Back in SB with a clean bottom

This past week was incredibly stressful, and I think I'm paying handsomely for it with a peptic ulcer. I wanted to bring Koan back up to SB before Memorial day, but we've had the most incredibly windy weather. I was watching the wind patterns like a hawk on Wednesday and Thursday, planning to sail or motor up on Friday. I decided that I needed some flexibility in my departure time, so I planned it as another solo trip (I'm up to 125 nm solo now!) Wed. and Thursday's predictions were for really high winds, but the pattern was very spatially variable, and there were also times when SB was in a wind hole. On Wednesday, unbelievably, the race was a light air race. On Thursday there was a hole in the morning, with the models predicting > 20 kts but actual being < 5 kts. Hoping that Friday would follow Thursday's pattern I went to Ventura on Thursday night and slept on the boat, planning for an early departure. I was hoping that I could make it to SB before the howling winds picked up.

I took off at 6:30 and arrived at 11:30, motoring the whole way, in a very uneventful trip. Sure enough, the wind picked up around noon and howled a stead 25 kts for the rest of the day, so my calculation was correct. The swell was actually really bad the whole way, and especially unpleasant near the SB harbor entrance, where I had to go beam-to-swell to drop my sails, and almost got bucked off the boat.

So Koan now has nicely buffed topsides, a clean baby bottom and new zincs. Time to get on with other projects, and hire a diver for monthly maintenance.