Sunday, 2/5 at 3AM, under the moon and the lights of San Diego we left the dock at Shelter Island. Destination: Catalina Island and vicinity to do another round of sea trials. The weather forecast for the following Tuesday was for high winds and seas, and rain, and that is what Jerry has been waiting for (less the rain) to conclude our tests. The plans were to make Catalina our base, and the following 2 days sail to where the winds and seas were to be nasty.
We arrived by 3PM in a beautiful harbor called Two Harbors. It is out of season and the little village was quiet and deserted. We dropped anchor and went ashore to stretch our legs.
Next morning a group of dolphins and pilot whales came to say good morning, kakahiaka, to us. Later on Jerry and I went to the village to see if we could get an updated weather forecast. You should have seen the girl’s face at the office when she heard Jerry’s disappointment as the seas were not going to be as nasty as he wanted and expected. Usually sailors want good winds and seas, and Neptune happy.
However, it was going to be windy and early next morning, after doing the dressing ritual, 4 layers of clothing for Jerry and 3 for me, we left under rain, to face the beast. We sailed most of the day, the winds were from 18 to 25kn but the seas were not nasty enough. It was a good sail and by the end of the day we heard this explosive noise coming from the rigging. One of the main sail blocks broke.
We went back to our protected anchorage to a nice vegetarian curry dinner cooked by Annika, one of our crew, washed down by a bottle of bubbly wine.
We got back to San Diego next day and arrived under the lights of lovely San Diego reflecting in the water, and of an almost full moon. When I mentioned to Annika that we left and arrived under moon light she said that it was our moon trip.
Until next post, good bye and Aloha no