Now We’re Cool!

I’m sitting in the shade in San Diego on a surprisingly warm November day. We’re beginning to get the boat (and ourselves) ready for the warmer weather ahead. Here, Bryan (in a new, very short haircut—don’t get your hair cut at a military barber, that’s all we’re saying) is installing our new fan and Meira is working on getting our windscoop to stay open (a windscoop is like a tiny little sail that hangs from a halyard and funnels breezes down our forward hatch and into the cabin.)

We left Catalina Island mid-morning on November 1st and immediately shook out our reefed main and raised the drifter in the light winds. We were hoping the afternoon would bring us stronger wind and it did, just a little. But the seas were calm enough we could enjoy (instead of just endure) the travel time, so we were in no hurry to get in to Dana Point. We sailed wing-and-wing in the west wind for several hours. About sunset, the wind died and we started the engine. Before we could get the sails down though, the wind filled in again from the north and we turned the engine back off and eked out another few minutes of peaceful travel.

Bryan took the last watch, bringing us in to Dana Point with the help of the myriad navigation lights marking the channel. I’m sure the anchorage areas fill up in the summer, but this day, we were one of just 2 or 3 boats behind the jetty.

Back when the trip was still in the planning stages, I had looked up information about this stop. My family visited many of the Californian missions on a childhood trip to the area, but the mission at San Juan Capistrano was the most memorable and I wanted to take the girls there if we could pull it off. We rowed to shore, found a safe place to tie up the dinghy, and walked a mile and a half to the bus stop. We found an ATM, got some cash and bought a couple of cold drinks so we would have change for bus fare. We counted stops and watched for unfamiliar landmarks and got off the bus at just the right place.

Yes...there's a beautiful beach there behind those reading girls.

Enjoying the city art on the way to the bus stop

In my online research, I’d found a coupon for a free guided tour of the mission. We arrived with an hour to walk around first and we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the gardens and the grounds.

At 2:00, our tour guide met us and took us on a fascinating tour through the history of the mission area. Her passion for the subject was contagious and when the tour was over, the girls went back to some of the historical displays for more information. We stuck around until our hungry bellies could take no more and then reluctantly tore ourselves away.

We walked around the corner to a church that had been built in the “spirit and form” of the original stone church in the mission (destroyed by an earthquake in the 1800s) We peeked in to get an idea of what the original might have looked like. A church service was just beginning, and we felt a little bit bad about not staying. But we were soooooo hungry! (We’d gotten pretty low on portable food and hadn’t packed a lunch. Have I said how hungry we were?) We felt a little better about it when we saw the sign on the way out—the service would be conducted in Spanish. I’m pretty sure we’ll have more opportunities to join in on a Spanish worship service.

While on the tour, Bryan happened to glance across the street and he saw what he though were lemon trees in a vacant construction lot. So on our way to find dinner, we took a quick detour. We made our way over to the empty lot and found several oranges trees, full and dropping fruit everywhere. What had fallen was just rotting on the ground; clearly no one would care if we took a few. We ate a couple on the spot—so fresh and juicy—and took a few back to the boat, grateful for the bounty.

We grabbed a quick dinner and found our way back to the bus stop, back to the other bus stop, back to the dinghy dock, back to the boat, taking turns carrying our pilfered oranges on the way. That evening,, Bryan and I decided to take a walk to the top of Dana point, named for the Dana who wrote Two Years Before the Mast. He came through here on a ship transporting cattle hides—an industry began in the years of the Spanish mission—and tells stories of tossing the skins down from the top of this cliff to the crew on the beach below. Apparently, at one point, he was lowered down over the cliff on halyards to loosen the hides that had gotten stuck on the way down. The view from above is very different now, but spectacular still. We snagged coffee and internet access in this year’s date-night tradition, staring at our own devices, downloading in a hurry with not a lot to say that hadn’t already been said in the 23 other hours we’d spent together that day. We returned the next morning and Bryan finished up some work while I found my way to a local yoga class.

Life aboard offers so many opportunities to problem solve, hardly any activity is straightforward and I find it hard to break the habit. One day, while walking up to a fast food restaurant, I started trying to figure out how we would buy a taco, since we didn’t have a car to go through the drive-in, momentarily forgetting that we could just walk right in. And I laughed at myself when the same day, with rare steady internet access, I was trying to write a blog post on my computer without the offline blog editor I’ve been using on Bryan’s laptop. I briefly forgot I could just write a post online, the way it always used to work.

Silly photobomb series alert…

I felt a little vindicated in my brain’s attempt to constantly problem solve, though, that afternoon when we got back to the dinghy dock. The ramp was at such a steep angle, I considered climbing it backwards, like a ladder. We managed to to walk down sideways, holding on to the rails. But it was a reminder of the challenges of living in this fluid world of boat travel.

Catalina Island

Our time in the Channel Islands was beautiful, relaxing and enjoyable, but we were running low on fresh water and clean laundry (not to mention getting a bit stinky!) So we headed over to Channel Island Harbor, near Oxnard—our first stop on the southern Californian mainland. There wasn’t an anchorage available in the busy harbor, but we needed shore-side amenities anyway, so we pulled into Channel Islands Marina, on the west side of the harbor. The harbormaster sent us to a nice slip, just at the base of the ramp near the shower/laundry building. The girls took advantage of the shore power and played on the computer while Bryan and I walked to town. As it turned out, town was on the east side of the harbor, so it was quite a walk, up to the head of the bay and across a bridge to the other side.

After leaving the islands and coming back into cell phone range, we picked up several voicemails, one from my sister-in-law asking if there was any chance we would be in the LA area over the weekend. She had plans to bring our niece down on a college visit and they were hoping to get in a few minutes with us while they were in the area. Our tentative itinerary had us in Redondo Beach over the weekend, plenty close enough to meet up. But that gave us just one day in the marina to get all of our boat chores done. We spent the morning cleaning the boat and running up and down the ramp to change the laundry and get everyone through the shower. In the afternoon, we loaded everyone up with backpacks and walked to town for provisions. We made the mistake of stopping at a Big Lots store first, on the off chance that they had shoes (Hannah’s are so worn out, they make disturbing frog-like noises when she walks), but instead found good deals on lots of food. We don’t usually buy DVDs. In fact, we probably only own 10 or so. But we do enjoy watching something occasionally, so we thumbed through the discount stack and scored some old favorites for $3 or $5 each (Princess Bride! How did we not already own it?!) We had looked into online rentals you could download (since streaming is beyond the capabilities of all the internet we’ve run across so far and we don’t expect it to get better as we head south of the border) but the site we’d been investigating had lousy selection and worse customer service. So we couldn’t pass up a few cheap DVDs for the price of a rental.
We took our haul out to the sidewalk and divided it among our backpacks. It was a long evening lugging them around to the hardware store and West Marine, but we rewarded ourselves with Panda Express for dinner and, refortified, marched back to the boat singing silly songs and Christmas carols all the way.

We had a lot of miles to cover to make it to Redondo Beach in time, so we planned to leave early the next morning. First though, I walked to a nearby convenience store (OK, nearby is relative these days), bought a half gallon of milk, and we had cereal and happy girls for breakfast. on our way south, we ran into a large and persistent pod of porpoises that stuck around for several hours. It was a pretty easy day and, despite the confusing lights of the city on shore, a pretty easy entrance just after sunset. The harbor patrol met us at a sea-lion-infested dock (they all dove in, barking, as we pulled up) and we filled out the paperwork for our free anchoring permit. It was great to be able to stay in the protected harbor for free, while still knowing someone was keeping an eye on the boat and would call us if something went wrong.

The next day, we rowed in and met our family for a few brief, precious hours of pier-walking and catching up.

As they left, they dropped Bryan off at a nearby 7-11 to pick up an Amazon order we’d had shipped to the Amazon Locker there. It was a pretty slick system! The only drawback for us was the limited hold time; if we didn’t make it there within 3 days, our stuff would be shipped back. But our packages were there, with all the necessities we’d ordered for heading into Mexico—new communications devices for Bryan, and knitting counters and books for our November birthday girl.

As easy as picking up a Redbox video!

The girls and I walked to the grocery store to fill out our Big Lots purchases with some fresh produce and Bryan met us there on the way back to help carry stuff back to the dinghy.

That night, Bryan and I rowed over to the docks and walked to the nearest Starbucks for cheap internet access. They closed before we expected, so we popped across the street to the McDonalds in hopes of finishing our downloads. The McDonalds was undergoing construction and didn’t have any indoor seating (or restroom access!) but we logged on from the curb outside and finished up. We must have looked more with-it than we felt; some turned-around tourists even stopped to ask us directions!
We spent most of the next day doing dishes and stowing groceries, but by evening, we settled in for a family movie night—Maverick! The girls went to bed exclaiming over the surprise plot twists at the end, reliving earlier scenes with their new knowledge.

Installing an LED anchor light

The next day, the winds were supposed to be a little high, 15-25 knots, but the swells were still relatively small compared to our experiences earlier in the trip so, despite the small craft advisory, we left early in the morning for Catalina Island. They call it a small craft advisory, but our small craft did just fine. My tummy, on the other hand, wasn’t so happy with the bouncing around. Bryan graciously let me sleep it off for a few hours and then we traded watches for the last couple of hours into Catalina Harbor.

We’d heard Catalina Harbor, on the west side of the island, was a lot less populated than the main harbor on the east side, closer to the mainland. We found a spot to anchor outside all the empty mooring buoys and settled in for the night. After a long day of travel, setting an anchor (or, in this case, setting both anchors to keep us from swinging into other boats, fishing platforms, or the nearby cliffs) can be tiring and nerve-wracking. We came in just at dusk, but the light quickly faded as we tried to find a safe spot. Lately, Hannah has been helping lift and lower the anchor, so instead of squinting at the dark and worrying about the cliffs, I left her on deck to assist the captain and went below to make dinner. By the time we were set, dinner was hot and ready and I was calm enough to enjoy it. We may have to make this a new tradition!
In the morning, Meira rowed us to shore for a walk over to the small town of Two Harbors. It was an easy row, but rather long, so I read aloud to us in between exclaiming over diving pelicans and other colorful sea life. Two Harbors is likely a bustling place during the busy summer season, but on this, mid-week, off-season afternoon, there was not a whole lot going on. We found a playground across the dirt road from the local school, sat on the swings for a bit (Meira lifting her feet to avoid the “mud puddles and their squashy environs.”) and then Hannah took a turn rowing us back.
The next day, we motored on around the island to the main harbor of Avalon.

We met the friendly Harbor Patrol, who showed us to our assigned mooring buoy and helped us get tied up. The buoys are privately owned, but the owner must give a day’s notice that they plan to use it, so the harbor can rent them out on a day-to-day basis to visiting yachts. We’ve picked up mooring buoys before, but never used one like this, with a tie on both bow and stern. It was pretty foolproof though, with its tall pick-up stick at the bow and long trailing line back to the stern.

Before we could even head below, a man from a neighboring boat rowed over to greet us. He is from the area and had lots of helpful information about the island. He must have sized up our interests pretty quickly, because instead of suggesting fancy restaurants or shopping, he told us about a volunteer opportunity with the Catalina Island Conservancy organization. We rowed to shore and walked to their office to check it out. Every Thursday, a driver takes a van of volunteers up to Middle Ranch, an area in the interior of the island, to spend the morning working at the native plant nursery. We’d come at just the right time! Usually, a tour of the interior costs upwards of $40 a person, so we were intrigued by the thought of staying an extra night for the chance to join the volunteers. We made a few phone calls while taking a self-guided walking tour of the town, and by evening, it was all arranged.

We decided against going out to eat, but splurged on some meat for the grill and a package of salad, both rare commodities on a boat without refrigeration. I’d mixed up some flatbread dough earlier in the day and Bryan grilled the meat and then the bread on the back deck. It was even warm enough to eat outside, watching sea lions chase the schools of fish around in the clear blue water around the boat.

We’d been warned several times that the driver, Whitey, would leave promptly at 7:30 AM, so we went to bed early and set several alarms. Everyone was out of bed by 10 to 6 and we bustled about, bumping into each other in the pre-dawn light. Bryan fried bagels while I threw together a pasta salad for lunch. By 7:00, the sun was coming up and we, bundled against the morning chill, were in the dinghy, rowing for shore, and enjoying the last of the morning colors. We pulled up in Splitpea to the already packed dinghy dock and hopped over the other boats to tie her up. We walked up the hill the few blocks to the conservancy parking lot and met up with the other volunteers.
The drive into the interior was a treat! The roads here are strictly controlled, with a limited number of interior permits granted each year. So we rode up the hills and down the canyons like little owls, swiveling our heads to take in each new vista.
The morning’s work too, was quite enjoyable. It started out cold, but as we worked, the sun came out and we soon had a pile of discarded clothes on a side table. Meira and Bryan broke up and sieved some mossy dirt, Hannah winnowed seeds, and I transplanted seedlings to trays while Bob Marley and R&B blared in the background. On our way up, we’d seen evidence of recent fires and spotted the native plants the conservancy had used to replant the damaged areas. It was a privilege to get to be one tiny part of the good work they do to preserve Catalina for future generations.

After our work was over, we returned to the harbor. We’d brought a lunch, but forgot to pack forks. Fortunately, one of the other volunteers overheard our dilemma and brought some from his house to a local park. We invited him to eat with us and enjoyed hearing more about what brought him to the island and what life was like for him there, in the strange blend of remote-small-town and busy-tourist-destination.
The town was full of, as our boat neighbor said, “…ways to separate people from their money,” but the ubiquitous ice cream shops were becoming irresistible. We solved the problem with a up a tub of ice cream from the grocery store (coming to consensus on ice cream makes living in small spaces together look easy!) and took it back to the boat to devour before it melted.

We’d heard that the local kids put on a Halloween Parade down the main drag, so the girls rustled up some costumes from around the boat. Meira transformed herself into a vampire and Hannah brought a notebook and pencil and declared herself a journalist. We all enjoyed watching the small animals/characters/superheroes flit down the street. When the parade was over, the girls joined in the trick-or-treating fun at a few of the nearby shops while Bryan and I snuck away to a beachfront café for grown-up treats—coffee and an empanada. I can’t wait to see where and how we’ll end up celebrating other holidays this year!

Channel Islands, Santa Cruz

Bryan had talked about going back to Santa Rosa for a solitary hike, but decided against trying to motor back through the kelp beds again. So in the morning, we took advantage of the wind and sailed off our anchor toward Santa Cruz.

The seas were a bit choppy and our sails had a hard time staying full when we slid down into the wave troughs, but as the day went on, the seas moderated a bit and we had several hours of lovely sailing. As we approached the northwest shore of Santa Cruz, we dropped our sails and motored in close to the cliffs. We had heard this coast was home to one of the world’s largest sea caves and we wanted to see what we could see before trying to dinghy there from a nearby safe anchorage the next day.
We pulled in between the steep cliffs of Fry’s Harbor before the sun had set behind the island. Our guide book had suggested setting both bow and stern anchors and we could see why—there wasn’t enough room to swing around just one. We set our bow anchor without running into the cliffs (I didn’t think to ease the engine after reversing hard to set the bow anchor and the bounce-back bounced us a bit closer to the cliffs than I would have liked. Thankfully, they were steep-to and I think I could have pushed off from the bow before our keel hit the bottom.) and Bryan rowed the stern anchor out in the dinghy, setting it well with a cockpit winch.

The best time to dinghy into the sea cave is morning, before the wind and swell pick up in the afternoon. So we knew we needed to leave at first light if we wanted to have a chance of getting in. And the ocean swell was predicted to rise later in the week so today was our best opportunity. Still, after several nights of interrupted sleep, morning came awfully early in our calm, protected cove. We bundled up against the chill and motored a couple of miles west to Hazard’s Anchorage, the anchorage nearest the sea cave. Here too, we set bow and stern anchors to keep us out of the swell and off the rocks.

Armed with thermoses of cocoa, foulweather gear, and a handheld VHF radio, we set off in Splitpea for the cave, about 2 miles upwind. We stopped by a nearby boat to let them know what we were attempting, motored a few yards west of the bay…and rowed back again. The outboard pull-starter had been giving us trouble all morning and somehow it got stuck spinning and burned through the pull cord, killing both the engine and our plans.
Back at LiLo, we stripped off several layers in the quickly warming sunshine and pulled up both anchors, hoping the seacave was worth all this trouble.

We motored to the spot we’d identified the day before and Bryan and Hannah rowed in to investigate while Meira and I motored around outside the entrance. A few minutes later, the reconnoiters were back. There were a couple of caves, yes, but nothing big enough to row inside. Though it looked like the photo in our guidebook, this could not be the right place. Before giving  up, we decided to check out a cave Bryan had spotted on the way in, just one cove east. Sure enough, when we pulled up in front of that cave, it matched the photo in our guidebook too. One gray cliff looks remarkably like another.

The pictures don’t do it justice, of course, and not just because it gets dark in there! Way in the way back, there’s a beach full of noisy seals and sea lions and their grunts and barks echo through the cave like a very ghostly haunted house. The swell kicks in from the back and buoys the dinghy up (and sometimes over…toward the walls) and, out near the entrance, we could see almost as well under the water as over it. I loved seeing the cave formations and sea creatures extend underwater to meet beneath us, like discovering a rainbow is actually round there under the horizon.
Later that evening, after anchoring in Prisoner’s Harbor on the northeast coast of Santa Cruz, I fulfilled a pre-trip promise to myself. Fall is my favorite season and, in our house, it’s not fall without pie. Back in Monterey, some Pippin apples (my favorite pie apple) had jumped into my bag at the market and this evening seemed like the perfect night for pie-for-dinner. Somehow in the shuffle of moving out, I lost my recipes document (culled from the many, many cookbooks I’m used to having) so I decided to trust my instincts and years of pie-baking experience and then added a little more butter. I rolled the crust out with a water bottle, manhandled it into our cast-iron skillet, and bossed the oven into submission. It’s not the prettiest pie I’ve made, but none of the pie-eaters cared one bit. On days when Bryan fixes the engine with a paperclip (almost not hyperbole) or takes a long, wet night watch to spare me, I can sometimes wonder if I’m contributing my fair share to this adventure. Homemade pie goes a long way toward balancing things out.

Dolphin Break! I just got called out on deck to see the latest pod of dolphins jumping around out boat. We see them almost every day now, so I won’t mention it every time. But if I haven’t said so, you should just assume we’ve probably spent at least a few minutes of each day at sea laughing in amazement as a pod of beautiful creatures stops eating for a bit and plays around our boat instead. Today, we took turns going up on the bow and watching as they slowed down to let us keep up with them (yes, we’re slow, but they’re fast!) We could see the white on their bellies and scars on their backs. Their long noses pierced the water and their dorsal fins cut through the surface tension, sharp as knives, and sent streams of bubbles arcing back over their strong tails. No picture can capture the moment. These try…

Today, when talking to a friend who knows me well, she said something like, “Listening to you talk, I realize it’s harder than you make it sound on your blog.” And that’s true, partly because you’d stop reading if I talked too much about the tedium and the anxiety. I try to be honest about the difficulties of adjusting to a sea-based, nomadic, small home and the energy necessary to make it all happen. But mostly, I trust that you can imagine the difficulty. Every life has its share of tedium and crisis, after all.
What you might not be able to imagine is why we do it anyway. So I tell you stories (and remind myself) about the good stuff mostly. It doesn’t take exotic moments of sea caves, dolphins, or pie to swing the balance back toward joy though. Yesterday, I found myself sitting on the sidewalk in front of a hardware store, waiting for Bryan to finish an errand, sharing a box of Fruit Loops with Hannah and Meira (our first cereal in 2 months and you expect it to be healthy?) at ease with the girlies, completely content. That’s worth noticing too.