Weekend in Prisoner's Harbor

We arrived in Prisoner's on Saturday afternoon and spent the next 36 hours hoping our anchor would hold. The winds in the Santa Barbara Channel, just outside the anchorage, were forecast to gust to 30 kts. It was blowing at least 20 knots in our supposedly protected spot. Bruce, our bow anchor, held the boat in place so we rested well on Saturday and Sunday night.

On Monday, the forecast was for light winds, so we made plans to head to the other side of the island to another anchorage called Coches Prietos. The forecast was spot on, so we pulled up the anchor and motored around the East end so we could get a look at the South side of the island.

Coches Prietos

When we arrived at Coches Prietos, it was empty and beautiful (see photos). Who says there's no such thing as a private beach in California? It was only private for about 6 hours however. By the afternoon three other boats were anchored near us.

We spent four days at Coches sitting on the beach enjoying the sun, sand, and water. The water was actually warm enough to go for a 20 minute swim!

Since Coches is small, we anchored with fore and aft anchors. When everyone does this, more boats can fit in a smaller space since the boats don't swing in a big arc like they would with only a bow anchor. We had our stern anchor set towards the beach, bow anchor away from the beach (if you have a good imagination, you can see this in the photos). During the evenings, the wind howled out of the canyons, off the beach and into the anchorage. We found out later that it was consistently in the 20-25 kt range. We had never tested our stern anchor in conditions like this, but Dani (that's her name) held Crazy Love in place without complaint.

There were five other boats in the anchorage with us. We met pretty much everyone on the beach while we all watched one poor fellow try to get his stern anchor to stick - I think he got it to hold by dusk. On Thursday evening, we were invited over for dinner on a boat called Carnivale. It is a 40 foot boat with a crew of three very nice fellas. They made some excellent food. They had speared three sheepheads while diving earlier in the day, so fresh fish was on the menu. It was delicious!

We planned to pull up our anchors on Friday and head to Cat Harbor on Catalina Island as a final stop on the way home. Things didn't quite work out that way.

200 miles, 60 hours, 2 small craft advisories. We left Monterey on Thursday morning like Carolyn said in her last post. The forecast looked favorable from Monterey, around Point Conception, and on to Santa Cruz so we decided from the start that unless there was a need to stop we were going all the way.

Day One

We left Monterey at 8:30am after settling our bill of $210 for 11 nights at the marina. There was no charge for the tow into the marina! The wind was light from the West so we motored to Point Pinos with a reef in the main. Once we were to Pinos we turned South and shut off the motor. We rolled out half the jib - the winds were forecast for 10 to 20 knots - so we weren't heeled over too much once it started blowing.

When the wind started blowing a little, maybe 12 or 15 knots, we started to move along nicely. Steering by hand was fun for a few hours, but after we each took a turn driving it was time for the tiller pilot. We tried both of our tiller pilots, but neither would steer the course we set it to. Bummer! That meant we'd have to hand steer for the rest of the trip. I had no desire to steer by hand in the middle of the night when I'd rather be sleeping. This is my vacation.

Tiller Pilot Repairs

After thinking about the tiller pilot issue for a little while I remembered disassembling the power connector a few months ago. At the time, there was a decent amount of corrosion on the terminals inside the boat. During Carolyn's turn at the tiller, I got out the tool kit and started troubleshooting. You have no idea how much Carolyn is turned on when I break out the multimeter! I measured 12 volts from the outside of the jack, so no problem there. Next I removed the mounting screws for the jack and discovered what ultimately was the issue. The corrosion I saw previously was everywhere; it had nearly eaten through the power cables. Here's where having a decent tool kit comes in handy: I cut off the corroded part of the cable and stripped off part of the jacket. Oh yeah, I also remembered that a previous owner of Crazy Love had left us a spare jack. What a nice guy! I put the freshly cut wires into the new jack and reassembled the whole thing.

We plugged in the tiller pilot and it worked! Woohoo. Did I mention that Carolyn was driving the boat this whole time and we were bouncing in the waves? The wind and waves had also picked up to 15+ knots so we were going a solid 5.5 kts. It was lovely.

We were deep reaching, maybe running with those winds for most of the first day. During the evening, the winds died down a little so it was easy to sleep. During our previous over-nights, two hour watches worked so we stayed with that.

On the first night we didn't feel like jibing (turning) Southeast so we ended up way farther off the coast than we anticipated. At about 4am I looked at the GPS and realized we were almost 40 miles from land. At dawn on Day Two, we were nearing Port San Luis - nearing the latitude of Port San Luis; we were still 40 miles away. We jibed the boat onto a ESE course that would take us most of the way to Point Conception.

Day Two

On Day One we made 90 miles toward our destination of Santa Cruz Island; most of that was South'ing. Now we had to do the East'ing. On Day Two we pointed the boat toward Points Arguello and Conception and we didn't make it there until the middle of the night. Sometime during the late evening, we passed Point Arguello and during my 2am to 4am watch we passed Point Conception. The light at Point Arguello was not visible, but the one at Conception was good and bright. Conventional wisdom says to round theses two points in the middle of the night (2am is best). The wisdom of the croud was right. The winds were 10-15 kts from the West and we were moving right along. As long as we didn't hit any of the oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, we'd be fine. Thinking about it now, it was some of the best sailing I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing - not too cold, not too much wind, no traffic, Just Right.

Day Three

During the evening we had entered the Traffic Separation Zone in the Santa Barbara Channel, so now we had to watch out for big ships. Fortunately there were none until after dawn.

In the late morning on Day Three, with about 30 miles to go, the wind died on us. We floated along at 2+ knots. The forecast for the afternoon was 15-25 kts so we just had to wait. Once the wind came up it really came up! It went from mostly dead to 25kts in a matter of 30 minutes - just as the NOAA forecast predicted. This was our second small craft advisory of the trip down from Monterey. The other one was for the big waves just South of Monterey.

The bigger winds pushed our speed to 6+ kts and the waves sent us surfing. With that much speed, we made it into Prisoner's Harbor on Santa Cruz Island at about 6pm and set the hook with a whole bunch of scope. We made it! It was a proud moment for Carolyn and I. Our previous longest sail was 70 miles. This leg of our journey was triple that. The mileages going down to Mexico will be much longer than we've seen in California so getting a multiple-hundred mile trip under our belt was a good confidence booster.

Hindsight

A few things we learned during this leg:

1. The tiller pilot is important for the comfort of the crew.
2. The tiller pilot takes a decent amount of power.
3. The second reef in our main sail needs some work.
4. Having a wet butt for three days leads to some itchiness.

As a result of these revelations:

1. We will add a solar panel to reduce the need to run the engine for power.
2. We will consider a wind vane self steering gear (uses no electricity)
3. We will run the reef lines back to the cockpit so no one is at the mast when the boat is heeled over.
4. Having a dry bum is priceless!

The Plan from Here

We'll spend two days in Prisoner's Harbor relaxing and waiting for the big winds to die down. Then we will head to the other side of the island to an anchorage called Coches Prietos. Some very beautiful Santa Barbara residents from the anchorage next door recommended that spot and we all know that beautiful people are smart and talented, so we took their suggestion as word from the Flying Spaghetti Monster himself.

Yes, We're still in Monterey!

We completed the troubleshooting Dave outlined previously with a battery load test on Friday the 13th. Everything checked out just fine! We're fortunate the testing and "fix" cost us nothing except for this $17.50/night slip and a couple 5 mile walks lugging the alternator around.

It seems Crazy Love is ready to continue on her journey.

It seems the gusting - up to 25-30 knots - winds would like us to stay.

We were thinking the window for departing would be good today or tomorrow but forecasts now seem to indicate Thursday early morning will actually be our day. In the meantime, we've changed the oil and filter, rigged our second reef to reduce sail further (should we run into those gusty winds), did laundry, additional provisioning, met some new cruising friends, and cleaned "boat".

Oh and I had a birthday in there too! It was a great day. Dave declared no boat work on my birthday. So on Saturday we had a nice sleep in and started the day off right with coffee, crepes, and watching the harbor seals in the bay. We did some art viewing at the Monterey Art Museum which has two locations in town, some afternoon lounging in the sun on a pub patio, and of course some birthday "party" fun at Mirror Maze and Lazer Maze Challenge. The birthday boy in front of us seemed to handle the mission impossible lazer challenge much easier... I think he turned 7. I mean I only have 30 years on him but apparently sometimes older and wiser isn't better than shorter and more flexible! We ended the night with a lovely dinner at Montrio Bistro after dusting off and airing out our more acceptable dinner atire.

The revised, revisited, and revised again plan is continually changing. Thursday morning does look good for our departure. If the weather and sailing is good we might not even stop in Avila and head directly to Santa Cruz Island. This is all dependent on weather, boat, and crew.

We are looking pretty good for securing a slip on Shelter Island at Half Moon Marina (at Humphrey's) starting Oct 1.

We look forward to seeing all you San Diegans really soon!!

On Saturday, the weather was looking good for us to make the big (for us) jump from Santa Cruz to Avila but Crazy Love had different plans. The engine wouldn't start when we were ready to leave. It was pretty obvious we had drawn down the batteries too far. Oops! The extra time and strain we put on the tiller pilot during our trip down from Half Moon Bay was the likely culprit. We considered several options to get us out of the jam:

1. Call VesselAssist for a jumpstart - this was our option of last resort
2. Sail to Avila sans engine - we are on a sailboat!
3. Sail to the fuel dock in Santa Cruz and get shore power there.
4. Try out the tiny solar panel that came with the boat.

We tried option #4 first. Crazy Love's previous owners equipped her with a bunch of gadgets that we've kept but not used until now. I pulled the solar panel from the storage locker under Carolyn's berth and plugged it in. We waited 20 minutes and tried to start the engine. The starter kicked this time, but didn't quite have enough oomph to get the engine going. Encouraging results, so we waited another 30 minutes and tried again. This time the engine started. Woohoo! We had managed to get out of a jam on our own with patience and a lot of luck. We're going to need more of both before this Crazy Journey is done.

We finally have the engine running and are only 1 hour behind schedule. We assumed that since the engine was running the batteries were charging - that had always been a safe assumption. To charge up the batteries, we were going to motor the 20 miles down to Point Pinos so we would have plenty of power for the tiller pilot during the evening. We have a little analog voltage gauge on our electrical panel that, when the batteries are charging, reads 13 or 14 volts, but it was only reading 11 volts. Not good news. Carolyn suggested we turn off the engine, wait a little while, and then attempt to restart it. The idea was to see if we had replenished the batteries; if not, then we would pull into Monterey to figure out what was wrong. The engine didn't start. It was pretty clear the batteries weren't getting charged.

We turned East toward Monterey to make repairs. When we were 10 miles away, Carolyn called the Harbormaster to get a slip. They had a slip available and they offered to tow us into the slip. The folks in the Monterey harbormaster's office definitely are the friendliest and most generous marina people we've met during our travels on the California coast.

The sailing into Monterey was some of the best we've ever had - mild winds, blue skies, warm sun. I hope the rest of the trip South is half as nice. The harbormaster came out to tow us into the marina. We made it safely into a slip by 7pm and resolved to attack the problem first thing in the morning.

Troubleshooting

Our first suspect was the alternator. If the engine is running, the batteries should be charging, right? We started the engine and put a voltmeter on the alternator terminals. It read battery voltage - 12 volts. Ugh, not what we wanted to see. I removed the alternator and we walked a mile and a half to the Napa Auto Parts where they ran a test on it. The alternator failed the "Stator Voltage" test. Okay then, now what? We were off to the Alternator Starter Exchange. The test there said the alternator was fine - putting out a steady 14 volts.

That's not ambiguous at all!

I trusted the Exchange test more than I trusted the Napa test, so we re-installed the alternator and did our own test. 14 volts. How is that possible? I have two theories. While the alternator was at the Exchange, Carolyn and I cleaned up the batteries and made sure the water in each cell was topped off. Perhaps the batteries were so dirty they weren't charging? I have a hard time believing that.

Another possibility I read about in Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual:

With a really dead battery, many alternators just will not start producing output,...

Perhaps this is the issue?

The paragraph goes on the describe how to give the alternator just the kick it needs, but that assumes you can get the engine started at all. It is possible to start our engine manually, but we do not have the right tool to do it. Might be a good investment before we go to Mexico.

The wiring doesn't seem to be the culprit because the voltage drop between alternator and batteries is less than 0.5 volts when the alternator is putting out 14 volts. The references I have say anything less than half a volt is acceptable.

Since the alternator and wiring seem good, we suspect the batteries might be the issue. To give it a real world test, we've unplugged the shore power and are using as much power as we possibly can. We've got the laptop plugged in, the stereo is on, and all the lights are on. We'll do that for 24 hours or so and then see if we can fire up the engine. Fingers crossed that the alternator puts out some juice when we start it up.

Updating the Plan

We had planned to be leaving Avila by now, heading to Santa Cruz Island shortly. Yoda says, "A few days behind, you are." The winds between Monterey and Avila are looking heavier than we're comfortable with so we'll likely hang here through the weekend. There's a positive and a negative aspect to that plan. The good: we get to spend Carolyn's birthday in Monterey; the bad: our time on Santa Cruz Island shrinks by almost a week. That's a bummer, but we have the hope of much Island Time in the Sea of Cortez this winter to cheer us up.

To sum up our updated plan: I'm gonna sit right here and have another beer in Monterey, CA.

We're sitting at anchor in Santa Cruz (in 80 degree weather and clear blue skies) after a wild ride South from Half Moon Bay. Our trip North from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay took 33 hours. The trip South took less than 12. The 45 mile trip South was an exciting ride...

The day started innocently but would get much crazier. We were anchored at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay. I stuck my head out of the cabin at 7:30am to check on things and felt a decent breeze blowing already. Carolyn and I grabbed a quick breakfast, organized the boat, and pulled up the anchor. Outside the harbor we raised full sail in 10 kts of breeze and the boat started to go along nicely, but the wind died as soon as we cleared Pillar Point. We made 2 miles toward Santa Cruz in the first 2 hours, but toward noon the wind built to 10 kts. That got us going a much quicker 4 kts.

Since we were going dead down wind (directly away from the wind) in light air and calm seas we decided to try wing on wing (see photo). That gave us a great chance to try out our new spinnaker pole. We had the pole installed before we left in May, but have not used it because we've been going upwind for all of the trip thus far.

It took us a few hours to fine tune the trim of the pole and the sail, but once we did, we were hauling! Crazy Love was averaging 5.5 to 6.0 knots and when the waves pushed us along we were touching 6.5 knots.

I should mention how we measure our speed: we have 2 handheld GPS units aboard. Both were included with the boat when we bought it. The one we use most is a Garmin GPSmap 76Cx. It has a color screen that displays our speed and course. It also displays a map with our position.

So we're cruising along wing on wing with full sail up and the miles are easy. We peel off 20 miles in just a few hours. Otto, the autopilot, is doing the driving so Carolyn or I just have to keep an eye out for traffic. At about 2pm, we sailed into a thick fog that meant we had to keep an especially close watch: fishing boats seem to come out of nowhere! Fortunately we saw no other boats and the fog lifted a few hours later.

By 5pm we had gone 25 miles with about 20 to go. The wind and the waves started to build - mostly the waves though. Still under full sail, with the jib poled out to windward, Crazy Love was surfing down the backside of waves at 7 knots and even touching 8 and occasionally 9 knots. I'm not sure I believe it, but the GPS says our top speed was 10 knots! That's really flying for a boat as small as ours.

At 6pm we had to turn East toward Santa Cruz which meant we weren't going dead down wind any more. We took the pole down and jibed the jib. In hindsight, I am glad we took down the pole when we did, but we should have put a reef in the main at the same time. The waves only got bigger and bigger after that. Otto couldn't handle the steering load, so I took over for the last 12 miles. Every third or fourth wave sent Crazy Love surfing, nearly out of control. The boat would careen 60 degrees off course, then heel wildly to starboard before righting herself and allowing me to bring her back to course. By this time, we had rolled up the jib half way but still had the full main up with a preventer to keep the boom from slamming about. Note to self: In October, bring all reef lines to the cockpit so we don't have to go to the mast to reduce sail - reefing at this point would have been a terrifying (and dangerous) experience.

To stay in control, we rolled up the jib completely. We still had the full main up, but that didn't seem to be a problem (except that it was). The wind wasn't blowing that hard so a full main didn't cause much heel since we were broad reaching. The issue was the waves - they were getting us very wet. Fortunately we only had 12 miles to go and at 6 knots, those miles went by quickly. After a beautiful sunset, we tucked into the calm anchorage off the beach in Santa Cruz At about 9pm.

We will dry off in Santa Cruz for a few days and then head for Avila beach when the weather is right. Avila, by our count, is about 125 miles away. That will be our longest journey by double. The goal there is to give us a good idea what the longer trips down the coast of Baja California will feel like. After Avila we round Point Conception destined for Santa Cruz Island for a week or so of The Island Life.