Koan has begun her trek North. Motivated by NWS LOX's promise of glassy seas and complete lack of breeze, we made a mid-week bum rush W-NW towards Morro Bay. After a morning of hauling gas cans until my shoulders burned, and at least 4 copies of the same checklist floating around on the kitchen table, Kitty and I departed on time, noon sharp on Tuesday. Not a minute too soon, as Harbor Patrol would have been there to kick us out for slip fee non-payment if we'd stayed a minute longer!
We motored the whole way, at probably 2/3 throttle on our little Honda 5 hp, and did chores and generally got the boat ready for the night passage. We had some breeze, probably around 10 kts, in the mid-afternoon, then everything quieted down as we approached Point Conception. We rounded at 7:45pm, and continued on a straight line to Pt. Arguello. Half-way between the two we noticed what seemed like an unusually high concentration of boats (2!) around what looked to me like a workboat mooring. We turned on the VHF as we were passing abreast, only to be greeted by a Coast Guard notice to mariners informing us that what we were witnessing was in fact a barge in the process of sinking. Too cool! Kitty claims it changed shape as we went by. I'm not so sure, but in any case, very interesting. And *no* mention of it anywhere in the CG news today...
It got dark shortly after that, and we found ourselves wondering what was causing the eerie glow behind Pt Arguello. As we rounded we were treated to the otherworldly view of a Vandenberg vehicle assembly building fully lit up, with a perimeter of extremely bright lights, in the fog. As we rounded the point we had some, ahem, navigational doubts, so we switched to waypoint (instead of eyeball) navigation for the night. We left platform Irene to port, and then everything was completely dark. Our biggest worry was the possibility of snagging a crab pot and burning the engine or mangling the prop in the process, but we seemed to miss the ones we came to see by a good 10 feet every time. We eventually had dinner and switched to our night-time tethered-to-jacklines-when-on-deck system. We started 2-hour watch rotation at 11pm, with me on 11-1, 3-5, and Kitty 1-3, 3-7. By my 3am watch I was seriously sore from helming against the big rolly swell, so I brought out Otto, the Raymarine ST1000 autopilot, who basically helmed for the whole rest of the trip.
By 7am, when I came back on deck, we were close enough to Pt Buchon to see the shoreline, and Kitty said she'd seen all kinds of marine life during dawn. We had breakfast, I saw a whale, and we saw a bunch of sea otters as we approached Morro Bay, where we docked at MBYC around 9am Wednesday morning. We took empty tanks and a bunch of personal gear off the boat, and put her on a mooring, where she awaits us for the leg further North. All in all, we made it look easy :)
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