After a quick two night passage from San Francisco Bay we’re in Santa Barbara this morning. And we’ve finally found warm weather (Yippee)! The passage was boring, as we waited for a trough of low pressure to pass through and ended up with not enough wind to sail. Listening to the motor for two and a half days was painful, particularly since we burn well over a gallon an hour of fuel. But as usual, the rewards are worth it.
Sausalito was a nice stop. We were at the dock for two days getting some rigging work done on the boat and some folks from our cruising club in Seattle saw our boat and came to tell us about some mooring buoys in the bay. Richardson Bay in front of Sausalito is very shallow, unless you’re anchored well out at the opening of it, which is really windy and bouncy. But there are three mooring buoys deep in the bay but right off the channel with 12′ of water under them, and they’re free for the first three days and $5 a day after that. Definitely in our price range. We grabbed one as soon as our riggers left and stayed on it until we left San Francisco Bay.
Brittney came down and we had to figure out how to get to the airport and pick her up. We ended up taking a ferry to San Francisco and BART (their rapid transit) to the airport. She stayed three days and we had lots of fun hanging out with her.
On Friday we went into the city and did the tourist thing. We found a dim sum spot that even the teenager thought was fabulous(when it’s packed and there are only six non-Asian people in the building you know it’s good). Saturday we took the bus and BART again and got her back to the airport.
Then we pretty much hung out for another week. One day Rob rented a car to go to a chandlery in Alameda to get another jib track (still unfinished work from the refit) and we did some Costco and shopping things. After that we were waiting for a good weather window to head south again. Our buoy was in front of the Sausalito Cruising Club, run by really nice folks who welcome cruisers on their way south.
Now we’re finally in the land of palm trees and warm sunny beaches! We’ll do some boat chores here and probably stay 4 or 5 days. Then we’re heading down to Catalina Island to meet up with T2 (Teresa Lennstrom), who is coming down for a couple of days!
Today on Yohelah we’re warm and dry and enjoying the sunny weather we’ve finally found……
