Sailing (well, mostly motoring I guess) to near Point Conception and Back
Hello again. It's February of 2008, and I'm making my fourth attempt at sailing to Point Conception.
I tried once with about 3/4 of a gallon of gas. Not very well thought out, I'll admit. Although it was a very nice day for a daysail that day. Since then I've really wanted to overnight up in this region. The anchorages are not real protected, but very nice.
Next time I was stopped by a major winter storm. Way too much wind, straight out of the west. Last time we were stymied by lots and lots of fog. That was in August. I hate sailing in fog. This time, I made some major plans and backup. I have five or six gallons of gas in an auxiliary tank. No refueling required. I have my GPS (just an inexpensive little Garmin Venture), compass, maps, handheld depth finder, and two very major anchors (12 lb and 16 lb.) with 250 ft of rode and 30 feet of chain (combined). I'm taking six gallons of drinking water, and what ends up being close to a week or two of food. I have a nice warm down jacket, full rain gear, two air horns. Port-a-potty. Two portable LED anchor lights. I'm just all loaded up. And the weather looks very very good. I've got a whole week off work, plus the following Monday holiday. That's ten days. Plenty of time.
So I head on down to southern California on Monday morning, Feb 11th. Very uneventful drive. left nice & early, maybe 6:30 am, and made it to Oxnard by 7:30 pm. I drive slow, especially towing. But looking good. I made the mandatory lunch stop at In n Out in Las Vegas. For accomodations, I like this one State Park called McGrath State Beach, next to Ventura Harbor. So I pull up and it's CLOSED. This is kind of annoying. But not much I can do. There's a Denny's about a mile up the road right next to the freeway. So I went in and asked the waitress lady if I can sleep in my sailboat behind the restaurant. She says OK. Nice lady. Small worry laid to rest.
I slept pretty good. A little road noise. Up at around 5:30 and head for Santa Barbara Harbor. I'm able to rig by 7:00 or so. Again, I'm rigged a little later than I want to be. So I decide to skip filling out a float plan. They insist on me being back before 72 hours anyways in this harbor. For a while I planned on launching from Ventura Harbor. I don't think there's a maximum parking time there. And it's only $3 per day for parking. But I'll stick with Santa Barbara this time. I may even try launching from the Goleta hoist some time. Heading on out of the harbor, I can see it's just going to be a gorgeous day. Here I am passing the bait dock.
This next picture is maybe a mile or two out of Santa Barbara Harbor. You can just barely see all the masts from the Harbor. What a beautiful day. I'm loving it. Of course, If I have to motor the whole way, I might just run a little short of gas at the end. But at this point, who cares. I'm on the water, the sun is warm, and the motor is running just fine. That thing is getting old, but still reliable. It's a four horse power Johnson. Lots of power for this little Monty 15. Maybe too much, if that's possible.
I started out motoring kind of fast. Mostly around 5 mph. Even up to 6 mph. But after a while I noticed the gas was getting burned up really fast. I'd say maybe only 7 or 8 miles per gallon. Not too good. So I slowed way down, setting a goal to motor at around 3 mph. I monitor the speed on my little handheld GPS. It's a lttle Garmin Venture model.
I like the way you can manually enter in a waypoint (it takes either degrees/minutes, or degrees and decimals of degrees) and then just hit "go to". It tells you how far you are, how long it will take you to get there at your current speed, etc. It even gives you "Miles made good". It means, yeah, you're going 4 mph, but only 1 mph TOWARDS your desination. So that's nice. And it has the compass function too.
After slowing down it looked like I was making maybe 10, 11, 12 miles per gallon. Maybe even a little more. That's better. The weather makes a difference too. Headwinds are brutal. Of course no wind at all like today is best. Looks like I'm pretty far out away from the coast. When I pass Platform Holly, which is over two miles out, I'm pretty close to it. A lot closer to the platform than the shoreline. But that's good. I'd like to pick up any westerly that blows so I can sail a little. But as it turns out, there will be no wind at all until late tonight.
The water is a little dirty here. Mostly just in spots. Like a dirty current. That's maybe why they call it "Coal Oil Point". Lots of seepage, and probably some platform spills. You can see the big new Bacara Resort, and the two big Holly Storage tanks on the Naples coastline. Not much else to see. I really couldn't even find El Capitan State Park. I saw Refugio of course. Lots of big palm trees there that are easy to spot. After that there's a little community called Tajiguas. And a Tajiguas landfill. Here's an attempted self portraint passing Tajiguas.
Here's one of the better photos of the area. Man it's a cool looking mountain range on the coast. Then right after that, I saw a cute little sea otter right by the side of the boat. I heard they don't want sea otters coming south of Point Conception because they have such a voracious appetite for sea anenomes.
Next I pass the refinery right by Gaviota. I think it's shut down. It's just before the State Park. Gaviota has a boat launch hoist too, but they are very strict about what they'll hoist. You have to have an OSHA approved setup. The straps, the lift points, everything. The guy even said they do NOT allow any kind of belly straps. So that pretty much rules out sailboats with a keel like this one.
It's getting late afternoon now, maybe 3:00 pm, and past Gaviota it's only three more miles to the anchorage at Secate.
I sort of wished I had dropped anchor at Gaviota. It's supposed to be not a very good overnight place to anchor, but at least it's civilization. Anyways, I motored on past, and see the second trestle after Gaviota, and just past there is Secate. It's getting late and I'm pretty low on gas. So I think I'll stay here. I've been reading a lot in Brian Fagan's "Cruising Guide to Southern California". Fagan says Secate is as good and maybe even a better anchorage than Cojo Anchorage. Cojo is all the way out there at Point Conception. So I'll stay here. I checked the GPS one more time and I motored 37 miles one way. Not bad. It's looking like it will be a nice calm evening (ha ha, just wait).
Well it starts out as a nice evening. I just make a sandwich for dinner. I don't feel like cooking anything. I want to bed down early. Anchoring was pretty simple. Start at 30 feet depth. Lower the anchor. Head on downwind or towards shore, and pay it on out. I think I let out all 100 feet plus the 10 feet of chain. Give it a couple good hard pulls. Yep, it'd stuck real good down there. I'm set. It's a great piece of equipment. I think twelve pounds, a "claw" style, like a Bruce. Made for a larger boat. Sure was a nice sunset. This is great. I really like sleeping out on the boat. Did I mention this is the first time I have ever anchored out? I practiced setting the anchor a couple of times on lakes, but this is the first overnighter I've had not attached to a mooring.
But then the excitement starts. I retire really early. It's February so darkness falls around 6:30 I think. I'm getting to sleep by 7:30. Then the wind starts to blow. You see, the reason it's so gorgeous in the daytime is the Santa Ana winds down south. They don't reach up to Santa Barbara. At least they don't in the daytime. But at night? Yeah, they do. It's called a "Sundowner". And they can really blow. They blow several hours or most of the night. I get up every two hours and check the anchor. I'm swinging pretty wildly. I can see the platform lights swing by to the left, then a minute later they swing by to the right. All the while I'm just pitching and yawing (is that a word?) in the little 15 footer. I'm guessing this is why people don't take long overnight trips in these little boats. Hmmm. TME. Too much excitement. Finally I get worried enough that I deploy the second anchor. I call it the "monster". It's like sixteen pounds, and a "Navy" style. Kind of like a real stubby Danforth. I have 150 feet of rode, and (I'm almost embarrassed to admit this) twenty feet of huge chain. The chain is brass, about 1/3" thick. Its actually an automotive tow chain I got at Home Depot. So it is massive. I lower it over the stern and pull in a little of the bow anchor line to try to get in between the two. But the wind is in charge. I swing broadside to the chop. But I don't really care. The second anchor is set real well too. And the chop isn't that big, it's coming straight off the land, and I'm only, what, 75 yards offshore? I'll be fine.
I still check the anchor every two hours, but I'm staying put. Not a great nights sleep, but the anchors hold.
How strong was the wind? Pretty strong - I'd say 35 mph, maybe more. It might have been stronger up at Cojo, but at least it would have been constant out of the north or northwest. Probably not a canyon wind like this. Anyways, it's morning. And the wind is letting up. I decide to head home today so I'll have two days to get back. I motor around a little and check out the north end of the anchorage by Drake's Point. It nice and scenic. Here's a quick shot of that view.
I think I'll start to head back. there's a little bit of a westerly picking up. That would be ideal. So I raise the sails, and head out. Then, just my luck - the wind dies! And it's not really sunny like yesterday. It's a little cloudy and overcast today. I try to sail for like an hour. Then a little south breeze starts to blow. I have to tack into it. Man, this isn't a whole lot of fun. So I give up. I'll motor back. But I really don't have enought gas to make it all the way. I motor pretty slow, barely 3 mph. I'll probably stop at Refugio for the night. Unless a real big wind picks up. But it doesn't. I motor up to Refugio by late afternoon. I only have one to two gallons left, and Refugio is almost twenty miles from the harbor. Not enough. But at least I'll have a full day to do it.
Didn't take any pictures of Refugio that night. Well, one, but it's all blurry. I boiled up a couple of hot dogs for dinner and chowed down. Another early night to bed. I tried to anchor in a little shallower water this time, to catch some protection from the Point at Refugio. It's a tiny little bay. But there's swells coming in from the west. It's going to be another rolly night. Then the wind picks up out from the canyon. Another sundowner. I just stayed with the Bruce this time. I checked the anchor a couple of times during the night, but it was holding just fine. Next morning I think I'll try to leave early and let that sundowner carry me a little ways before it dies out. Here's a photo or two just as I'm leaving Refugio.
So I have some cold cereal for breakfast and weigh anchor. I sail right out of Refugio Bay (if you can call it a bay) and guess what - the wind dies again. Man, I'm having some bad luck with these winds. So I start to motor again. After just two miles, I'm at El Capitan, and I'm sure I have about one gallon of gas left. No more. Finally the wind starts to pick up. I listen to the weather report from NOAA, and they are forecasting a pretty serious "wind event". Hmmm. After three days of this calm stuff, maybe I'll take it. They are saying seventy mph gusts in the Ventura County mountains. Then just past El Capitan, the thing hits. And the worst part is, its straight out of the southeast. Drat. I now need to head southeast (right smack into the wind) to get around Coal oil Point. I douse the motor and try to tack into it. Right sraight into it. On the starboard tack, I do all right, almost parallel to the coast. But when I have to come about to the port tack, I look at the GPS miles made good, and I'm doing *negative* miles made good. I'm going to try to motor again. I start the motor and unfortunately forget to open the vent on the gas cap. So a few minutes later it conks out, and I pull and pull and pull and it won't start. This wind is really howling. The chop is really big. This might just be the low point of the whole trip. Maybe this is a good time to toss in a map of the track I covered. Orange is heading up, and blue and green is the return trip. You can see the big tacks just past El Cap. I just drew them in, nothing scientific about the track shown. The map ends about Santa Barbara Point, so the Harbor is just a little bit farther than that.
After tacking several times and making very little headway, the wind subsides again. I start to motor, thinking I should at least make Goleta Pier on my limited gas. I can always just spend the night there. But soon a normal westerly starts to pick up. Finally. I start to sail downwind. Then guess what. The wind gets stronger, and stronger still. I should reef here, but I don't. I'm rocketing in (well that may be overstating it a little) at six to eight knots. The hull speed on my boat is only six knots, so I'm surfing it big time. But its fun. Well, the part about the unintentional jibe wasn't fun. But most of it was fun. Just one more little surprise. I'm heading right near the breakwater coming in towards the harbor.
There's a big group of kite surfers zipping all around. I know I'm too close to the rocks, but I'm not being as careful as I should. I start unintentionally heading over towards the rocks. I'm on a starboard tack I think, and I'm heading east and pretty soon I'm pulling back on the tiller about as hard as I can - and it's not responding. I'm still heading towards the rocks. Well I better do something. So I let go and let it round up in to the wind. Then I get an idea - I think I'll put the centerboard down. That should give me better tracking, slow me down a bit, and help me control this thing. Well that works pretty well. I sail on over to near the wharf, take all the sails down and motor on in. The wind is really strong. It's definitely a small craft advisory. You know, that could be why I was the only idiot out here. Nobody else but the crazy kite surfers. And they are really zipping around. Anyways, an exciting end to a really fun trip. On the way home I spent the night at Carpenteria State Beach. Very nice place. Looked very family oriented, which is good in my book. Actually I have been here before. It was the first place I ever camped with the boy scouts, may moons ago.
I stopped for lunch near Point Mugu on my way to L.A. Peanut buter and jelly. And a test run on the $10 battery powered shaver. Hey, it works prety good. Nice photo op here too. That long line of RV's you see is another camping spot I have stayed at. It's called Thornhill Broome. It's right by the highway, but if you like remote, it's for you; there's absolutely nothing there but beach, highway and chemical toilets in between.
That's about it. I spend one night in L.A., and then head back up to home base in Utah. This was a totally awesome trip. I loved every minute of it. I'm thinking next time, maybe Oregon? In the spring? Guess we'll see!
