Tim's Birthday, Monterey & Santa Barbara

It's easy to get behind on the blog - there is so much to do at each stop! The weather is warm, the sun is out and the sky is clear; what a great day here! In the past two weeks we've been making our way down the coast to head to San Diego, the final stop before we head into Mexico and then down the Pacific Coast outside of the US for the rest of the trip.

Here is our current itinerary and where we've been lately:
10/6: Sausalito/San Francisco, CA to Half Moon Bay, CA
10/7: Half Moon Bay, CA to Monterey, CA
10/7: Monterey,CA 
10/11: At sea, an overnight from Monterey, CA to Santa Barbara, CA
10/12 : Santa Barbara, CA

10/17: Ventura, CA

10/18: Oxnard, CA

10/19: Marina Del Rey, CA (where we are currently)

10/23: Avalon, Catalina Island  Long Beach/Alamitos Bay

10/25: Dana Point, CA

10/30: San Diego, CA

From San Francisco, we went to Half Moon Bay, CA for a day. The local fishermen were again selling fresh albacore tuna off the dock - for $4.50/lb! They also had fresh crab. Our buddy boat, Osprey, was able to grab the last few decent sized crabs; Brian made an unbelievably delicious dinner of crabcakes! One thing we are really loving on this trip is all the fresh seafood and veggies we are able to get! 

Tim and his easy rida!

From Half Moon Bay, we went to Monterey, CA, home to Cannery Row, where they've filmed many movies, the famous 17-mile drive and Pebble Beach, Monterey Aquarium and a trademarked Cypress Tree! We embarked on the 17-mile drive via rented bikes (holy sore butts apres ride!).  The views were spectacular as were each of the marked sites along the path. Something to note - the seagulls are aggressive! We stopped to have a bite of lunch and while eating lunch at a picnic table facing the beach, Tim was holding his sandwich, ready to take another bite, when a seagull swooped down, knocked me in the head with its foot as I was sitting next to Tim, and took the sandwich right out of his hand! It was pretty funny and I gave kudos to seagull for its stealthy precision!


What's the deal with the trademarked Cypress tree? According to Wikipedia: Pebble Beach's lawyer, Kerry C. Smith, said "The image of the tree has been trademarked by us," and that it intended to control any display of the cypress for commercial purposes. The company had warned photographers that "they cannot even use existing pictures of the tree for commercial purposes."

I do have many pictures of this tree, but for fear of a fine, I won't post them :) Apparently this special tree has been used as a backdrop in many movies. It is or was 'leaning', you can see the rope on the cliff holding it up, cool nonetheless. It's like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, it's not really leaning any more since they've shored it up in order to keep it leaning and not falling, and to keep tourists coming into the city. Sorry to spoil it for those of you who haven't been to Pisa yet to see it!

Brian, Richard, Kathy, Tim - heading out for our 17-mile tour

The coastline of Monterey

Fun facts about Granite - click on the picture to enlarge.

Pebble Beach Golf Course (a view from one of the holes)
PB is widely regarded as on of the most beautiful courses in the world!

Like San Francisco, Brian informed me that there was yet another Ghirardelli Sundae Shop and we all promptly headed there for another round of sundaes. Pure glutonny and worth every blessed calorie!

Deliciousness again at Ghirardelli. 

We hit up the farmer's market in Monterey, great produce here in CA (it negates our sundaes from the night before :)):

A screen shot of our GPS heading down to Santa Barbara

We really enjoyed Monterey, but once we hit Santa Barbara, we fell in love!  We did an overnight to SB, about 199 nm from Monterey. We rounded Point Conception, a point on the pacific coast of California that can get undoubtedly gnarly weather. We were lucky, it was smooth sailing! People have reported gale winds, 10+ ft swells, fog, rain or whatever Mother Nature decides is on the menu for the day near the Point, but luckily, we didn't run into anything. On the way to Santa Barbara from Monterey, we had a nice group of visitors, who were with us for about 25 minutes, riding the wake from our bow.  Dolphins! Check out the video - pretty cool:

Once we arrived in Santa Barbara, we knew we'd be there for a few days, we really enjoyed it! The beaches were really nice, there was a bike path right by the marina, and downtown was a short walk away. We actually had a beach day and played frisbee, can't beat it! While in SB, we also toured the city, celebrated Tim's birthday, hit the farmer's market, the SB Seafood Festival, did some sight seeing and went "summer" clothes shopping since we didn't really have much coming from Seattle.

Oil rig off the coast, on our way to SB.
 There are a bunch of rigs which make up the SB horizon.

Rhythm & Osprey having a much needed drink after our overnight from Monterey to SB.

View of SB from the top of the Municipal Building Tower - self-guided tour.

Another view of SB from the top of the Municipal Building Tower

Inside the Municipal Building, straight ahead is where the judge sits.
 They do weddings here and hold court sessions.

In the library of the Muni Building, do you know what this is? 

Solitary confinement in the Muni Building back in the day.
Can you imagine being stuck up there all day?

We toured the Mission Building,
 home to the Friars who came to convert the native Americans to Christianity 

Garden at the Mission Building, which is now a peaceful, quiet retreat and rehab center 

We hit the Seafood Festival and ate Aebleskivers,  3 balls of baked dough with raspberry jam and whipped cream.
Tim with is decadent random  dessert, mmm mmm!

And then, Tim turned 34 on October 15th! We decorated and had a party with Osprey. I made a vanilla pudding cake - 2 layers of vanilla cake, with vanilla pudding in the center. I overdid it on the icing - lol.

Tim turns 34!

Cel-a-brate good times, come on! 

Decorated boat for Tim's party.
Pay no attention to the massive amount of icing dripping off the cake.

From SB, we departed to Ventura, CA, a small town with not much going on, so we left after 1 day. We were headed to Marina Del Rey, when a small craft advisory was put into place and we had to duck into Oxnard, CA. After Oxnard, we headed to Marina Del Rey, where we are currently!  More soon!

--K

Glass Beach through Beach Glass

Glass Beach through Beach Glass, a set on Flickr.

My attempt at some art... don't laugh too hard. We visited a glass beach in Fort Bragg, CA and I decided to take pieces of the glass from the beach and put them in front of my iPhone camera lens to capture photos of the glass beach through the beach glass. :)

Birthday Thoughts by T

I turned 34 years old a few days ago, and it's been about a month since we cut the dock lines at Shilshole in Seattle. We are now in Ventura, CA but I spent my birthday in Santa Barbara.

Sailing South has been hard. The first three weeks were all about getting to San Francisco as quickly as possible because as any good sailor knows, the storms start crashing into the coastline at the end of September so we needed to beat them. After arriving in SF, I felt like I could finally start decompressing.

I'm now starting to feel the pace of our lives slowing down. The constant stress of having to do a million things every weekend and weeknight is gone, and of course the stress of trying to do a good job at work is also missing. In its place, a pensive state is setting in, and I've been able to think, uninterrupted, about things like my childhood and why the hell I decided to take a boat out in the ocean for a year and live on it. One of the thoughts I frequently keep coming back to is how stuck I used to feel, and how stuck most people seem. I wanted to do a trip like this since I was in my late teens, but in my 20s I never thought I'd actually be able to do it. I had a house, a job, a car and a routine that was comfortable because I could go buy nice speakers (for those who know me, you know how i love me some nice speakers!) and go out to eat and buy computers and giant televisions and video game consoles... I felt locked in and changing anything might be uncomfortable or stupid and I might have regrets and isn't having a job and house and being able to buy things enough? Well, no. Not for me. I'm happy to say this is exactly what I needed to do--get a little uncomfortable by selling the house, quitting my job and doing something totally different for awhile.

So, happy birthday to me. I feel extremely fortunate to have the resources, health, strength and courage to be able to do something like this, and I would like to challenge anyone reading this who may also feel stuck to try something different. I promise you that you will not regret it.

"Nobody ever died of discomfort, yet living in the name of comfort has killed more ideas, more opportunities, more actions, and more growth than everything else combined."

-T

San Francisco, We Made It!

Finally, San Francisco.

Ok so after our gloomy night in Drakes Bay, we headed to our first final destination, of San Francisco, finally. What's the big deal? Well, the 'bad' weather blows into the pacific northwest in mid-September, so most cruisers leave in August for their trip south! Needless to say, we were late by leaving on Sept 10th, which could have resulted in extremely challenging weather (10+ft swells, gale winds, etc). Every good sailor knows not to leave to late from Seattle to head south, and every good sailor knows not to get stuck in gale winds! Once arriving to SF, the swells and weather changes dramatically, rendering us 'in the clear' pretty much from the pacific northwest weather. Being in latitude 37 (SF), from our hailing port of latitude 47 (Seattle) thus far has proven to be much warmer with a gentler ocean and climate.  We arrived safely to Sausalito, just north of San Francisco, only a $5 bus ride.

Rhythm passing under the Golden Gate Bridge

Us, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge

We didn't realize how busy SF would be, with Fleet Week and the America's Cup finals going on, it made for a fun and exciting week there and to decompress from the last 3 weeks of making our way. Along with the crew from Osprey, we ventured into the city to check out the events!

We went to Chinatown,  had Dim Sum for lunch and we then walked 10 miles back from the city, over the Golden Gate Bridge and took a cab back to Sausalito. Long day!

The next day, Tim and I spent the day in SF, where we met up with a few friends. After lunch, we headed to Ghiradelli Square for sundaes with Sally and her family. That evening, we went to Suppenkuche, a German restaurant, with our friends Josh and Jessica, fantastic food, but we forgot to get a picture with them :( ..next time...

Tim, blocking his ears because the Blue Angels
were flying over performing for Fleet Week!

Sally and her beautiful girls, with us
at Ghirardelli, sharing a mondo sundae!

And of course, in between meeting friends, we went downtown and overindulged at the Apple store, and finally got Tim his coveted iPad. He is now the proud owner of one and is loving it! 

From San Fran, we headed to Half Moon Bay for an uneventful one day, and we are now in sunny, warm, Monterey, CA and enjoying every second of it!

More on Monterey in a bit, stay tuned!
--K

Current Itinerary And Where We've Been

It's been quite the trek to get to San Francisco and we've stopped at a few very interesting places!

Here is our current itinerary and where we've been since leaving on Sept. 10:
9/15: Neah Bay, WA, out to sea, then to Newport, OR
9/21: Out at sea, then to Shelter Cove, CA 
9/27: Fort Bragg, CA to Bodega Bay, CA
9/28: Bodega Bay, CA
9/29: Drakes Bay, CA
9/30: Sausalito, CA (Yay! finally arrived in San Francisco, CA)
10/6: Sausalito, CA to Half Moon Bay, CA
10/7: Half Moon Bay, CA to Monterey, CA
10/7: Monterey,CA (where we are currently)
10/11: Monterey, CA to Santa Barbara, CA
10/? : Santa Barbara, CA

Where We've Been

While in Newport, OR we visited the small downtown area of Newport, cute shops, lots of sea lions and home to a large bridge and the Rogue Brewery. Did you know that Rogue is in 37 countries? We didn't either.  

Tons of taps at Rogue Brewery

101 Bridge

Lounging sea lions

From Newport, OR, we stayed 1 night anchoring at a small town called Shelter Cove, not much there, but check out this phone booth, and the sign above it! LOL!

I immediately called *12, and then *10 to talk to my former employer - lol!

We left Shelter Cove, the next morning to head to Fort Bragg, CA, where we stayed for a long 5-6 days while we waited for the storm from Alaska to blow over. Fort Bragg / Noyo Basin is a tourist town, very depressed, as the economy has not been kind to it. Georgia-Pacific used to have a plant there, but closed. Our research showed that the town's population is 30% below the poverty line, however the people are very nice and the town itself has spectacular views since it is right on the CA coastline. The downtown area is charming too! We were able to find plenty to do there actually.

We stayed at the marina in Noyo, which was mainly a fishing marina. Thankfully, we were only a few blocks away from a Harvest Market (aka Whole Foods-type market) which was nice.  Our marina was filled with fishing boats that were selling fresh caught albacore tuna for $2.50/lb and a $5 charge to filet it. I couldn't resist and bought and 8lb tuna, only to be eaten by Tim over the next two days, so I went back and bought a 12lb'er, to which we have plenty left over in the freezer. One thing I am loving about getting fresh fish is the sushi! We still haven't caught any fish, but the fishermen in the towns we visit have been doing a great job for us :)

Albacore tuna, sliced by yours truly :)

I was missing land and the woods, so we checked out the Jug Handle State Park, which had a pygmy forest at the top of the hiking trail, very nice hike, awesome weather, I got my land fix. From the website about the hike: Each of the terraces was uplifted from sea level about 100,000 years before the one below it. Plants on each terrace represent a more advanced stage in succession, indicating what the previous, next lower terrace may look like in 100,000 years. The lowest terrace consists of prairie; the second is covered with pines; the third supports a unique pigmy forest with knee-high trees possibly several decades old. 

Fort Bragg also has a few cool sea glass beaches. The site of Glass Beach #1 was a dump from 1906 to 1943, Glass Beach #2 & #3 were landfills from 1943 - 1949. We visited Glass Beach #1 and #2. #1 was picked over but #2 had tons of gems. There were signs of dump-like elements still on the beach protruding out of the sand, like car parts and tires, but what covered it was a beautiful sea glass beach.

From Fort Bragg, we headed south to Bodega Bay, CA, home to the movie 'The Birds'. The movie was filmed partly in Bodega Bay and the town of Bodega. A good portion of places where the film was shot is still there, in the town of Bodega, but we couldn't find the phonebooth! In lieu of hunting down places where the movie was filmed, we opted for a tour at the UC Davis Marine Lab at Bodega Bay. Cool stuff there and we learned a lot, did you know:

1. We've been seeing tons of gray whales on the way down to SF and beyond. We learned that they migrate to feed and breed in Alaska for the summer, and migrate down to Baja to birth in September/October timeframe, thus why we've been seeing them! Baby calves drink up to 50 gallons of milk per day and put on 60 lbs per day, wow! 
2. A gray whale's tongue is 15 ft long and weighs as much as an elephant.
3. Orcas live with their moms their whole lives.
4. Lobsters are blue in the Pacific because of the lack of pigment in their shell due to diet.
5. Sperm whales have teeth and can dive down 3k feet, but are believed to go as far down at 10k feet. They can hold their breath fro 2 hours and are known as 'champion divers'.
6. Rockfish live 100-200 years and there are 60-70 different types.
7. The barnacle has the largest penis for its size. Who knew?

UC Davis - Bodega Marine Lab

Live Blue Lobster

Gray whale flipper, they used to have more fingers years ago!

From Bodega, we anchored for one night in Drakes Bay (foggy and cold) before heading into San Francisco! More about SF in the next blog, as you can see I'm behind :)  What a journey it's been thus far!  

--Kathy

California so far...

We have been busy getting used to our new life, doing boat projects, and exploring California. We are currently in Monterey and just got back from renting bikes and doing the "17 mile drive". Life on the boat has had its challenges. We moved aboard only three days before we started cruising so we never really got a chance to settle in. Our refrigerator is difficult to use because we haven't figured out a good way to organize the food, and we have our clothes stuffed in giant vacuum seal bags in the hanging lockers because I never got to the project where I was supposed to install shelves. On the bright side, we don't have to write TPS reports or attend lame meetings. In fact, I think we are starting to appreciate our new life more after visiting San Francisco and witnessing all of the unfulfilling busyness a big city seems to generate. We plan to be in Monterey untill Thursday morning when we will leave bright and early to make the 200 mile non-stop trek to Santa Barbara.