The loooong haul past Big Sur

Call me a whiner but this next leg wasn't one I was particularly excited about.  It is suppose to be quite pretty from the water but I also know it can get kind of crazy and there isn't any place to duck in out of the storm.  So Saturday morning we started out into what we knew was a southerly, not ideal, but it was suppose to clock around to a westerly in the afternoon.  We figured we were motoring in the morning anyway so not a big deal if a slight southerly was on our nose.

Coming out of Monterey it was a bit like a washing machine.  Big rollers coming through and then the southerly wind going the opposite direction made for some chop but it wasn't too uncomfortable so we chugged on and around the point and headed south.  Mason asleep in our bunk and the two little guys in the cockpit with us, it wasn't bad but it wasn't warm which I didn't care for.  About halfway through the day Keith said we weren't making our speed to get into San Simeon before dark, in fact, it was going to be a really long day and we'd pull in around 9:30 or so.  Ugh....was what I thought, but we could do it. Mentally I'd already set myself up for a long day of entertaining kids.  Then the fog rolled in and the wind turned off and the water turned to glass.  It was sort of surreal actually.  About this time we saw Orcas, which is my first sighting and pretty exciting for the boys.  We kept on heading south and the sun started to set.  We were going through the Otter Sanctuary and saw dozens of them wrapped up in kelp patties.  Soon it was full dark, thick fog and we still had another two hours to go.  Thankfully the kids kept themselves pretty busy down below playing Lego's but every once in awhile a head would pop up and check it out.  Mason said it was "Pretty Spooky" and it was!  I kind of wanted to freak out...and in fact, had Keith shown even a glimpse of nervousness I probably would have lost it....but he didn't.

Soon it came time to turn into the anchorage and we couldn't find the marker, supposedly a green light buoy.  We drove in circles and went right over where it was suppose to be but it wasn't there.  Finally Keith decided to head into the cove using GPS and the depth gauge.  We chugged in slowly and when the depth got to 30 we dropped anchor.  All around us we could hear waves crashing and could smell campfires burning yet couldn't see a thing.  We decided to take watches throughout the night which turned out to be Erika checking every 30 minutes and then kicking Keith out of a bed a couple times to make sure I was right, we were held tight.  The fog burned off enough in the night for me to see the wharf and some lights on shore and determine that given the crazy fog we were in a pretty decent place.

Around 5am the boat started rocking like mad, a 15 swing from side to side which meant we were sitting parallel to the surf.  Seems the swell had come up and our anchoring had us outside of the protected area so we tossed around the idea of moving the boat but ultimately exhaustion won and we opted to suffer through for more shut eye.  Around 8am we pulled anchor and tucked way further into the cove where it was really deep still.  Totally protected now I could see why it was popular.  The little boys, Keith and I jumped into the dinghy and did the boys first beach landing in the surf in the inflatable, it was impressively smooth.  Then we walked down to check out the tourist area with signs of history etc.  After a short play time on the beach we all headed back to Steadfast to head south.

The wind to Morro Bay was directly behind us, and we made good speed on broad reaches, but Steadfast didn't like direct downwind.  We dinked around with different sail positions and configurations but nothing seemed to work perfectly.  In addition, the furler seems to need some changes as it really didn't want to furl or unfurl easily, so we'll need to figure that one out.  The weather was pretty nice, though the swell was big it was manageable since we were going with it and the wind held at about 15 knots until the last hour or so when it built up to 20-25 and the troughs got a little big as well.  Luckily we were close and managed to get Steadfast into the harbor at Morro Bay and raft up at the yacht club where we met up with my brother and his family.  We'll be here a bit as we do school work, Erika work and probably a little boat work before heading on south.  The next leg takes us past Point Conception...another snotty one if not timed correctly.