didn’t sing all that well.

We also saw the raising of the mammoth sized flag which was quite a sight to witness. Viewed from far below the flag looks like a giant silk handkerchief, very light and delicate. When we reached the square we saw men from various military groups lining the edge of the square armed with rifles and standing to attention. The flag was rolled up and being held by at least a dozen men in a row with their arms stretched out to support it. It was clearly heavy and we could see that the material was much thicker than it seemed. The strain of holding it up began to show after a while and I felt thankful for them that it wasn’t a sweltering hot day. Behind us on the main street, armoured vehicles carrying men poised with rifles appeared, much to my consternation. I don’t think I will ever get used to feeling comfortable when weapons are in such close proximity.  

Later that day we saw and felt the first rain for weeks; it gradually became heavy and lasted well into Thursday 21st causing parts of the town to become flooded. We were due to leave the following day and the rain had delayed our preparations a bit so we had to fit a lot in on that Thursday. The town was in the throes of preparing for its annual Baja 1000 car rally and our route to town in the morning took in the streets that had been especially prepared for the event. Stalls had been set up along every available space either side of the main road, traffic had been diverted and people were packed tightly on the road browsing the stalls and viewing the customised cars on display up to the starting line. We heard later that the rain caused the start to be postponed due to the flooding.

We had to make two trips to supermarkets, stocking up with food and drink since we would probably only have access to tiny village shops until we reached Cabo in the middle of December. Once we had bought and unloaded the provisions we had to check out of Ensenada, in line with the regulations of the Port Captain. This was basically a reverse of the checking in process, involving more form filling, more paper being passed across desks and another brisk walk to the port authority building with Victor. This time we had company in the form of Jordan, a solo sailor from California who would also be leaving in the morning. He kept me company while Paul and Victor marched ahead, and was kind enough to help me cross the road, too ;-).   

After two weeks in Ensenada’s naval bay, we were going back to sea in order to continue our journey south along Mexico’s Baja California coast. We left at our planned departure time of 9 30 and I watched that huge flag get slowly smaller as we left it behind.        

8th November 2019 , Mexico at last!

I never feel like I can relax in a new country until we have cleared customs/immigration and port control/harbourmaster. Fortunately we had Victor, the marina manager to help us. Victor is a lovely cheery chappy, he went through all the paperwork we would need, made all the copies required, and then walked us to an ATM where we could get the required Pesos out for the visas and boat permits. As he escorted us across town to the relevant office he pointed out places to eat and other useful stores. Once there Victor did all the leg work and we just had to stand there, smiling and signing forms for the relevant officers. It turned out to be very easy, perhaps not the cheapest country to visit by boat. But we were soon signed in with a 6 month visa each and a ten year pass for the boat. Later we would buy fishing licenses and nature reserve passes. 

First impressions of Ensenada are that of a vibrant town on the up, but also a place with no shortage of poverty. In the last few years they have opened up a cruise terminal and there are 3-5 visits a week even now in the winter, we watched the carnival ships Inspiration and Imagination pop in and out on 5 days round trip ‘taster cruises’ from Long Beach LA and also the Disney cruise ships on longer trips. The town now has a nice Promenade, or ‘Malecon’ which leads the cruise passengers from the ship into the main high street where they can be fleeced silly by the local vendors, before they are beckoned to have a meal of ‘fish tacos’ and be serenaded by a local mariachi band. The whole thing  doesn’t appeal to me, as I marched down the same street and had a chicken taco 😉

We had arrived at the start of the Revolution ceremonies, Mexico has had a few revolutions over the years, but the 20th November is the official one now. The town square is right next to the marina and sports a giant flagpole and the ceremonial raising of the flag by representatives of all the forces and official bodies, police/fire/rescue etc became a regular event.

We also saw a concert in the square of traditional Mexican song and dance which was very entertaining. 

Once settled we were off to check out the shops, I was hoping that the town only had a few supermarkets, but it turned out to have about ten main ones and quite a few smaller mercados. After a bit of shopping around I managed to buy a couple of android phones, a Huawei for Kathy as her old Redmi had packed in after she took it for a swim, and a Moto 7 for me, I had hoped to ‘root’ and enable hot spotting, something I can’t do with the iPhone on my at&t plan. I’m still fighting with the phone to get in and flash new software.

While we were here we endured a few days of very heavy rain, the temperature dropped and we were running the heater for a while. This wasn’t quite what I had ordered for the winter and wondered if I had ticked the wrong box for ‘paradise’.

We had a very nice day visiting the local museum, this was housed in an old hotel complex built in the 30’s when the town was very small, it was built for wealthy Americans to come down and drink and gamble in the casino, it was an impressive building, and after the museum we had a drink in the bar there and bought a few trinkets from the stalls setup outside the bar in a pretty courtyard.

Back at the boat, it was time to make our preparations to leave and start the long passage south and into the sea of Cortez. The tap water is not potable (Drinkable) here, so we order 10 * 20 ltr bottles at $1 a bottle, to be delivered to the boat. I took a taxi ride to the garage to fill our jerry cans with 70 ltrs of diesel, this being how much we had used getting here from San Diego.

Before we left we did a big shop at several of the mercados, this being our last chance before we reach Cabo San Lucas. Shops along the way will have very limited choices. 

On our way to the shops we walked through the start line for the Baja 1000 motor race. I hadn’t heard of this before, but apparently it’s a big deal in motor sports. There was quite a collection of off road vehicles, along with lots of stalls setup to service them and the tourists who had gathered for the event. The race which starts on the river banks in the centre of town had to be delayed by a day due to the heavy rain causing the river to flood. 

Finally, fully loaded we were ready to leave. We said goodbye to our neighbours, Brenda and Clay on Sansucci, who we had met first in Monterey, then later in San Diego and off we headed off early the next morning hoping to do a short hop down the coast, and spend the night in a little enclave about 32 miles south called San Jose. However as we left it became apparent that the Pacific Swell was quite big and might make that spot uncomfortable. As we approached it, we heard two yachts in front leaving the cove saying it was too rough and the kelp there was terrible. So I made the decision to go straight to San Quentin which meant an overnight passage to cover the 120 odd miles. 

Arriving at our destination revealed that quite a few squid had decided to jump onto the boat during the night, and expire on the deck. I wouldn’t mind, but on expiring they had left huge ink stains I still haven’t been able to remove fully.

San Quinten, (pronounced San KeenTeen) is quite well protected from northerly winds, of the type we expect to have for a few months now, but turned out to be quite Rolly all the same. It has an entrance to an estuary which I had hoped to explore by Kayak, but altogether the weather was grim, the water choppy, so we slept a lot and the following day pushed on to our next port of Cedros Island. 

Before we left, I popped up the mast to replace a halyard that had shredded. I use it for the spinach pole uplift. I spent a bit of time rejigging the whole spinnaker setup and it’s much better now. I can get my pole up without a huge wrestling jousting match.

Leaving for Cedros town meant another overnighter, and we arrived an hour before sunset. We spent 30 minutes trying to get the anchor to set, on the third try it dug in, but it dragged a little when I gave the boat max revs astern, but as it was very calm I left it at that and set up an anchor alarm on my iPhone, just in case. We hurried ashore before the light left us as the pilot guide suggested this town was one of the more sophisticated along the Baja coast. We weren’t convinced. It reminded me of my few months in Afghanistan, dirt roads, dust everywhere, destroyed buildings, with dogs rummaging through them. Was this a taste of what was to come?

We found a shop and said hello to a few locals. Everyone seems very friendly here, but the town was very run down. There is some fishing done here, but mainly the island is home to a huge salt distribution centre, with a deepwater dock a mile south of the town, with mountainous piles of salt piled up there.

On a rather technical point, I had a shocking, and it was all about shock loading, experience in San Quinten. This is about how not to set an anchor, so skip this paragraph if you like. Basically we normally set the anchor by gently falling back on it , with the engine in low revs in reverse. When I feel it has dug in, we usually increase the revs, to near maximum, depending on the weather and expected weather. Before we reverse, I put a small snubber of the anchor chain from in front of the windlass, back to the Samson post, so that the strain is taken by this line and not the windless when we reverse. Once we are set, I put a bigger snubber line out that goes into the water. We had been reversing, with moderate revs, but the anchor chain kept going from taut to slack, presumably as it wasn’t holding. I was confused, it seemed to set, but then the chain went slack. What was actually happening, and I hadn’t twigged, was the swell was quite large, and was lifting the boat up 5-10 foot on the crests every 15-20. Seconds. Later In a period of low swell, the anchor seemed to be holding so I asked Kathy, who was on the helm to give it maximum in reverse, she did, the chain went bar tight, the snubber taking the full force and I was happy we were set, just needed to check our speed on the gps and we would be done. However at that moment a large swell came in and lifter the boat up high, it was more than the snubber could take and it snapped in an explosive kind of way, the chain hook left the chain and shot off like a bullet, and the remaining rope recoiled back onto the deck. The windless clutch wasn’t engaged, so the anchor chin started screaming out at full speed. I got the brake on the clutch and concluded we were set. Fortunately I had a spare anchor hook, and the one I lost had been a cheap galvanised job, so no great loss. Also the rope I had been using for this short snubber was an old piece of halyard, probably the worse choice as they are designed to be non stretch. The next day I found the old hook sitting on the bow platform right at the front ready to fall off. 

This wasn’t going to be the end of my snubber woes this week.

Wed 27th November, Cedros to Turtle Bay.

As we left the next morning we passed in-between two sets of crab pot marker buoys. I had assumed the two buoys 100 ft on the left belonged to one set of traps, and the group of buoys 100ft to the right, another. Imagine my surprise when I noticed we had gone over a length of floating polypropylene rope joining them together. Normally the rope would glide along our keel and pop out the back without any issue. The shape of our hull means the prop and rudder shouldn’t be able to trap the rope. However this time the rope didn’t pop out and all the buoys were now following us. I had already killed the revs and gone into neutral before the rope had got near the stern of the boat, and I couldn’t go into reverse for fear of snagging the rope, so we just drifted slowly forward towing the buoys as I pondered my next move. Kathy was asking me what are we going to do, and I really couldn’t think what, this shouldn’t happen, there’s nothing for the line to snag on. I’m guessing there must be barnacles on the underside of the keel big enough to hold the rope. Anyway, we hadn’t travelled more than a boats length when the ropes went taught then popped out the back of our boat and we were free to continue our voyage. Over the next few days we found a lot of floating lines are used on marker buoys here and it’s a very dangerous situation, especially for more modern boats that can snag lines easily.

As we left the weather began to turn bad, the rain started and really picked up. I could have filled our water tanks if I had a decent capture system. 

We also had to navigate through endless amounts of marker buoys before we got to Turtle bay. It was only a short day trip across, but required me to put on full foul-weather gear. By the time we arrived in Turtle bay things had improved and we motored close to the town pier and the beach to make it easy to dinghy ashore. 

Turtle bay is the main / biggest town between Ensenada and Cab San Lucas and the first stop on the Baja Haha Rally. A lot of boats refuel here as it’s the easiest place to take on fuel before Cab san Lucas, however the second source of fuel stopped, leaving Enrique with a monopoly. The going rate is normally around 22 peso a litre, but he has upped the price to 33 peso, a 50% hike, plus he charges 10% extra if you want to pay by card. There is a Pemex petrol station in town, but Enrique tells everyone it doesn’t sell diesel, which it does. If you insist on going there, he tries to stop you by saying he will get the police onto you for breaking his exclusive contract to supply diesel in the town. One of the skippers went to the police to get the story and was told Enrique was talking nonsense. Failing all else he tries to intimidate you with his friends on the jetty. All in all this left us with a very bad impression of the place. It wasn’t helped by the very run down nature of the town. It’s such a shame, word will get around and people will stock up on fuel or go to the next port of Bahia Asuncion where there is a Pemex selling diesel for 22 pesos.

On our first day we didn’t go ashore, I wanted to fix our bilge pump. It was making a whirring noise, but not pumping. It took a while, but eventually I had it out from the bottom of the deep bilge, and years of oil removed from its case. When I ran it it seemed to work, but the centrifuge was actually not connecting to the drive shaft due to a retaining circle being absent. I managed to fit a new one, I carry a huge selection, thanks to Aldi who did plastic boxes of this type of thing for a few quid, I have copper washers and fibre washers and springs, all from the same source. I do miss Aldi and Lidl for these bargains. Saying that I expect it’s meant to be stainless steel and the mild steel circlip will soon fail, but I’m going to get a new pump anyway as this one sounds a bit growly, I suspect the bearing in on the way out.

Turtle bay is well protected from all directions except the south west, winds from that direction are very rare at this time of year, however the forecast had been for 10-15 knots from the west, which might bring some swell into the bay. Back at the boat, I checked the forecast and we were now looking at 15-20 knots from the SW, others had a prediction of 20knots from predictwind, which is often very accurate. This was a worry as we are so close to the beach/rocks and 20 knots would be pushing us towards the rocks, should our anchor fail, it would be a matter of 5 minutes before we hit the rocks at best. The wind was forecast to peak at midnight, and by sunset it was around 15 knots and rising. Our anchor was holding well and I was optimistic that we would hold well even if it rose to 20 knots. I was now in a horrible situation, I knew if we left now we would have a very tricky time getting the anchor up in a crowded spot, the swell / waves were getting big and we would have to get everything right to navigate through the anchorage 2 miles across the bay to a more sheltered spot, unsure just how much shelter that spot provided, and the holding over there was reported to be worse the here. So I decided to stay, a few more hours at 20 knots then it was predicted to drop. So by midnight we were up to 25 knots, massive waves rolling and conditions still worsening. The anchor chain and snubber rope were very taut, and we were taking a bashing from the swell. I told Kathy we had to do an anchor watch system, 2 hours on/off, keeping a close eye on our GPS position, and watching for the other 17 boats upwind from us to make are they didn’t drag onto us. By 2AM the wind was hitting 40 knots and the waves were massive. One boat said he saw 50 knots on his anemometer. My eyes were glued to the GPS position on the chart plotter when I heard a loud bang from the bow, as I had feared our snubber had snapped, I later found out the slack chain had been rubbing against the snubber around were it snapped. Climbing up to the bow I could see the chain was iron taut on the small snubber I have by the windlass, since the previous failure I had found some strong nylon rode for this snubber, but I worried it wasn’t going to be enough to absorb the loads we were seeing. I lashed a spare bit of 3 strand nylon around the chain, fed it through the starboard hawse pipe and cleated it off, that would be a temporary solution, but I needed to slacken the other snubber and let out some chain, unfortunately, this rope had locked itself somehow that I couldn’t undo it from the Sampson post, such was the force on it. I decided to try to haul the chain in a bit with the windlass, I waited for a gap between the waves , pulled in the chain, got the hook off, released the chain and let the new snubber take up the slack. It just worked out. I then had to get some new rope to rig up the port side of the snubber, and use a chain hook. This took another hour or so, it was about 4 am before I had it all sorted and the wind seem to have steadied then around 30 knots. All this time the anchor had not budged at all. 

By around 5am the wind was dropping along with the waves and we started to relax.

Come the morning things were more settled and we managed to dinghy ashore.

We had a nice walk around town later, it’s a very scrappy, dusty, muddy place, however the church was spotless and well cared for. I had some lovely fish tacos in a restaurant overlooking the bay and we chatted with other cruisers. In all their were about 20 sailboats at anchor here, as we motored back to sister Midnight from the pier the wind was picking up. 

I had heard of two other cruisers Mike & Chris who were stranded there because there steering had failed. It was a wire and chain system like the one on stardust and Sister midnight, so as I had just rebuilt mine in Sointula I offered to help them fix theirs. A few hours in their rear lazarete the next morning sorted the problem out. Their quadrant had slipped down the rudder post and the wires had left the grove in it, it took a bit of fiddling around to get it all back together, the biggest problem was the swell was causing the rudder to flap from side to side as I was trying to re-attach the cables. It’s great to be able to help people out in a jam, that’s a great thing about the cruiser community, everyone helps each other out.

The following day we hauled up the well dug in anchor and headed off, glad to be out of Turtle bay and heading for Bahia Asuncion.

Since we left Ensenada, cell coverage has been awful, when we do get it, it’s usually 2g with next to no data connectivity. Right now we get a good signal once in a while.

Paul Collister

The city of Oceanside in San Diego County is located close to one of the largest Marine Corps Bases in the United States according to my guide book. On our way to its marina late on the afternoon of 28^th October we saw nothing of this but we did see and hear our old friends the sea lions – a familiar and welcome sight (to me anyway).

They have been allocated their own floating dock on which to ‘beach’ close to the marina berths. The day after we arrived, most of them had abandoned this little square dock and decamped to the floating platform at the end of our pontoon. I had heard them barking in the night and thought they sounded a lot closer than they should have from their dock. Below is the reason why.

Oceanside is a nice enough city, although not as pretty and compact as Redondo. It was a bit of a hike into town to get to the nearest shops and the beach and pier was an hour away on foot. We did a fair bit of walking in Oceanside for the short time we were there. Returning early on the evening before we left, Paul had another confrontation with stubborn sea lions. Two of them had laid themselves full length across the pontoon, blocking our path to the boat. Stamping his feet and clapping his hands merely caused them to stare disdainfully at him without moving an inch. Every time we made a move to walk towards them, though the bigger of the two raised its head and bared its teeth, emitting a warning growl for good measure. I couldn’t help laughing. Eventually we had to resort to the water hose treatment – much to their disgust – before we could get past. Images of Oceanside below.

To add insult to injury, they were more vocal than usual during the night, barking and splashing very close to our hull, yet from the moment we got up to prepare to depart from our berth, they went quiet. I think they are more intelligent than we’ve given them credit for! I still love them though. We were on our way by 9am bound for San Diego with the Santa Ana wind blowing sufficiently to allow us to put the sails up and have a bit of peace from the sound of the engine for an hour or so. As we motored towards our berth in San Diego just before 5pm we could see people on the pontoon ready to take our lines. Two of them were Brenda and Clay who we had met in Monterey. It’s always nice to see familiar faces when arriving in a new port.

During a chat with the Uber driver who took us to the DHL collection office the morning after we arrived, Paul asked him if he could recommend some places we should visit in the city. One of the areas he mentioned was one that I had read about and liked the sound of, so after collecting his parcel we headed to San Diego’s Gas Lamp Quarter.  Our guide book describes it as the epicentre of urban ultra-cool: quaint and romantic by day and rocking by night. We had no wish to go clubbing in its ‘hip’ clubs or trendy bars, so opted for the quaint daytime vibe instead. The district used to be San Diego’s main thoroughfare but descended into sleaziness in the late 1800s when legitimate businesses moved away from the wharves and warehouses. The gas lamps at that time illuminated streets populated with seedy saloons, brothels, opium dens and gambling halls (legend has it that Wyatt Earp operated at least three of them). The area only just escaped the wrecking ball in the 1960s but local preservationists were keen to protect the historic district and The Gas Lamp Quarter Association, formed in 1974, ensured that its oldest buildings remained untouched. Still, it was hard to imagine how it was in the 1800s when we strolled around it. The red-brick streets are dotted with trendy bars, and pavement dining is set up outside the modern bistros, while several fronts of historic buildings have recently been decorated with old fashioned facades. The street lights have been tastefully recreated in 19^th-century style though, it was just a shame we didn’t get to see them in the dark.  

As it was Halloween there was no shortage of people dressed up, parading the streets in horror costumes sporting painted faces and brightly–coloured fright wigs. Passing one restaurant we were startled when a man bounded out in front of us and asked if we were ‘in need of a hug’! I assumed him to be one of the staff but he could just as easily have been another passer-by because the combination of Halloween and the district’s reputation for attracting eccentrics ensured that there was plenty of colourful characters around. We politely declined his kind offer – he wasn’t to know he couldn’t have picked two people less likely to eagerly accept an embrace from a complete stranger.

From there we walked to the waterfront, another ‘must see’ according to our Uber driver. The maritime museum located there incorporates three historic ships and would have taken hours to do it justice. We contented ourselves with gawping at the huge aircraft carrier, (USS Midway Museum) on the Navy Pier in San Diego Bay.  I had never seen a war ship before and marvelled at the fact that such a huge vessel – which frankly looked a bit higgledy piggledy with parts and platforms jutting out at angles all over its top decks – could move at all let alone with several aircraft on top of it. Apparently it was the largest ship in the world when it was built in 1945 and was too big to fit through the Panama Canal. We resolved to visit it before leaving San Diego. The other thing that caught our eye was the 25-foot ‘Unconditional Surrender’ statue on the promenade next to the warship.  This iconic image of a sailor embracing a nurse on VJ Day in 1945 was captured by a photographer during the celebrations and as we would say today ‘went viral’ when it was published. The sculpture seems to be very popular with tourists who flock to replicate the image. I was interested to read that the sailor who claimed to be the one in the photo, died in 2014 aged 86 and was purported to have spent the last years of his life charging women $10 to photograph themselves kissing him on the cheek!

We spent a couple of days anchored in the charge-free area of the marina a few 100 yards from the pontoons to make room for the boats booked on the annual Baja Haha Rally, so it wasn’t until Sunday 3^rd November that a space became free and we moved back to the pontoons for a four day stay. We were now able to make use of the bikes again. San Diego is well set up for cyclists with designated lanes allocated on its main roads and it’s not too hilly a city. It makes shopping for provisions easier and we get to see more of the area.

On Monday we, along with others from the marina, gathered on the green expanse overlooking the bay to watch the start of the Baja Haha Rally. About 200 yachts were positioned on the water waiting for the starting gun that signalled the beginning of their journey to Mexico. The ceremony and humorous interactions coming from the participants and the organisers on VHF reminded me of the start of our adventure on the Atlantic Rally crossing back in 2006.

San Diego’s Old Town was our next sight to see. Another value for money Uber took us to The State Historic Park, the site of San Diego’s original settlement (America’s first on the West Coast), known as The Birthplace of California. Anything focusing on 19^th century life is of interest to me and this attraction recreates the city’s beginnings and has historic dwellings, reconstructed and original buildings, museums, and a Mexican-style market place with old style shops and restaurants. Paul did some Christmas shopping of all things in some of the shops there. It was fascinating to see the reconstruction of early settlers’ homes and to look at a genuine Wells Fargo stagecoach. There was even a haunted house! Whaley House is southern California’s oldest two-storey brick building (1856) and people have apparently reported seeing members of the original family still ‘living’ there along with a boat thief who was hanged on the site before the house was built. Paul said it was all nonsense and it was too late to go in there anyway. Shame – I would have enjoyed seeing a genuine 19^th century ghost. Pics below of the day.

California operates daylight saving time too, but the clocks went back a week later than in the UK. The period between Halloween and Bonfire Night in the UK always heralds the start of the Christmas build up for me. The shops in San Diego had been full of Halloween cards and decorations and now cards for Thanksgiving on November 28th lined the shelves, with a small area given over for Christmas stuff. The sunny warm days meant that it didn’t even feel like autumn to me, let alone a need to begin preparing for Yuletide festivities. This didn’t stop Paul heading off to the Post Office on November 6^th to post the Christmas presents he had bought and wrapped for people back home. He wanted to make sure they went from the US and we were still uncertain about our departure date for Mexico. We needed to leave our berth on the 7^th but still hadn’t secured a place in Ensenada. With only one free day left, it was time to visit the USS Midway, so after the parcels had been sent off we got on the bikes and cycled all the way to the waterfront – a distance of about five miles. This was mostly on flat roads thankfully, and we stopped a few times to look at things so it wasn’t too arduous despite the warm day.

The warship itself was expensive but it was undeniably good value for the admission fee. Everything you could possibly want to know about life on board the gargantuan vessel and the fine details of aircraft carriers was covered. Audio guides narrated by Midway sailors were provided and it was possible to sit inside fighter planes and play with the controls. Kids and adults of all ages were lapping it all up on the day we were there. I must admit it was quite thrilling to sit in the cockpit of one of the actual World War 2 fighter jets, and to sit inside a helicopter. Some of the staff were men who had served on the ship and they welcomed the chance to answer questions and chat with visitors about their time in service or on statistics and engineering queries. We read about the character (Maverick) that Tom Cruise played in the film Top Gun – interestingly there are special Top Gun Movie Nights when the ship hosts a party for people who wish to watch the film under the stars. Home to 225,000 sailors, The Midway was finished just a week too late to serve in World War 2 but it was used in the Vietnam conflict and during The Gulf War where it was the flagship of Persian Gulf air operations in Operation Desert Storm.  

We were amused by the robotic character placed behind a desk who acted out a scenario to inform visitors about the stresses involved in the busy day to day running of life on board. His narration could only ever come across as corny.  A gift shop and a café has taken up part of the enormous main entrance deck – the goods on sale were very highly priced but I guess if anyone wants a bomber jacket like the one Tom Cruise wore, it’s worth every cent to buy it on the Midway and in the city where it was filmed.

It was dark by the time we emerged from the bowels of the ship so it was a ride home in the dark and as always when the sun sets it was a cold evening. The effort of cycling this time warmed us up rather than made us sweat. When we got back to the boat it was time to plan our departure the following morning for Ensenada. We would be in the Mexican part of the Pacific Ocean sometime on the 7^th November. Another new country for me.

Kathy  

So the song by Albert Hammond goes. Well it hasn’t – rained that is. I actually can’t remember the last time it rained. The song does go on to say that it pours; ‘man it pours’. However, since we will be leaving this part of America in a few days’ time I think it’s safe to assume we’ll see no rain. The days have been delightfully clear, bright and sunny, with chilly mornings and evenings but bearably hot during the day. I think I’ve discovered my ideal climate here. We can now congratulate ourselves on completing a voyage down the whole of the west coast of America. Mexico beckons shortly, but we made the most of our Southern Californian sojourn. It began with a little bit of drama during the night of October 16th.  We’d left Morro Bay that morning with an early fog that cleared after a couple of hours. No engine, the sails were up and moving us along at a good 5 knots of speed so it began peaceful and economical, if a little bit rolly. We’d bought ready-made burritos for dinner in case conditions were bumpy. I’d never had one before, not being a fan of Mexican food and the burrito didn’t really convert me. Furthermore, it burned the roof of Paul’s mouth after being in the oven for an hour as directed. It made me laugh when he remarked that nothing vegan should need that long to cook. Maybe they’ll be better in Mexico…

The autohelm had been repeatedly steering us off course and had clearly developed a fault, but the wind vane had been doing a great job all afternoon. The wind began to drop while I was on the first night watch and without the wind it struggled to keep the course. Paul’s watch, therefore, had to begin earlier than it should because I had to call him to sort it out. I was dubious about going below to sleep considering that the autohelm was having a problem steering. I figured we might need to take turns hand steering on shorter watches for the duration of the trip. Paul said we’d see how things went and without expecting to, I did fall asleep. It was a fitful sleep – the combination of the bouncy motion and the noise of the engine filtered through my dreams so that I felt I was being thrown around in a tumble drier. I woke to hear the wind blowing hard and rattling the sails and sheets around up above but I couldn’t see or hear Paul. I lay there trying not to panic and was just about to go up when he appeared in the cockpit, calling my name and telling me he needed me on deck. I knew it must be urgent but had no idea what was happening. The boat was listing to starboard at a sharp angle so I struggled to keep my balance getting my outdoor gear on. Paul was battling with the headsail sheets and I could feel that we were speeding along too fast. I couldn’t stop myself asking if we were in danger which didn’t go down too well, but I was half asleep and he did look anxious. I asked what I needed to do and received the answer that I could either sort out the furling line on the bow or take the helm to steer us away from an oil rig! I stepped into the cockpit, and a wave hit me side on as I stood to look ahead (that woke me up). I was confronted with the surreal sight of a huge and extremely brightly-lit oil rig seemingly a few feet away from us. It was like something from a science fiction film – think giant robot – and I had to take the wheel while struggling not to fall onto the starboard guard rails which were almost in the water from the angle we were at. The noise of the whistling wind and the flapping sails was frightening but not as scary as the oil rig getting ever closer. While Paul was on the bow I lost sight of him and had to keep screaming out for him to let me know he was still there. After what seemed like ages he returned and managed to get reefs in the main sail while I steered but I soon became disorientated by the oil rig’s bright lights and the sharp listing and before I could correct it the course had gone awry which culminated in the boom shooting over to the other side – a crash jibe!  This minor disaster necessitated more steering and instructions shouted above the noise of the wind before things finally settled down. We still had the faulty autohelm to deal with, but Paul effected a temporary repair and the rest of the journey passed relatively smoothly. There were no other vessels around and no more oil rigs. The gale abated and I was never as pleased to see the sun rise that morning 😉

Despite the alarming events of the night, I agreed to steer us across the choppy bar at the entrance to Oxnard Marina, but it was such a small one we were across it and in calm waters before I even had a chance to worry. The day was sunny, clear and calm and the marina, complete with resident sea lions was a welcome sight: it was hard to believe we’d experienced such rough conditions the previous night. It’s a huge marina so the passage to our berth took us along a long stretch of water with pontoons on either side of us. I was amused to see a group of sea lions basking on the stern platform of a posh super yacht (the ‘For Sale’ sign it sported didn’t specify that it came complete with sea lions).   

Once berthed, we left further exploration until we’d caught up on sleep. There was also a fair bit of sorting out and a few faulty things to fix, so apart from our customary provisioning trip it wasn’t until Saturday 19^th October that we set out on a full day of sightseeing. The sight I particularly wanted to see was Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth, about an hour’s drive from Oxnard. No longer a ranch (it burned down in the 1970) it used to be a movie set where Westerns such as Bonanza were filmed in the 50s and 60s. The site is notorious for being where the Manson family lived for two years from 1967-69. Given this, it’s hardly surprising that it isn’t advertised or indeed signposted. It took a combination of research and (my) existing knowledge to locate it on a map. Paul had hired a car for a few days so our trip began once the location had been programmed in to the satnav. We drove off later that morning with the air conditioning on, sun visors down and the car radio tuned in to…I would have loved to say a station playing suitable music for a road trip in the LA vicinity but unfortunately the ones we found didn’t really meet that description – too many irritating adverts. 

Despite our careful planning, it proved very difficult to find Spahn Ranch, even with the aid of other crime boffins online who had visited the spot and uploaded pictures and videos to YouTube. Looking at the landscape surrounding us, it was easy to see why it was ideal for Western productions. Rolling hills and valleys in a remote spot with creeks, caves rugged terrain and lush wooded areas – it also provided the ideal out of the way place for Manson’s hippie commune. The almost blind owner was unaware of their more malign intentions and activities. Eventually we parked the car in the car park of a church as near as we could possibly be sure that the ranch had been situated, and followed a path through the woods across the road. Paul studied pictures and videos on his phone of a group’s previous visit and we actually matched some of the images with those we were seeing. We found foundation stones and other clues that we were in the right area and spent an hour exploring and taking pictures, seeing no one else the entire time we were there. It felt a bit eerie to be in such an empty and abandoned spot which had once been full of action with people and horses and old wooden buildings. Now it is more like a woodland trail in the countryside but not unpleasant for that. As we left the site and emerged onto the road a man in a car parked there stopped us and asked if we knew the way to Spahn Ranch as he and his daughter were having trouble finding it. His daughter, who looked about 15 was the one who was keen to find it and listened intently as I described what we’d seen. It seems the fascination with Manson is ongoing.

The next day’s road trip was to a place associated with the more positive aspects of the hippie era. Venice Beach is where Jim Morrison of The Doors used to hang out, along with several other notable musicians, poets and performers. It had been the centre for The Beat generation from the 50s and has gained a reputation as a place for the creative and artistic, which naturally includes delightful eccentrics. I had actually been there in 1983 but at that time, to my shame, I was unaware of its cultural relevance to so many of the things that I came to admire and revere later in life. To get there we drove some of the way along the Pacific Coast Highway which overlooks the Pacific Ocean from great heights with stunning views. We also went through the scenic beauty of Malibu with its affluent neighbourhoods, magnificent houses and picturesque boulevards, a mere stone’s throw away from golden beaches. Again, it was a perfect day weather-wise to see all these things; sunny, clear, and warm.

We headed straight for the famous boardwalk, arriving there around 2pm when it was thronging with people. I found it captivating from the outset. There was so much going on and so much to look at it was hard to know what to do first. Stalls, shacks and shops lined either side of the boardwalk – the beach side was interspersed with street artists and performers and vendors selling handmade crafts and jewellery, while the park hosted skaters, dancers and skateboarders. The air was filled with the aromas of traditional culinary beach fare along with a wide variety of fast food to satisfy every taste. There was an almost celebratory atmosphere all along the two mile boardwalk and in the park. Upbeat music drew us to an area where some roller skaters were performing so we sat on the grass and watched them for an hour but I could easily have stayed there all the rest of the day. The music was great and there were some spectacular dance moves from some of the characters. Paul took some video footage of them which he edited for a great piece that captures just how entertaining it was (link is included in his blog).

Venice has other delights to marvel at which I had missed on my last visit. We walked to the inland part of town and found ourselves in the canal district. Pretty little bridges spanned the waterways and almost all of the elegant houses in the streets alongside the water were tastefully decorated for Halloween. We took lots of pictures as we meandered through this Venice – named for the more famous Italian city but which has totally different charms to admire. We stayed long enough to enjoy the sunset, which as can be seen below was pretty amazing.  

Ventura is only a short drive from Oxnard so while we had the car I couldn’t resist suggesting we go for a drive on ‘Ventura Highway’. This is the title of a song I used to play a lot in the 70s by the band America, who also had a hit with ‘Horse with No Name’. The beach at Ventura is a much more sedate and understated affair than Venice. Fewer people and miles of quiet, largely empty sandy beaches.  We saw a few strollers and some children enjoying the late afternoon sun.  

From Oxnard we motored to Redondo. The journey took most of the day (23^rd October). There was no chance of sailing  on this windless day and we hadn’t gone very far before a police boat motored up to us to advise us to change course as we were heading for a region used as a firing range. We didn’t need telling twice! We were joined by dolphins leaping either side of the bow for part of the journey which Paul managed to capture on film (again, on his blog). Around 5pm we could see the breakwater where the mooring buoys were located and once again the unmistakeable sound of sea lions honking reached our ears and made me smile. The mooring buoy we grabbed was different to those we usually tied to. These had poles with ropes attached so the pole had to be hooked first in order to tie the ropes to the boat. I steered us to it and Paul made quick work of securing us – close enough to the sea lions’ pontoon to smell their fishy aroma.

As we make our way further south we are nearing the Tropic of Cancer and it’s definitely feeling warmer in general; well the butter is getting too soft to keep out of the fridge anyway. Considering such Mediterranean-like warmth it was a case of another day, another beach on Thursday 24^th. Redondo Beach didn’t get much of a write up in my Lonely Planet guide. It’s described as an ethnically diverse, working class beach town notable for its pier before going on to recommend its two wonderful adjacent ‘sister’ South Bay beaches. We liked Redondo Beach. The dinghy park is near the ‘notable’ pier and the wharf was a typical fisherman’s wharf with fishing boats and people working on them, except that the surrounding boardwalk was lined with cafes and bars that appeared to be aimed at locals as opposed to tourists. The pubs had character – one we passed was full of men who could only be workers and fishermen. Similarly, the beach itself was lined with residential buildings on its promenade with the main hub of bars and restaurants in a spot near the town centre. I guess this is what the guide meant by a ‘working class beach town’ but for us this was a positive factor. We had lunch in one of the town bars overlooking the beach before our usual supermarket trip.

Redondo Pier took on an enchanting aspect once it began to get dark. There are over 50 dining, shopping and entertainment venues on it and the subtle, pretty lighting and vibe emanating from them act like a magnet. We dinghied over to watch the sunset and have an evening walk along it. (Pics below).

Our next stop proved to be something of a disappointment. Santa Catalina is an island approximately 30 miles southwest of California and is only 22 miles long and 8 miles across at its greatest width. It’s a nature reserve and a popular getaway for Los Angeles residents and is purported to have great hikes, cycle routes and wildlife. The journey there had been one of the smoothest and trouble-free yet, despite some concern about the Santa Ana wind hampering our progress. In fact, there was no wind at all so we motored for the six hour passage and picked up a mooring buoy at 2 o’clock on Friday 25^th. No sea lions here. In fact there wasn’t much of anything! Looking at it from our buoy, positioned on the remote west end of the island at Two Harbors, I could see a tiny cluster of buildings in the middle of the isthmus, and parched low hills on either side of it. There were no signs of life on the boats moored around us and we were directly opposite some lorries and trucks in a small industrial quarrying site. Two Harbours is admittedly the ‘second’ centre of population with only a few hundred people, while Avalon, the main town is the more ‘happening’ resort with a larger population. We planned to check that out the following day.

Meanwhile we got in the dinghy for the short distance to the shore and had a look around. With very few cars on the island, it was very quiet ashore. We walked along the path to the centre of the isthmus, passing closed up and empty buildings and the usual signs forbidding you to do lots of things. First, Paul went to check us in at the tiny harbour office and came out visibly shocked at the coast of an overnight stay on the mooring. At $60 it was more than some marinas, and we were told we’d need to ‘check out’ of the buoy area by 9am. Walking around didn’t take long. We looked at a house that had been used for a film starring Joan Crawford in 1932 (pictured below), and read about the bison that inhabit the island. Fourteen of the creatures were brought over for the filming of an American Western in 1924 and had remained there afterwards. Apparently the scenes with the bison never made it into the film and it was deemed too costly to transport them back. There are about 150 on the island now but we didn’t see any. We didn’t see any other animals either. A sign told us there are island foxes, Californian ground squirrels (ah, so that’s what the squirrels are here), and four types of mice. We might also spot a Southern Pacific Rattlesnake; I’m pleased to say we didn’t see that! Apart from some resort facilities, a few late-in-the-season holidaymakers and a small shop, we didn’t see much else and I felt the place lacked atmosphere. We went back to the boat, hoping that Avalon would be better.   

The next day was spent a few feet away from the mooring buoys in the free anchorage area. Paul explored the shorelines in the kayak while I had a relaxing day on board. The VHF kept broadcasting alarming ‘pan pan’ updates about people getting into trouble at sea. There were reports of boats drifting uncontrollable towards rocks, life jackets seen floating in the water and yachts that had gone aground and been abandoned. I found myself captivated by the updates and thankful that no one died. Part of those dramas had been down to the infamous Santa Ana wind, which Paul had been keeping up to date with on the weather forecasts. His feeling was that it would be fine for us to move around the corner to Avalon the following day since it was only a short distance and we could always return to the anchorage if conditions got rough.

On Sunday 27^th that was exactly what we did. We woke to a chilly and blustery morning and heard warnings for small craft thinking of journeying in the area. The advice was not to go anywhere. Paul said it would be fine as we would be within the shelter of the island for the short distance so we weighed anchor late in the morning and motored out onto waves heavy with swell and 18 knots of wind. I couldn’t help thinking of the yachts who had got into difficulties the previous day. Not long after we’d set off Paul said we would have to go back. The coastguard had broadcast a report stressing the dangers for vessels heading to Avalon due to the severity of the Santa Ana wind. Since it was cold, rocky and very windy, with yet more vessels calling in with distress calls to the coastguard I wasn’t sorry to return to the sanctuary of the anchorage. Unfortunately this meant we had missed our chance to see Avalon because we had a berth booked at a marina at Oceanside near San Diego (Santa Ana wind allowing).     

From Moro Bay we headed off to Los Angeles. We had originally planned to stay in Marina del Rey, however the marina was expensive and when I called they where a bit snooty and required no end of documentation sending to them before they would take a booking, one thing they wanted was the purchase/sales invoice from when I bought the boat. I don’t know where I have put this, but in the end I decided I didn’t want all the hassle, so we booked a place in Oxnard, which is an hours drive north of LA and Venice beach, and with the money we saved, we hired a car for 3 days and did a bit of exploring. First off we visited Venice beach

Above you can see me buying a limited edition hand drawing of a theme around ‘Satoshi was here’ on the sidewalk at Venice beach. The guy selling them was a bitcoin nutter who had a plan to sell these limited edition sketches (100 off) and then for each one sold another ten would be made, but at double the price, which I could purchase at the same price as one of the first 100, which was $10. I lost his plot after ten minutes of him explaining how a building would be built with the proceeds, and the sketch would entitle me to a place on the first floor, but if I bought more of the next batch, I could move up a floor. All of this was recorded on a private blockchain. Basically it was like a pyramid scheme, and was unlikely to come to anything, but for $10 I thought I would support this guy’s enterprising vision, and you don’t get much for $10 in this part f the world. A few days earlier a guy pushing his life along the road in a shopping trolley asked me if I could spare him ‘a twenty’, I was some way along the road past him before I got over the shock of it! $20, Am I getting really mean in my old age, or is $20 the amount people give to homeless when asked these days?

Next we headed off to find the ranch where Charles Manson lived before it burnt down. Basically I was going to walk around a field for an hour while Kathy would be exclaiming ‘Amazing’ ‘ I can’t believe we are here’. She will explain in her blog I’m sure, but I think it’s connected with murders and the houses we visited in San Francisco.

Of course it’s halloween here and all over Venice Beach people had put on great shows in their gardens and windows.

Venice beach was lovely, I posted a video of some great public skating on our facebook page, you can see that here

From Oxnard we headed onto Redondo, en route we passed Magu point where there is a military firing range, I must have missed the warnings sent out on the VHF radio as we were steaming into the firing range but were intercepted by a fast patrol boat that instructed us to change course to 180 degrees (south) and to stay on that heading for 3 miles before turning east again. I think it’s actually quite hard to get into a live firing range.

Bow & Stern moorings are required in Redondo, I haven’t used this type of setup before, but it was actually very easy. Kathy brought the boat up alongside the pick up pole, something she can do much better than me. I grabbed the pole, and as usual wondered why I forgot the gloves. Poles and ropes that live in the sea are not usually nice things to hold, slime/barnacles etc

Redondo was a bit like Venice beach, but without anything happening on the beach. It had a great pier complex full of funky restaurants and shops.

We headed of to Santa Catalina next. Santa Anna winds were forcast so we popped around to the west side of the island to get shelter there.
It was funny that I had just updated the operating system on my macbook a few days ago to the latest release, known as ‘Catalina’ Apple name their releases after famous places in California, such as Mojave and Yosemite. I took this picture below as we rounded the eastern end of Catalina Island and was reminded of the login screen on my laptop

This is the icon Apple use for Catalina which I’m pretty sure is the same bit of the island. They have a better angle, but I got a bluer sky.

We picked up a mooring in Catalina Harbour, the west side of ‘two harbours’ and went ashore to pay. They charged $50/night to tie to a mooring ball, so we payed for one night and the next night moved to the anchorage which was a bit further out. Below is the ‘anchor art’ from our chartplotter that shows how we swung between two locations as the tide turned.

Our next destination was to be San Diego, but to break the journey up into two 7 hour daytime passages, rather than a 14 hour overnighter we called into Oceanside for a night. Here the seals had taken over our end of the harbour and at one point I had to have very strong words with the biggest sea lion you have ever seen. He was blocking our path back off the boat and everytime I approached him, clapping and shouting, he lurched towards me with a wide open mouth full of very sharp teeth. He wasn’t going to move. Eventually he backed down, it turns out he was all front, no substance, but very scary all the same.

So on we pushed to San Diego. The plan had been to avoid the Baja Haha. The Baja Haha (pronounced bar hah, hah hah) is an annual rally for about 150 sailboats that sail down to the sea of cortez from San Diego. I wanted to miss them as I expected marinas to be full and noisy, so quite how we end up arriving in San Diego 4 days before the start is beyond me. Of course everywhere was full, we got two nights on the police/public dock before we had to move out and anchor in a designated spot for the weekend, then I managed to snap up the last berth on the the dock for another 4 days. The boat had to be inspected before we could use the anchorage.

San Diego is a great place, and like LA and San Francisco, is a mecca for watersports, especially sailboats. There are thousands of them here in scores of marinas. It’s also home to a huge military base, loads of warships, submarines and airplanes and helicopters. The choppers are constantly flying out to sea and returning, often 2 or three at a time in close formations that remind me of war films I have seen. Its also a cruise ship port.

Our first job was to pickup the new raw water pump I had shipped out from the UK. It cost more in the uber cab to get to the DHL collection point than the postage from Southampton! but once there I was relieved to find it was the right part, there are two similar but incompatible versions of the pump.

We had a good walk and cycle around town, I managed to buy a stack of gifts which I later posted home as Christmas presents to be distributed later. I’m not sure how reliable the parcel service from Mexico would be so played it safe with USPS.

We had just missed the Day of the dead festivities, but there was no shortage of deadish looking things around!

Here is the said pump, it’s now fitted nd doing sterling work.

Back at the police dock we had a visit from a local Perry boat owner, Harvey. He runs the Tayana group, which is very similar to our Baba group, of which I am a moderator. He has cruised the Pacific Northwest for many years and we had a great chat about sailing there.

Before we left San Diego, I had to visit the Maritime Museum, but we were running out of time, so we just visited the USS Midway, which is a massive aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1945, and was the lead ship in the desert storm war.

It’s always a conflict for me with military sites, as on the one hand, it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale of creativity and industry that went into these ships design and construction, but also accepting that they are giant killing machines that sometimes mistakes wedding parties for terrorists with horrific consequences.

Finally a bit of boaty stuff, I bought some Dyneema rope and a round thing. Apparently this is the future and all racing boats have gone this way. I will post a picture of the finished item when I have spliced a loop in the rope, but basically this will replace the damaged car/block for the yankee sheet.

We left San Diego around 16:00 on the 7th November, finally we had had a call from the marina in Ensenada that they had a berth for us, we had an uneventful motor down after the wind died three hours into our sail. Mexico is much closer to Malaysia than San Diego, in terms of wealth, infrastructure etc. But I got a great feel from the place as we approached our berth and the manager and his assistant were waiting for us and took our lines with a very smiley welcome. Victor, who runs the marina side of the facility, as it has a much bigger operation as a boatyard, took us downtown, helped us find an ATM, and took us to immigration, harbour master, customs and TIP offices. He very quickly got us signed into Mexico and now we are all legal and here for 2 weeks to chill, refresh our basic Spanish language skills and acclimatise to the hispanic way of life.

Paul Collister.

The word Monterey conjures up images (and sounds) of music due to the renowned annual jazz festival that take place there. The 1967 Monterey Pop festival is said to have coined the phrase ‘The Summer of Love’, so it seemed an appropriate destination to head for after San Francisco. We arrived at Monterey Harbour early on the morning of 6^th October to the now familiar and welcome sounds of barking sea lions. Paul’s oft-repeated assertion that it would get hotter the further south we go had never seemed to hold so true as we took our customary exploratory walk in new surroundings. The late morning sun’s heat had us shedding layers of clothing as we strolled along the boardwalk. The beach looked very inviting, with small groups of people swimming, sunbathing and surfing but it was the sound of live music coming from a nearby square that grabbed our attention.  A cultural festival was taking place on a stage in the square, honouring a celebration of languages around the world. Food and souvenir stalls lined the sides and there was a great atmosphere from the audience enjoying performances from dancers and speakers representing the countries.

My initial impressions of the town made me think of Spain. The small centre had a decidedly Mediterranean feel, with its tree-lined Spanish named streets, Spanish-style architecture and pavement cafes. Monterey has a long history of Spanish (and later on, Mexican) settlement and was California’s capital under both rules until 1850. The coastal trail is a long attractive walkway spanning the length of the bay’s coastal curve. We walked only a small part of it, planning to walk the whole trail when we visited Cannery Row. The only drawback was the profusion of cyclists using the same path and ringing bells to urge you out of their way. I found it safest to stick close to the edge and stay there in order to avoid collisions. The rocky shore is populated with a rich variety of marine life and the water was clear enough to see seals, sea lions and birds when they dived and swam under the surface. We stood for ages looking at them, and at the grand views behind us of old canning factories and the colourful Fisherman’s Wharf Pier.

Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf is smaller and consequently less lively than San Francisco’s – even with all the usual seafood restaurants, gift shops, candy stores and whale watching and fishing excursion tours. We ambled around this compact, quaint tourist attraction for an hour or so. Well who doesn’t like the occasional browse in shops full of tacky gifts and souvenirs! Actually some of the items on sale were of high quality and unusual enough for us to linger and examine them. We booked a table for dinner at one of the restaurants before heading back to town to do some shopping. The festival was still in full swing when we arrived there so we sat and watched the last few performances before the finale. One guy from the audience who joined in the dancing bore a striking resemblance to the man currently making a pig’s ear of being our Prime Minister. See the pic below 😉

Monterey revealed more of its history and places of interest over the few days we were there. Considering the Spanish and Latin American heritage we were surprised to find at least three of its pubs advertising their Britishness. Parts of the town centre did actually resemble old English market towns but we never discovered why the pubs were festooned with UK flags and displayed menus boasting fish and chips, Sunday roasts and sausage and mash. Always a fan of charity shops, I have grown to love the ‘thrift stores’ here in America. Some of them are like social history museums with their old crockery, kitchen appliances and toys – and as in the UK there is always a diverse selection of books to browse.  

The author, Robert Louis Stevenson resided in Monterey for a brief period in 1879. His short stay (a mere couple of months) didn’t deter Monterey from marking the occasion, however and the house he stayed in is now a museum filled with his personal artefacts along with art pieces created by his wife, Fannie. The large white house was closed when we looked at it, as are most museums on Mondays but it was enough to see it from the outside and continue on admiring the other beautiful old buildings in the town. A local information leaflet informed us that pristine, whitewashed buildings and substantial residences made of adobe bricks began to line the streets as Monterey expanded. Spanish building methods and New England architectural features combined to form the popular ‘Monterey Colonial’ style that so reminded me of the historic structures in parts of Spain.

The primary reason for our visit to Monterey was to visit Cannery Row, the place immortalised in Steinbeck’s novel of the same name in 1945. Paul had recently finished reading Steinbeck’s 1940 account of his travels with marine biologist Ed Ricketts in The Log from the Sea of Cortez, so we were both keen to see the place that profoundly influenced the men. Ricketts had a lab in Cannery Row for his marine studies and he and Steinbeck became great friends after meeting in 1930, remaining so until Ricketts was killed by a train in 1948. Cannery Row was named so by an anonymous journalist in 1919 but the area had been used for fishing as long ago as five thousand years. During the time Steinbeck lived there it had become known as the ‘sardine capital of the world’ and the colourful mix of characters working there ignited his imagination. I knew it wouldn’t look the same as it did in Steinbeck’s day, and thankfully, it wouldn’t smell the same either. Nowadays the area is focused on recreation rather than industry with luxurious hotels and restaurants and a plethora of shops for tourists. Surprisingly there was a distinct lack of bookshops when we looked to see if we could buy a copy of Cannery Row.  It wasn’t until we were browsing a huge antique mall later that day that we found some dusty-looking old editions of his books, and they were very expensive.

It was still possible to imagine the place as it was when fully functioning as a fish processing industry, thanks to plenty of information and pictures of how it used to look.  I particularly liked the large murals depicting Cannery Row’s workers painted on the wall of the recreational trail.  

We took the opportunity to go for a couple cycle rides during our five day stay in Monterey. The first one was along the Coastal Recreational Trail all the way to a place called Lovers’ Point in Pacific Grove.  It was a perfect day for a bike ride: sunny but not too hot and the seascape scenes were stunning. Along the way we spotted a plaque dedicated to the memory of John Denver who had died in Monterey Bay when the plane he was in crashed there in 1997.

With Halloween fast approaching, the houses we passed were decorated in the manner you see adorning some homes in the UK in the run up to Christmas. They are absolutely fascinating and we continue to see ever more flamboyant ones everywhere we go. The pumpkin displays in the supermarkets are pretty impressive too. I hadn’t realised there were so many varieties and colours, especially when I think back to my childhood when, if we wanted anything to carve into a Jack o Lantern we would have to make do with a turnip or a swede!

Lovers’ Point turned out to be full of squirrels as opposed to lovers. There were hundreds of them scurrying around literally begging for food from people. At first we thought they were rats because we are used to seeing squirrels in trees and these were all over the rocky beach and grassy areas but it seems they don’t need trees…and we still need to brush up on our knowledge of birds and animal types.

Our second bike ride was infinitely more challenging. We didn’t set off until midday and it was an extremely hot day. As is often the case, the distance on the map looked ‘doable’ but was in actual fact a distance that required the stamina and physique of a trained athlete! Google maps had stated that the journey from Monterey to Salinas would take around 1 hour and 40 minutes by bike, and showed a convenient cycle path almost all the way there. That might work for those of a Tour de France calibre! We hadn’t gone more than an hour when we realised we’d taken on too much of an arduous task. The heat didn’t help, and parts of the track were covered with broken glass and sharp rocks. The final straw came when we had to traverse a busy and wide freeway where cars and lorries were speeding past at an alarming rate. Paul checked the map and said we weren’t even a third of the way there. Our intention was to visit the National Steinbeck Centre and at that rate it would be closed by the time we got there. My legs were about to give up on any more pedalling and we were both sweating and tired so it didn’t take long to decide to park the bikes at the shopping mall across the road and call an Uber taxi to take us into Salinas. It hadn’t been a total waste of time and effort, however because we’d passed some stunning scenes, including a Route 66 road sign which I’d been especially thrilled to see.

The drive to Salinas made us realise exactly how much further away Salinas was and it was a relief to be in the air conditioned car for the rest of the journey instead of cooking in the sun on the bike. The Steinbeck Centre was very good. Unsurprisingly, since Salinas is where he was born and lived until he was 17, it holds the largest collection of Steinbeck archives in America. The exhibits relating to his works, life and philosophy were of genuine interest to us and we made the most of our time there. A highlight for me was seeing the actual van that Steinbeck had used for his travels across America which culminated in one of my favourite books, Travels with Charley. The house he was born and grew up in is a short walk from the centre so we had a quick look at that before catching a bus back to the mall to collect our bikes for a cool and much more comfortable early evening ride back to Monterey.

We left Monterey on Saturday 12^th October, bound for Morro Bay. This was an overnight passage and we managed to sail through the night with the wind remaining favourable enough for the duration of the passage for a change. It was foggy but there were no other vessels around and we were in no great hurry to get there so we took it slow and steady, arriving at the bay around lunchtime on Sunday. The sea life we’d been told would be all around us began to appear as Morro Bay’s three tall towers from a disused power station came into view. Sea lions, dolphins and sea otters joined us in the water as I steered us towards a mooring buoy, while pelicans flew overhead and perched on the rocky breakwater like sentries. Morro Bay is dominated by a massive dome shaped rock which is in fact a volcanic plug. First Nation tribes consider it a sacred site and it’s protected by the state. For this reason it is not permitted to climb it but a public path allows tourists to walk around its base. We could see people on the beach and trail adjacent to it once we’d tied up to the buoy. Overnight passages tend to leave us (well me at least) too tired to do much once we’ve reached our destination and we put off any excursions until the following day.

Morro Bay is proud of its charming little seaside town. An exploratory walk along the front revealed a number of signs exhorting people to keep the town clean, pollution free and using contaminants that would have negative effects on the marine life. It’s clearly paid off because the streets were pristine and the water is crystal clear. The tiny maritime museum consisted of one small square room crammed with exhibits and items for sale. It was free admission and the friendly lady inside was keen to know where we were from after hearing our accent. A good number of people in both Canada and the US have assumed us to be Australian. It must be a bit like us being unable to distinguish between the Canadian and American accent. We walked along the shop and gallery lined waterfront side of the street and discovered some high class, artisan, locally-made and unique (you get the picture) souvenirs and products for sale – all very expensive but nice to browse.

The true beauty of Morro Bay revealed itself when we visited the trail and beach near the rock. It was a gorgeous day weather-wise; completely clear with blue sky and a light that enhanced the sea and skyline. The view of the town from the rocky beach was enchanting and there were lots of cute sea otters in the shallow water to admire. It was here that we found out that the rat-like creatures were squirrels because we asked a couple who were busy feeding them at the base of the rock. It was so lovely that we considered staying longer and maybe hiring a car to drive to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, once the weather and other factors had been considered it meant we might get stuck there if we didn’t continue southward the following day. We ended our Morro Bay sojourn with an early dinner in a fish restaurant overlooking the water: chips without the fish for me, washed down with a glass of red wine 😉    

I had plenty of reasons subsequently to wish we had decided to remain there for longer. Our overnight journey to Oxnard near Los Angeles would be anything but plain sailing…  

Wednesday 16th.

We left our mooring buoy at Morro Bay around 09:30 for the overnight passage to LA. We were actually heading for Oxnard which is an hours drive north of Venice Beach. I couldn’t find a cheap berth in LA proper, and this seemed like a good alternative. We had originally considered Ventura, but this was closer to LA and more importantly to me, Mexico.
This passage was about 130 miles, which is about 26 hours at 5 knots speed. So by leaving at 9:30 we should arrive in the early afternoon the next day.
The official weather forecast from NOAA had gales predicted for Thursday night and Friday, so I didn’t want to linger. The sea state was good now but would deteriorate on the passage, but nothing too bad and nothing we hadn’t handled before. I was looking forward to about 15-25 knots of wind from behind, making for a fast passage.
We got the sails up as soon as we left the breakwater. with the wind aft of the beam (from behind) we were making good progress.

By the afternoon the wind had picked up more and the swell was growing, and for some unknown reason to me the autohelm started giving up, I took the helm, got us back on course , but it happened again fairly quickly. So out came the wind vane for the monitor self steering. I hadn’t used this in a while and it took a bit of fiddling to get it running, but once I did, the boat steered a great course south. I hit my bunk around 8pm leaving Kathy on watch, but around 11pm she woke me as we had gone way off course, a lull in the wind had caused the wind steering to fail. I fixed this and then started my midnight watch a little early and Kathy hit the sack.
A few hours later the predicted gale started to appear and winds were gusting to 25/30 knots. We were now in the middle of a load of oil/gas platforms that inhabit this part of the coast. I had managed to get a double reef into the mainsail, and we only had the staysail out, but we were hitting over 10 knots according to the GPS and that’s a lot for this boat, so I decided to furl up the staysail a bit. Unfortunately, the furling line was taught and I couldn’t pull it in. A quick trip to the bow revealed the furling line had come off the drum and wrapped around under/inside the drum and was far too tight for me to pull out by hand. Back in the cockpit I could see the wind was still strengthening and the seas building, it was starting to get a bit worrying, so I grabbed a torch, it was quite dark out, and a sailors knife and headed back to the bow. Sitting on the bow platform above the bowsprit, with the aid of the torch, I could see that the line was wrapped around the forestay several times below the furling drum, and I spent half an hour feeding the rope back through the drum, undoing the tension, while the rather rough sea was bouncing me around. Eventually it was all back on the drum. All the time we had been sailing directly towards an oil rig, it was looking pretty big now. The thing with oil rigs is that they are so bright in the sea, they look a lot closer than they actually are, at least that was my plan/hope.

Back in the cockpit things were getting worse, the wind steering was struggling and we were heeled over much more than I liked, the rails were close to the water. Furling the sail on my own was going to be difficult in the strong wind, so I called for Kathy to get out of her bunk and head on up to help me. This worried her a lot as I rarely need to call for help, and she was being thrown around in the cabin getting ready to come on deck. I had the usual explaining that we weren’t going to die etc etc but could she control the sheets while I winched in the staysail. once the staysail was mostly in, and with the fully reefed mainsail, the boat settled, I could get us back on course and everything was fine again, Kathy went back to bed, although it took a while for her to relax and fall asleep. Before Kathy headed below she took the helm for a bit while I worked on the windvane, unfortunately Kathy managed a crash Jibe, this wasn’t that bad, and only happened because I had undone the preventer from the starboard side of the boat, this is a rope that tames the boom when we might Jibe, I had forgotten to re-attach it after all the flapping (literally) with the headsail. A few hours later when the wind should have been really strong, it disappeared and we had to turn the motor on, which we used until sunrise when there was enough wind to sail again.
Arriving at Oxnard was simple, as we travel south the bars at the harbour entrances get less serious, this one looked a bit wild as we approached, but once around the breakwater it was very calm. Motoring into the Marina complex it was staggering to see so many boats here, perhaps a few thousand. In fact there are a few marinas and yacht clubs at Oxnard, and beyond them the water flows around a massive housing development where every house backs onto the water and has its own dock/pontoon.

Looking over the boat later I found the solar powered vent above the shower room had smashed off the coachroof leaving a 3.5″ diameter hole in the deck.

Also the line for the staysail furler had shredded its outer braid.

More about LA later.

Paul Collister.

Drakes Bay proved to be a great stopover before we hit the bright lights of San Francisco. It was here that Francis Drake is thought to have landed during his circumnavigation of the world in 1579. 30 miles from San Francisco, this stunning bay is four miles wide – and an undeniable area of outstanding natural beauty. Sheer cliffs and a long, sandy beach greeted us as we approached the bay preparing to anchor on the morning of Friday September 20^th. The weather allowed us to see it in all its glory; a clear, blue sky, warm sunshine, no wind and a flat calm sea. The view reminded me of Scottish Island coastlines, complete with crofters’ cottages dotted on distant hillsides.  We’d heard it was a great place to see wildlife too, so we wasted little time in going ashore to explore. Before we’d even reached the beach to park the dinghy I spotted a sea lion basking on some nearby rocks. Maybe it was that delightful distraction that caused me to stumble in an ungainly manner as I attempted to step out of the dinghy onto the beach with the dinghy’s painter. Luckily I managed to stay upright, I just had very wet trouser legs until the sun dried them. 

For two hours we followed the recommended trail, climbing gradually with the shoreline on our right. As high as we were, we had tremendous views of the bay. Meanwhile on our left, wildlife made an appearance in the form of a coyote stalking a deer. I was thrilled to see a coyote – the very word synonymous with North America and a creature referred to in several novels and songs. The deer didn’t seem in the least bit alarmed at being followed; it appeared disdainful if anything.

A car drew up as we were looking and we got chatting with the occupants who’d also stopped to watch the scene. Like so many, they were very interested in our plans and recommended a few places in San Francisco. The lady in the group told us she was planning a night swim in the place we would be anchoring in a few days’ time. Apparently it’s a popular pastime in the area. It’s not one that I will be in a hurry to join – walking in the beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore Park fulfilled all my exercise needs. We strolled on admiring the colourful flora and fauna and the views from one of the highest points where the wide Pacific is visible as far as the eye can see. I hope that deer lived to see another day, we saw several of them on our return journey but there was no sign of the coyote.

It was tempting to remain in such an ideal setting but we told ourselves we could always return if San Francisco was full or too busy. So early on Saturday 21^st, after clearing the anchor of all the kelp attached to it, we made our way out into the misty (as opposed to foggy) bay. Along the way we saw the captivating sights of whales, dolphins, sea lions and pelicans. Near lunchtime, the shape of the Golden Gate Bridge could be made out on the horizon and Paul’s daughter Yasmin suggested he broadcast a live stream of us going underneath it. To do this, he downloaded an app called Periscope which we all had to install in order to see the images. The sea wasn’t too choppy and it was a lovely sunny day but still awkward to operate a phone to let people know about the event at the same time as doing all the other necessary tasks…like keeping watch! Paul was at the bow with the camera and I was in the cockpit messaging my daughter about the live stream when all of a sudden Paul appeared, having run from the bow because I hadn’t heard him shouting my name. I looked up and saw a yacht under sail heading straight for our port side. It was such a shock and the skipper looked rightfully very annoyed. Paul managed to steer us away and no damage was done but I put my phone away for the duration of the journey and consigned myself to the naughty step 😉

The bridge drew closer and I steered us under it, which is a fantastic experience to remember and treasure. Then Alcatraz came into view, along with a clearer view of San Francisco’s skyline and those views caused surges of excitement in me.  It had been 1983 when I last saw these sights and I was hoping I‘d actually get a chance to visit Alcatraz this time. Aquatic Park was our destination, an anchorage beside the Fisherman’s Wharf district. There were signs warning of the need to watch for swimmers and we soon discovered there were quite a few to avoid as we entered it. We spotted Gargoyle anchored there; Carla and Kevin waved as we circled around looking for a good spot. We ended up rather close to a pier wall which seemed to get ever closer as the wind turned us. Paul dinghied over to Gargoyle while I stayed on board, worried that the anchor was dragging. It turned out to be an optical illusion. The anchor was secure but Paul admitted the wall did look a bit too close, plus we were in clear view of all the tourists strolling on the pier.

For now, though we were keen to get ashore so we parked the dinghy on a pontoon near Hyde Street Pier and set off to explore the area. It wasn’t surprising to find typical seaside resort attractions, such as ‘snack shacks’, candy floss (cotton candy), ice creams, souvenir shops and a plethora of seafood restaurants claiming to serve the best clam chowder, but it’s without doubt a vibrant, colourful and fascinating place. We called in to the famous Boudin Bakery while walking along the waterfront boardwalk. This huge establishment purports to create the best sourdough bread in California and has been in business since 1849, now with a museum attached to the premises. There’s a wide variety of bread and related products on offer in all sorts of shapes and sizes. We felt it would be rude not to try a nice (but expensive) sourdough loaf .    

Tired from the passage, and since it was beginning to get dark, we finished with a quick walk around the main square in lively Fisherman’s Wharf, with its old time Italian carousel, fortune tellers and specialist chocolate and candy shops. I thought it would be nice to have a drink in one of the restaurants there before heading back. Most of them offer ‘happy hour’ prices and we were just in time to take advantage of it. With the addition of sales tax and a tip, however, the bill didn’t make me very happy (almost £20 for two drinks – and one of them was a coke!). 

I had compiled a list of places I wanted to see in San Francisco. We planned to be there for a couple of weeks so there was plenty of time to fit them all in. The first of these was The Beat Museum in the North Beach district. We moved the boat before setting off, though – away from the wall and prying eyes. Again, there were more swimmers to watch out for and one of them clearly didn’t trust us to do this; she yelled out frequently to us (or at me since I was steering) to watch out for her when I was looking right at her. It was a cold and windy morning and must have been freezing in the water, but then they are described as ‘extreme’ swimmers. I know I would have been more than a bit short tempered if I had been in that water. The chilly start didn’t last and by midday it was very hot. San Francisco’s exceptionally steep streets are famous, and they’re attractive, but in high temperatures, it’s hard to appreciate the sights around you while you’re doubled over and sweating while getting your breath back. Needless to say we didn’t plan to take the bikes out on these streets. We did see a few cyclists valiantly pedalling up some of them, though before having to dismount when they realised the impossibility of it.  

Armed with maps and guide books we made our way to Coit Tower. Described as the exclamation point on San Francisco’s skyline, it’s a monument to the city’s firefighters. The views are supposed to be breath-taking from the top but we were keen to get to the museum before it closed. The Beat Museum is a good starting point to get the backstory of the counterculture movement San Francisco has become known for. There was an informative film about the prominent characters of the Beat movement, some fascinating pictures and articles and of course, a great bookshop. Nearby City Lights bookshop would have to wait for another time.

Chinatown was close by so we walked there next, and since we’d built up an appetite with all that walking we had dinner in one of the many Chinese restaurants. Ticking off another item on my list, we followed the map to 29 Russell Street where Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road. In this house, Kerouac stayed with Neal and Carolyn Cassidy where they apparently lived in a ménage a trois for a short time. The guide book informed us that she frequently kicked them both out – oh to have been a fly on the wall for those conversations!

More walking the following day – to Haight Ashbury, the so-called epicentre of the psychedelic 60s where 1967’s ‘Summer of Love’ originated. It’s fondly referred to as ‘Hashbury’ these days. On the way we passed some stunning-looking houses and buildings. It’s never boring walking these streets, even if it is hard on the legs. I was keen to see the locations associated with Charles Manson and one of his followers, Susan Atkins and as they are in the same district we went there first. Janis Joplin lived there too, and the Grateful Dead House wasn’t too far away so I ended up with several pictures of me in front of various walls and front doors. These are all private houses now but I guess if you buy one, aware they were once home to such iconic characters you expect to get the odd tourist posing outside your front door.

Haight Ashbury itself didn’t disappoint. There was the distinctive smell of weed in the air, which isn’t illegal in California any more – although I suspect it would make little difference if it was. There was a great vibe in the district, with colourful and eccentric characters, some hippie-themed shops, cafes and bookshops. On one corner is a clock where the time is stuck at 4:20 which is apparently ‘International Bong-Hit Time’. We read that a local clockmaker fixed it once but within a week it was back at 4:20 – wonder why ;-). The day ended with a walk to Buena Vista Park, recommended for its views over the city which again, didn’t disappoint. My legs were begging for rest by now but I forced myself to carry on for one more short climb up the hill. As you can see, the views were worth it… we got a taxi home, though.

Worn out after all the strenuous hill climbing, we only ventured as far as a local bar on Tuesday 24^th. As Paul explained in his blog, it’s the bar where the art installation he designed the software for is on display. Fort Mason Center is only a short distance from Aquatic Park. A former shipyard and embarkation point for World War 2 soldiers, it’s now host to a cultural centre with art installations, craft shops and special scientific events. I felt in need of a drink once we got there – it was the hottest day so far. We met the director of the project in the bar and had a chat with him while we cooled off. The prices weren’t exactly happy hour in there, either.

A bus ride was in order for our next destination that day. I had read about the Californian Heritage Centre and thought it sounded like a good way to learn more about the area we were visiting. It wasn’t! Well it might have been if your interest was in pictures of abandoned railway tracks or the history of railroads in general. As good as the photos of these were, that was all it was – nothing about San Francisco or California in general. Disappointed, and $20 dollars poorer we walked to the Ferry Building on the waterfront and followed the historic pier walk from piers 1 – 40 at a slow pace, reading the information plaques about some of them at various intervals. This was a much cooler and pleasant walk, away from the steep hills and the inner city heat. Coming upon the ferry departure point for trips to Alcatraz on Pier 33, we made enquiries about dates and fares and booked it there and then for Thursday 26^th. This was to be my birthday treat from Paul and initially, the plan was that I would be going alone but I was pleased when Paul decided to come along too.

We had a weird and wonderful Wednesday before then, beginning with a visit to the delightful Musee Mecanique. We happened upon it by accident on our way to check out the berth in Pier 39 where we would be moving to on Friday. The museum is located on Pier 45 in Fisherman’s Wharf and is host to one of the world’s largest (over 200) privately owned collection of coin-operated mechanical musical instruments and antique arcade machines in their original working condition. We wandered in for a quick look as it was free and ended up staying for over an hour playing the machines, listening to the old time music and marvelling at some of the ‘attractions’ (one of them actually invited you to watch naughty Madeleine lift her skirt). These pics show just some of the machines.

Pier 39’s boat docks are famous for the some 1300 sea lion squatters who, because Californian law requires boats to make way for marine mammals, have been allocated an area where they can congregate, fight, swim and bark and scratch and jostle for space to their hearts’ content. There is always a crowd of onlookers delighting in these antics and we joined them to watch the cute and cumbersome but always fascinating creatures for a while. On the way back we passed through the seaside amusement square near Pier 39. Here you can ride an old fashioned carousel, enjoy all you can eat fast food and browse the souvenir and ‘hoodie’ shops. A wooden stage hosts performances from magicians, musicians and comedians in an open mike style fashion for voluntary donations at the end of the performance. We stood and watched a female illusionist from a balcony until our attention was diverted by the shouts of outrage about ‘rights’ and freedom coming from a  man being chased by three policeman. Not long after that we spotted a guy in a wheelchair on the promenade proudly waving a banner with the words ‘f*** Trump’ emblazoned on it. A bit further on there was an opportunity to pose for pictures with Mr Trump and Kim Jong-Un (they may well have been lookalikes though). Our wonderful Wednesday concluded with a face to face confrontation with a large raccoon sitting on a rubbish bin as we entered the walkway to the dinghy dock – I don’t know who was more startled, him or us. I just love San Francisco.  

It was a scorching hot day for our Alcatraz excursion.  All advice, however, recommended bringing warm clothing for the ferry crossing even though it’s only a 20 minute trip. Indeed, most people began pulling out jumpers and scarves five minutes into the midday journey. Once we’d disembarked, the warmth returned and a jolly ranger welcomed us all with a speech about what we could expect to see and a bit of background history. The whole trip was extremely well organised. I’d been a bit worried about how so many people would see everything if we all arrived together. Instead, everyone get a sets of headphones with an auditory tour which you can pause and play at your leisure. This means each place is spaced out so that not everyone is crowded into one spot at any one time. On the day we visited, an ex-inmate was there signing copies of his autobiography. I wondered how he must have felt travelling back to the place he had been incarcerated for so many years. It’s an amazing place to visit and naturally we took lots of pictures. The most moving thing I heard on the audio narration was a description from an inmate telling how they all used to clamour for the spot where they could hear the shouts and celebrations coming from mainland San Francisco each New Year’s Eve and if they were lucky they might see the midnight fireworks. Just some of the pics from the trip below.

Late that afternoon we returned to The Haight District to check out The City Lights Bookshop. I was particularly keen to see the upstairs room where so many poets, including Bob Dylan, had read their work. The shop itself looked exactly as it must have done it its heyday and now doubles as a museum in that it has displays and information about the shop’s origin and events.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

We were in San Francisco for two weeks and I managed to tick off all the places and things I wanted to see and do. I loved our few days at Pier 39 with the sea lions. On one memorable occasion, we were unable to get back on the boat because two of them had chosen our pontoon to bask on. Only the day before we had read an article about how they can be viscous if they feel threatened. One had apparently dragged a woman by the arm and forced her into the water. I had seen their teeth and there was no way I was going to attempt to pass them. Paul had a go. He clapped his hands and shouted but they growled loudly showing those huge teeth and he sensibly backed away. In the end we sought help from our neighbouring Wine Therapy tour boat. The guy on there turned the water hose on them and they reluctantly slipped into the water. We moved from there a couple of days later over to the other side of the pier because our berth was needed for a dredger. That side had fewer sea lions and was a lot busier but it was handy for all the facilities.

We finally had our celebratory birthday Indian meal on 28^th September in a restaurant in Haight Ashbury. We’d both done separate things that day. I’d gone to the cinema to see Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his take on the Manson murders. At nearly three hours long, it was nice to enjoy it in comfortable reclining seats. Paul had spent the afternoon at the artificial ‘Treasure Island’ in San Francisco Bay, to check out their marina as a possible location to move to. He met me after the film and we had a brief look round the Financial District with its skyscrapers and the usual city centre brand name shops before getting a bus to Haight, which is even more atmospheric in the evenings.

Paul’s blog has already related our trip to Golden Gate Bridge where I was keen to get a photograph of myself in front of the bridge roughly where I had posed in 1983. Left to my own devices I would have plumped for an approximate location as long as the bridge was behind me. I was amazed by Paul’s logic and calculations to determine the exact place I had stood. It was the strangest feeling to be in the very spot I had last been on 36 years previously. There were a lot more tourist attractions and shops there than I remembered. It was also a thrill for me to locate the place where James Stewart and Kim Novak had been during the filming of Hitchcock’s Vertigo.   

We spent one afternoon at San Francisco’s Botanical Gardens. They were undeniably impressive and very well kept. It was hard to believe we were in the middle of a large city. I think we would have got more out of them if we knew a little more about plants, flowers, birds – even trees! We need to learn these things.

From there we went to the Mission District because my little guide book said it had lots of bookshops. This area had a definite ‘edgy’ feel to it. It was a lot more run-down and the advice in the guide book was to avoid after dark. This was San Francisco’s original neighbourhood – my guide explained that it was;

‘built around an 18^th-century Spanish mission where nothing seemed to grow until the Gold Rush brought boatloads of adventurers, and wild speculation took root. The Mission remains fertile ground for vivid imaginations and tall tales told over strong drink – hence mural-lined streets, pirate supplies and literary bar crawls’

It had a distinct Latino vibe and there were lots of Spanish and Mexican eateries. Things were a lot cheaper here and I bought a San Francisco hoodie I’d been after at a good price. The bookshops were great too. It was a great place to walk around after dark, flaunting the advice in the book. I had a feeling it stayed lively throughout the night, and unlike other parts of the city, places seemed to stay open much later.

As we entered the month of October we began to plan our next destination and set a date on which to leave San Francisco. We settled on the 5^th when we would travel to Monterey. Our last few days there were spent back at anchor in Aquatic Park. There is a distinct autumnal chill in the air by now and Paul keeps reminding me that the further south we go the warmer it will get. We still need the heater in the evenings and early mornings but it’s been consistently clear and bright and warm during the day. I was sad to leave San Francisco but I felt we’d definitely done it justice. Pics below of our last few days and of us going under the Golden Gate Bridge en route for Monterey.

Above is a shot of Sister Midnight sitting in Aquatic cove, part of the Museums grounds in the heart of San Francisco’s waterfront.

After a few days swinging on the anchor here we moved to Pier 39 to hang out with the sea lions. Pier 39 is just along from Fishermans wharf. Both places had once been very busy commercial operations, either dealing with fishing boats or general cargo. They both have now become major tourist attractions, full of restaurants/bars and gift shops. Property prices here are so high it doesn’t make sense to be shipping goods through these wharfs, all of the trade is done by container ships over at Oakland, or similar terminals.

Pier 39 does have a marina, the east side is full of day trip boats, ranging from big boats doing ‘around the bay’ or ‘sunset cruises’ to a sailing experience on an old Americas cup yacht. On the west side, there is room for a few dozen yachts, but more famously there are a dozen pontoons set out just for the sea lions to laze around on. We had 2 days with the sea lions before we were able to move to a slip on the east side. You can see some sea lions on our pontoons at night. At one point I had a face to face showdown with a sea lion who wouldn’t let me get back to the boat.

We spent 2 weeks in San Francisco exploring the place. I hadn’t realised just how hilly it is, but the transit system is easy to use, and for $5 you get a day pass that covers all the trolleys and busses, but not the famous cable cars. I have included some pictures of the great architecture below and scattered around this post

The Long Now Foundation
The foundation are a group of enlightened people who have decided to build a clock out in the desert that will run for 10,000 years without any human intervention. The project is nearing completion now and the organisation behind it has a bar ‘The Interval’ just a few piers along from Aquatic Cove. I had to visit, mostly because they have a piece of art behind the bar that I was heavily involved with the design of. It was a commission I got from the artist Brian Eno a few years back to display his art project called 77 Million Paintings on 4 slim LCD displays. The images change on a continuous basis and should not repeat until after 77 million iterations. I designed the software and hardware that is on display at the bar, but I didn’t know it was destined for an organisation that deals with extremely long time periods. This piece runs on windows XP and uses SD Memory chips for storage, and so by its very design, has a short life expectancy. Still it was good to see it running in a very trendy bar.

At the end of one of the piers is an old amusements aracde with antique exhibits. I particularly liked these machines, but also enjoyed a game of space invaders on the big old upright consoles.

There are many funky buildings here, It’s interesting as most of them were built or rebuilt after the great earthquake in 1906.
Below Kathy is on one of the refurbished piers with some historic ships behind her.

Alcatraz
So as part of my birthday present to Kathy I bought her tickets to Alcatraz, I checked but they only did returns 😉
It was a very interesting tour, and must have been a pretty grim time for those incarcerated there, especially with the sights and sounds of SF wafting over the short stretch of water between the two.

The bridge
Of course the Golden Gate bridge is probably San Francisco’s most famous landmark. We had fun sailing under it, but Kathy had an old photo of her by the bridge taken in 1983 some 36 years ago, and wanted to go back and find the same spot. This seemed like a good challenge to me, so I fired up google street view and started looking for possible locations.

Fortunatley street view had great images from all the roads and footpaths in the area, and using the wires and the point where they cross the supports and the background hills made it fairly easy to get the spot.

Of course when we got there it was quite different, a new fence and viewing area. What pleased me was to see the square holes in the concrete filled in where I suspect the old wooden fence was fitted. In retrospect I think we were out by around 6ft, but that will have to do.

The engineering is stunning for the bridge, the wires that run the length of the bridge are amazing just in themselves.

City Lights & the Beat Poets
SF has a proud literary background and played a big part in the sixties counterculture movement, some of our favourite writers and poets made their mark here, along with many great musicians. Kathy had a particular desire to check out all the Manson related locations so I took pictures of her in front of lots of houses, places were either gruesome murders were planned or committed. We also saw the house were Kerouac wrote ‘on the road’.

Below is the room were the Beat Poets would recite their works and it was in this room that Ginsberg (He of Howl fame) and William Burroughs unleashed their radical poetry on the world.

No shortage of cruise ships here, this one was particularly massive, I think it was dutch.

Mission & 24th
Mission is a region just south of the main downtown area and we accidently found it when looking for some book shops, it has a very Mexican feel to it, which might explain some of the goods proudly being displayed for sale.

We had a great indian meal there. the area is also famous for large murals

Leaving the bay

Before we left SF I had some boat jobs to do, a few weeks earlier the cable from the solar panels to the battery charger / controller had failed. This runs down the backstay, then follows a tortuous path through the back of the boat, through the engine compartment and quarter berth. I had run a wire from the panels through a portlight down to the controller and it was getting in the way. This meant emptying out the lazzarette and all of the quarter berth. While this job was under way I decided to finally hook up the inverter that came with the boat. This is a big pure sine wave 2kw inverter/4 stage charger with sensing switch over. It’s a fancy bit of kit and probably costs thousands of dollars, but it had sat there idle all this time as it works with 110v, I had rewired the boat for 240v and I couldn’t see a role for it. However I realised that the boat has been in North american waters for a year now, and will probably do another 1 or 2 years before we head off into the pacific where I’m not expecting much shore power at all. On top of that I was not happy with the toaster that ran on 240v from a step up transformer, and given that the gas grill has stopped working, toast at sea has become a problem. Finally Rick up in Sointula baked a loaf for me using his breadmaker running off his inverter, so I bought a 110v toaster and I’m on the lookout for a bread making machine. I found that the inverter was already connected to the batteries via a big isolating switch, so rather than replumb it into the boats mains wiring, i just ran a trailing socket from it and popped a couple of slices into the toaster.
It was very fast to make some great toast, but it was disturbing seeing the meter displaying 90 AMPS being drawn from the batteries, I did the maths and worked out 4 pieces of toast cost me about 40 minutes of sunshine (Solar Power). I had got used to making ice from the sun, but peversley it seemed more odd to make toast from the sun.

So we left San Francisco in the afternoon to make a night passage to Monterey, this was a voyage of about 90 miles, to long to make in Daylight, so by leaving in the afternoon we would arrive in the following morning, the wind was forecast to be 20-25 knots from the NW which would have been great, we got the sails up and made a good 5 knots for a few hours, then the wind dropped and on came the motor.

Kathy cooked a nice soup for the evening

The next morning was quite calm and peaceful, I made toast with the new setup and that worked well. We saw Dolphins and Whales on the way down.

Arriving in Monterey
Just as we approached Monterey the wind picked up, as we followed the marks leading to the entrance their was plenty of sea life on view.

Of course Monterey was the home of John Steinbeck, and we had to visit Cannery row, the title of one of his books.

Monterey is lovely and we are enjoying just chilling out, I have picked up a few days of programming work which fits in well, and helps pay for the berth and the new Water pump needed for the engine.

Our favourite supermarket so far in California has been Trader Joe’s. the local one here has a great pumpkin display, as it has been halloween here for a few weeks already.

We should be in LA within a week.

Paul Collister.