Left slip 427 at the Clipper Yacht Club Marina at 1750. Winds have finally died down in the inner harbor to allow us to get away from the dock. It had been blowing greater than 30 knots all day from the West keeping us pinned on the dock. So I spent the day relaxing.Our neighbour Linda was kind enough to give me a lift to the pharmacy so I could pick up a few things including hair cutting scissors. Jamie would be appauled to know that I trimmed my own bangs. David had a nap. Then we put a reef in the main and headed out.
It was a beautiful evening. I know this is starting to sound repetitious but the sun was shining, no clouds in sight and no fog. The forecast is 5-15 from the north so it should be a good night.
1848: sunset as we sail under the Golden Gate Bridge. So could anything be more romantic than this?
2205 abeam of Point Montara Light at 4 nautical miles off shore. Motor sailing with just enough wind to deep sails full most of the time. Light northwesterly swell and sky is clear.
2245: abeam the entrance to Halfmoon Bay. Winds have shifted from the north. Also blowing northerly at Monteray |Bay. Pidgeon Point Light visible at 19 miles.
Explanation Time: for those of you who are not sailors - I keep saying that we are abeam of a certain place. This means that a particular place is 90 degrees from dead ahead of the direction that we are sailing
2357: Change of Shift. David makes me a cup of tea. Music is on. Life is good. And lots of time to reflect.
Events happen in your life and at the time they appear to have no significance. And then years later you find yourself on a starlit night, with only you and your thoughts and your music and that memory comes back to you as clear as if it happened yesterday.
I was driving down highway 17 North from Wawa to Sault Ste. Marie. It was the summer of 1981 and Christopher Cross was on the radio "Sailing". I can see myself looking out at Lake Superior and as corny as it may seem those words "Sailing takes me away to where I've always heard it could. Just the dream of wind to carry me - Soon I will be free. Well those words kind of grabbed something in me - not the romance of it all but rather the freedom and balance that one might reach. Tonight I have reached that place and life could not be more perfect.
0130: saw a shooting star
0206: another shooting star
0209: abeam Pidgeon Point and adjusted course to 150 degrees.
0326: Pt Aiio Nelevo
0500: Jib is out and motor is off. Speed of 4 knots.
0630: wind died and motor off. That did not last long. Jib is furled.
0830: BA up and DM down. 16-5 miles to go. Sighting of two humpback whales with their tails up wishing me a good morning. I seem to have more luck with the whale sightings than David does.
1220: Arrive at slip A15 in Monteray. The sea lions are making a racket. And believe me there are a lot of them. The people of Oak Bay would never complain again if they could see what this bay tolerates. At one of the docks they actually put up electric fences to keep them off the docks. At our bay the port employees go around in their skiffs every once in a while and nudge them off.
Checked into the Marina and started to clean up. We had a pleasant visit from a fellow Canadian - Dave - form Vancouver. Dave and Michelle knew the other 2 Canadians that we had met in Sausalito.
Then we started up a conversation with our neighbour, Sam, who is a squid fisherman. He asked us if we knew how to clean squid - NO - I only know how to order it in a restaurant. He said he would have given us some but it was a lot of work to clean. Then he changed his mind and said that he would clean a couple for us. We immediately showed an interest and before long David was on his boat learning how to clean squid (calamari by any other name).I watched. We now had enough for a meal. But Sam had to leave with a fifth of the pail still sitting there. So he told us to continue cleaning what we wanted and throw the rest into the water for the sea lions. Well - then I got into it and spent the next 2 hours cleaning those suckers. Yes it is a bit of work but it was kind of fun. All I could think of was Susan - who would never clean any fish that she caught - which |I sometimes think is the only reason why she took me along. So now I have a bag full and no idea how to cook them. So time to do some research.
Cleaning squid; pull the head off from the body and if you are lucky and do it right all the innards will come with it. Put a nitch into the semi-permanent membrane (skin) and then get a hold of it with your nails and you can peel it right off. You can save the tentacles by cutting them off just behind the eyeball. You may have to squeeze out any left over stuff from the intestines. Remove the cuttle bone and rinse everything off.
Cooking squid: the most popular way is to make a batter and deep fry but we do not want to do that on the boat. So I mixed some panko bread crumbs with quite a bit of chopped garlic and olive oil until crispy,. Just before they were done I threw in small strips of squid and tossed in with the bread crumbs for a minute or so. Then we sprinkled the mixture over a tossed salad. Not bad for a first attempt.
Spent the rest of the day checking out the wharf and market. Then we were invited to Dave and \Michelle's for happy hour - wihich turned into happy hours! Shared stories and discovered that the crew member that they had on board for the first part of their journey was someone that David knew from his earlier cruising days with Pete.He had gotten off in Sausalito so we just missed him. But David has since been able to reconnect with emails.
Next day we rented a car and drove to the 17 mile drive to Carmel and onto Big Sur. It is a wild section of highway - and I was more nervous than the night that we sailed in the gale. I was driving David crazy as a back seat driver. Had a picnic on Sandollar Beach
, walked around Carmel
, visited the Mission
and then back to the marina.
David got up early and returned the car. I went to do some blogging and realized that my ipad was not in my bag. This was only about 2 hours after dropping off the vehicle. So we immediately phoned Enterprise and they said they had already cleaned the car and rented it out. I had pulled out the ipad to take a picture of the sunset in Carmel and put it beside my leg in the front seat. After many phone calls it never showed up. Let's just assume that it dropped out of my bag when we got out of the car and not that the person who cleaned the car got an early Christmas present. I was a little bummed for the next couple of days but finally got over it. Such is life and the only person to blame is myself.
So now you know the real reason why I have been backed up with my blog. It is a little different doing it on the PC, especially the inserting of photographs. But I think I got it figured out.
So we spent another day hanging around in the hope that the ipad would show up - went to a fantastic farmer's market. Stocked up on fresh fruit and vegetables, spiced nuts, roast chicken.
Prepared for departure the next day. Played a bit of crib - I started to make my comeback and now David was only up by two: 7-5.
Sea Otter came by to see us off.
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