Adventures of Bliss

Vessel Name: Bliss
Vessel Make/Model: Pearson 385
Hailing Port: Berkeley, CA
Crew: Jolanda de Boer, Tod Flak
30 September 2010
28 September 2010 | Napa, CA
26 September 2010 | Eden Isle
25 September 2010
24 September 2010
23 September 2010 | Bethel Island, CA
21 September 2010 | Suisun City
19 September 2010 | Pittsburg,CA
17 September 2010 | Vallejo, CA
06 August 2010
23 July 2010
31 October 2009
28 October 2009
26 October 2009
20 October 2009
20 October 2009
17 October 2009 | 34 14.75'N:119 15.94'W
14 October 2009 | Marina Del Rey, CA
Recent Blog Posts
30 September 2010

Wine tasting in Napa

Some times a change in plans is the best thing ever. In this case: taking a car with A/C and not a bike to do a wine tour as the weather was still in the lower 100's, and wineries are located on hills. I'm not a kind of person that wears butt padded shorts when I bike, so we'll take that tandem another [...]

28 September 2010 | Napa, CA

Leaving the Delta

We've enjoyed the delta, and were glad we checked it out. For us, September was a good time to go, as it was a quiet during the week, but not so much during the weekend, and we can imagine that the summer can get pretty busy here. It's a place where motor crafts seem to rule, and with that comes a certain [...]

26 September 2010 | Eden Isle

An adventuresome day

Jolanda: Tod wanted to spend some time fishing today, taking the dinghy, so we came up with the plan that we would tow the kayak 2 miles down the river to Paradise Marina, and he would go on his merry way into a more remote slough. Now, 2 miles might not be that much if you walk , however ½ [...]

25 September 2010

Eden Island

Down the Potato slough, up the Disappointment slough, you will find Eden Island, a small private island bought by some members of the BYC decades ago (principally motivated by microcomputer designer Adam Osborne) . Steve and Maureen [...]

24 September 2010

On the hook in the Delta

Friday 9/24: Time for some fishing and trying the tree tie. Three River Reach came up as a good location to anchor, but luck and weeds were not on our side. We approached from the river, and saw a couple of fishing boats close to shore. Ah, times you wish you had a retractable keel....The center of the [...]

23 September 2010 | Bethel Island, CA

Relaxing on pretty Bethel Island

As we sailed under the Antioch bridge on Wednesday and down the San Joaquin River to go to Bethel island, we both were not immediately warmed up to the scenery. Not much hills left, and surrounded by power lines. However, the moment we went up False River, we were more surrounded by tule, and pretty [...]

Caution: Pacific !

20 October 2009
The forecasts for the next several days didn't look that appealing, so we definitely wanted to round Point Conception without another day of delay. We got up at 3am in the lovely Cojo Anchorage under a beautiful clear, starry sky and made our way out. It was all quite peaceful and lovely for about 10 minutes... but then as we came out of the lee of the point, the waves and wind increased quickly. Within a short time we were back into gusts to 25-30 knots and 8-10 foot waves (we imagined this, as we couldn't quite see)! It was quite a ride!

About half an hour into this, the GPS chartplotter that we have mounted at the helm lost its satellite reception, so we no longer had a fix on our position. This was only a slight problem... we just had to worry about staying out of the shipping channel to our left, and not hitting the land on our right in the dark! Of course we have a backup hand-held GPS gizmo, so Jolanda got that out (we both really hated to go below in those conditions...it was like a battle to keep yourself standing, not to mention getting immediately seasick). It was our main guide until the dawn broke, which was an anticipated, memorable event, and we could pick out the land. Tod thought one of the labels displayed on the chart of that little GPS gizmo was quite appropriate to the situation: 'Caution Pacific'! Indeed, the Pacific is not always pacific, especially at Point Conception!

[We later realized that the label was short for 'Caution Pacific Missile Range'. Just one more thing to worry about out here! But, luckily we were not struck by a missile. ;-) ]

Eventually the big waves and winds subsided into a more typical annoying NW swell, the type of thing that we will be battling for the next 180 miles. We entered Morro Bay past the huge Morro Rock (which we could see this time, unlike our last entrance here six weeks ago), and finally had some relief from the waves.

Morro Bay is a really cute place to visit by boat, just be aware of strong currents inside the harbor. When we arrived at 4PM, all boats at anchor/buoys faced the big rock, to be facing the opposite 180 degrees a few hrs later. We picked up a buoy for 30 minutes to wait for a boat to leave the dock of the Morro Bay Yacht Club. AC is a great invention when you want to dry your wet stuff....with banging into the waves around both points, Conception and Arguello, some of our ports were taking on some water and got our bedding wet. A few hours later, our bed was warm and clean again (washers and dryers are on my list of good inventions too), we got pizza delivered, and passed out for a long sleep. Bliss and our best friend the autopilot has brought us in safely into another port, with a little help from our handheld GPS gizmo.

We will be staying here for a couple of days, and then head to San Simeon Bay, where we will drop the hook for a couple of days to visit the Hearst castle.
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