Morro Bay

We made it! It only took 28 hours, not 30! Amazing!

It was actually a decent sail. We took the mainsail and the jib out a few times, but they only really benefitted us once, during dad's 2200-0100 shift. We originally planned on doing 2 hour shifts, but there wound up being a half hour overlap for the other person to wake up and make coffee etc etc, so we extended them to 3 hours.

We had a farewell committee of some of our friends, the sea lions...



The first few hours from Monterey out before sunset were really nice. We saw all sorts of ritzy places along the coast, like Carmel by the Sea and Pebble Beach. We may or may not have seen Tiger Woods. Probably not. Ok, I made that up, we just saw people walking on the golf course and assumed that they were big stars.


Dad at Pebble Beach


The Carmelite Convent

Once the sun set, it stayed light enough to see for quite some time. The moon was out, but it was slowly being blocked by clouds. It only really got to be pitch black and kind of rainy by about 2am. Thankfully Dad thought to stop into some stores in Monterey and get us some rain suits... they really did the trick.

So my shift began at 1, Dad got to bed by 1:30, and around 2:15 a whitish grey dolphin decided to dive out of the water about 2 feet away from me. That definitely woke me up. A few minutes later I saw something strange in the water-- it was pitch black Everywhere, but heading directly for me from the West was a double shot of white light underwater. I panicked a little as I had never seen anything like this, and my first thought was "oh my god, its a bomb". Turns out that there's an algae in the water (phosphorescent?) that turns a florescent colour when its disturbed... and what I saw were 2 dolphins swimming towards me and under the boat. Damn, they're FAST! They circled the boat a lot, jumping out of the water Really close to me, then swimming back under the boat, swimming away, playing in the wake... and suddenly they were gone. 20 minutes later, the 2 appeared again... and this time with friends. There were at least 6, but I couldn't really keep tracked, they were moving so fast and in every direction.

They stayed with us until about 4. I woke Dad up a few minutes early when they were all out again so that he could see them-- good thing, because that turned out to be the last time we saw them.

Dad took the 4-7 shift, and was miserable. It started pissing rain, was pitch black (with no dolphins), and he couldn't make out shore anymore. By the time I took over again, we were passing the Piedros Blancas lighthouse...



Yeah... it was pretty dismal out there.

Things cleared up later in the day, Dad woke up and started puttering around, so I napped a fair bit longer than my share. We made it in to Morro Bay by 1530, docked at the Yacht club, and here we are.

Plans for tomorrow; fuel up, and set sail. Don't really know what the plan is. It's going to be another big sail, this next leg takes us around Point Conception, which is apparently pretty rough. We'll be heading for... Santa Barbara? We don't really know yet. Heh.

Enjoy the last few pictures!


Dad driving into Morro Bay...


Bonnie driving with Awesome hair


Morro Rock; it used to be a big abalone reserve, but it became "contaminated"; fascinating how it stands out so massively compared to the nearby mountains, no?


Morro Rock

Docked for the night.