On The Move

We have had a very good start to our sail to San Diego. It is 6.45 PM and we are 23 miles from the GG bridge and 15 miles off the coast, heading SW at about 6 knots.

Last night Arnold and I had made the decision to cancel today's departure. A cold front was passing through with winds that got up to at least 33 kt and the prediction was for 16-ft swells today. The winds were supposed to be westerly veering to NW. Arnold and I did not think that there would be sufficient wind to help us cope with the swell.

This morning we discussed a different strategy. Waiting for the perfect conditions may not happen for weeks. Our only sure bet was to move out immediately after the passage of a front and make fast for the south before the next one arrives, using the winds of the next front to move us along. The only problems were the size of the swell and the strength of the wind, but we would have to cope with that. So we decided to leave at noon today as planned.

The morning was a busy one of last minute preparation and saying good bye to our friends Barry, Barry & Joyce, and Neil & Tiffany. I handed in our keys to the office at noon and they graciously waived the charge for this last day. At 12.45 Neil cast off our lines and we were on our way, 45 minutes later than planned.

Fortunately the motor trip to the GG bridge was faster than I had anticipated and we passed under the bridge at close to the 2.30 PM time that we had planned. According to the chart plotter the maximum strength of the ebb current under the bridge would be at 2.51 PM so we were very pleased with our timing.

It got pretty rough on the other side of the bridge. We had a big swell and head winds in conflict with the 4.5 kt current going the other way. But we were making excellent speed of up to 8 knots.

I hoisted the mainsail while we were still motoring into the wind and when we were well clear of the land began sailing on a SSW course, hard to the wind with full main and a jib that we eventually rolled out fully. We must have been about 2 miles of the coast when we started seeing big breakers like one would see at the beach. We appeared to be on the western edge of the breakers. Eventually I could see one heading our way and I yelled to Arnold in the cabin to brace himself then we got hit pretty hard. The boat lurched over and I could hear things falling onto the cabin sole but there was no real damage. However, I started the engine to help us get through the area pronto.

Things then settled down nicely. We had a good wind of 13-15 knots and we were slowly increasing our distance from the coast. I set up Jeff the Monitor wind steering and turned off the autopilot. Then the wind veered more to the NW and we followed it around for a SW heading. While having a celebration beer in the cockpit with Arnold, Brenda and Stephen telephoned from Australia and we had a short chat. During all of this we were continually dodging crab pots which Arnold described as a "minefield".

We had a light meal and arranged the same watches that we had used in sailing to Hawaii: I would sleep early and relieve Arnold at Midnight.

Arnold and I agree that our exit from the Bay went much better than we had expected. The wind has been very good and we are making haste for the south in swell conditions that are tolerable and improving.

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