October 15, 2013  Cojo Harbour, California

Back in March 2013 I attended a ladies sailing seminar in Victoria and one of the speakers talked of Morro Bay and how much she loved it.  A large feature dividing the coastline and Morro Bay’s bar entrance was massive Morro Rock, visible for miles as it was about ¼ mile wide and about 1500 feet high.

Morro Rock at the entrance to Morro Bay

The sea otters are very used to people.  These two had wrapped themselves in kelp.

 I was curious about the town and really wanted to visit.  After our night passage we arrived at the Morro Bay Bar at slack tide mid-morning.  We crossed the bar easily then headed down the narrow channel dividing Morro Bay from the sand dune spit.  Within minutes we spotted fellow cruisers Alison and Randall from Tregoning.  We waved and chatted across our boats for a while before tying to a large mooring buoy owned by the Morro Bay Yacht Club. We had to pay $25 to use it for a night but that gave us use of their club showers and an invitation to their Friday night happy hour.  Jim and I explored the waterfront and discovered that it was mostly made up to small hotels, candy stores, small cafes and tee shirt shops.  Though nice there was nothing particularly special about it.  We wandered up into town proper, which was very 60’s and ordinary.  We did enjoy the club happy hour, though, which gave us a chance to catch up with Alison and Randall and Randall’s sister, Martha, along with another couple of cruisers heading south.   The club members made us feel very welcome and insisted that we help ourselves to their pulled pork potluck, fruit and snacks.  Eventually it was time to head back to Falcon and catch up on sleep before grocery shopping in the morning.

Using our amazing Ipad we located the large Anderson’s grocery store a mile away and walked there with the intention of taking a taxi back after provisioning.   What we didn’t realize was that Morro Bay is too small to have its own taxi company!  The clerk at the service counter just looked at us blankly when we asked her to call us a cab to get back to the harbour.  A woman making a photocopy beside us quickly rattled off the phone number of a county cab company but then offered us a ride herself instead.  We followed her to her large SUV, chatting away as we walked.   Our kind driver, Sue, worked in the emergency ward at local hospital a few miles away, having moved from Texas a number of years before. She was delighted to help us out and most curious about our seagoing lifestyle.  We thanked her a bunch of times as we hauled our groceries to the curb near the 3 hour dock where Falcon awaited us.  Once the groceries were stored we pushed off, waving good byes to yacht club members on their dock as well as Alison and Randall.  We motored across the bar and turned south for San Luis Obispo Bay, a short 23 miles away.

We sailed most of the way to San Luis Obispo Bay with building seas and I was glad when we finally arrived and tucked in around the point in a bit of shelter.

San Luis Obispo Bay - looking north with Falcon second boat from the right

The pier

Avila - the pier runs above the beach

San Luis Obispo Bay featured the quintessential California quarter mile long pier, white sandy beaches with lifeguards and brightly coloured buildings visible from the anchorage.  On Sunday, which was also my birthday, we decided to take a day ‘off’ and celebrate by hanging out in the resort town of Avila at the base of the long pier.  Originally we were going to take the dinghy to the pier where we would have to tie it to a mooring buoy then climb up a ladder to the top of the pier but then we found out they had a free water taxi service for cruisers.  Phil arrived in the large inflatable ‘taxi’ at 11:00 to fetch us and take us to the pier – to the underside of the pier.  We arrived at a small platform down at ocean level where we had to reach over and climb up a ladder then up a few flights of metal mesh stairs to the top of the pier.  As we walked towards ‘town’ we were passed by a group of well-toned young women power walking and chatting, grandparents with their little blond haired grandson, a Mexican family that spoke no English and a young fit couple in their speedo bathing suits running along the pier in bare feet!  It seemed everyone liked the pier. 

When we got to the town we discovered that Avila was a planned resort area just over 20 years old.  The previous incarnation of Avila was demolished so that they could remediate the polluted soil that the buildings were built on.  The newer version featured colourful heritage style boutique stores, beachside bars with live entertainment day and evening and casual sidewalk restaurants.   A block away a small stream meandered towards a golf course and well used playground with lots of young families making use of the picnic tables, swings and slides.  Up a hill ½ a mile away was a sprawling pink stucco resort that we had noticed from anchor lit up grandly the night before.   We enjoyed a walk along the sandy beach, taking off our sandals and feeling the fine warm sand between our toes.  I rolled up my jeans to my knees and paddled my feet. 

California lifeguard in October

Paddling my feet on my birthday - Falcon at anchor to the left

Never before have I done that on my birthday!  Here it was mid October and there were two lifeguards on the beach, just like the old Baywatch tv series, but not much activity for them to worry about.  We enjoyed our sandy stroll from end to end and all the people we saw. A fellow about our age was making a huge sand sculpture of a three dimensional owl; another was sun tanning and reading his newspaper. We spotted a young family where both parents were talking on their ‘devices’ while the kids made sand castles then passed another couple walking barefoot carrying their authentic looking cowboy boots.  They all paled in comparison to the young athletic tanned 20’s something man doing pushups on the beach in his rather tiger stripped speedo!  A very eclectic mix for sure!

Avila Beach was just what we needed – an enjoyable day of soaking up the sun, feasting on a birthday brownie and leisurely reading the local newspaper at an outdoor cafe table.   Our buddy, Phil, picked us up mid afternoon and returned us to Falcon just before our young friend, Francis, rowed over to say hi.  I did a few chores and worked on re-arranging stored food during the afternoon while Jim entertained Francis. 

Francis in his sailing dinghy.  This was taken when we saw him in Monterey.

We made sure to invite him to join us for supper, knowing his limited finances.  Francis is a very interesting 23 year old and we admire him for taking his 34’ sailboat to Mexico without an engine, radio or radar.  He does have charts and a GPS and feels that’s all he needs.  He is very intelligent, has quite a bit of worldly experience behind him and is an adventurer at heart, as we are.   The stars shone brightly as he rowed back to his floating home, Loon.

On Monday, Thanksgiving Day, we left San Luis Obispo mid morning and motored for part of the day until a gentle wind from behind allowed us to sail to Cojo Anchorage 56 miles away.  Before  Cojo Anchorage we had to get around Point Conception.  We had heard from other cruisers about Point Conception and the high possibility of encountering bigger winds and waves off of it.  I was anxious as we made out its shape in the distant haze but the winds were very manageable as we approached it.  En route we passed by a  1960’s military missile site and the first of many offshore oil rigs.  With a gentle wind from the west we could actually smell oil in the air! 

Our first oil rig

We chatted on the radio with another cruiser from Pelagia and he told us that this area of the coast is known for oily bubbles naturally popping on the surface giving off the gaseous odor.  Even the beaches get a naturally oily film from time to time.  Point Conception was kind to us and we had a leisurely sail around it and into the anchorage, which was extremely open and exposed.  The wind picked up considerably around the point with us anchoring in 25 knots of wind.  Most unusual for us!  Fortunately it dropped just before dusk when we had a spectacular clear pink sunset just as a squadron of pelicans flew over the point and landed in the water near us. 

Pt. Cojo - taken once we were around it

In the distance we could hear, then see, a passenger train chugging down the coast.  Wisps of spray from surf charged along the beach as waves rolled in and the remote rugged shoreline revealed just how exposed the area could be with two sailboat hulls piled up against the cliff near the shoreline.  We knew we hooked the anchor well and felt relatively comfortable in the slight roll during the evening.  We looked forward to the following day when we would leave the coastline and head west for the Channel Islands 25 miles away.

Sunset once the wind had dropped at Cojo Anchorage

October 10, 2013 Monterey, California

We awoke early last Saturday morning to an unusual easterly wind blowing down the channel between Alameda and Oaklands.   The air was shrouded in smoke – not smog - because of a fire in the Stockton area and you could smell it in the air since the day before. As the sun made its appearance we motored past the freight shipping terminals, making our way around a massive freighter being positioned in the channel by two powerful tugs.  The sparkling sun reflected off the hi-rise windows of downtown San Fransisco as we headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge and back into the open ocean after two terrific weeks in the Bay area.  We left knowing we would definitely return in the future, probably by land.

Leaving Alameda - passing a freighter at sunrise

Good bye San Fransisco

The warm easterly wind made sailing south easy and enjoyable and we were in Half Moon Bay, a small resort town, by early afternoon. 

Jim chillaxin

We dinghied into the marina and strolled around under the hot sun then spent the afternoon reading in the cockpit, swatting the swarms of kelp flies that plagued us.  Jim was driven down below for relief while I covered myself with mosquito netting, determined not to let them ‘beat’ me!  We left early the following morning, taking a few of the pesky flies south with us.

We motored in calm conditions for towards Monterey, finally putting up the head sail for an hour before arriving.  We anchored in front of a sandy beach next to Loon, single handed by Francis, whom we had met in San Fransisco while anchored in Aquatic Park.  We were lulled to sleep by the gentle waves and woke early under sunny, warm skies again.  By 10:30 we were on our way into the harbour to explore Monterey, being met at the dock by Cameron, our other single handing friend.  We hadn’t seen Cameron since Eureka so we had lots to catch up on over lunch.   Not only was Cameron at the docks but hundreds of loud, large sea lions were also there. 

Monterey Harbour

Vocal sea lions lounging in the sun

Monterey coastline

In fact they had their own special dock where they lay side by side and on top of each other sunning themselves.  We quickly found out how annoyingly loud a mass of sea lions can be as the grunted, howled, and growled at each other around the clock, just a fact of life for those at the marina!  Anyway the harbour master gave us well laid out maps, showed us where the expensive restaurants were and told us where he would eat himself.  With Cameron guiding us (he had been there 3 days) we wandered down the main part of town until we found a great little café that specialized in Mexican fare and huge breakfasts.  Monterey seemed to be a conference centre town with many upscale conference hotels and spas spread over the few blocks of downtown and along the waterfront.  Designer stores, jewellery stores, wine tasting stores and a Trader Joe’s rounded out the area.

We took an afternoon walk along ameandering waterfront bike and pedestrian pathway wound through park-like squares and along the shoreline.  We passed families picnicking, buskers playing guitars, visitors on 4 person surries (2 side by side seats front and back pedalled like a bike) exploring the area, a group of young mom’s jogging with babies in strollers and business people with brief cases.  Clearly the walkway was very popular and the preferred way to get around the area. Along the walkway, a mile south west of town was Cannery Row.  Cannery Row was originally the area of the largest sardine processing plants in all of California.  A hundred years ago it was a thriving port with many Asians, Mexicans, Philippino’s and Russians making up the massive work force needed to move, clean, pack, seal, and ship the sardines, often working long hours in damp, cold and crowded factory-like conditions.  Near the original Cannery Row three small cabins had been restored showing a glimpse at the living quarters for the single cannery workers.  The city has done a great job of identifying places of significance with murals, statues, information boards and old enlarged photographs.  Monterey, and especially Cannery Row, were highly featured in movies of the 40’s and 50’s and stars like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe spent time there along with many other famous movie stars looking for a getaway. Now Cannery Row is a mix of upscale boutiques, expensive hotels and spas, bike rentals, pricey restaurants, lots of antique and novelty stores.

We decided to rent bicycles the next day and had a wonderful time exploring the coastline south of Monterey where such famous communities as Carmel and Pebble Beach were located to the south.  The bikes gave us much more freedom than just walking and we enjoyed looking at the rugged coastline, breaking waves and sand dunes that went on for miles and miles. 

high wind and waves along the coastline

Seabirds don't mind the wind and waves

A sand castle competition on the beach at Monterey

We ate our packed lunch on a log at a beach park then rode back inland via numerous well manicured gold courses.  We stopped in the scenic Pacific Grove a few blocks away from the water then meandered back towards Cannery Row.  We didn’t make it quite as far as Carmel or Pebble Beach but close!  By the time we walked back to the harbour we had ridden about 13 miles and walked 6 miles in two days.

The next day we made our way back along the waterfront and Cannery Row to the world famous Monterey Aquarium.  It was an expensive day with admission costs running $35 per person plus lunch in their seaside cafeteria but well worth it.  Seeing the massive indoor living kelp forest, standing with just glass between us and octopuses, sharks, tuna, squid, jelly fish, sardines, mackerel, hundreds of other types of sea life, water foul, sea birds and crustaceans was amazing.

Kelp forest at Monterey Aquarium

Octopus

great viewing

There is a fish in there... well camouflaged

 



 



stingray

 

The blue painted background presented well in both photographs and videos and we took lots of both!

jellies come in all sizes and shapes

This one lit up with, about the size of a light bulb.  Amazing!

 



sardines swirling around in a school

Art made out of discarded plastic - a graphic picture of waste

The artist created a huge wall of discarded plastic to make a point! Point taken!

 

 By mid afternoon we wandered back to Falcon to prepare for an overnight passage to Morro Bay, 105 miles to the south.  We headed out near 6:00 p.m. only to encounter massive 15 foot swells just outside the harbour and almost no wind to sail by.  Jim realized that it would be an extremely uncomfortable night so we quickly turned around and headed back towards the beach and anchored instead.  Flexibility is key and not having deadlines works well for us.  We rested on Thursday and pulled up the anchor just before dusk.  We had no wind but no swells either and motored calmly through the night.  We each took 3 hour watches, sleeping in between. I even made popcorn to munch on during my 4:00 a.m – 7:00 a.m. watch. Though we couldn’t sail, the repaired autohelm made the night passage all the better.

October 2, 2013  California Delta – inland from San Fransisco

Last time I wrote we were in a café in the old Haight Ashbury neighbourhood watching the return of the hippies.  It was a kick being there, not only for the fun atmosphere, incredible people watching and Ben and Jerry’s delicious ice cream but also to admire the amazing architecture.  Many of the original mansions are now multiple family dwellings with some three storey heritage houses containing as many as nine suites.  Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me but Jim took some terrific videos of the traditional and not-so traditional architecture, which is similar to those referred to as the Painted Ladies also in San Fransisco.  Getting to Haight Ashbury was an expensive cab ride ($28.00) so we decided to bus back, using our new Ipad to help guide us with the bus system.  We are now finding it invaluable and wonder why we waited so long to get one!  Anyway, after two or three bus changes over an hour we eventually made it back to the dinghy beach at Aquatic Park around 8:30 p.m. cold and hungry.  We rowed to Martha and Doug’s boat, Thea, and they graciously provided us with hot leftovers from the potluck we missed.  What great people!

The next day saw Thea, Avant and Falcon all heading in different directions.  Avant heading for Alameda near Oaklands and Thea heading to Half Moon Bay and on to Monterey.  Jim and I sailed across San Fransisco Bay to the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge community of Sausalito.  En route we sailed around Alcatraz, the famous prison referred to as The Rock, long since shut down and now a major tourist attraction. 

Alcatraz Island, closed high security prison

This sign says it all!

Remains of a building on Alcatraz Island

 

Sausalito was definitely high scale, with average meals at the few restaurants ranging from $25 - $30 an entree (and out of our price range).  Real estate was off the charts for the hillside homes, many upscale luxurious mansions and expensive enormous duplexes containing outdoor elevators to get from street parking up the steep hill to the house.  We stayed at a mooring buoy as guests of the Sausalito Yacht Club and enjoyed grand showers at the yacht club before wandering around the area.  After a very rolly night we left mid day for Alameda, an large island full of marinas off of Oaklands on the east side of the bay. The channel dividing Oaklands from Alameda was a mass of freight terminals and freighters loading and unloading goods.

After our initial phone call to  arrange for moorage we decided to name it ‘Helpful Alameda’.  The slip we were assigned at the huge Marina Village Yacht Harbor was about ½ mile from the Harbourmaster’s office.  We mentioned to Corey, the young harbourmaster, that we had to get to a specific supply store before closing time and asked him to call us a cab as soon as we were docked.  Not only did he call us a cab but he picked us up in his own car and drove us to the harbour office to meet the cab – saving us much needed time.  He also consented to take delivery of our autopilot parts we had to have shipped in from Washington.  On the way back from our errand a wonderful bus driver told us – very nicely – that we didn’t want to go on his bus and pointed us to another stop and told us of better routing back to the marina…then he handed us four free tickets to get there. It took 1.5 hours to get back but we saw some of the older downtown areas, which were vibrant and colourful and walked the last mile as dusk.  The next morning I approached a boater in his mid-thirties walking by Falcon and asked he knew where we could get our propane tanks filled and he said, without hesitation, that he was going to fill his own tank in an hour and would gladly drive across town and take ours to be filled at the same time.  Wow!  People are so nice.  We also really enjoyed walking around Alameda and feeling like we were definitely in sunny California.  We had a good 4 mile walk looking at Victorian, craftsman style and post-war architecture under the hot mid-day sun while we wandered from ships chandlery to ships chandlery to purchase needed supplies.

We left Alameda late afternoon and anchored at a mid Bay getaway called Treasure Island near the Oaklands Bridge before heading up into the Delta.  We had heard about the Delta area and wanted to check it out. 

Motoring under one of the may bridges on the Sacramento River

The Sacramento River and San Joaquin River wind their way inland from San Fransisco with dozens of intricate waterways branching off just begging for exploration.  One of the locals told us “We’ve got 1,000 miles of waterway here, and 950 miles of it is less than 20 feet deep!”

As we left the Bay area we were aware of the changing scenery.  No more flash office buildings, expensive restaurants and freeways.  The landscape took on a much more industrial feel with oil refineries, a sugar refinery and lots of huge old factories.  Arid rolling hills appeared on both sides of the Sacramento River with little clusters of housing and marinas sprinkled about.  Our first evening stop was Pittsburgh, which was named New York of the Pacific then New York Landing before being changed to Pittsburgh. 

Palm trees lining the marina grounds

The Capitol - an old restored theatre

Railway Road lined with palm trees

Enjoying Japanese dinner at Mojo's

Coal and steel processing plants were the original foundation for this little community, which has a number of tribute sculptures scattered around the old town core.  It is still an industrial town but the marina area was nicely secluded from industry by canal lined houses, lush vegetation and thick palm trees.  The marina was beautiful and we were impressed with the infrastructure of the area.  Many local boaters love to fish and we saw one sign on a boat saying “Lets rip some lips”.  The old town was rejuvenated within the last five years with a few inexpensive but trendy restaurants and stores dotting Railway Road, a few public parks adorning the area and an historical post office turned museum rounding things out.

Monday was a frustrating day as we tried to arrange for shipments from Washington to fix the autopilot.   We walked for a couple of miles and found the ‘real’ Pittsburgh – the fast food restaurants,  malls and traffic.  We found ourselves travelling on a main road running under an active railway then over the four lane freeway.  We were hot and tired but, by late afternoon we had things figured out and left Pittsburgh to anchor in the river. 

Sunset on the river

Beautiful horse being groomed next to the river

Not as pretty as the horse, this cow takes a sip from the river

We anchored beside the rural farmland where we could hear cows mooing and tropical sounding birds singing as dusk descended upon us.  The wind whipped up the river all evening but our trusty anchor held firm once again but we were happy to get away under sail in the morning, heading into extremely quiet and calm narrow channels.  Another interesting feature of the Delta is the appearance of giant windmill turbine farms along the Montezuma Hills on the north shore of the Sacramento River. 

A few of the hundreds of windmills

It’s hard to conceive of their scale, each being more than 400 feet high with each blade exceeding the size of a large airplane wing.  Hundreds of these awesome wind turbines silently go round and round producing 1.5% of California’s energy.  Amazing!

We have fallen in love with the Delta area and will miss it when we have to move on!  It is peaceful, laid back, full of little towns and a great place for easy down-wind sailing. The area requires a tremendous amount of attention to navigation and I have to thank Jim for putting in many intricate routes on our chart plotter to make sure we always had at least 15 feet of water under us.   We ultimately turned around when we started seeing signs of 9 or 10 feet in channels that were too shallow for Falcon so we didn’t get a chance to see what they were like.  Various types of boats use the waterways and rivers including jet boats, freighters, tugs and barges, power boats, cruise-a-home trailer-like boxes and even the occasional sailboat. 

A freighter passes us on the river - extremely close!

Flat bottom cruise-a-homes are popular in the Delta

Bird hunters use these 'blinds' - see the motor sticking out

Fishermen motor by at high speed all day, every day

Fishing no more

Barge of soil moves towards a raised bridge

Thick floating vegetation lines the shore.  The water hyacinth is an invasive species imported from the Amazon in the 1880’s as a decorative plant.  You can see how pretty they are close up, which must have been why some early settlers thought they would be an nice addition to the waterscape.

The Delta area also features more marinas per square mile than I have ever seen!  Happy Harbor, Pirate’s Lair, Spindrift Marina, Sea Horse Marina, Lloyd’s Holiday Harbor and Riverboat Marina are just a very few of the dozens of little winding marinas that are often hidden in bayou-like passages barely visible from the main channels.

Pirate's Lair Marina - the flat roofs house the boats

  We dropped the hook and took the dinghy for a little run to check out marinas and had the old burger and fries lunch at the Pirate’s Lair Marina.  Later that afternoon we re-anchored in an out of the way slough surrounded by agriculture that was barely visible on the other side of the rocky dikes built everywhere to protect the food producing land.  There was no breeze as we settled down for the evening listening to a cacophony of frogs.

In the morning we pushed off heading up Three Mile Slough where we radioed for a bascule bridge to be raised.  The bridge operator told Jim he would “Get busy with it”.

Going up!

Holding my breath as we went underneath the bridge

We hurried up to get under the bridge so he could put it back down and let the traffic resume.  Jim pushed the throttle forward and we were under it in a couple of minutes, looking back at the lineup of cars that sat waiting for the bridge to lower.  Such power! We dropped anchor and spent the afternoon in the town of Rio Vista where we made a run to the bakery.  Rio Vista, like many other small towns, sits along the Sacramento River.  As we finished our ice cream cones we returned to Falcon and continued motoring a short distance to another anchorage spot on the river.  Just before that no fewer than seven large Sheriff zodiacs whizzed by, with one of them peeling off to check on us and ensure that we knew where we were.  We politely answered and waved goodbye just before dropping the hook at the side of the river. 

Falcon at anchor

"Bug Inn" sitting in Rio Vista



The wind calmed down near dusk and all was quiet some of the night.  We couldn’t hear any cows but we sure could smell them!  We really enjoyed our 3 days in the Delta and could have easily spent 2 – 3 weeks here.  We’re certain we’ll come back via land in the future.  Thursday, October 3rd was spent motoring in strong winds back towards the San Fransisco Bay before returning to Alameda to pick up our autopilot parts.    We’ll be heading back to the open ocean in a couple of days to continue or exploration down the coast of California with stops at Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, Monterey and then Morro Bay.  After that…who knows!

Sunset in the Delta