SV-Bullwinkle: Monterey 9-9-2012

Left Aquatics park at 6:30 am(9-8-2012). Was going to leave early anyway, but last night I found out that the annual Alcatraz swim was today 9-8. They, about 1000 swimmers leave from Alcatraz at about 8:00am and swim into Aquatic park. Nobody had said anything, but I had to believe they would close the entrance to boats shortly before the first swimmers would arrive and that swimmers would be arriving most of the morning. Luckily, leaving this early was timed right with the tides and put the end of a flood across the gate and so help smooth out the waves. It was a just a bit lumpy going out and I motored until I could turn the corner. Sunrise was on the bridge as I left but cloudy to the south.

Bye-Bye San Fransisco

Sails up and 10 knot winds from the north made for nice sailing in the morning. Later I lowered the main and winged out the staysail and jib and cruised along at 5 knots. Late afternoon the winds and seas started to build. With just the jib up now, we were doing 5-6 knots. Wind waves at about 5-6 feet with some bigger. At 6 or 7 pm the winds hand increased to 20-25 knots and with just the staysail up, were slowed to 4-6 knots. Wind wave were about 6-7 feet, one of which managed to break into the cockpit a little.

Continued through the night and arrived 10 miles from Monterey at 11:30 pm. Didn't know how hard or easy it would be to enter the harbor at night, so I decided to put out the sea anchor. Winds were still about 15-20. Turned into a bit of an ordeal. Deployed the sea anchor ok, but then after about 20 minutes the line wrapped. It took the next 2.5 hours to get it clear. After clearing it, I went below to sleep until light.

It did work ok, it that we only drifted about 2 miles in the 7 hours it was out. But had trouble getting the boat at a good angle to the wind and waves and so got rolled about quite a bit or the line was rubbing on the bobstay and I worried about it chafing through. I think I may need to rig some kind of bridle and/or put up a anchor riding sail to keep the stern positioned downwind.

Anyway, after it got light, I retrieved the sea anchor, winds now low and motored into Monterey. As it turned out, while I could not have gotten into the harbor in the dark, there was a good place to anchor just outside the breakwater and I should have done that. Next time.

They asigned me a nice slip(A-47) and fixed me up with card key. Nice marina with a lot of boats.