With the girls gone for a night, the dogs and I headed out for a little Nauticarazi adventure.
It was just a quick trip to Santa Cruz Island. On the way across, I had an uneventful trip, with my only excitement to dodge a freighter.
Initially, I had planned to stay in Prisoner’s Harbor, but when I got there, there was already a couple boats and one was struggling with setting a stern anchor. I only wanted to swing on one anchor and setting two anchors was more trouble than I wanted to deal with solo. Definitely more effort than I wanted to expend for just one night. Sometimes it just doesn’t need to be that difficult. So I got out of there and motored around to Pelican Bay, where the was only one other boat at anchor. Perfect!
In Pelican, there’s not really any place to go ashore, which was ok, as it was already late and I would be leaving early. The scenery there was incredible. The sunset spectacular!
The dogs and I spent the night being rocked to sleep by the swell of the central coast.
Just when you think it couldn’t get any better, up with the sun the next morning I was treated to an amazing sunrise. The weather was calm. The solar panels were already charging the batteries, so there was no need to run the engine, so I had the brilliant idea to sail off the anchor in light winds “just to see how it would go.”
The winds we very light to non-existent in the cove, but I was able to maintain enough steerage to pick up the anchor and sail out of the harbor. Once clear of the point, the winds filled in and we headed north to maintain speed and cross the shipping lanes that pass through this area. After, we turned east and had a beautiful down-wind sail all the way back to Ventura. Fantastic!
Here’s some photos of the dogs’ and my adventures.
Happy sails!
– Steve