Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Port San Luis/Avila Beach to Santa Barbara







We left early in the morning to head for Port San Luis. I believe that we will be close to my nephew Greg and his wife Angela so I call to leave a message for them.
We arrive early in the after noon and find a good anchorage. We decide to take the dingy to shore to see the sites. Things are different along the coast, goodbye to the nice harbor dingy docks, here you are expected to tie a long line from your dingy to a wharf ladder and then climb upthe ladder. I am not talking a foot or two these wharfs are quite high. But we are willing to try. we get all tied up and I start up the ladder, then I make a mistake and look down. I decide that it is too much and climb back down telling Mel that perhaps I will be braver tomorrow. Luckily we see a platform for loading and unloading on the other side of the wharf. There is no sign telling us we cannot tie up so we do and take the nice reasonable stairs up to the wharf.
Avila Beach is very nice with an all new beach front (thanks to Union 76 and an oil clean-up) and a nice long beach. We have a margarita and try to cool off as it is an unusually hot day for the beach.
On the way back to our boat we notice another Oregon boat on the hook. They are from Newport so we stop to talk. They are also on there way to Mexico and are going to do the Baja-Ha-Ha ralley in October. We note their name in our log and hope to see them in Mexico.
The next day we meet up with Greg and Angela for cocktails on the boat and dinner at the "New" Custom House restaurant, (see picture of them on our boat). They are the first of my family to see the boat.

The next day we leave early as we have a good weather window for Point Conception, this is known as the "Cape Horn of the West Coast" the winds and waves can be quite bad in this area. We pass around it with little wind and low seas, it is all about timing.
We also pass by Vandenberg Air Force Base. Boy, talk about being in the middle of no where, I guess that is by design.
Our engine prop starts to make a very strange vibration so we lower the RPM's and head to our anchorage. We are very concerned and after we set the anchor, Mel gets on the scuba mask and looks under the boat at the prop but sees nothing on it. We decide that there is nothing we can do so we have dinner and a movie (2 episodes of X-Files).
Luckily the next day we have no vibrations and the engine works just fine.
We motor in the fog all the way to Santa Barbara where the dolphins greet us and "dance" around our boat. They always leave when I get the camera out, darn.
Tomorrow we continue on south and will be in Marina Del Rey for the weekend and will see family there.
The pictures posted here are of me at the helm on a very windy with somewhat high seas. Point Conception, and its lighthouse. Greg, Angela, and me.

No comments: