The Channel Islands greeted us with a deluge of rain as we set anchor. The final stretch to Marina Del Rey was warm but not enough wind to sail triumphantly in. We wished we had our asymmetrical spinnaker so we didn’t have turn on the engine, but even so, it was surreal to approach Santa Monica and Los Angeles for the first time by sea.
We stayed in Soquel Cove an extra day waiting for the small craft advisory for the central coast to be canceled as predicted (also because the sea otters were pretty cute), but instead it was extended. We’d heard for a week before we left San Francisco about a boat coming up the coast that was having a hard time. The owner was a friend of Eva’s at Emery Cove, and she had suggested we should wait a whole week before departing, which we hadn’t done. Somehow she’d picked October 4th as the most auspicious date and she was sticking to it. Robin our sailmaker shrugged it off saying the problem this time of year was not enough wind and having to motor. Phil the boat builder told the story of being surprised by 50 knots of wind passed Monterey (where they had expected things to calm down). The waves were huge, he said, but the boat handled it. The only scary moment came at Point Conception when they had to jibe (change sailing direction downwind). Reassuring words? The fact that we would be sailing off the wind, and not against it, weighed in. We had sailed in the bay in over 30 knots when the breeze was at our backs, and it was suprisingly calm, the boat took some hand steering, but then we were happy to go fast in the flat water. The difference along the coast would be the waves, and that was a condition we lacked experience to assess. We’d also be sailing overnight for the first time.
Plans carry surprising momentum. The problem was that the forecast suggested we’d have to delay another couple days to avoid the predicted 30 knot winds, and then there might be no wind at all, or wind from the south with rain, which did not sound like fun. So we decided to set out. Our back up plan would be to anchor at San Simeon if it looked too big. We left early enough that we could duck in before sunset, otherwise we’d sail all night and to begin passing Point Conception around dawn which, according to one slightly outdated forecast might mean a little less wind.
We passed Big Sur mid-morning. The mountains, viewed from the sea were massive, like Montana mountains. The fog scattered across three miles of the Pacific was backlit by the sun as it cleared the peaks. Even from that distance we could see the surf breaking on the rugged shoreline. The wind picked up, starting at a pleasant 15 knots, but kept going. When it hit the twenties we shortened the main and rolled up a bit of the jib. The waves started getting bigger. One of the things which suprised me was that they didn’t come in long rows, but more in peaks, and you could see big ones some distance out, but it was pretty hard to determine until right at the last moment if they were going to pass by or come right at us. Usually you didn’t really know until the wave was blocking out the horizon. They looked so steep, you just knew that some water was coming on board, but then that almost never happened. Allora would surge forward and rise with the waves, sometimes nice and straight, but other times she would yaw off course and heel over. It was never dangerous, but it did remind us that if things got out of control it might not be as pleasant.
We shortened sail again late in the afternoon. We were in position to make San Simeon if we wanted, though there was fog developing along the coast. We had a decision to make. Were we signing up for the night at sea, or changing course and trying to find a place to anchor before dark? If we did, we’d have to wait a full day at San Simeon and leave in the evening, or we’d find ourselves at Point Conception at midnight. The wind was steady around 26 to 28 knots and gusting over 32, and the waves were definitely getting bigger, but with the sails reefed, Allora felt pretty good. The motion was still a little crazy. Going below you never knew which way she’d rock next. Maddi put a quiche in the oven for dinner, and the stove tipped back and forth wildly on its gimbals to remind us, in case we were beginning to forget, just how far away from Montana we were. We moved from hand hold to hand hold to get around down below and tied in the lee cloths (which hold you in your bunk to sleep). The decision to go for it felt okay.
Dark settled slowly, sunset warming the scattered fog as we set our heading 150 degrees to the true wind, steadily offshore. The running lights on the bow lit whitecaps green and red as they surged underneath us. Diana took the first watch, and we planned to jibe after two hours when she would wake me up. The autopilot was set to follow an angle to the wind. Our best course would have been dead downwind, but modern sailboats are more efficient at an angle to the wind, and in confused seas like these, awkward or even dangerous to sail straight before the breeze.
The moon came up during the night and each of us on watch sat on at the stern on the putative highside and to watch the boat roll before us. Diana looked over her shoulder more than once to see waves looming behind that made her turn away. Ignorance is bliss. We checked bouy reports once we had internet onshore and they’d reported significant waves heights (80th percentile) of eleven or twelve feet for the time sailed by Point Conception. That meant those waves that went unrecognized and unrecorded by Diana, were probably something like 15 feet. Madison took the dawn watch while Diana and I slept. Contrary to general wisdom and forecasts, the wind and waves were biggest just before the light came up, but Maddi enjoyed the moon and stars swinging back and forth over the mast and never felt that she needed to wake us. Despite the constant motion and weird sounds below (the taut jib sheet vibrating against the shrouds like a discordant cello string), we were plenty tired enough to sleep off watch. An even bigger, and more pleasant surprise. No one was sea sick.
I got up at dawn, even though it was early for the jibe, because I wanted to see the sunrise. We were out of sight of land, and there was some fog, so it was a very slow fade in. We were all up for the last sail change, then Diana who’d put in two watches overnight, got a little more sleep while we waited for the promised climatic shift at Point Conception. It was warmer, though not quite as suddenly as reading about it might make you think. Really, I think it would fair to say that passing the point, because of the course change, the hard turn to the southeast the coast takes, was a half a day process. By the time we reached Santa Barbara, though, the wind had died and our foulies were in a pile in the aft shower.
Our first overnight offshore passage, took us 30 miles offshore with 26 knots of wind gusting over 32 kts (Gale force is 34 kts).
At Soquel Cove, we took a breath. It was a welcome break after the crazy rush to get Allora ready in SF. We didn’t even go ashore.
We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge many times, and every time it felt like testing an idea. Imaginging our readiness and Allora’s. The lift of the unencumbered Pacific swell beckoned. It really did. If we had been sailors our whole lives, we might not have ever thought of it as such a big deal. Or maybe we would. Most everyone in Emery Cove seemed excited by the Gate. Maybe the power of the free ocean is something too big to grow cynical about. Maybe the idea of sailing out into that vastness, with a new boat, becoming smaller in a relative sense with each mile offshore, would be a big idea for almost anyone.
We started small and kept to the coast, though we heeed advice not to be tempted to cut the corner and head south to soon, but keep our course along the main shipping channel, even though the wind was light and the swell long and easy and another smaller sailboat took the shortcut ahead of us. “Coast Guard, Sector San Francisco” came on the VHF as we made the turn ahead of bouy “R2,” with an all stations “pon pon” alert. A sailing vessel, we could not see it (nor could we see the one that had cut the corner anymore), was in trouble in the surf somewhere along Ocean Beach. Monitoring Channel 16 keeps us from becoming complacent about the risks. The Pacific Ocean is not the sheltered waters of the Sea of Abaco in the Bahamas where ten feet of water is plenty. It was probably not that sailboat we saw, and the shortcut is only hazardous when the swell is running high, and dangerous in a storm, but it didn’t add much to swing wide and play it safe. We’ll leave the shortcuts to experienced sailors and locals.
We were happy to be sailing as the forecast was for light and variable winds, or no wind at all. I’d even contemplated delaying a day, but Marty from Emery Cove pointed out that morning that forecasts are often wrong. We pulled the genoa out, which we rarely used in the trafficky Bay and sailed the whole distance to Half Moon Bay. We carefully followed the bouys in past the reef which was lined with fishermen. Inside we lost a big of time to watching the whales which cruised inside the bay, then turned in by the breakwater, white and foul with pelican guano, a smell which dominated the harbor so intensely that we kept our hatches closed. It made a fine image.
We were close enough to shore all day that had cell service the whole way down, and Valerie made the drive from Stanford to meet us for dinner at a sleepy reastaurant along the wharf.
Allora’s logbook records more than 30 sails in San Francisco Bay while we were getting Allora ready to go. The wind blows nearly every day and builds to a crescendo in the afternoon. Usually we reefed our mainsail and still struggled to keep her from being overpowered. There’s a lot of boat and ferry traffic, but its exciting sailing. Family and friends provided great excuses to get out, and Allora had lots of hands at the wheel.
We moved Allora over to Emery Cove Yacht Harbor from commissioning her in Oakland. Slip G5 became our home for the summer. We spent less than four months at Emery Cove. When we first walked it’s docks (before Allora arrived) the boats seemed empty, but they gradually filled with people, full of stories and wisdom. Our first conversations were about our new home, and of course, our plans. Diane, the Emery Cove Harbor Master, confided that she took for granted that we would end up postponing at least a year. She knew better than we could, the brazen naivite of our ambitions. We eventually began to feel a little embarassed about one sided dream sharing. Most were there doing this long way, years of saving up money and fixing up boats, waiting for children to be old enough for the journey, for a spouse or partner to retire. Our very shiny, brand new boat boat and constant trips to West Marine confirmed that we were burning cash to speed the process up. “You must be the rich man,” said an older live aboard while I shaved one morning. We tried to emphasize that we sold everything, sold the farm, to make this dream a reality. The thing is, though it wasn’t taking years, but weeks or months to make Allora seaworthy, we were working harder than we ever had.
We were astonished and overwhelmed by the enormity of the project of making a brand new boat seaworthy (something we might have been guilty of taking for a little for granted). Our days were non-stop right to the very last moment as our gooseneck had to be replaced after Diana found cracks in it and the bubble tangs which attach the shrouds to the mast reseated and riveted (new word to us… one of many), to the last minute project of seizing the deck shackles so that one twist of a screw, turned lose by the relentless motion of the sea, would not spell disaster. To our relief as we worked day in and out, the real sailors on our dock saw that we were doing most of outfitting ourselves, that we weren’t simply buying a dream, but also constructing it, through the long, ever lasting project of learning Allora in her most intimate details, the bruising, tedious, inspring work of crawling through her bilges, making her seaworthy. Crucial tips arrived in casual asides from more experienced sailors. Our neighbors began to feel that we doing some things well, and that was gratifying.
June 4, 2015. CMA CGM Libra finally made it to Oakland. Allora had no masts or rigging and she was wrapped in plastic. Phil (the builder) arranged for a boat to take us out to the container ship to watch them unload her. Carmen McSpadden was visiting us that day, too, and despite serious resistance from the loud mouthed tow boat captain who insisted he didn’t have an extra life jacket, Diana wouldn’t let him leave Carmen behind. It was near sunset, with a dramatic sky. The Libra was gigantic and Allora looked like a toy being lowered by the crane. Phil jumped onboard and cut away the harness and some of the plastic. After a moment of hesitation the engine started and we climbed aboard too, waving to the Libra’s crew as we motored our newborn home down to Grand Marina in Alameda, to set her mast and sails.
Allora Splashes from M. Stevens on Vimeo.
