San Francisco to Monteray

Well, we did it! We have finally graduated from live-a-boards to cruisers! It all happened on Aug 1st. We were even able to get a few people to come out to see us off, they really weren't sure if they believed us when we said we were actually leaving now and they better come out and say goodbye.

Our 1st day out was spent getting reacquainted with our boat since it had been quite some time since we had actually sailed her. It was a windy day, we had 20+ knot winds which made for a fast and exciting ride. We soon reached our destination, Paradise Cove, didn't want to overdo it on the 1st day. We spent the evening sitting on the hook in 40+ knot winds and visiting with a wee little Irish man who told us grand stories of sailing in the English Channel.

The following morning, after visiting with Simon, Lenard and Wilma, who came out to see us off, we hauled anchor and set off for Half Moon Bay. I was beginning to think that the day would never come, that we would pass under the Golden Gate and leave the bay behind.

Had nice sail down the coast, winds were much lighter once we got outside the gate. We arrived in Half Moon Bay amidst a feeding frenzy, the sardines had come into the harbor, followed by the seals, sea lions and pelicans. It was amazing to watch, the sea lions would bring the fish to the surface, the pelicans would dive down and scoop them up just as the sea lion would breach the surface, sometimes with a fish in his mouth and sometimes I think the pelican got to it first.

How many pelicans are in this picture?

The next morning we got the dinghy out and went to see what there was to see. Met a couple guys, Tim and Las Vegas Mike, who had boats there at the marina. They were nice enough to offer us a ride into town so we could do some shopping and lend us their shower key. We later treated them to beers at the local brewery.

One of the people we met at Pillar Point Marina was Jerry, he's a retired aerospace engineer, who wants to be the 1st person to sail to the North Pole. He's made several attempts so far and has almost died trying. The contraption in the rigging is part of a wind generator that he invented that will give him the power he'll need to help keep him warm and alive on his next attempt.

We met another couple who spent 29 years building a Gloucester schooner in their back yard. It was beautiful inside and out, an amazing work of craftsmanship. They hope to begin cruising sometime next year.

At one point there were a couple hundred pelicans surrounding our boat.

The next leg of the journey bought us to Soquel Cove at the North end of Monterey Bay. We anchored off the Capitola Pier. Here again we found ourselves in the middle of a wildlife park. We had prime viewing of sea lions, harbor seal, cormorants, pelicans and dolphin, who had all come into feed on the sardines. We even had a sea otter feeding under the boat, he would surface every few minutes with a shellfish in his hands, eat it and then dive back down for another, he hung out with us for several hours.

The anchorage itself was very uncomfortable, a large swell was coming in, between that and the wind it made it hard to sleep and even just to move around on the boat, we were bouncing all over the place. We took the dinghy over to the dock, just about had to crawl on hands and knees to get over to the stairs leading up to the pier, the whole thing was bouncing up and down like a floor at an amusement park fun house. Took a walk around town, it smelled like they were having a problem with backed-up sewage, the whole town stunk, we didn't stay long. We didn't want to leave our pour dinghy at that dock for too long either, it was getting beat to death between the dock and the other dinghies.

As soon as we decided that we had enough, the swell stopped, the wind stopped blowing and sea was calm and looked like glass. We had to motor all the way across the bay to Monteray.