Charelston to Ventura

Sunday, September 4, 2016 - Labor Day Weekend

The Grib file looks satisfactory, so we are putting last minute provisions on Summer Place.  We are messaging our plans to work, church, and friends, and calling family.  Sometimes you have to put your responsibilities on hold and just take a leap of faith.  This is the first step to a very long awaited journey. 

Departing Charleston at 10 AM, it is a beautiful day.  The sun is shining and there is a mild breeze out of the northwest.  Brad and I will take shifts in the cockpit.  Brad will take from 20:00 to 01:00 and I am on from 01:00 to 06:00.

Out in the ocean we set the sails and turn off the engine.  The wind is picking up gradually.  The sails are held out to port.  The genoa is held with the whisker pole and the main is secured by the preventer. Before dusk we bring in the main to the second reef. 

Visibility is good as the sun sets on the horizon.  The lights in the cabin and on the instruments are switched to red and dimmed for better night vision.  The radar is running. When I emerge from the cabin for my watch, the Big Dipper is framed perfectly in the companionway.  The stars are bright and guide us as we make way through the first night.  The wind is consistently 20 knots now giving us a steady SOG at 7 knots.  There is just one AIS target about 3 miles off the port.  It is a cargo ship illuminated by lights. 

Monday morning, the wind is picking up, 25-30 knots.  Swells are steep from the stern.  From my vantage point they look taller than the life lines. There is a bit of rocking from side to side.  Sitting on the sole after I fly across the boat from the galley to the navigation  station (about six feet), I consider the bruises that will soon come and remind myself to always stay braced when under way.

Monday night the wind diminishes to 15 knots for a while.  As morning approaches the wind has picked up to 30 knots and our SOG is greater than 10.  It feels like we are flying.  I rouse Brad on deck to help manage the genoas’ 3 sheets and furling line.  It’s time to lessen our sail. 

The sea is rough all day.  The wind is aft requiring us to adjust coarse a bit to keep from back winding the mainsail.  The preventer is keeping us from an accidental jibe. 

It is overcast with a distant fog bank all around.  The solar panels haven’t kept the batteries charged so we run the generator for a while.   Brad reports seeing a Carnival Cruise Ship and a Cargo Vessel on his watch.  All I see are waves with whitecaps which I imagine to be all sorts of things, including a submarine.  

Before the sun sets, which is not visible, we bring in the Genoa to the 2^nd reef and put the main away.  This arrangement allows us to manage the sail from the cockpit overnight if necessary.  The wind has backed off to 22 knots.  We have traveled 300 miles and have just 400 more to go!

I Wake up that third night to the sound of wind and waves and the creaking of the boat.  I assist Brad as we put away the little bit of genoa that was still exposed.  Our three day sail down the coast is over and we are now a motor boat, at least for the next 7 hours. 

Over the course of the morning shift, the wind diminishes from 35 to 20 knots.  The sea is still rough.  There is sunshine with clear skies.   We spot a pod of whales feeding off the coast of San Francisco.  407 miles logged now. 

The wind is starting to die off as we turn east with the lay of the land.  The sails are flogging, so time to become a motorboat again.  A pleasant day turns to night with 6-15 knots on the bow.  The fog has come in so we are relying on the radar.  Not much contact until early morning when two targets appear on the AIS.  The first target is about 2 miles off, going our speed.  We never see it with our eyes.  It turns out to be a 42 ft. sailboat.  The second target is approaching faster at 19 knots and will be closer.  As AIS information becomes available, we know the second target is a Cargo Vessel.  We turn to port and hail the vessel to make them aware of our position and find out their intensions.  After they pass, we turn back to coarse.

Day breaks Thursday morning to overcast skies.  By mid-day it is a warm 83 degrees in the cockpit with the canvas open.  We have 3 knots of breeze and the water is like old glass, smooth and wavy.

The further south we travel the more marine life we observe.  On my watch I slowed the engine as a pod of feeding orcas come close to the vessel.  We see dolphins jumping and splashing.

On the fifth and last night at sea, we are approaching the off shore oil rigs.  When I awake for my watch, we are between the brightly lit rigs mostly to the port and cargo ships in the channel on the starboard.

We approach Ventura at 10 A.M. Friday morning.  This leg of our journey is complete.  It has been 120 hours of continuous sailing and motoring.  Summer Place will stay docked at Ventura Isle Marina until mid October when it is time to continue our voyage south.