Glad to hear everyone had a nice time at the isthmus this past weekend.
We took VOR over to Santa Barbara Island this weekend. It was kinda foggy, cool and very light winds on Saturday. Saw several Blue Whales in the channel between Catalina and Santa Barbara Islands, which was totally cool.
The fog was a problem as we couldn't even see SB island until we were less than 3 miles from it. By the time we got there, it was blowing 15 to 20, but the anchor hold was good. There were two other boats in the landing cove. We left for the return voyage around 7 pm, as one of the purposes of the trip was to get a little more experience under the spinnaker at night. It was certainly exciting as we left the island in the fog on a moonless night, raising the main, then the chute, and powering off on a broad reach in 18-20 knots of wind, at times hitting 10-11 knots.
The radar was helpful, definitely, but there was no close calls on the way back. We recognized that there were ships within 3 or 4 miles of our position but we never saw any lights or heard any sounds.
My crew had an interesting afternoon there. Santa Barbara Island doesn't have a dock or a beach to land on. It has a rusty ladder hanging on the side of a cliff. As my partner and 3 crew manuevered on the 11' dingy toward the ladder (I stayed on anchor watch and to start getting dinner ready), a larger than usual swell picked the dingy up and dumped 3 of the 4 into the water. If the water hadn't been so cold, I probably would have thought it was pretty humorous to watch. They made it back into the dingy and back to the boat, losing only one life vest and the small plastic gas can.
Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32 Hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA