“I tried calling you five times,” the harbor master scolded from the cockpit of her boat. I was standing on the dock, trying to check in. “You know, if you want someone to call you back, you should leave your number at the beginning of the message…,” she went on and on, instructing me how to properly leave a voicemail. I apologized at first but my patience was wearing thin. I stared at her, waiting for her to end her rant, holding back from pointing out that our boat was tied up right in front of hers. Or that Garrett had tried to check in earlier and she told him to come back. But we needed the slip, so I held my tongue. Tried to meet her eyes instead of lingering on her gnarled hands with yellowed nails and the black nylon rag covering her hair. After what seemed an extremely drawn out and bizarre process, we were all checked in to Morro Bay.
It had been a long 24 hours.
We sailed into Morro Bay from Monterey, where we had spent a week waiting for a good weather window. I’m glad we waited. The sail was easy, if not long. 124 nautical miles, 22 hours, just me and Garrett. We took turns at the helm every other hour. Longer if we felt good on watch, or if the other person was sleeping. We barely slept. Each of us got about an hour total, and not for want of trying. We both need to learn how to sleep underway. Right now, there’s too much to get used to: the rolling of the boat in the swell, the long hours of running the engine when there’s no wind, the darkness of the night, the unsettling feeling of being miles offshore for hours and hours in our 35’ sloop.
Being able to see the coastline comforts me. It makes me feel like we’re not too far off for help, if we need it. My mind keeps jumping to worst case scenarios. A behavior that needs to stop. But still, I like seeing land. It makes me feel safe. And it’s beautiful, something to look at when the hours stretch on. The landscape is naked between Monterey and Morro Bay, California in it’s original form. Big brown mountains that, from our distance, look velvety. I’m reminded of a toy bear that I had when I was a girl; it was hard plastic, covered in a light brown velvet. Arms and legs that moved stiffly at the joints. That’s what California reminds me of right now; a big, brown, hard velvety teddy bear.
The moon rose as we rounded Point Sur. She’d be full in a day. Her emergence from the mountains and the thin cloud layer topping them was majestic. I knew that the moon rising meant night was coming, but in that moment, I wasn’t worried. I only felt grateful. We are so lucky to be doing this, I thought. To be seeing all of this.
We had seen a lot that day: what we think were two pilot whales a few hundred yards away, between us and the coast. And then, later, what Garrett thought might be blue whales. I balked at his guess. “Are they getting closer?” I asked. He stared at their cresting backs for a while. “No, they’re going out to sea,” he reassured me. I exhaled, my worries of a massive whale approaching our boat temporarily relieved. Again with the worst case scenario playing out in my head.
At one point, our boat was surrounded by hundreds of tiny whales, heading north, spinning in the air as they passed us. They didn’t look like dolphins—their faces were round, their bodies dark, their shape a little more hefty. I don’t really know what they were, except for magic. Have you ever sailed through a sea of flying whales?
We motored past a lot of sea otters as we left Monterey, and again as we pulled into Morro Bay. I could have cried when I saw a mama sea otter wither her pup; she was swimming on her back, face to face with her baby on her belly. At one point their noses were touching and they were looking into each others’ eyes. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” Garrett and I kept saying.
The sea life kept us entertained on our long haul. There wasn’t a lot of wind; we probably sailed six out of the twenty-two hours. “This is kind of boring,” Garrett said at one point. He backed up, stammering to the universe, “I-I mean, I’ll take it. Let’s keep it…uneventful.”
Most of my night watches have taken place when we’re motoring. Getting used to the boat in the dark and not having to deal with sail configurations is a relief to me. Our sail from Monterey from Morro Bay was 1,000x smoother than our sail from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, but still, I was nervous. I’m trying to understand why. I don’t like when our boat rocks in a circular motion from the swell. I have to remind myself to breathe. At one point, we cut the motor, and let out the jib. The wind was at our port stern, blowing gently behind us between six and nine knots. Garrett’s eyes were closed to rest. Mine were on the sail and the panel that tells us where the wind is coming from. The sail would luff when the wind dropped down to six knots and fill when it puffed up to nine. Breathe, I would remind myself. Breathe.
I went down to sleep in the v-berth at 4:30am, and, mercifully, after a while, sleep finally came. Garrett came to get me at 6:30; he needed a break. It was dawn. A reprieve from the dark. The sun rose slightly after I woke. The water on the far side of the sunrise rolled out in a mesmerizing soft bluish purple carpet. Closer to the sun, on our port side, the water was like a tie-dyed oil spill, a shocking orange and electric blue. “This is a special moment,” Garrett said. I snuggled in closer to his warmth.
We work well together at sea, letting each other know that the other one is there for support, for a break, for entertainment, for whatever is needed. We encourage each other to take rest when we can, to do whatever you want when you’re off watch. The long hours do not affect our demeanor when we’re at sea. But when we come into port, when our journey is almost over, there’s a palpable change in the air. We get grumpy. Short with each other. Stress levels are high: navigating to a slip or a mooring ball in a new harbor is always challenging, and more so when you’re tired. But still, no excuse. We need to work on our arrival rapport. Snapping at each other doesn’t help anything, and it dampens the glow from the accomplishment of a long passage.
I hadn’t heard of Morro Bay until we started mapping our route down the California Coast. “It’s so cute!” other sailors would tell us when we shared our plans of stopping over. They were right. Morro Bay is cute. A little tired, maybe, but cute. It felt like one part Middle America, one part California, and one part harbor town. Lots of restaurants, bakeries, a brewery, a skateboard museum. The skateboard museum made me laugh and think of the cousins that I left behind in San Francisco. They would appreciate the skateboard museum.
Morro Bay also has a reputation for being one of the foggiest areas of the Pacific Coast. The fog combined with the 580-foot tall Morro Rock can make for a difficult and sometimes dangerous entry to the harbor. Luckily, the skies were clear when we pulled in, and we could see the Rock in all of her glory. We watched the fog wash over us the next morning and were grateful for the visibility we had the day before. Sunshine and clear skies make everything better.
Because we needed to get to Santa Barbara for a survey by the 18th of October and the wind was bound to pick up by the 16th, Garrett and I decided to only stop in Morro Bay for one night. To get to Santa Barbara, we needed to sail around Point Conception, something that we’ve been anxious about for a long time. Months for me, years for Garrett.
Point Conception is known as the “Cape Horn of the Pacific.” It is notorious for being difficult and shifty. It can be flat and calm one minute, and gust 30 knots on your bow the next. Swells can come out of nowhere. It is a place known for its extreme unpredictability. I do not like extreme unpredictability.
It is commonly advised to round Point Conception at night when the wind tends to be calmer. With this knowledge, a good forecast ahead of us, and a good night’s sleep behind us, Garrett and I left Morro Bay for Santa Barbara at 5:00pm on Sunday, October 13.
I steered Thisldu out of the channel, and then went below to pour us coffee. A long sail was ahead, but finally, we were full of energy. Garrett was anxious. Miraculously, I wasn’t.
The daylight slipped away quickly. Everything is more ominous at night. There were clouds in the sky, and I asked Garrett if I should be worried. Do clouds at night mean something different than clouds during the day? Garrett checked the forecast; no rain predicted. They swallowed up the full moon, though, and that made me mad. I was depending on her light. Instead, everything was dark. Our life looked like an Old Hollywood film, all colored in black and gray. There were touches of red here and there—the port nav light, the instruments, our headlamps—but the red just made everything a little more eerie. An Old Hollywood horror film, perhaps. I tried not to pursue that line of thought further.
We heard a loud puff off of our stern. It made us jump. We looked around and saw dolphins carving the water around us. There were hundreds of them, propelling their tiny bodies into the air, doing flips in the faint moonlight, surfing down the swell. They seemed to enjoy surfing down the big swells the most, the swells that I enjoyed the least. It made me feel better, their enjoyment. Made night watch shifts pass by faster. We could even see their bodies underwater; they would shoot past us like silver bioluminescent torpedoes. They stayed with us for hours, almost all night. I went down to heat up dinner in the galley and watched them dart by from the porthole. That’s one of my favorite things to do, to look out of the galley porthole at my ever-changing surroundings. It felt pretty surreal, cooking ten miles offshore, with dolphins swimming by. Surreal, and wonderful. Moments like that remind me how special it is, this thing we’re doing.
The hours approaching midnight flew by thanks to the entertainment provided by our companions. But after that, they drew on. I tried to sleep, first in the cockpit, then in the v-berth. No dice. I closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come. I tried to relieve Garrett from the helm. “Nah,” he said, “I want to stay. I’m not tired.” I tried to encourage him otherwise; I knew he needed rest. He refused. I think he stayed at the helm eight hours straight.
We started rounding Point Conception at 2:30am. Conditions were fine, the same as what we’d been experiencing. I went below to try and sleep again. Garrett came to get me an hour and a half later, right after I felt our boat go through an irregular motion—that is, more irregular than what we’d been experiencing.
“Aud, can you wake up?” he asked. I told him I was awake, that I’d put on my layers of foul weather gear and be up top in a couple of minutes. Putting on my foul weather gear takes forever, especially when I’m tired.
“Did you feel that?” he asked, buzzing.
“The weird motion?” I tried to clarify.
“Yeah. A huge wake came at us from a container ship a few miles away. Out of nowhere. I looked over and a thirteen-foot wave was coming at us broadside. I had to jump back, switch off the autopilot, and turn into it. If I hadn’t of seen it…,” he let his words fade off. I didn’t want to ask what would have happened if he didn’t see it. He didn’t want to answer.
I stayed awake with him then, although he still wouldn’t get off of the helm. Not until we finished rounding Point Conception. There was still a lot of shipping container traffic. One ship was three miles away, due to pass us with enough room according to AIS, but for a frightful ten minutes, it looked like it was coming right for us. We could see both nav lights—the red port side and the green starboard side—which meant it was approaching us straight on. I stared at the ship, willing the red light to disappear. Eventually, it did. We were in the clear. But then it was time to watch out for its wake. Thankfully, nothing big came at us.
Dawn started to break, and with the rising of the sun, I shut my eyes. Finally, I was able to sleep. Forty-five minutes later, Garrett woke me. “Okay,” he said, “you can take over.”
We had rounded Point Conception a half hour before. I slept through it. That victorious moment of getting through something you’ve been dreading for so long, and I was asleep. I wouldn’t change it, though. I needed my sleep.
Garrett told me that he wouldn’t fall asleep, not until there was less container traffic, and I nodded my head. “Sure,” I said. He eased himself under the dodger and fell asleep immediately.
Two hours later, he shot up. “I think I slept,” he said.
“Mmhm,” I agreed, keeping my eyes on the sea. “You definitely slept.”
The dolphins were back, this time easier to see in the sunshine-filled clear blue water. We were officially in Southern California, now, and it felt like Southern California. I slowly stripped off my layers; my Helly Hansen offshore jacket and overalls, and then, a few minutes later, my Northface shell. I pulled off my red wool cap, blue wool sweater, brown wool socks. Peeled off my leggings and switched them out for a pair of jean shorts. Threw on a bathing suit top. It felt like a metamorphosis of sorts, shedding my Northern California layers and emerging in a swimsuit.
“This is what I’m talking about,” I yelled, arms flung out. I’ve been sailing in cold weather for years. The realization of heading to warmer waters hit me. Now this, I can do, I thought.
We got into the Santa Barbara Harbor at 3:00pm on Monday afternoon, twenty-two hours after we left Morro Bay. Garrett checked into the harbor office, and then we moved to our guest slip. We were sandwiched between the commercial fishing boats, a funny change to our surroundings. “Did we do something wrong?” we joked to each other. Our slip was close to the bathroom and gate to town, though, so we didn’t mind.
I’ve learned that I can’t do much after a long overnight sail. It doesn’t matter if we get in at 10:00am or 6:00pm—I need to stay on the boat and rest. A trip to land for a hot shower, perhaps, but that’s all the strength I can muster. Exhaustion sets in, emotions are surface-level, and my brain is ten million lightyears away. I hope that this zombie-like syndrome goes away with time, that my body and mind will learn how to fall asleep while we’re underway. But for now, I know that I need rest. So when we got into Santa Barbara, I did just that—I rested. Took a shower, ate leftovers, and created a nook for myself with all of our pillows in our saloon.
We both got a good night’s sleep and emerged from Thisldu on Tuesday morning feeling refreshed. We spent almost a week in Santa Barbara—we set sail for Ventura on Saturday—and it was a beautiful place to recover. I worked on some creative projects (this post! our new video! our patreon account!) and tried to stay still as much as possible to let my ankle heal. We walked down State Street and I explored the Funk Zone while Garrett played around in the Maritime Museum. We ate lunch at Los Agaves and dinner at my sister’s friend’s new restaurant, Oku. Had an expensive round of cocktails at the yacht club and decided that our favorite bar is on our boat. Dined on a lovely meal with Quincey and Mitch of Q+M Travels, sailors we know from the Bay Area, onboard their Kelley Peterson 46. Visited the Mission. Had our boat surveyed for insurance. It was a productive, explorative, and restful week.
We really enjoyed our time in Santa Barbara and kept saying, why didn’t we come here before? But there’s something extra special, extra memorable, about visiting a place with your boat. Approaching from the sea. Bringing your home to a new destination. Being in new surroundings, but sleeping in your own bed. I can’t wait to do more of this.
