Thirty Six Seas Ahoy!

The past few weeks have been very busy aboard. My goal is the get the boat ready for a trip to Catalina in July. A few areas have needed attention and I have been giving it.

I have been chasing a fresh water leak for a few months and finally nailed it down to he water heater. It turns out that the hot water outlet fitting was cracked and draining the fresh water tanks in to the bilge. I bought a couple of replacement fittings and after replacing the hot water, the cold water turned out to be bad as well. Thankfully I purchased two!

The water leak is now fixed and my bilge has stayed dry with the pump in the on position for over a week. I feel confident that we can cruise over and stay for a week without having to fill tanks.

I am also working with the 12 volt electrical stuff. There is no low voltage "socket" for plugging in the fridge, so it is being added. There is a a bit of work involved in setting it up, but nothing too complicated. I am hoping to have new house batteries as well. The system should be ready by sail date July.

Well, got the boat out on the water a little today. Took some family out around the harbor area. Was nice, though a little crowded as we are having "Harbor Days" down here now.

So a friend and I went out to do a little trawling off the back of Thirty Six Seas. Took a while to get the pole holders adjusted, but once done we were able to deploy lines in an attempt to catch fish.

On our way south, kelp patties started showing up with some frequency and so we figured there had to be fish out there. In 7 miles we managed to get nothing to hit our lures so we decided to change tactic and fish the edge of some kelp beds inshore.

The first kelp bed was kind of crowded and no one seemed to be catching anything so we started headed back north along the line. We reached a bed just north of Tamarack street in Carlsbad and decided to anchor and cast Krocodiles for a while. We were about 15 yards to the outside of the bed and able to cast along the edge.

Within 5 minutes we were getting hits by Barracuda and large Mackerel. We figured the run would only last a few minutes and we were just lucky, but after a half hour of hits on almost every cast we knew we were in a large school...lots of fun!

Eventually other fish started to arrive and we pulled in a few Bonita and finally Rich caught a Sand Bass. We had been on site for almost two hours and decided to head back in to the slip. We stowed our casting gear, pulled up our anchor and rigged our trawling poles for the journey north and home.

Once underway, we loosed the rigs and sailed at about 4 knots towards Oceanside Harbor. Maybe 2 miles south of the pier, one of the trawling lines went taught and line started playing out very quickly. At first we though we had caught a bird, be soon we knew it was a fish. As Rich reeled it in we could see it darting back and forth. Eventually we had it close enough to bring it aboard and found that we had caught a Calico, full grown on a surface rig!

I am usually not much of a fisherman. There is usually a single line over the side in hopes of catching some dinner, but no serious effort. This day was special and while we did not keep anything caught, we certainly had a lot of fun. Look forward to some more sailboat fishing.

Well, never blogged before so this is all new to me. I am Matt, owner and skipper of Thirty Six Seas. She is a 1983 Catalina 36, hull #17. For decades I dreamed of owning a boat...a sail boat to be exact. Finally, after years of pissing off friends and family talking about my dream, I decided to act.

So here it is. Not quite the beginning really as I have owned her for the better part of a year. She sails like my dreams. While I am mostly just a day sailor, She does make trips to close up and semi exotic lands. Shots to Mission Bay and Dana Point are about as far as I have taken it so far. Catalina, Newport Beach and Marina Del Rey are in the near future. Even a trip south to Mexico to visit family, but first I day sail and I learn. Not new to the sea by any means, but always had power and a crew.

Well, I have a few more projects to work on today. Till...next time.