A Couple Days in Morro Bay

We left Half Moon Bay a little bit nervous. But we were rested and well fed. The seas were smaller and there was a nice breeze from the north. We set a west-southwest course to gain some sea room and we all felt much better. None of us was nauseated and we were able to get into a good groove with our watch schedule (three hour shifts during the day, two hours at night). Those who weren't on watch could actually settle in and relax. It was a different experience entirely from two days prior.

The windvane steered beautifully even in light breeze. The swell and wind direction made it easiest to set a course that led us pretty far offshore, but that was welcome. It was more consistent and clear out there with nothing to run in to. Night watches were much more pleasant- the stars are pretty bright 50 nm off the coast. All in all, it was a great sail. We gybed and set a course for Morro Bay (near San Luis Obispo) when we were about 60 nm west of Carmel.

Sunset offshore.

Sheri's no-knead bread. Going to be a staple, I think.

The second day of our passage to Morro Bay brought very light winds and small seas. Thankfully, the engine started cleanly and ran very well for about 20 hours straight. Though noisy, it was a great day. It was warm out and the seas were so small that we could move about and cook very easily. We've managed to bake some honey dinner rolls, some flat bread and a loaf Sheri's no-knead bread since we left Half Moon Bay. We played chess, read books and hung out during that long motor. It was really pretty nice to be able to relax. And sleeping came pretty easy to all of us.

At about 0430 on Monday 1/30/12, we dropped the hook in Morro Bay. When we got up in the morning, we moved the boat to a better spot in the harbor and, after eating and cleaning a bit, we went ashore and wandered around town doing errands. We managed to do some laundry, play some basketball, get some wire for a project and buy groceries. The town of Morro Bay is quiet and incredibly walkable.

On Tuesday morning, Taylor and I went for a surf. We spent the afternoon taking care of some projects (broken toilet gasket, inverter wiring, etc.). I snapped a few pictures of this Brandt's cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) struggling to toss back a flatfish bigger than its face.

Originally we were going to leave Tuesday night, but the forecast is now looking better later in the week. It's looking like we'll depart Thursday morning early enough to take a safe angle and knock out the 50 nm or so to Point Conception before nightfall. From there we'll head for Newport Beach Harbor with a possible stop at Santa Cruz or Catalina Island if needed. We'll spend a few days around Newport hanging out with friends, picking up some parts and maybe finding some surf. Then it's off to Mexico. We'll make a quick stop at Bahia de Tortugas to check in on Jeff's juggernaut cruiser, Elsewhere, and then make haste for Cabo and the warmer waters of the Sea of Cortez.

Amid all the grandeur, humbled again.

As we celebrated the conclusion of our preparations, three days after our first intended departure date, the sun fell to the southwest behind a fog that enshrined the Bridge and surrounding landscape. It was just as we were used to seeing it. The sky was tinted light red- the resemblance of this winter view of home to its typical summer likeness was not lost on us. We sipped beers nestled in s/v Ardea coozies and pondered...

On Thursday we awoke to more summer weather. There was a decent breeze early and fog all over the Bay. Dana managed to finagle some breakfast buffet tickets for himself, his super-employed girlfriend, Robin, Taylor and me, so we ate in style at the Doubletree. The morning went by quickly. Friends and family came down to the docks around noon to see how similar our vessel looked to the Merry Prankster's schoolbus. And to say goodbye of course.

It was emotional for all of us. I already miss my wonderful family and all my dockmates and friends at the marina. Despite the anticipation, all the time and effort, and the excitement for what lay in store, I found myself struggling with the thought of leaving my family for so long. Our trip is open-ended though, and I reminded myself that we meant to include the possibility of shortening it and that we respected the fact that we really don't know how we will feel about cruising sailboats even a month from now. So we take it slow and remain open.

We pushed off around 1300 waving goodbyes and following Eventide who carried some of the incredible people from Berkeley Marina out with Ardea. The fog broke and we had a great sail out to Angel Island. Eventide with a reef in her mainsail was doing laps around Ardea.

After Eventide turned back, we sailed up Raccoon Straights and got a visit from our SFYC friends, Rob and Forrest. They drove alongside and we all joked about the obvious hilarity and excitement regarding three large dudes on one little boat loaded down with everything you could imagine and embarking. Spirits were high, but once they left we didn't have much time to mess around. The Bridge was again covered by a heavy fog bank and the sun was getting pretty low. It would be nearly dark before we made it to Mile Rock and our pleasant afternoon sail was going to get cold pretty quick. Before we hit the fog bank, we were all in foulies and harnessed.

Though visibility wasn't great, we didn't have a problem navigating out to the Ocean. We could see the commercial traffic on our plotter using AIS and we had radar and charts to keep us out of the shipping lanes and away from the rocks. We tacked a narrow beat up the North side of the waterway with the outbound shipping lane to port and the Marin headlands to starboard. The fog dissipated gradually while we made our way West. As it coasted from within the clouds, we gauged our visibility from an incoming tanker's position on the plotter; we could see to about 1 nautical mile. We tacked as the tanker passed to port and headed southwest.

Golden Gate Bridge barely visible.

The seas were rather large- about 15 feet every 15-20 seconds. None of us has ever been seasick, but all of us were close. Nobody wanted to go below. More than a minute or two in the cabin meant growing nausea for Ardea's crew. Internal conflicts plagued us quietly; I waited an inordinate amount of time before getting another layer to combat the cold that settles in with night and the sedentary act of sailing 14,000 pounds of displacement hull. Chittick decided to wait on getting the next chart out. Dana became much less motivated to make coffee. We were all feeling it...

Then the waves got steeper. About 3.5 nm west of Ocean Beach (naturally). It was uncomfortable for a bit. Enough so that we fired up the engine and made a faster and more westerly course. It was a bit disconcerting at the time, but it's all relative.

Night settled and we decided to have two-man watches for the time being. It was our first day- an emotional and exhausting one- and we were still in fairly heavy fog. Dana and I sat the first watch. We sat silently in the cockpit for a long time, each of us living in our own heads. There was a lot to process. And our bones shook.

Chittick had been sleeping on and off for about 2.5 hours of his 3 hour break when Dana and I checked the plotter and saw a chance for respite. We were about 10 nm offshore at that point and while the waves weren't nearly as steep, the wind from the southwest was blowing strong enough that we put two reefs in the main and it was a bumpy ride. We were hungry but couldn't eat and tired but couldn't sleep. It didn't take long before we decided to gybe and aim for Half Moon Bay. I said, in a quiet monotone that perhaps only the combination of lingering near-sickness and freezing cold can generate, “just thinking about it makes me happy- we should go.” We figured at 1930 that we could be at anchor by 2130, make some dinner and get a good night's sleep. It sounded real nice.

Pretty soon, Chittick was back on watch and I went below to try to catch a snooze and get warm before we got to Pillar Point Harbor. The rest did me well, though I didn't sleep. Eventually, after encountering an uncharted buoy, Chittick and Dana were on edge. When I got my foulies back on and went topside, I understood why. The fog was thick and the wind was getting lighter. We could see well enough and the approach was simple and well marked, so we decided to press on in the fog. With all three of us on watch, we kept a sharp eye. The seas had dissipated significantly as forecast; we wouldn't have made the approach had they been anywhere near what we had on the way out.

As we got to about 3 nm out and well lined up for the approach, we decided to fire up the Perkins. As usual, it fired up just fine. Then it quit. We turned it over and over and it wouldn't fire again. We couldn't determine what the issue was and we didn't want to run our batteries out cranking it. We figured the engine might be flooded after so much cranking and choking anyway, so we let it rest. The wind was still decent.

About 1 nm from the harbor entrance, the wind dissipated. By now it was about 2100. The swell was still small and periodical gusts kept us making a bit of progress, so we pressed on. We readied the anchor; if we stopped making headway, we could anchor there at a depth of 40 feet or so and wait for Vessel Assist. Eventually, we hailed Vessel Assist and had them on standby to give us a tow into the harbor. Needless to say, the engine still wasn't firing. But when I was talking to Vessel Assist, the harbor patrol at Pillar Point Harbor broke in and advised we keep on sailing. We switched to a side channel on the VHF and he assured us the approach was wide and that we could drop anchor at any point on the way and be fine. So we sailed on, checking in with the Harbor Patrol regularly for the last hour or so.

All in all, it took us about three hours to cover that last mile. At one point, I was on the bow with an oar so that we could maneuver better. Chittick was cursing the 2 knots of breeze that came and went. Dana was trying to work the jib enough to get the boat to tack- even that little swell makes it tough to tack in this boat when you haven't got much momentum. But we made it in and dropped the anchor and were overcome with a sense of relief. Even without an engine, we navigated safely and were prepared for the situation. And we were rewarded for getting on the VHF early, as the guidance and local knowledge of our friend at Pillar Point Marina saved us paying for a tow.

Deeply, deeply exhausted, we ate a small, mediocre meal cooked in a receptacle some of us believe to be a cooking pot and others believe to be a mere metallic storage container. We passed out with some sense of accomplishment, even though we only made it a few miles south of San Francisco.

Easy to understand what's going on when it's a clear day at HMB.

We all awoke slowly Friday morning. The weather was beautiful, but I for one was not excited to find out whether or not Ardea's engine was destroyed. After a good breakfast and two or three hours of tinkering, we got her started up. We had air in the fuel line and due to all of our impatient cranking, we had to bleed the whole system, from the injectors to the secondary fuel pump. It was a pain in the ass, but when it finally fired up, we were all screaming with joy. We suspect the air got into the line through a poorly seated gasket on one of the filters or a loose hose clamp on the fuel line. We had replaced all the filters and the fuel line itself a week or so before leaving. So, we re-checked and re-tightened at all of those spots in the hopes of avoiding the situation in the future.

It's been ups and downs, literally and figuratively, but the first 24 hours of our trip were good for all of us. Though humbled, we're proud of the way we handled the situation and certainly can't complain about an opportunity to learn more about diesel engines. Lessons safely learned, spirits are high again. We spent Friday night relaxing in Half Moon Bay and pushed off again in the morning, this time with smaller seas and a 10-20 knot northerly. After all, it's adventure we wanted...

Bon Voyage

we love you all. thank you for the support. see you soon, wherever it is

Ardea gains some much needed storage

Sorry for the delay, we've been busy with final preparations and I know that you all have been patiently waiting for my first blog post.  It seems that everything is going well as we prepare to embark except for the weather. The unnaturally warm weather that we've had for the last few months may be finally giving way to our first storm;,which is supposed to arrive tomorrow and last through the weekend. Departure may be delayed for a couple days but we're still shooting for this coming Sunday if possible. As our projects finally wrap up we can hopefully get some more blog posts up before we take off.


One of the many obstacles in sailing across an ocean with three people on a 31 foot boat is storage. We all have our own personal luggage and lots of toys (surf boards, kite boards, instruments, fishing and diving gear, etc.) not to mention the important stuff such as food, water, tools, spare parts and the dozens of other things necessary for such a journey. To fit all of this stuff on the boat it was clear that every inch of open space would need to be utilized. Somehow, I was haphazardly chosen as the resident carpenter on Ardea. While Connor was pretending to work at his job in Oakland I was assigned my first major project: to build a set of shelves in the starboard lazarette (the space below the cockpit on the right side of the boat). It is a large space but initially there was only a small, flimsy set of plastic shelves that were unable to hold much of anything aside from the few quarts of oil you see there in the background of the picture to the right. 

The plastic shelves were promptly removed and it was time to start designing some sort of shelves that would fill up the space but would not be so big as to block the access to the engine or the boat's batteries and wiring system. The problem with building anything below deck on the boat is that we did not want to attach anything to the hull. That would create an unnecessary pressure point that after many thousands of miles of pounding at sea could eventually lead to a weakness in the hull. This meant that everything for the shelves would need to be attached to the deck or the cockpit framing.

I decided that two tiers of shelves would be the most useful, with the top layer being removable to provide easy access to both levels from the cockpit. After many measurements,  I was able to create a couple of square braces that would support two layers of shelving and that could be screwed into the deck joists on the top and the cockpit on the side. The bottom shelf could be made permanent and so it was screwed into the bottom of the braces and into a wood frame which was supporting the fuel tank underneath the cockpit. 




To create the top shelves it was simply a matter of cutting our redwood boards to the correct length and fitting them onto the braces. In actuality, all of this was quite difficult due to the cramped space we were working in and the nature of constructing anything on a boat, which seems to involve a lot of trial and error and a lot of time.

The next area needing some shelving was the far aft quarter; where we figured that we could possibly fit 6 jerry cans for water. We had considered ditching the shelves and using water bladders instead but again, we didn't want to put the weight on the hull and we would have had to build some braces anyway to stop them from sliding into the bilge. Once again we wanted to attach everything from above especially since these shelves would be holding nearly 250 pounds of water when full. Thanks to Connor's impressive dumpster diving skills we were able to locate an old stainless steel pulpit from which we removed two of the stanchions to act as supports for our aft joist. We attached the stanchions to the underside of the deck and bolted them in place with a stainless backing plate on the top side of the deck (we used the stainless steel triangles seen in the picture to the right as backing plates).


We drilled some holes in the bottom of the stanchions and bolted on a pressure treated 2x4 for a joist. the other joist was screwed in to the backside of the cockpit and we used up the rest of our redwood for shelving. Everything turned out better than we had hoped and we were able to easily fit the 6 jerry cans- an extra 30 gallons of freshwater storage.

As Connor mentioned we were also able to rig up a rain catchment system for the starboard jerry cans that will allow us to manually pump rainwater directly to our faucet (we'll have more on that in another post). 

In the meantime we also threw in another set of small shelves in the bilge which can be accessed underneath the floor in the cabin.  However, an errant design flaw left the shelves only tall enough for your standard can of food and a just a little too short for can of beer. Further modifications may be needed.

We're all getting very excited as the departure date nears, more blog posts should be up soon so stay tuned. In the mean time, we'll be organizing all of our stuff... a bit daunting (see below). 

At Least It Broke Now (and other misadventures...)

There certainly seems to be some Murphy's law in action these days. In spite of it, the crew is incredibly positive and jubilant. One result of the combination of unfortunate unfoldings and steadfast optimism when preparing for a sailing trip is that you begin to imagine what would have happened if these little annoying things had occurred in a remote place... it helps keep it all from getting to you. But anyway, our (and, in some cases, just my) tribulations of late:

One manual faucet: broken. Just before giving us our first splash of saltwater... well, so it goes. This was certainly an "at least it broke now" moment. Already got a new one (and a spare).

One wallet, lost. Probably in the water whilst sailing with family, which was a glorious way to celebrate my Dad's 56th....errrr uh, 59th?... wait, 52nd birthday.

See? Optimism.

One coastal low pressure system: imminent. It's coming from the northwest and will probably push us back a few days. But that's ok because there's a nice high pressure system moving in on SoCal and I think the low will brush on through pretty quick.

One tooth: painful. It happens to lie in my mouth, so to the dentist I will go yet again for a root canal tomorrow afternoon. Does that suck? Yes. Did I have any dental issues before going to the dentist in an effort to preempt problems ahead of this trip? No. Will this delay our departure? Probably not given the aforementioned low.

Lots of optimism.

Really though- Ardea is looking great. We've serviced the engine and are nearly finished stocking spare parts. We've got loads of errands to run to get our living quarters and galley suitable for the three of us, but we're in great shape, we're feeling good about our vessel and we're having fun. Really can't complain too much.

Get ready for Dana's first post coming right up manana. I'll put one up after that about our awesome new water system! In fact, since it's going to be rainy for a few days, we might finally catch up on all of our blogging (in between sewing drogue cones, of course).


Very Excited to be Writing from Mexico,

Connor

Funemployment Begins

Friends,

Apologies, apologies. I know it's been a while since we've posted, and you'd think we'd be better bloggers while the interweb is still easily accessible, but I assure you the mean time wasn't wasted. We have been hard at work. Part of our hesitation to post is that I can't seem to find my camera's usb chord, so  I haven't got many photos for this post- I'll add more photos soon...

Finally, we're all working on the boat full time. My last day at URS was last Friday, though I had basically passed off all my projects by the end of December, so my last week consisted primarily of cleaning out my desk and drinking beers with co-workers. Needless to say, I am really looking forward to adjusting away from the 40 hour work week and cubicle lifestyle, though I will miss the friends I made at the ol' office...

A few big milestones have been reached since the New Year. We now have both solar panels installed and operational. We're waiting on a few parts that we ordered to complete our system for articulating the panels so that they can be positioned at the optimal angle, but other than that, the set-up is complete.

As you can see, they're fairly gigantic, but they should be able to keep up with our power usage. The concern with mounting them on the side rails like that is that they'll take will without doubt be splashed repeatedly and may take a fairly decent pounding from a wave now and again. They're designed for the marine environment though, so the water should be locked out well (I might take some sealant, or smacky, as Dana calls it, and put another bead around the junction box for overkill...) and we stabilized the rails with another stanchion on each side, so hopefully the whole getup is strong enough. Once we have the parts installed and I can take some more photos, I'll write a post with our energy budget (how we sized the panels) and the process of installing and wiring it all.

Aside from the solar panels, we now have a great shelf system in the far aft compartment. We refer to this area as the 'aft quarter' which is where the captain's cabin might be in a larger vessel- the spot with the beautiful windows on the transom and plenty of headroom in your typical pirate ship. This is really only because we cherish any 'piraty' qualities of any boat (old pirates with swords and cannons, not the 21st century buttholes with AK-47s and RPGs) since you can barely contort a body into this area of little Ardea. Before, it was all dead space. But with some clever maneuvers, we managed to get an awesome shelf installed. We were able to fit six jerry cans in there with room to spare. More on that in a future post from Dana, our resident carpenter.

Once we got those jerry cans secured in the aft quarter, we really started to get big eyes. We did some brainstorming and devised a way to catch rainwater and feed it directly to three of those cans (though we could expand to more cans later). Then, we ran tubing from the bottom of those jerry cans to the galley and installed a bronze y-valve under the galley sink. Now, we can select rainwater or salt water to be pumped through our newly installed manual faucet. For the saltwater, we plumbed the system to the intake at the head using essentially a garden hose splitter. We weren't sure if having the toilet and the faucet pulling from the same seacock would effect the water pressure at either, so we wanted to be able to turn them on or off independently. It worked out quite nicely. This will allow us to avoid using our electric water pump whenever we've got fresh water in our jerry cans and it will allow us to do much of our cooking and cleaning with saltwater. We're all starting to feel pretty good about Ardea's water capacity, now 108 gallons.

Aside from these bigger projects, we've knocked off a lot of little things. We finally built a hinge for the top of the propane housing, replaced the shieves (rollers that allow lines to make a 180 degree turn with little friction) in the booms and masts and installed our EPIRB and MOB strobe in the cockpit. We installed a boom vang on the main mast, got all of the reefing lines situated and run aft, and got the old Perkins checked out by a mechanic (no problems there!).

We're in a bit of a frenzy as our window for ordering parts, etc. is closing rapidly. I think we've got it all figured out though. We're putting in our order for paper charts today. Other than that, we've got to stock spares, wrap up these last few projects, and clean Ardea up for her journey. Though there may be a system coming in middle of next week, we're hoping the weather will be fit for our departure on Sunday the 22nd of January.