Point Conception is described in the US Coast Pilot as "Cape Horn of the Pacific" and is legendary among boatmen for its thick fogs, high winds and rough seas. We motored for hours to get there from Port San Luis, sails up but engine churning because we had no wind and we wanted to round Conception before nightfall. The weather forecast was mild and we wanted to take advantage.

Points on the coast, such as Arena, Reyes, Pigeon, Lobos, Lopez, Sur, Arguello and Conception, generate their own lively weather as they project out from the generally straight lines of the shore: The seas grow steeper and taller, winds rise and fogs form. Traveling south, as we are, they aren't so bad, but northbound sailors are often turned back by them or sail far offshore to keep away.

Point Conception is the most dramatic point on the California coast, presenting the last westerly bit of land to intrude on the currents of air and water flowing continually southward. The coast turns east after Point Conception and the weather turns abruptly warm and calm: the Santa Barbara Channel and Southern Calfornia.

Our first trip around the Point was last July, aboard "Alchemy," our friends Jen and Bob's Tayana 37. This year's trip, on our own boat, was not quite as pleasant. Approaching from the north, there is an enormous funneling effect as one passes point after point, culminating in Point Conception. First comes Point Sal, by the scenic Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. At Point Sal we discovered that we had too much sail up, and by the time we had wrestled our drifter down and reefed the main the winds were pushing pretty hard. Then comes Point Pedernales (aka Honda Point, with its infamous Destroyer Rock), site of the greatest peacetime naval disaster in US history, in which, in 1923, seven destroyers drove themselves onto the rocks and were wrecked in the fog due to "abnormally strong currents and navigational complacency." They thought they were turning into the Santa Barbara Channel and instead they turned into the rocks.

We avoided the fate of those seven destroyers, but as we passed Point Arguello, just south of Pedernales, the winds picked up further and the seas grew steep. An ominous fog hung off to starboard; Point Conception lay ahead and to port. The windvane steered us nicely until the wind grew too strong for our reefed main and jib, and we took in the mainsail. Our slender Yankee jib drew nicely and we pulled along toward Conception steadily and surely, safe as houses in our sturdy boat.

At this point we undertook a bit of hubris inspired by Russ Kubiak of Menlo fame, who claims to have "baked a cake" as his boat rounded Point Conception. Sarka, brave soul, baked oatmeal cookies. They warmed the cabin and I breathed cinnamon smells as I stood outside watching the fog come down, listening to the waves break around the boat and tending our sail as the sun settled into the murky fog to the west. At 1818 exactly, we hit the much warmer air of Southern California, but this didn't calm things down. By the time the cookies were done I couldn't see the lighthouse anymore, only the compass and the GPS and the radar, and the steep waves all around. It was wonderful and magical and I'm proud of our audacity.

A few minutes after rounding the point, the wind blowing 25 knots, we headed into Cojo Anchorage, a sandy notch in the coastline just east, where boats have found shelter for generations. It was terrifying, the boat wheeling and pitching in the dusk and roiling fog. We sailed with our one sail at full speed toward the anchorage, trying to find a spot among the boats, floating kelp, and "Mr. Clean 2", a 175-foot oil-spill response ship moored on one of three huge, unlit mooring balls. Remarkably, we made it right through the maze, and after circling around we anchored easily and were safe and content. The wind blew and the water dripped off the sails and rigging and we were warm and cozy with our oatmeal cookies and kerosene lamps. Still, it was a fitful sleep as even the anchorage was rough and rolly, our rest disrupted by the noise ond motion of the boat creaking and the water surging all around us.

In the morning we saw anchored nearby a big man in a tiny boat, completely open and exposed where he'd been all night. He has got to have been miserable. We wanted to give him some cookies.