Oxnard To San Diego

We left Oxnard at dawn and headed to Santa Catalina Island.  We were planning to get a nice 10 hour sail and arrive just before dark, but there was almost no wind.  We once again motored the entire way.  At least this time, the sun was out and it was fairly calm seas.  Little did we know at the time that the approaching weekend was scheduled as Cruisers Weekend at Catalina.  This is an entire weekend of parties and seminars (yes they do go together) organized by Latitudes and Attitudes magazine.

Approaching Catalina

Our Anchorage

Moonrise

The dinghy dock was popular before the party

We ended up staying here for five nights because the anchorage was so pleasant and the weather warm and sunny.  We could see from our boat that mainland southern California was completely fogged in, and we wanted no part of that.  Cathy got a chance to try out her new kayak in the amazingly clear water of Two Harbors.

View from our cockpit

We even splurged and had dinner in the very nice restaurant on shore.  It was hard to leave this place, but we had to get to San Diego soon, so we left for Dana Point harbor on Monday morning 10/17 and motored for about six hours in dense fog.  Dana Point has a very nice new pizza place that was perfect for two tired sailors who did not want to cook.  Of course, the best thing about any of these marinas is that nice hot shower!  From Dana Point, we took a short 4 hour hop down to Oceanside to set up our final leg to San Diego.  We left Oceanside at 4 am in dense, wet fog, and ran on instruments for the 7 hour trip to San Diego.  Along the way, we encountered amazing biolumenescence lighting our wake.  Several dolphins came at us out of the dark leaving bright light trails in the water as they circled the boat.  This was absolutely amazing.  Once the sun came up, a large radar blip showed up right in front of us, and it turned out to be a pod of grey whales.  One of them came up right under the boat, just missing us, and blew 5 feet off the back of the boat.  This one was at least 50 feet long.  It's a good thing Rich was harnessed in because the sound made him jump nearly off the boat!  After dodging fishing boats, kelp, and several military ships, we finally made it to our slip in Cabrillo Isle Marina where we were welcomed by the two dozen other Ha Ha boats on the same dock.  We rented a car with our friends on The Island catamaran, Paddy and Diane Malone, and drove back and forth accross the city all day long picking up supplies on Friday.  We are currently doing all the frantic last minute stuff before we set sail with the other 174 boats Monday morning.  The first leg of the trip to Turtle Bay will take three days at sea.  This will be our longest passage so far, but we are looking forward to the challenge (sort of ).  We hope to be able to update our blog again once we get to Cabo San Lucas and have slept for an entire day.