We left Marina del Rey and sailed about 40 miles to Catalina Harbor on the rugged south-west coast of Catalina Island.  Pulled in a small Striped Sea Bass using a hand line along the way and grilled it with some spices and olive oil for dinner.  Mooring buoys here have bow and stern ties so they can pack a lot of boats into a small area.  The water is crystal clear so we could see the bottom in 30’ of water.  Ashore we walked a half mile across an isthmus to “Two Harbors”, which is on the north side, where there is a small general store (with ice cream), a restaurant, and a bar.  Back at the boat after dark we were treated to a feeding frenzy of seals catching fish.  We first noticed the splashes alongside the boat, so went up on deck with a spotlight and saw the small fish jumping out of the water just ahead of the seals.  Was amazed at how fast swimmers they were in pursuit of their evening snack.  With the water being so clear, we could shine the light on the seal and watch them dart around and under the boat chasing the fish.  This continued until after we went to bed and every now and then I could feel the bump from a seal brushing against the hull while chasing fish.

After 2 days in Catalina Harbor, we set sail for Avalon, about 25 miles away on the north-east coast of Catalina Island.  Coincidentally on the way there, I read an article from the New York Times about the revival of Avalon in the past few years and how the town is trying to deal with emergency water shortages due to overbuilding.  The marina is similar to Catalina Harbor, with mooring buoys having bow and stern ties to prevent swinging.  When you enter the harbor, a patrol boat assigns you a mooring ball within a huge grid where boats are packed together about 15’ apart.  The first thing we did was to finally unpack and inflate the dinghy, then row to shore for showers where we paid $4 for a 5 minute shower and were told we got there just before they reached their quota on how many shower tokens they can sell for the day!  At the pizza restaurant they could not give us water in a glass due to water restrictions, but could sell us bottled water for just 50 cents (we later found out that was par for all the restaurants).  Despite the severe water restrictions, we found Avalon to be a great place with lots of good food, shops, a grocery store, sandy beach, and just a nice atmosphere.  On our second day at Avalon we had Mexican food for lunch, went swimming, got some groceries, and relaxed on the boat.

Part of our daily 2nd grade home-schooling (or boat-schooling) is for Jacintha to write in her journal, which I sometime add to the blog.  She does 3 pages of math about every day and reads a lot.  We also have discussions on things we see along the way (eg why a bronze sculpture tarnishes green) and she draws lots of pictures in her journal.  She also writes post cards and sends emails to some of her friends.

Jacintha’s Blog (from Catalina Harbor):  Lick, lick!  I was licking ice cream.  I had bubblegum, poppy had french vanilla, daddy had coconut pineapple.  After that poppy went to a shop to buy me a fly swatter (we had flies on the boat!) while daddy and me went to the beach.  At first me and daddy found cool rocks and shells.  After that daddy had a nap while I got stuff to make a shop.   I had explosions, sand cookies, shells, a rubber  band, rocks, and sand crab skeletons.  Then poppy came back and poppy and daddy bought stuff (from her shop).

Jacintha’s Blog (from Avalon):  I was at the beach.  First me and daddy saw an angel fish.  After that I made a sandcastle, then went swimming.  Then I went to a part where I could walk and there was a lot of seaweed and I tried to get seaweed stuck to my legs.  After that I went fish searching and saw a school of big zebra fish right next to me.

Karen flew back to Seattle for a few weeks and my dad flew in to join us for a few weeks.  We spent a couple days in Santa Barbara then sailed down the coast to Oxnard.  The 34 mile sail in 15-20 knot winds on a broad reach was great.  Oxnard is a gateway port to the Channel Islands and has lots of marinas and yacht clubs and beautiful weather.  We’re staying at the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club as guest members.  We rented a 4-wheel bike and peddled to a grocery store to re-provision.  Jacintha rode in the front while dad and I peddled (we had to get out and push on a steep upgrade!).  The yacht club is very nice and has a pool so we decided to spend a few days here.

With the addition of an 80 year old,  the average age aboard Apropos just went from 29 to 46!

Update–Jacintha spent most of the day Sunday in the pool with a bunch of kids celebrating a birthday.  She even got invited to join them for cake, so she had a fantastic day.  We watched the Seahawk game at the club then went to the boat for dinner (Dad brought some sauerkraut and corn from his garden in Pennsylvania).

Jacintha’s blog:  Oxnard, CA.  Yippy, I jump into the pool then I swam around and saw a little girl with the same goggles.  After that I tried to stand on a noodle.  It was fun because it was hard to stand on the skinny noodle in the water.  Then the little girl noticed that we had the same goggles and we showed each other under water tricks.  After that we went to the hot tub and I made another friend.  After that a grownup who was at the party said cake time, then everyone except me ran over to get a slice of cake.  I did not go cause I was not invited.  After that my daddy came down, we sat in the edge of the hot tub until a grownup said we have extra cake so would you like some?  Yes I said.  So I went to sit down and eat cake.  Once I was done, I played war.   We had to throw things at each other.  Water was a force field.  You could use a boogie board for shields.  Then we fake sneezed and I pretended to swallow a beach ball and sneezed it out.  After that we put water in the hole of a noodle and blew.  I sat on a noodle and got dunked, then I went to the hot tub and saw my friend.

The passage from Port San Luis to Santa Barbara was over 100 miles, so we up-anchored at 8pm to time our arrival for mid-afternoon.  The timing also worked out so we’d be rounding Point Conception at daybreak.  After we got away from the harbor, we put out the sails and averaged over 6 knots with a comfortable 15 knot wind from astern.   That worked well until we began rounding Point Arguello, about 10 miles north of Point Conception.  I was about an hour into my watch which began at 3am and the wind picked up to 25 knots.  We were sailing with a partially furled genoa and full mizzen sails.  Gusts to 30 knots created a lot of weather helm on a broad reach and Apropos was screaming at 8 knots.  Karen and I take turns sleeping in the port quarter berth and under those conditions it gets noisy with the wind and boat speed.  Karen eventually came up and we furled the headsail in to about 50% and then tied a reef in the mizzen.  Furling the genoa on a port tack under these conditions is difficult since the starboard winch is holding the sheet, so we have to run the furling line around a cleat to the stays’l winch to pull in the genoa.  This made the boat handle much better–just in time for the wind to die down as we rounded Point Conception.  Our sailing guide (Charlies Charts) call Point Conception the “Cape Horn of the west coast” because of the wind and waves, but this night it was peaceful and we fired up the engine as the wind dropped  below 10  knots.  We reached Santa Barbara at 3pm, refueled, then tied up to a dock in Santa Barbara marina.  A Latitude 38 Cruising rally called the Ta-Ta was gathered in the marina and held a pre-daparture Bob Marley themed party at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club, where we had dinner (we finally got some mileage from  our Sloop Tavern Yacht Club reciprocity!).  We hit the showers, walked around the marina, then caught up on some much needed sleep.

A nice thing about rounding Point Conception is that it marks the northern boundary of Southern California weather!  The water and air temperature increase by about 10 degrees and we can finally put away some of the 3-layers we’ve been wearing while sailing offshore.

We departed Santa Cruz at 3pm and had a nice 5 hour sail to Monterey and tied up to transient moorage at the city dock.

Since it’s a long way to the next harbor, we departed Monterey at 4am and motored into a light southerly wind. The swell and chop were a little bit uncomfortable down below (see Jacintha’s post below) until we cleared a point and headed south-east along the Big Sur coast towards San Simeon. Since landfall was predicted to be around 10pm, we decided to keep going so we could reach Port San Luis at about 4am. The night-time run was comfortable with 5′ rollers hitting us from astern every 6 seconds. About every 5 minutes we’d get a few larger rollers that would boost our speed from 6 knots to 8 knots. Very peaceful but dark with no stars or moon. Karen and I took 3 hour shifts at the helm–she listened to Aretha Franklin and I had Jack Johnson on the cockpit speakers. The buoys and lights guided us into Port San Luis and we grabbed a mooring buoy at 4am. Jacintha woke us up 8am so we got up and called the harbor patrol and found out we were on a private buoy, so we moved to the anchorage area. We planned this extended 3-day stop because my son Brady is arriving into San Luis Obispo Friday evening to begin his freshman year at Cal Poly.

Our anchorage is right off Avila Beach and a free water taxi provides rides to either the marina or the pier off Avila Beach every 2 hours. We spent Thursday ashore near the marina (hot showers!) and Friday at Avila Beach. Brady just arrived via plane to SF, then bus to SLO Friday evening so we will see him on Saturday.

We began “boat-schooling” Jacintha a few days ago. She works on math problems from the Everyday Math workbook provided by Villa Academy, reads a lot (Ivy and Bean), and is keeping a journal. Here are her latest 2 entries in her journal, complete with illustrations:

San Francisco (by Jacintha)–we were at the boat on a dock, then daddy paddle boarded me to a shallow part near the beach, then I jumped into the water. It was cold but I stayed in the water, then I swam toward the beach until my tippy toes could touch sand, then I walked to the beach. Once the water was up to my shin, I bent down to pick up some yucky icky wet sand then I let it slowly drip to my other hand. This was fun because the sand was soooo drippy.

California (by Jacintha)–Bleah! I threw up on my sofa, then I went to the other side of the couch and slept. Zzzzzz. Then I woke up. I wasn’t comfy so I went to my room to change. After that I stood and threw up right on the floor outside my bedroom. At last daddy came inside and looked at me and then came closer to get a better look and stepped in my throwup with bare feet. Yep this was the weirdest day ever. (Jim’s comments–true story, and when I realized what I stepped in, she laughed at me!)

Recent Pictures:

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