ARRIVED AT SANTA BARBARA
LAT: 34 24.402 N
LONG: 118 41.462W
Santa Barbara Marina
DATE: 19 JUNE 2009
TIME: 2140
We arrived safely in Santa Barbara this afternoon at 1330 (1:30 p.m.). We left Monterey yesterday morning at 1000 (10 a.m.) so the time was just about exactly what I thought it would be. Actually, we were well ahead of schedule all the way up through this morning when we rounded Point Conception at about 0700. Then, we hit some sort of nasty current head on and we lost about a knot-and-a-half. Doesn't sound like much, but that's almost 20% of our boat speed. So, we lost our time advantage and ended up finishing in 27.5 hours.
The weather was good - swells behind us at 5' to 7' and wind behind us from 15 knots to 25 knots, with occasional gusts to 30 knots or so. We held a course that was a straight line from about 5 miles off Monterey to about 5 miles off Point Conception. This straight line generally kept us about 15 to 20 miles off the coast. We never saw land from the time we left until about an hour before we arrived. Oh well.
Interesting - the water was actually a little cooler in Monterey than in the ocean off San Francisco (62 degrees in Monterey, 64 degrees north of San Francisco). It started warming up around San Simeon and by the time we rounded Point Conception this morning, it was over 70 degrees. Actually, it reached 76 degrees just as we made our turn into the Santa Barbara harbor - just about the same as Hawaii!
Speaking of Point Conception, I was a little worried about rounding this Point. Along with Cape Mendocino north of San Francisco, these are the two most notorious bad-weather spots along the US Pacific coast. No problem with Point Conception today, though. As we rounded the point and started to fall into the lee of the land north of us, the swell fell from 6 feet or so to maybe 2' with no wind waves - the ocean was almost oily smooth. Foggy, but smooth.
We did see whales and dolphins, though. Probably about a hundred dolphins in total of assorted sizes, colors, and families. They seem to share a fascination of charging towards the boat and then playing around the bow wave for five minutes or so before disappearing. It's quite a sight to see them coming at us from about a half mile away, jumping out of waves in unison six or seven at a time.
Yesterday afternoon between San Simeon and Morro Bay, I'd just layed down to take a nap between watches when Michelle woke me up and said come and look at the whales. So, I went upstairs to the pilothouse and saw - nothing. I started to think they were seeing things when we saw a whale spout at off our starboard side, maybe a quarter mile away. I trained my binoculars on the spot when suddenly, this massive whale comes shooting out of the water like a Polaris missle - straight up almost all the way to its tail flukes. His head must have been 40' above the water, straight up. Then, he came crashing down with such an explosion it looked like a bomb had gone off. Holy crap! What a sight I'll never forget. I'd seen pictures of whales breaching before, but experiencing it in person was stunning. Shortly after, John Kremer, one of our crew sputtered out, "There's two of them!" Two whales had breached in the same manner just ahead of us and to port. I turned just in time to see the massive explosion when they hit the water. It looked like someone dropped a building into the ocean - huge splash, huge waves. Quite memorable.
Naturally, we got no pictures. We barely got our eyes on them, never mind photos. But I'll always remember.
More to come tomorrow . . .
LONG: 118 41.462W
Santa Barbara Marina
DATE: 19 JUNE 2009
TIME: 2140
We arrived safely in Santa Barbara this afternoon at 1330 (1:30 p.m.). We left Monterey yesterday morning at 1000 (10 a.m.) so the time was just about exactly what I thought it would be. Actually, we were well ahead of schedule all the way up through this morning when we rounded Point Conception at about 0700. Then, we hit some sort of nasty current head on and we lost about a knot-and-a-half. Doesn't sound like much, but that's almost 20% of our boat speed. So, we lost our time advantage and ended up finishing in 27.5 hours.
The weather was good - swells behind us at 5' to 7' and wind behind us from 15 knots to 25 knots, with occasional gusts to 30 knots or so. We held a course that was a straight line from about 5 miles off Monterey to about 5 miles off Point Conception. This straight line generally kept us about 15 to 20 miles off the coast. We never saw land from the time we left until about an hour before we arrived. Oh well.
Interesting - the water was actually a little cooler in Monterey than in the ocean off San Francisco (62 degrees in Monterey, 64 degrees north of San Francisco). It started warming up around San Simeon and by the time we rounded Point Conception this morning, it was over 70 degrees. Actually, it reached 76 degrees just as we made our turn into the Santa Barbara harbor - just about the same as Hawaii!
Speaking of Point Conception, I was a little worried about rounding this Point. Along with Cape Mendocino north of San Francisco, these are the two most notorious bad-weather spots along the US Pacific coast. No problem with Point Conception today, though. As we rounded the point and started to fall into the lee of the land north of us, the swell fell from 6 feet or so to maybe 2' with no wind waves - the ocean was almost oily smooth. Foggy, but smooth.
We did see whales and dolphins, though. Probably about a hundred dolphins in total of assorted sizes, colors, and families. They seem to share a fascination of charging towards the boat and then playing around the bow wave for five minutes or so before disappearing. It's quite a sight to see them coming at us from about a half mile away, jumping out of waves in unison six or seven at a time.
Yesterday afternoon between San Simeon and Morro Bay, I'd just layed down to take a nap between watches when Michelle woke me up and said come and look at the whales. So, I went upstairs to the pilothouse and saw - nothing. I started to think they were seeing things when we saw a whale spout at off our starboard side, maybe a quarter mile away. I trained my binoculars on the spot when suddenly, this massive whale comes shooting out of the water like a Polaris missle - straight up almost all the way to its tail flukes. His head must have been 40' above the water, straight up. Then, he came crashing down with such an explosion it looked like a bomb had gone off. Holy crap! What a sight I'll never forget. I'd seen pictures of whales breaching before, but experiencing it in person was stunning. Shortly after, John Kremer, one of our crew sputtered out, "There's two of them!" Two whales had breached in the same manner just ahead of us and to port. I turned just in time to see the massive explosion when they hit the water. It looked like someone dropped a building into the ocean - huge splash, huge waves. Quite memorable.
Naturally, we got no pictures. We barely got our eyes on them, never mind photos. But I'll always remember.
More to come tomorrow . . .
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