The Concert in Santa Cruz

Nov 12: Cockle-doodle-doo! That's the alarm our phone sounds, ad nauseum! It's 0430 and time for all hands to get up and going, drain a couple cups of coffee, turn on navigation systems, running lights, VHF radio, depth sounder, and radar. Anchor up and underway in the dark at 0523. At 0551 we get a bit of a sprinkle, hopefully not an indication of more to come. 0646 brought the official sunrise, even though we could see a bit during the dawn. Overcast but no fog, winds less than 5 knots and we're heading 150 magnetic. About an hour later, hoisted Staysail, Main and Mizzen sails with promising 13-15 knot breezes. Unfortunately that lasted only 10 minutes, so motor remains our primary propulsion. At 1000, the Jib went up and Staysail came down. Jib needed some airing out/exercise, since we hadn't deployed it for more than a year (up in Port Angeles, WA). The wind started blowing steady and engine was shut down at 1143. We're actually SAILING! We made fairly good speed (5.5 – 5.8 knots) and were thrilled with the quiet tranquility a lack of engine noise provides. Unfortunately, all good things must take a break, and we needed to run the last 6 miles to Santa Cruze under power, so engine started at 1425. We arrived at the sea-lion-infested Santa Cruz Warf anchorage area and drove around a bit to scout out an appropriate spot to drop anchor, passing a 25 foot sailboat that had apparently been boarded by pirate-sea-lions in the absence of its human owner. Finally dropped anchor 1630. With sun scheduled to set in 30 minutes, got all sails and halyards stowed appropriately, and toasted to the sun set.

Nov 13: Sunny morning, rough, rolly, noisy night. Hal was up at midnight, 0200, 0400, 0430 (forgot to turn off previously set alarm!), 0600 and 0715 to start new day. By 1005 this morning, successfully swapped out fresh water system pump. This was necessitated when we found out after anchoring last night, that no water was coming out of our faucets. Initial troubleshooting indicated the pump to be defective (somehow). Anyway, the “fun” started about 0800 this morning, as the spare pump was, yes, at the bottom of a large pile of stuff in the bow. Something like needing a large book second from the bottom of a tall stack of very much larger books. So the process began, and 45 minutes later, the pump was located. Now the ever-present “bend-over” work began. Old pump had to be extricated, spare put in, including electrical wiring, and tested. Luckily, it worked fine. One more large project to go (get the waste water overboard pump system working). That's partly the reason we pumped out (and cleaned inside of holding tank) back at Half Moon Bay. We decided to leave everything where it was, drop dink into the water, motor it up, hop in and drive over to Santa Cruz Harbor proper. They had shut down dinghy access to the Warf for the season...bummer. Once there, we found a place to dump our trash, then made our way over to Aldo's eatery in time for lunch. Afterwards, we strolled out to the Harbor Lighthouse, noting all the Pelicans sleeping on dredging machinery. Headed back to Shakedown. Stripped dink and hauled it back aboard. Really didn't want a pile of sea lions playing house in it during the night. Then we went througn the process of putting everything back that we had pulled out this morning. 1610-Started GENSET for the express purpose of turning on the water heater for showers. 1800-shut down GENSET. 1825-restarted GENSET because I needed to charge the batteries after having forgotten to turn of the water heater circuit breaker which was sucking all the juice out of our house batteries through the inverter! Bozo learns (relearns, actually) a lesson. 1907-GENSET off. Dinner,a movie, and continuous concert from under the Warf, lasting well into the night (actually all night long) presented by the very vocal and mostly off-key mamals that lurk under the Warf.

Nov 14: 0645 GENSET on to charge batteries. Potential issue bubbling up here....batteries won't hold charge as long as they used to (almost six years old). Gotta look into this. Genset off at 0800. Turned on nav/comms gear and noted that depth gauge was showing 3 ft under the keel! Knowing we hadn't moved from 24 foot depth, and witnessing a wild flurry of marine activity completely surround Shakedown, realized the anchovie ball was directly beneath us, thus causing the depth guage reading. In the midst of the melee, brought anchor up at 0835, catching a total of five anchovies in the process. They were stuck in the chain links! As the chain was brought aboard, the fish were released (shoved out of the links) and thrown overboard to carry on. Unfortunately for these guys, seagulls were right there to devour them. We very gently floated out of the marine life as sea lions, seals, pelicans and too many birds to mention moved out of our way. After clearing end of the Warf, we were officially underway once again, trying to get across Monterey Bay before a forecasted small-craft warning went into effect. Since it was extremely foggy and windless, we went fairly slowly as our radar showed contacts ahead. Turns out, lots of folks were out fishing...go figure. As the fog started lifting, we got about one-quarter mile visibility, which helped spot the fishermen. At 0940 we snagged a crab pot line. Immediately threw motor into neutral to stop propeller from potentially wrapping line around it. As we floated, went forward to grab boat hook. By the time I got back aft to untangle the line, it had dropped of and great big fat sighs of relief were issued in perfect harmony!! Off we went, sighting a whale at 1049 and a couple more about an hour later. We believe first may have been Humpback and the others, a small pod of Orca. Mizzen sail had to be raised to provide wind brake from the irregular rollers trying to keep us off course. We finally got through it all and docked at Breakwater Cove, Monterey at 1600. Checked in with the office, got a key to restrooms and gates, and decided to walk into town looking for Nob Hill grocery store. Got to Cannery Row street and followed it a bit, asking/receiving directions to the store. Decided to head up the hill to Lighthouse Street (where store was ostensibly located) and continued walking past a long line of small eateries and bars. We found a CVS Pharmacy and decided to purchase some “emergency” supplies there and head back to the boat. So with a frozen pizza, can of yoghurt and a quantity of beer, we enjoyed the evening on the boat. Took no pictures today, just wanted to get here and settled in. We plan to be here until Monday morning, when weather should be more to our liking.