Trip To San Simeon

We pulled our anchor up at about 6 pm from Stillwater Cove (Pebble Beach). The trip to San Simeon is 16 hours more or less. We prefer not to leave and arrive in the dark so that meant doing another night passage. I'm not sure if we are wimps but it was another tough one. I sometimes think I must be downloading weather reports for the wrong region. What the weather forecasters say we will see and what actually materializes are two different things. We were supposed to get 3 to 5 foot swells. Instead
we saw these rather large, often breaking waves, splashing over our stern and sides. It was windy and rough. Neither Brenda or I slept. Under those conditions it's nice to have two people on watch. Nadia on the other hand seems to do very well in those conditions. It seems this part of the Pacific is really going to make us work.

After a rest we will explore the nice beach here and walk up to Hearst Castle which sits on a hill above the Bay.

Peter

Pebble Beach

Hi all, we are finally on the move again. This was a neat day because Nadia and I met up with 3 marine biologists working on our dock this morning. They were removing an invasive type of Japanese kelp (the type you eat in Miso soup) from the docks in an attempt to prevent it from spreading further. Nadia took a keen interest and in short order she was helping them make measurements and we had the whole life cycle of the plants explained to us so now we can tell this type of kelp from the rest and
find and remove it's reproductive parts so that it cannot spread. Again, Nadia didn't want to leave! But we did leave and after a few hours we were anchored - off the Pebble Beach Golf Course. A good golfer (able to hit 250 yards) could hit our boat from the famous hole on the point. We have a great view of the homes, there are egrets and pelicans in the cove and sea otters frolicking in the kelp beds. George, the harbour master, came out in a skiff to greet us and show the best spot to anchor and
here is the kicker - we are the only boat anchored here. It is a slightly tricky spot to anchor in so I guess that scares most folks off. If the weather stays calm, we can spend tomorrow on the beach and walk the one mile to Carmel-by-the-sea. I saw in the newspaper that the first house in 3 years to be listed on the golf course is up for sale - just 28 million to get in now! Our next stop will be San Simeon which is the cove just below the Hearst Castle.
Brenda.

Good Bye to Monterey Bay

We've been in Monterey Bay for close to a month now. Other tourists ask me for directions and I can tell them, more or less what they need to know. Hard to believe we have spent that much time here. Its been a very good thing. The "new" or as I like to think of it, "modified plan" has both of us very excited. It allows us to proceed with the original destinations in mind while adding several new places to the list. It'll just take a little longer.

We inflated our dinghy and used it to go out and explore some of the inner bay area. There are many sea lions, sea otters, birds of all sorts including pelicans. Nadia has a favorite little beach we stop at and she collects olive dove shells. She also likes going netting for hermit crabs in a shallow area of rocks. Today we took the bus to Big Sur and went on a hike in one of the state parks. We saw large redwood trees, a rattle snake on the trail and some lizards. Brenda and Nadia are working
their way through the Harry Potter series, they started book three tonight.

I hope everyone is keeping well. Nadia says hi to all her school friends and teachers. As in Mrs. Stephens class, she spends most of her spare time doing art projects. The boat walls are nearly covered with paintings and drawings, the ceiling and hooks all have something hanging from them.

We should leave tomorrow, assuming of course that the weather doesn't change yet again. A couple of stops and we will be around Point Conception.

Peter

The New Plan

Hi Everyone,
Finally we have had enough rest and enough time to reflect on our predicament and have come to a decision about what to do. When we turned back after leaving San Francisco and diverted into Monterey Bay, that was basically the end of the opportunity to get to the South Pacific directly from the Pacific Northwest for this year. Had we continued we would have passed through the hurricane track, which is the worst between 10 and 20 degrees north, off the coast of Mexico, in the second week of June when
the risk was still relatively small (May would have been even better but we were very slow getting to San Francisco). However by July the risk is up to a 27% chance and these storms are nothing to fool with; last year one packed winds of 125 knots. So, that left us with 3 choices: 1) go to Hawaii, down through the Line Islands, Fiji, Tonga and then to New Zealand, sell the boat as planned 2) go to San Diego, sell the boat, fly to New Zealand like regular people or 3) take the boat to San Diego, wait
until the fall, and spend the fall cruising Mexico. The Hawaii option requires about 80 days at sea in the next 6 months and we would not see any of French Polynesia (Marquesas, Tuamotos, Society Islands including Tahiti, Bora Bora etc). Peter has had a, perhaps romantic, vision of visiting French Polynesia for several decades, we have been to Hawaii and although it is very nice, it is not a great place to cruise. As such we could not summon up the necessary enthusiasm for this option given the amount
of work it required. Although, the Line Islands really appealed to me. Option 2 was very appealing when we first arrived here, we have had very rough, cold weather for nearly all of the trip. Almost all of our sailing has been under double reefed main and staysail or staysail alone and our boat had never traveled so fast under sail. Also, this option frees up the capital invested in Songline and more importantly stops the steady drain of money required to keep her in shape. Nadia is right on the
cusp of being able to go on much longer hikes and she has just started rock climbing. The main reason we started sailing in the first place was that it is something adventurous that we could do as a family when Nadia was young (and our trips to the Queen Charlottes and around Vancouver Island alone when Nadia was nearly 3 and nearly 4 respectively were worth the entire effort of having Songline). We could then perhaps buy another boat in a few years; however, Peter has poured his heart and soul into
fixing, equipping, and learning absolutely everything about this boat and doesn't feel that the energy exists to do this again from scratch. This options also suffers from the "unfinished business" syndrome and the ability to admit that we have not only lost the battle but also the war. So, we have chosen option 3 - travel very slowly down the southern coast of California until fall time. There are some very nice anchorages and offshore islands that we can explore including the Santa Cruz islands
and the Channel Islands. Then we can leave San Diego or Ensenada in the end of October, travel down the Mexican coast and perhaps into the Sea of Cortez and then we will find a suitable dry storage facility to haul the boat out of the water and leave it for a while. We can then depart Mexico in April for the South Pacific and continue as planned. But (isn't there always a but) we can't do this the following April (ie not in 2008) since I am starting a masters degree in mathematics at Simon Fraser
University in January of 2008. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time and I have spent the last year taking courses and working as a teaching assistant at SFU to this end. This is the only thing I am not willing to give up. So, we are planning to leave the boat out of the water for 15 or 16 months and then continue in 2009. We will incur added financial burden with this option but we suspect (hope!) that it will actually be cheaper to have Songline on the hard in Mexico then floating
in Vancouver. I swore that when we first started on this that I would never cruise in Mexico (wasting time baking in the heat drinking Margheritas is how I labeled it) so I am eating crow on that one. This option does however have the significant advantage that Nadia will be 7 when we leave again and will be tougher. I have worried about her falling and hurting herself during the rough conditions (she spent several days in her bunk and most of May wearing her snowsuit) and while not suffering from
sea sickness per say, she had a severely curtailed appetite and she is only a skinny 42 pounds to start with. She was unable to read, colour etc without getting seasick so some of the days at sea have been hard for her. So, having learned not to make wild predictions about where we will be at any particular time, we are continuing down the coast and will continue to update the blog and the position report as we go. Thanks to everyone who emailed us encouraging comments, offers of help and suggestions.
They are most appreciated!
Brenda.

Life Under The Dock

Nadia and I went out on a couple of dock photo shoots. She would go off, scout an area and tell me where the best sea life was. All of these shots were taken between 1 and 15 inches of water.

Peter

Nadia's Projects

Nadia has taken on several projects. One of her books "Nature Smart" showed her how to build a buttefly hatchery. With great luck a local park is right in the middle of a large butterfly (moth?) metamorphasis (sp?). We were able to see thousands of hatching butterfly and collect several chrysalis for Nadia's hatchery. She has placed them in her hatchery along with honey soaked cotton balls for feeding.

She is writing a book (a best seller) "Our Faithful Companions Life", which tells the story of Fitzroy, our labrador.

Nadia and Brenda also make many Fimo clay objects. A couple of which are shown on Nadia's fingers.

We are going to get kicked out of Monterey Harbour soon. They have a 2 week max stay here. There is an area where you can anchor but it is exposed to the NW swell. We will publish our intentions as soon as we figure them out.

Best,

Peter, Brenda and Nadia

Nadia's new Summer Dress

Point Lobos Scenics

Nadia Playing In Grass

What to Do?

We are enjoying our time here at Monterey Bay. Yesterday we watched a mother sea otter float by our boat with a baby on it's tummy. They have done a good job at getting these creatures numbers up in the area. We have a sea lion (as usual) resting close by, barking up a storm when excited. The weather is much better, I would say it is actually warm out. We will probably make another hop down the coast in a few days. We keep getting told how much warmer it is once past Point Conception. The winds are still fairly stiff off the coast, typically 15 to 30 kts (some higher). This too will diminish once past Point Conception. We're holding off making any real decisions for a few days. Once everyone has rested and is feeling better.

Monterey Bay

Sorry for not returning emails. As you can tell from our position report we are sitting in Monterey Bay. An obvious unscheduled stop. However after being here for a half day we see we should have planned this, as it is great place to be. Basically what happened is I got sick. I just could not shake the sea sickness. Not just that queasy feeling but the head over the toe-rail, fish feeding variety. I could not eat and quickly found myself useless. Brenda, the super hero, was doing double duty on
all fronts. It was clear we couldn't carry on too much further especially if the weather worsened which it was potentially going to do. It would have made more sense to run in to a location further south but gales were set for the area in a day or two and I couldn't fathom the idea of having to deal with that if they came sooner. So we decided to beat backwards to Monterey. Our fearless self steering system loves to beat into the wind. I am totally pooped. The last time I was this tired we did a
canoe trip then climbed Mt. Rainier a couple of days later. Getting this trip together has been one obstacle after another. The trip itself has been far harder than I could have imagined. Instead of resting during stops there always seems to be maintenance or weather gathering or something that needs doing. The weather has made it very difficult. Even though we are a fair way south, you get out in the ocean and it is cold. The nights are miserable at best. We often boil water and fill a liter Nalgene
container to use as a hot water bottle. On top of it all I caught a bad respiratory infection prior to leaving and I've only gotten it under control in last few days. Antibiotics always give my tummy a bad time. I'm not too sure what we are going to do now. We do know we can't go off on a voyage like this unless I can perform my share of work. Maybe we could get away with it if it lasts only a few days but the trouble is the weather never seems to give us a break. For sure I need a good rest. I
would have sold the whole boat for a buck a day ago if I could just have been in port and had my stomach stop hurting. It's more expensive today (Dale). So we are all fine, Nadia has lost her first upper front tooth yesterday. She accidentally hit her knee on her mouth and out it came. It was very loose and was set to come out very soon anyway. We saw several whales of which Nadia spotted the first about 50 miles out of SF. While returning to Monterey Bay we had 10 or 15 dolphins doing the bow wave
riding and jumping show for us. That was nice of them. The water here is amazingly clear. Even at the dock the visibility is very good. Many dive charters going out every day, perhaps in a few days if I feel better maybe I'll go tag along with one of them. Even though we are not going where we planned it has been a huge adventure for us so far.