Category: Uncategorized

There’s much more than meets the eye in California’s Cannery Row in Monterey. Famed author, John Steinbeck tried to capture its very essence in his infamous novel Cannery Row long before anyone knew of its magic and intense history. In the 1950’s – 1960’s the sardines that were once plentiful and kept the canneries in business closed due to over fishing. The long gone canneries were now turning into high-end restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops.

Monterey Bay Aquarium was built at the site of a defunct sardine cannery in 1984 and has been recognized for its architectural achievements. Along with its architecture, the aquarium has won numerous awards for its exhibition of marine ocean conservation efforts, and educational programs. The aquarium is home to playful sea otters, fast-swimming sharks, pulsating jellies and waddling penguins. The exhibits are world-class and the scenery is breathtaking with over 200 exhibits situated right on the ocean.

The City of Monterey has impressive coastal bike trails to make it easy to get around. When it’s necessary to travel on a busy street there are well marked bike lanes. I’m still getting use to riding my bike in traffic.

Our friend, Lorraine Silva, drove over from San Jose to visit us while we were here. It was so fun to see a familar face. We had a nice lunch at “A Taste of Montery Wine Bar & Bistro” with a great table next to the window where we could watch the sealife and catch up with Lorraine since we haven’t seen her for years.

We just topped off our diesel tank and now we are leaving Breakwater Cove Marina to head out into the ocean and sail towards San Simeon. This will be our first overnight passage with just the two of us. The winds look favorable so we’re hoping for an easy passage.

We left Santa Cruz this morning and sailed 20+ miles across Monterey Bay to the city of Monterey. The seas were calm and the winds were light. The wind in the sails was peaceful as we passed numerous hump back whales and seals. Monterey Bay is a marine sanctuary with a rich marine food chain. We saw thousands of sea lions barking at us from the shores and breakwaters when we arrived. Little otters were swimming on their back while munching on clam shells while sea gulls were trying to steal the clams.

There are 60 juvenile great white sharks that have made this bay their home. As a result, the sea lions (shark food) have moved to the shores of the bay for protection from these preditors. They sound like thousands of dogs barking. It’s so loud! We are glad we are at the marina down the road. We had reservations at the municipal dock where all the sea lions are hanging out but when we arrived there was 20+ knot winds and we were having a difficult time manuevering into the tight slip they gave us. There were two large fishing boats on either side of the assigned slip and they wanted us to pull in the middle between the two. With the strong winds coming from the side this was becoming very difficult. When plans don’t seem to be working and you find yourself getting stressed, the best solution is to abort your plan. That’s what we did and contacted the Breakwater Cove Marina down the bay and they had a place for us. The wind was howling and they put us on a linear dock so it would be easier to tie up and sent someone out to help us dock. So nice of them! We will be here for about 3 days while we watch the weather. Our next leg is a longer one with an overnight passage to San Simeon so we want to wait for a good weather window since we don’t have crew on this overnight passage.

Today we rode our bikes to the Raymarine Service Center and they are shipping our broken raydome to the East Coast for repair. Once its repaired, it will be shipped back to the West Coast and will be available for us to pick it up in San Diego (hope we are still there).

When checking the boat before departure today we noticed a small tear in the tack section of the main sail. Since it tore in a critical area we decided it was best to talk to the experts at Ullman Sails. They were very helpful and knew we were traveling down the coast and said they would fix our sail right away if we brought it to them. Hmm. How do we do that on a bike? Kevin and I first had to get the main sail off the mast of an in-mast furler. The sail is about 53′ x 12′ and we have to flake it onto the boat deck. We felt like it was going to take a magician to accomplish this. Will we be able to fit it into the sail bag? Done! Kevin had planned to cobble together back pack straps for the giant sail bag so he could put it on his back and ride to the sail repair shop a few miles away. See Kevin walking down the dock in the picture above. We were both laughing so hard! Then poof . . . a guy named Josh Pearlman appeared. Josh owns the Down Under Dive Service here in the harbor and he must have been watching us in amusement. He couldn’t have come at a better time. He drove Kevin and the sail to the sail repair shop and drove him back when the sail was ready. He also sold us a couple sets of zincs for the boat. The sizes we needed that he didn’t have in stock he ordered and we will pick those up in Monterey . (Note: zinc anodes (zincs) are placed on hulls, propeller shafts, rudders, and in the cooling system of most inboard engines to protect their metal parts from galvanic corrosion). The plan tomorrow is to leave early and sail to Monterey.

After leaving Half Moon Bay the ocean was calm and we saw several hump back whales as we were motoring. There was little to no wind to sail. Later on we saw 10 knots of wind behind us so we put up our sails. 10 knots became 14 knots, then 18 and by the time we got to Santa Cruz it was 20+ with huge swells. We entered the harbor in the surf. This was the first time we had experienced “riding the waves”. This sounds like something we are going to have to get use to as we enter harbors from the ocean. Thank goodness we had reached our destination. At one point when I (Bev) was at the helm the waves hit the rudders with such force I couldn’t hang onto the wheel and the huge waves spun the boat around. We motored into the harbor and reserved a slip for 3 days. Needless to say, I was glad to be done sailing for the day. Out came the bikes and we were off to explore. When entering the harbor we could hear screams from people on the roller coaster at the boardwalk so we headed in that direction. These theme park rides are a great way to prepare yourself for sailing in the ocean! Low pressure is moving into the area tomorrow and the locals are complaining it may rain. It’s funny because being from Seattle it won’t keep us from having fun 🙂 We will leave on Monday after Kevin meets with the repair people at Raymarine Electronics about the broken raydome.

We pulled up anchor yesterday and sailed under the San Francisco bridge back out into the Pacific Ocean. We had 11 great days of sailing and being tourists in SF. We headed 25 miles down the coast to Half Moon Bay which was a one night stop-over as we proceed to Santa Cruz. Kevin needs to deal with the broken raydome and there is a large Raymarine service center located there. When we arrived at Half Moon Bay we were greeted by thousands of pelicans and barking sea lions. Needless to say, the pier smelled awful! There must be a lot of fish in this bay and that’s why it attracts so many pelicans and sea lions. This is a fishing town so you could buy fresh fish right off the boats. There was a brewery near the dock so we had a beer, talked to some local folks, and rode our dinghy back to the boat and made dinner. We pulled up our anchor this morning in the dark fog to started our 46 mile sail to Santa Cruz. I’m looking forward to heading South to get some warmer weather. Fall is definitely here in Northern California.

We pulled out of the bay at Treasure Island because of high winds as our boat was rocking and spinning. We knew it was blowing fiercely out in the bay but we wanted to sail. We let as little sail out as possible to avoid over-powering the boat. We found ourselves in 27 knot winds screaming across the bay. Good thing there were only a few boats out today. We were tacking back and forth through the bay to work our way upwind around Alcatraz to get to Aquatic Park Cove at Pier 39 in the touristy part of San Francisco. Once inside the cove we anchored. The cove is shallow (approx 15′ when we arrived) and we have a deep keel boat (7.5′ draft) so we need to watch the tide. Once the anchor was set it was time for dinner that included fresh baked sour dough bread from Boudin’s Bakery.

In the heart of Fisherman’s Wharf is scenic Aquatic Park Cove managed by the parks department. They allow a maximum of 15 boats to anchor with a permit. We were lucky to secure a permit for a few days. It is sheltered from SF Bay and is home to the Dolphin Swim Club. We had to watch carefully for swimmers as we maneuvered and anchored in the cove. Swimmers are most likely practicing for the Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim. Yikes! We spotted a sandy beach where we could go ashore and lock up our dinghy while we walked to the grocery store. We saw another dinghy with wheels coming out of the water up onto the sandy beach. Our wheels are still in a box in the aft cabin (soon to be installed). I’ll post a video once we get to Mexico and start using the dinghy wheels to get us out of the surf and onto the beach from our boat.

It seemed strange to look out the cabin windows this morning and see swimmers swimming past our boat and not far behind them were seals. The swimmers must be use to sharing the cove with them since no one seemed bothered by the big critters. The North side of the cove is the SF Maritime National Historical Park. They have an impressive display of tall ships the public can tour. This is a great anchorage if you want easy access to the city.

We moved to Clipper Cove on Treasure Island which is only a stones throw out in the San Francisco Bay. It’s an interesting man-made island that is near a big metropolitan city with the SF Bay Bridge running through the middle but the island itself is not developed. It was built with rocks and mud in 1939 with plans to host an Expo celebrating the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, WWII broke out and the island was immediately taken over by the Navy to support the war. There are now development plans in place for 8,000 new homes, hotels, 400 slip marina, restaurants, art exhibits, retail stores and parks. Glad we got to hike around the island before this happens. There is a small sailing school on the beach that is using our boat as their mark to sail around. Its fun watching the kids learn to sail these small boats in the gusty wind.

Alcatraz, even though its a mile and a half from San Francisco and visible from everywhere in the bay, its a very remote place. Prisoners could here the sounds of the city, especially New Year’s Eve parties, but it was completely out of reach for them. There were bleak solitary confinement cells to prison tended gardens. It closed in 1963 and is now a National park. There are thousands of visitors each day to the rock.

The hot weather streak has left us and the typical foggy San Francisco Bay weather has returned. Time to head South.

Space on a boat is really challenging especially when it comes to storing bikes. It was important to have some type of transportation to get groceries and supplies when in port. We found these bikes at the Annapolis Boat Show. They are small but they fold up and are stored in a zipper bag that we can put in an aft locker on the boat. We learned very quickly that you can’t buy a lot of groceries when riding a bike. We were amazed at how fast these bikes zoomed along. Today we loaded our backpacks with groceries and rode back to the marina after a visit to Mollie Stone’s Market. The store had a beautiful living wall outside the entrance.