PARTY A BIT THEN CHANNEL ISLANDS WEEK


Well, It has been a classic party week. We saw a hilarious comedy show on Monday Night with a comedian named John Guy. You know when you laugh so hard that your jaw hurts? Well it was like that. This guy is going to be on Leno in a few weeks and we saw him in a room with about 20 other people. Being close to LA has it's advantages...
Tuesday and Wednesdy were good live music sessions.
It's also the first time I am leaving my boat at anchor without me on it. I feel a lot like a nervous father worried about his daughter out for the weekend. I know it will be fine but I am definately still not super relaxed about it....

Sat 14th

Bernie left this morning. All in all it was a good week with plenty of relaxing and plenty of partying. (and the boat was exactly where I left her....) I reloaded the boat with fuel and water and then went off to the anchorage to settle back in and prepare for tomorrow's departure. But then I started looking at the day and thought why not today? It was late morning but I really didn't have to go far. I'll just go across the channel and to the front of Santa Cruz Island. It's just 20 miles .
So I took off rather than anchor. Rather than spend a lazy day preparing for a short passage I put Otto and Tommy to work and started running around the boat cleaning things up and locking things down. Soon everything looked good, the sun was shining and we were making headway. I was ready to sail but there wasn't much wind...

hmmm. Well If I'm going to motor then I may as well get farther west. A quick check of the cruising guide and Bechers Anchorage on Santa Rosa is the new waypoint.

34..00.956N
120.02.736W

That's where I was going. Soon the wind filled in and the sails went up. Soon after that the wind filled in more and the first reef went in. Then the wind filled in more and the second reef went in.. The swell was only 6 to 8 feet but had 3 to 4 ft of wind wave on top. Not only that but the waves were steep and really close together. This meant that if I treid to point too high into them I would launch into the air off of one and crash into the front of the next wave. BOOM!

So now I was heading directly upwind and against the swell as the wind hovered around 20 to 25 kts. Unfortuantely this isn't the best combination for Otto. The Boat gets really squirrely on the tops of the steep waves and he doesn't react quickly enough. SO that meant I had to hand steer if I was going to make Santa Rosa. No problem !!!

Well it turns out that Santa Rosa is a lot farther than just going to Santa Cruz Island It was 5pm before I got to the anchorage About 5 hours of pounding upwind,. Yuk!! I need food and rest....

Sunday

Well that settles it. If it would have been calm this morning I would have tried for San Migel but it was still blowing. I'm not really keen on another big bashing day just to end up in a windy anchorage. I'll spend today here and set off tomorrow for the back side of Santa Cruz....