Sequitur

We slipped from F float at Pier 39 at 1130 on Friday the 13th under clear skies and still airs, and assisted by a 4 knot ebb, we motored under the Golden Gate at noon. Before we reached Point Lobos, the winds had come-up from the northwest and we hauled-out all three sails and proceeded southwestward on a beam reach, making a good 7.5 to 8 knots.

We were surprised by the earliness of the sunset at 1659; it was almost exactly two hours earlier than we had experienced on our trip from Vancouver to San Francisco five weeks earlier. An hour of this, of course was accounted for by the change back to Standard Time, and the other hour was due to the sun's autumnal progression southward along its ecliptic. With the sunset came a decreasing wind, and by 2100 it was down to 5 or 6 knots and with our course now southeast, it was directly in our stern and our sails were slatting. We flashed-up and motorsailed through the night.

Mid-morning on Saturday the winds again picked-up, and we sailed to the entrance into Morro Bay in 18 to 22 knots of northerly wind. The staysail furling gear decided to jam as we were rolling-in the sails, so I went to the foredeck and as Edi eased the halyard from the cockpit, I hauled the sail down in the old-fashioned way.

The seas were kicked-up by the winds, and we encountered some heavy swells as we approached the breakwaters at the entrance to Morro Bay, but with our 9 knots we powered through and into the relative calm behind Morro Rock. We secured to a mooring ball in front of the Morro Bay Yacht Club at 1405 after a pleasant 190-mile passage.