A few fathoms beneath the moon.

We left Newport Beach at about 1300 on Tuesday February 14 under partly cloudy skies. It seemed a nice afternoon and we were admittedly excited to get back to sailing. Even the Saturday prior we felt that we had been in port too long, so when our attempt to leave that day ended back at the dock with a continually vexing alternator, we were a bit disappointed. Our spirits had been lifted then by what we saw as a symbolic visit by a great blue heron (the namesake of our vessel), who landed on the dock only a few feet from Ardea shortly after we re-arrived.

Passing the time in glassy seas nearing Newport Beach.

On Monday, while a weak low pressure system tumbled down the coast bringing gale force winds to the greater Los Angeles area, we sat at the dock perplexed. After having given in to the alternator when our attempts to fix it failed, we tried to get a marine electrician to come down and help us out. It was a bit defeating to call in a pro, but we had tried everything in our minds to get juice out of the thing. We joked that it would likely take no time at all for an electrician to find the problem while waiting for a call-back from any of a number of these professionals we had tried to reach. To pass the time, we walked up the road for our second in as many days visit to the local basketball court. It was there we began to muse the problem over again. And it was then that we realized that the issue may have resulted from a combination of faults, instead of just a problem with the alternator's excitation wire, as we had expected and which should have been solved by some re-wiring earlier in the week. Maybe we had fixed that problem, but we still weren't getting proper voltage out of the thing because of another wiring issue. And which wire had we assumed was properly run the whole time? The ground.

Yup. That was it. It was a shitty ground. We put a new span of 8 gauge wire from the alternator ground terminal straight to the battery ground terminal (the battery grounds are paralleled, so we only needed it to hit one of them). Worked fine after that. But now there's a gale warning. So we did some more hanging out, which we're getting markedly better at.

Dana stands on the bow sprit as a dozen
or more dolphins ride the wake for half an
hour or so.

Back to the future. We left Newport Beach. It had been a dear and grand pleasure to see so many friends. We are very fortunate to know some really awesome folks in that area and their hospitality and generosity made for a really great time. But by the time we pushed off on Tuesday, we were ready to get a move on. Mexico beckoned. SoCal is warm and sunny, but not warm and sunny enough.

The first 15 hours or so of the passage were rather dull and annoying. There was not a drop of breeze and we were again forced to motor for long hours. A fairly large westerly swell made for a somewhat uncomfortable passage. We are charging through books though- reading is one of a few activities tolerable at just about any angle of heel. Once though, while I was on watch, a bit of real excitement came suddenly.

I sat reading near the open hatch in the evening hours when at long last the clicking whir of one of our trolling reels sang through the air. I sprang to the after portion of the boat, grabbed the reel and began the fight. A few hard yanks set the hook and I could feel the changes in pressure on the line as the prey alternately dove and surfaced. It was not at all easy- took about twenty minutes or so of good work- but I finally got the line in close enough to realize that what I had was a rather large kelp frond. I had hooked it right at hold-fast end, so it was particularly effective at creating drag while I battled it thinking I was a real angler and wondering how best to go about writing on the experience. Disappointed though exercised, I put the line back out and went back to my business.

Wednesday was a beautiful day, perhaps one of our best yet. We crossed the border at about midnight after Chittick (on watch) was hailed down by a tanker off of San Diego. They picked us up on their radar but couldn't see our running lights and were concerned. This concern dissolved rapidly when they found out we were a 31 foot sailing vessel- they couldn't believe it, since we were so clear on their radar (nice job, radar detector doodad). They were 15 nm or so away from us though, so it was no wonder they couldn't see our running lights. Impressively, they pinpointed our position, course and speed pretty much perfectly and advised Chittick to hold course and speed to cross their path in 2 nm.

Passing Ensenada as the low to the north reconciles
with the high to the southwest above our heads.

I took over watch at 0630 after a damned decent night's sleep and checked the chart. We were about 20 nm west of Encinada- the first potential port-of-entry in Mexico. We strongly considered dipping into Encinada to wait for wind, because we really did not want to continue motoring. The cost of diesel and the long engine hours and the loud noise make it pretty lame most of the time. In fact, we started heading a bit East for just that purpose. The wind started to build out of the south, so I put up the mizzen and the jib and shut down the Perkins at last. Ensinada still seemed like a better idea than slow-tacking a beat down the coast, but when the wind started clocking West, we didn't have trouble kissing the notion of an early stop goodbye. It was a good choice. We rode ahead of a low pressure system in the LA and San Diego area for the majority of the day and had great sailing, making around 6 knots with a comfortable motion. I made a breakfast of eggs-in-a-blanket and home fried potatoes with onions. The day went remarkably quickly.

We sat for a long time in great breeze beneath one of the few areas where the sun actually shined through the clouds. It was grand. I find I have often put pressure on myself to be doing something- reading, baking bread, cooking, trying to absorb something new- much of the time while we're at sea. I have to remind myself that it's perfectly alright to just be sailing. Hell, hand steer for a while, for old times' sake. 

Steering the ocean swell and trimming jib. We've found we
can make a more efficient course than the vane in lots of
conditions. Also, it's just nice to actually sail the boat.

Weather like we had that afternoon made it easy to remember why we were drawn to this particular mode of transportation. We all sat merrily in the cockpit, rapping about something or another for some time. Our pleasant afternoon was very suddenly and very, very loudly interrupted by two quick BOOMs. We thought we were taking cannon fire. It was insane and it was very very loud. But there was nobody in sight as far as the eye could see. After edgily peering about, ready to take cover from whatever onslaught was about to overtake us, we surmised it must have been a jet breaking the sound barrier. We never saw a jet, but we sort of heard one afterward, and it's the only thing that makes a lick of sense.

The low pressure and accompanying high clouds eventually caught up with us around late afternoon. I was back on watch after we spent the afternoon cleaning up the cabin, which had become quite a mess overnight. Dana, during his previous watch, had pulled in our fishing lines and replaced the pink squid lure and silver spinner we had out with a cedar plug and a mackerel colored thrasherbait. About an hour into my watch, we got our first hit. I had been sitting at the nav station reading nothing other than the Cruiser's Guide to Fishing. With expectations more restrained, I moved as quickly as I had during the great kelp battle and went about pulling in a Pacific mackerel (Thrombus japonicus). It was probably 3 pounds, maybe 18 inches long and a nice looking fish. I couldn't help but notice that it went for a lure that looked like it could have been next of kin. We figured out the species using a great identification book given to us by my buddy Nick, who is the reason we ended up with such a great dock set-up in Newport Beach as well. The lure that caught us our first monster was a gift from Nick, too... he's been too good to us.

A Pacific mackerel becomes dinner.

According to the book, this specimen was rather large for a Pacific mackerel and a good though oily fish to eat. So I promptly bludgeoned it on the top of the skull a few times, stabbed it in the brain and filleted it right there on the after deck. Truthfully, I take no joy in the process, and each time I take the life of an animal I am reminded that I mustn’t be wasteful. We got two nice fillets to supplement the frittata that Chittick had been working on in the galley. I tossed the guts and carcass into the water, save for a somewhat meaty portion of the “shoulder” (i.e., the dorsal portion just back of the gills), which I put on the large hook of the cedar plug before sending both trolling lines back out.

Needless to say, the first fish was an exciting experience. But greater battles lay ahead. Dana remarked, since the mackerel was not a large species compared to many that we are equipped to land, “It'll only be a matter of days before we're asking ourselves why in the hell we kept that little fish.” Turns out, it was only a matter of about 45 minutes.

After an unsuccessful battle with something huge, which hooked on the same lure as had the mackerel, I was back to reading the fishing book (now certainly more enthralled with its wisdom). Having lost a fish, I was determined to learn from my mistakes. I had fought it too hard, not let it take enough line. The hook had set well- it was on the line for a while. But it likely ripped out through the flesh of the beast as I tried to manhandle it toward the boat (it never got close enough to see). Only a few minutes after I had settled back to reading, the reel screamed again.

A bonito

It was a pretty long fight. I was slow and patient. I'd take some line in slow and steady but I knew I'd have to let my foe have some back if he went on a run. He did this several times and I let him go and then brought him back. He really fought. It took a lot of effort over at least 20 minutes for me to get him in toward the transom. When he was close, we were overjoyed at the size and beauty of this one. Dana reached over with the gaff hook. He made a light pass to hook the fish only to realize that there was quite a hard head on this fellow. The next flick of the wrist had the gusto need to pierce into the head. I set down the reel while Dana passed the gaff up to me. A 12 pound bonita (Sarda chiliensis). A beautiful fish and good to eat. We cut a few slits and tied a line around his tail and dragged him off the stern for five or ten minutes to bleed him out. By the time I finished filleting him, it was nearly dark and it had been more an hour since he struck the all-star mackerel lure from Nick. We got two huge fillets off of the bonita and now had an abundance. We pulled in the lures. Any more fish in the next 48 hours would be excess for sure.

Dinner was potato and beet frittata along with fried marinated mackerel over rice. It was delicious. We grilled one of the bonita steaks and baked the other, though by the time they were ready we were all duly satiated. Fortunately, we have the inverter wired and have been able to keep the fridge reasonably cold, so bonita can wait for breakfast tomorrow. And lunch. Probably dinner, too.

I sit now well fed with highly anticipated fresh fish, making very good headway down the coast of Mexico. It will be about two days yet before we make it to Bahia Tortugas, but we certainly aren't for want of breeze anymore. In fact, strong and gusty winds mean we're pretty heavily reefed tonight. The slow dissipation of that low pressure system and the advance of a new high will likely mean somewhat heavy breeze for us for the next day or so, but as long as we can maintain a steady course down the coast, that's fine by me.