Moss Landing and Monterey

Lots of new pictures on some of the older posts also. Those have labels for the pictures at the bottom of the post in underlined blue font.

This post I have described each picture, as you read it, it describes the pictures from bottom to top.

Sailboat races at Santa Cruz and Lighthouse.

Here are more pictures, lots of sea lions at Moss Landing and sea otters, these are not the cute little ones that get on your boat like we had in Puget Sound, these sea otters are as big as a sea lion pup and ugly. Glad they are not getting on the boat!

Also have pictures of sailboarders in S.F. Bay skimming around big ships and across the ships wake.

We moved on to Monterey, very narrow entrance to the marina but they have lots of history here, pics. of the old Mexican Customs House, the first brick house next to the Whaling Station where whalers lived.

There are several old Adobe Homes, as well as all of the foo foo shops along the old "Cannery Row" and the Monterey Aquarium.

Wed. the 29th will be a long day we will be leaving about 5:30 AM to head to Morro Bay, we are going to bypass San Simion because we have been told that it's not a good idea to try to land a dinghy on the beach and they have no dock there. Morro Bay is about 110 miles so at 8kts thats about 14hrs, hope to arrive by 7:30PM.

Irv & LaVon

Santa Cruz and Moss Landing

Had a great time in Santa Cruz, walked to town, not much in downtown, but the boardwalk and pier are interesting the boardwalk is like a perpetual carnival with rides, food booths and circus acts, the pier has a lot of interesting shops and the weather was warm, in the mid 70's. After two days the weather pattern changed and the swells were changing from the NW to the SW which means that the swells will come straight into the harbor entrance so we moved on to Moss Landing, about 25 miles down Monterey Bay, it was kind of a bumpy ride with the swells coming on our starboard beam as they were changing from NW to SW, big change in weather, morning fog and PM low clouds mid 60's, very accommodating people at Elkhorn YC. We were going to move on to Monterey YC Sat. but we stayed for a benefit dinner Sat. for a member that lost his home in a fire.
After checking weather and wave reports it looks like we will not be heading south for a few days, local knowledge tells us not to go out in a swell from the south so we contacted Monterey YC by e-mail for reciprocal moorage (that's how their web site is set up for contact) and first I was ask if we were a sail boat, I replied no a power boat, then they responded that they have a 30,000 lb limit on their dock so it looks we will stay in Moss Landing another day and then move on to Monterey Harbor Marina for a couple days before heading out again.
We did visit a Shakespeare museum that is in the process of moving here from LA because they lost there property in LA to progress and condos. They have some books from the 1500 and 1600's lots of memorabilia, furniture and pictures from the old Globe theater in LA.
Sunday they are having an antique fair downtown that we will go check out.
I'll write more when we move on, I'll post some more pictures in a few days.
Irv & LaVon

Rough Road To Recovery

Sat. we peddled to the other side of the island to a swap meet, no chock but LaVon found a cutting board for 50 cents, then we peddled over to Alameda Y.C. to see if we could meet two gals that are going to go on FUBAR to Mexico when we do. They were not there but they were signed up for a birthday dinner Sat. night and we were invited to come to it, we went, we met the gals, we had dinner, we danced and had a great time, it reminded me of the great folks at Tyee Y.C. made some new friends and look forward to seeing them at the FUBAR trip.

Sun. we went to Clipper Cove at Treasure Island under the Oakland Bay bridge and the wind blew all afternoon and night. Mon. we went to Travis Marina at the north footing of the Golden Gate Bridge, don't believe a harbormaster when they tell you "sure it's deep enough at low tide" we got up at 6A.M. to leave at 6:45 to catch slack tide over the bar, guess what, we were hard aground we had to wait until almost 8A.M. to leave so that meant that we had to fight an incoming tide and a rough bar, the Columbia River bar may be the roughest but S.F. bar has to be the longest, we pounded out for an hour and ten minutes before it was smooth enough to turn south.

The NOAA weather said 3' to 5' seas at 8 secs, we bounced down the coast in 6' to 8' seas at 6 to 8 secs. following seas (pushing under us from behind) for the next 4 hours, so we bypassed Half Moon Bay and decided to go on to Santa Cruz, the seas eased up for a while then about 2 hrs. north of Santa Cruz the seas picked up and started breaking, we were pushed to port then to starboard, foam from the breaking waves passing under us, we skated down the back side of waves sideways until the rudders would grab and straighten us out then the next wave would push under us, we were pushed as fast as 14.4kts and skated down the backside as slow as 6.6kts, that went on for a little over an hour before it flattened out, that was tiring, constantly on the wheel hard left then hard right, the last 45 mins. into Santa Cruz was pretty good, now a couple of days off to explore and recover.

All and all it's been a good trip I know the boat will take more abuse that we will. Meeting great new friends, look forward to seeing some of them in L.A. and San Diego.



LaVons version: Met some real nice people, partied, shopped and then a miserable trip to Santa Cruz. Saw water out the side windows and don't even have to clean the walkways it was done for us. Boat rolls farther than you think without tipping over so take drugs and sit down.

Road Rash

Well we walked into Berkley and cruised up and down 4th ST (thier shopping district) -ho hum- lots of yuppie shops, kind of like NW 23rd ST in Portland. We walked around town a little and picked up some groceries before heading back to the boat, about 5 to 6 miles round trip. Sunday we walked out the Berkley Pier, about 1/2 to 3/4 mi. long and thats only 1/2 as long as the original wooden pier, the channel is so shallow that they had to build the pier out to deep water (18'to 20') to reach the old sailing ships so they could unload.
Monday we headed to Alameda and stopped at Oakland Y.C. nice people, nice club they share part of their docks with Encinel Y.C. also a nice club and nice members and they have a swimming pool. One of Encinel's members ran me around to several boat yards to look for a chock, no luck, only parts for small boats, Sat. we will go to a swap meet at Ballena Bay Y.C. on the other side of the island, I did find Calif. chart cartridges for my chart plotter at a used parts store, we got our bikes out and rode down 10 blocks to the local shopping center, had our pictures taken to renew our Passports, Wed. we had lunch at the club then we rode across the island to the Post Office at the Mall and mailed our passports in, then we cruised around the residential neighborhoods on our way back to look at some of the beautiful victorian homes and the cute '30's stucco bungalows, 4 1/2 hrs. on a bike will make your butt pucker!!
Thurs. I spent some time on the computer designing cards with our boat and our names on them because we have traded cards with so many people we ran out of the ones we had, then I rode to the other end of the island to an industrial boat yard and they are going to look for a chock for me. When I left they gave me a pen with their name and infomation on so I could call them, as I was riding off I was trying to hold the pen up with one hand and read it and I did not see the speedbump! Opps, over the bars and ROAD RASH! Looks worse than it really is.
Sun. we will be heading out to the Bay and plans are to head out and down the coast on Monday. We'll write more when we get to Half moon Bay.
Irv & LaVon

Berkley

We left Vallejo Fri. AM and pounded our way across San Pablo Bay, 4' chop at about 4 sec. with 25kt to 28kt wind, we took some spray on the windshield as we pounded into some of the swells.

Arrived at Berkley YC about noon, the channel coming into Berkley is about 3/4 mi. long and 7' to 8' deep, that's a little unerving when I draw 4 1/2', one eye on the depthfinder and one eye on the channel markers. I just can't get used to running with 2 1/2' to 3' of water under me.

No one at the club when we arrived so we just tied up, when the club mgr. arrived we checked in and were told that they are having their regular TGIF sailboat races and BBQ tonight and we are welcome to come (just what I need, more food).
Berkley is mostly sailboats and they are friendly but I don't understand the classes, the horns , the cannons, or the flags, but they get a real hoot out of their races. At Vallejo they were preping an 82' ocean racer for a 42 mile race to Angel Island and back, now that was intresting to go through, an owners cabin,a radio room, a galley and 22 bunks, very spartin no frills.
Today we are going to walk into town and explore Berkley.
Thanks to everyone that have left comments we love to hear from you.
Irv & LaVon

More Pictures

I've finaly figured out how to do the pictures, the captions for the pictures are at the bottom of the blog in blue script.

Pig out in Pittsburg

We spent Thurs. and Fri. moving boats and checking out the fire at a nearby park that was started from early fire works, Rich ran us over there on the patio boat and then showed us around the canals with condos that have their own boat slips at each condo. Fri. we had a potluck dinner on the dock and Sat. Ralph did ribs and chicken with more potluck side dishes, then Sun. it was leftovers. I think I'm gaining weight!

Sun. evening the club had what they call First Sunday Jazz, Blues & Broadway, a five piece group and about five or six performers each doing a couple of songs the first set then one song the second set, then all of them alternating on the finale.

Sat. Ralph Tocci introduced us to a marina owner from Alameda and he is going to help locate a replacement chock for our boat when we get to Alameda, we also met a Pittsburg YC member that also belongs to L.A. Yacht Club, her son and mother belong to other Southern California Yacht Clubs, so when we met her in L.A. she will help us get guest berthing in Southern California.

We plan to meet Ralph and his wife in Long Beach in August when they come down for a wedding.

We hated to leave but it was time to move on. We had a good trip down to Vallejo Tues. eve, Wed they had sailboat races, Thurs. we went over to Mare Island Naval Museum, very interesting, we walked around by the old "Officers Homes" they are 8,000 to 10,000 sq ft turn of the century homes, then we toured a WWII gun boat that is being restored.

Fri. AM we will head back down to S.F. Bay probably to Berkley then Treasure Island then on to Alameda.

Back at Pittsburg

I got the toe rail fixed and varnished and LaVon sewed the torn canvas, I dove on the boat and pulled weeds off of the port shaft.

For those of you that are wondering how my garden grows I'll include pictures, my lettuce is doing great, my tomato plant rotted off at the stem, I think I watered it too much.

Check the bottom of the picture and you will see the missing chock and the stripped piece of anchor line that I had to cut out.

Mothball Fleet

Just a couple of pictures of the Mothball Fleet and the Battleship Iowa near Benicia.

My first clue that the wind blows on the delta was the wind generators.