I was going to take photos of the log of Moondance, but it's more of a journal of the trip than a real sailing log. And it's messy. You probably couldn't read my chicken scratch anyway. Instead, I'll give a little summary of. The trip to date.
The crew includes Max (all the way to San Diego), Steve (unfortunately he could only join us for a weekend), and of course Alex (me).
The first passage, Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, turned out to be more than we had ordered. There was a gale for 36 hours, with light fluky breeze for 12 hours on either end. We had long periods of force 9, with some force 10 (windspeed: 48-55 kts) mixed in there for good measure. The seas were spectacular. There were huge breaking waves with overhanging crests and tons of foam flying everywhere. It's hard to guess as to how high the crests were, but I've been surfing at steamer lane when surfline said it was over twenty feet (yeah, it was a dumb place for me to be). The waves on this passage were bigger. When the gale started blowing, we reefed, then reefed again, then dropped the stays'l. We reached really deep under just the working jib for a while, but that was way too much canvas. We were doing 7-8 knots, with frequent bursts of surfing in the low 9's. We even saw 9.8 kts a few times. Pretty epic for a heavy 30' boat with a long keel and short waterline. That was too fast and too hard on the boat, so we dropped the jib, still surfing under bare poles. This slowed us down and was easier on Moondance, but without a sail forward we occasionally got pushed off course and took some big waves on the beam. We later flew the storm jib, which gave us way more control and stability in the confused and sloppy seas.
Moondance took great care of us. We never felt like we were in any danger. She was solid and comfortable (so much as a 30' boat can be at least), and surprisingly dry down below. We did get knocked down twice, but the boat always came up immediately and the cockpit drained within seconds, even after being filled by a wave breaking over the boat. Good stuff!
We made it to Santa Barbara after two and a half days on the water. There, we met Steve, who joined us for a weekend trip to Santa Cruz island. We had a most excellent couple of days sailing across the Santa Barbara channel, anchoring in a super flat cove, and paddling in to the beach to explore.
Dropped Steve off, and continued down to Marina Del Rey. The Del Rey Yacht Club took great care of us. Members passing Moondance at the dock would stop to chat, invite us to join in some activity at the club, and offer to help us in any way they could. Everyone was incredibly friendly. We had a great stay. From there, we made our way to Newport, where we stayed at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club. Not as nice as the DRYC, but you can't argue with reciprocal berthing and access to showers. Let's see... Went to minney's, got some stuff for the boat, but struck out of a spinnaker. We met some girls at a bar, took them out sailing, had a great time, and then got stood up. Jerks!
Max and I had had our fill of Newport, so we dropped our mooring, and motored through crazy-thick fog and zero wind all the way to San Diego. More motoring than we wanted, but we were ready for warm weather. The cold had followed us 400 miles south, and we were sick of it. I do love that little Volvo. The San Diego Yacht Club was as nice as any i've seen. Pool, hot tub, saunas. We spent three nights there, surfed Cardiff with Sean and Carley, and enjoyed finally being able to wear shorts and a t-shirt.
Max flew back to Santa Cruz for a SCYC midwinter race, so it was just me and Moondance again. That guy is so much fun to have around and made excellent crew. I always felt safe leaving Moondance under Max's watch. It'll be great to have him back on board in march.
I spent a few more days in San Diego with Sean and Carley, and then flew to Chicago to see the family. I'm now on a plane back to California, where I will meet Chris and Sean for our sail south of the border. Check back soon for tales of our adventures in Mexico.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
It's about time I get this blog going!
Well, we left Santa Cruz six weeks ago, and I'm finally getting around to starting the official blog of the Good Ship Moondance. It has been an incredible start to the voyage. I won't give details quite yet. I'd rather just upload photos of Moondance's log. For now, enjoy a few shots of our passage from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz Island.
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