On Saturday Kitty and took off from Morro Bay to try to sail up to Monterey. The small craft advisory had been lifted for exactly one day, and we figured we may as well make a run for it. We left the harbor at noon, and saw lots of whales and scared lots of birds as we crossed Estero Bay. Probably the highlight was coming very close to a pair of what we thought were gray whales, a big ol' one with a munched up tail, and a smaller one with a perfectly shaped tail. In fact, the tails looked so different that we're now wondering whether they were two different kinds of whales. Later on we saw a pair of pilot whales, as well. We crossed Pt Estero and started running into steepening swells. The motor started cavitating every once in a while and the boat would also go into crazy rolls without the main up. So we put up the main and soldiered on. We passed some incredible seaside mansion complexes south of Cambria, and saw some kind of brutalist/cubist probably military installation up on the hill above town. The more we made our way towards Pt Piedras Blancas, the stronger the breeze got, and the steeper the waves. Eventually the motor started to cavitate a lot, and our speed dropped to 3.5 kts at our usual RPM. I decreased the RPMs on the motor to try to help it out, but then our speed dropped to 2.5 kts. Things were getting pretty miserable, with 13-14 kts on the nose, and making only 2.5 kts progress, so we decided we may as well sail. Under full sail, hard on the wind we made ~4 kts SOG and 2+ kts VMG, so really there was no disadvantage there. We took one big tack in just N of San Simeon, then a big tack to a point about 3nm S and 2nm offshore of Piedras Blancas. At that point the swell got really steep and square, and, while struggling to keep the point at max VMG, I dropped it off a couple waves. The shudder was kind of terrifying, and I figured, if we're going to lose the rig, one of these drops will probably do it. We tacked back, aiming to pass just N of PB, and Kitty took the helm. I went below to check on the windalert.com measurement for PB, and smelled intense gasoline smell. We don't keep any gasoline in the cabin, so the smell had to be diffusing in from the lazarette. When I looked in there I found the almost-empty tank, being light, had completely upturned during one of those falling-off-a-wave moments, and was draining into the lazarette, and the fuel hose to the motor had also disconnected from it, voiding its contents. Luckily there was only a quarter cup of gas sloshing around, and I was able to clean it up right quick, but the whole thing was disturbing. Around the same time, it dawned on me that at 2 kts VMG we weren't going to make it to Monterey by Sunday night, and, under the best circumstances, I figured we still had a lot of sailing before finding conditions flat enough to motor in. So a bit S of PB, we turned our nose downwind and started heading back to Morro Bay. We had an exhilarating run, while watching a gorgeous sunset, ate some munchies, and a couple hours later switched back to motoring, once our sailing speed dropped below 3.5 kts. Kitty went below for a quick nap, and I managed to drive the boat into a kelp in the pitch dark, since I wasn't following my outbound track. We pulled up the motor, slowly motored out to our kelp-free outbound track, and re-engaged the motor. Halfway across Estero Bay, around midnight, the night dolphins showed up to keep us company. I was feeling our mortality very acutely, in the pitch black, very foggy, very wet night, and the dolphins helped somewhat to cheer me up. There were half a dozen of them, doing their usual tricks, looking like torpedos, with their cylindrical phosphorescence trails. At one point Kitty told me to stick my head in the cabin, and I heard their clicking sonar, which is how they knew where we were, and never touched us. They're incredible. We got near the entrance of Morro Bay around 1:30am, and realized we could neither hear the fog whistle buoy, nor see the entrance buoy. Thank goodness for GPS, because the situation was completely hopeless. Kitty engaged super-navigator mode, and I took over from Otto as the helmsperson. Eventually we spied the entrance buoy, but keeping it ahead was a real ordeal, as it would appear at 20 degrees up from what I thought was the horizon for one blink, then 20 degrees below my horizon for the next blink, 4 seconds later. We were running some biiiig swells, in the middle of the night, in the soupy fog. Eventually we spied the glow of the breakwater light, and made for that, and then we looked for red can after red can, and followed them in. I counted that we used 4 separate GPS mapping things: Kitty's Garmin, iSailGPS, iSailor, and finally Google Maps to figure out which dock belonged to the yacht club. Eventually we pulled up to the dock, and we to sleep already. So... Koan's still in Morro Bay. And we've learned that we need to lash gas tanks, follow kelp-free tanks, and allow twice as much time if there's a chance we can't motor during an upwind journey. Phew!
