This year we spent New Years sailing out to Santa Cruz Islands with our friends. We had five boats and the perfect sea conditions. 70 degrees and light wind.
Another beautiful day in Channel Islands
We left the dock about 8:30 in the morning and headed toward the Island. We didn’t ave enough wind to sail fast so I kept the motor on. Whale season is upon us and this was no exception. Bill (Our Porpoise) call out on the radio at about 5 miles out ans sighted spouts. They were closer to us than any one. After about a 1/2 hour Kalin saw two spouts just off our port bow. A few minutes later, we got a huge tail out of the water just behind us. Whale are so cool!
Kalin, the master whale spotter.
Anacapa Island, crystal clear!
On this trip we were heading to an anchorage on the back side of the island called Coaches Preitos. I have never been to this anchorage so this was going to be fun.
As we turned the corner to start up the back side of the island, I noticed my wind indicator picked up to 17 knots from behind us. I decided to try to sail. I used my spinnaker pole to set the boat up, Wing on Wing. I turned off the motor and we were sailing along at 6 – 7 knots heading straight for our destination. Very Kewl!
We reached Coaches later that afternoon and prepared to set anchor. Coaches is a small anchorage and requires you to use both a bow anchor and a stern anchor to keep the boats from swinging. So we set the bow anchor and had Mike (Maine Squeeze) use his dingy to drop our stern anchor. Life is good.
Coaches
The Stern Anchor
My stern anchor problems are kind of a little mini story in the bigger New Years Story.
In this anchorage, it can get very surgy with the tides. I was parked right next to the rocks. Once we set our anchors, we got a fix on our position in the anchorage and waited to make sure we weren’t dragging. All was good!
We took off over to Our Porpoise for cocktails. Out at these Islands, the wind tends to shift around a lot. Usually around sunset, you get the wind blowing directly off shore. This is were the stern anchor comes in.
The wind came up, right on schedule and we watched my boat begin to creep toward the rocks. We scrambled the ding brigade, and pushed my boat to safety. I re-dropped the anchor and we seemed to be staying put.
That night, I got up at Two AM to check on the boat. We were drifting into Our Porpoise. The wind was still blowing off shore and I was going to have to do something.
I decided maybe I could do this with just my dingy, with out waking Kalin up. So I g0t dressed and fire up my 2.5Hp dingy. I pulled up my anchor and tried to pull the boat back trowed shore. The only thing that was accomplished was me letting the boat drift even closer to Our Porpoise.
I had to wake Kalin. With Kalin at the helm, we were able to back the boat up and reset the anchor. That lasted the rest of the night.
I wonder why my anchor would not hold! What do you want for ten bucks!
The next morning, we were over on Sea Dancer for breakfast. It was Déjà vu! We look over and our boat is drifting toward the rocks again! Earlier that night (about 2:45 AM) I decide I had an anchor problem, and I was either going to barrow a spare anchor from some one, or I was going to anchor out so I could swing on one chain. We ended up borrowing an anchor in a bag (Very large Fortress) and relaunched the dingy fleet. With the new anchor we reset Moonshadow in her proper spot. She was stuck! Not going anywhere! That next nigh, I slept like a babe!
Unfortunately, the next morning, Our Porpoise had drug her stern anchor and was close to another boat.
So back to the trip.
Our big excursion away from the boat was a dingy trip. Our original destination for this weekend was an anchorage called Willows. It was several miles farther down the island. Since we didn’t go their, we decided to take our dingy’s down their. We left Coaches in four dingys heading to willow. We stopped along the way , checking out rock formations and look for rays in the clear shallow water.
Mike and Cheri heading to Willow
Willows is a cool anchorage. The island protects it to the west, and two very large rock protect the south and east. The beach is well protected and getting on shore was easy. We all went on shore and did some exploring. There is a good trail to the top of the hill. A pair of boats had just come down, and told us it was an easy hike.
Heading into Willow
Bill and Tina on the beach of Willow
Don and Bobbi (Sea Dancer) had their new dog Rags with them. Rags was having a blast chasing the foam on the edge of the surf.
Rags having fun
It was time to go. We got our dingys successfully launched and prepared to head back. Bill and Tina’s dingy failed to start. Rescue Mike was on it! Bill and Tina jumped into Don and Bobbies dingy and John went into Mikes. We started back.
Now on the way up, I had made the comment, “I wonder how long before I run out of gas”.
Rescue Mike, towing the dead Dingy
We got our answer 2/3 of the way back. We ran out of gas, and nobody had any on board. We had to go under tow to get back to the boat (lesson learned: Long trip, take a gas can). We made it back to the boat.
Our dingy being towed
The next day we decided to move to Yellow banks on the east end of the island. This would shorten our trip home by a few hours. It was a pleasant motor sail down to the east end. There were three boats already anchored. We tucked in between two boats on a single hook. We settled in for the night.
At Yellow Banks, we ran in to Bills Neighbor Wizard. Wizard is a Mason 44 and a beautify boat. Our hosts, Skip and Teri and their gigantic yellow lab were a lot of fun to talk to. Boat parties in anchorages is one of the best parts of cruising.
That night the east wind kicked up and drove the swell into Yellow banks. The wind was keeping the boat parallel to the swell and we ROCKED and ROLLED all night! IT was the roughest night we have ever spent on the boat. I got up several times, but the anchor was fine. I kept thinking, how was I going to get the motor off my dingy in this!”
Finally, at about 4:30 am the swell laid down. When I woke up at 6am the boat was calm. I immediately sprang into action and started to pack up the boat. We were ready to pull up anchor around 7:00 am.
We left yellow banks and headed home. We immediately ran into 15 – 20 knots on the nose. I raised the sails and fell off and started sailing at 6 knots. The wind kept building from the east. I reefed the main and kept trying to sail. The wind got to 25-30 knots and I was having to sail to far off course to suit me, so I furled the head sail and pointed the boat at the harbor. Luckily, the seas weren’t bad. I watched the boat and Kalin stayed below. We made it across the channel in 3 hours.
All in all, we had a great New Years, So. Cal. Style!
