Catalina Island Rocks

Posted on by

That’s right. We’re still here. After anchoring at Cat Harbor for, what, a week? Longer?, we moved on and found this sweet anchorage at Goat Harbor on the other side of the island. We have had it all to ourselves for four days, maybe five. Who’s counting?  We have good holding, reasonable protection from the winds we have had so far, peaceful nights of sleep and, most importantly, beaches with rocks. Three of them. I have spent many happy hours loitering around looking at the rocks on exhibit here and rooting around in the little arroyos. Our next stop will be somewhere more “civilized”, so why hurry away? This is why we are out here cruising.

Our next stop will be somewhere San Diego-ish and we will be looking for a place to leave the boat while we go home for the holidays. We had planned to leave the boat in Mexico, but, turns out, we need to replace our batteries and this time we will be going with Lithium and considerably increasing the number of amp hours we have available. That’s a project most easily accomplished in the states, so leaving the boat here is on the table right now if we can find a place that is even mildly reasonably priced.

Would Mexico be cheaper? A bit, especially if we forgo staying in the resort marina. But we would also either have to bring the boat back to San Diego to do the work or take a chance that we have everything we need to do the project in Mexico. Although we likely could find what we might need in Mexico, that can become an ‘adventure’ in product sourcing. In addition, we’d need to negotiate getting back to the US to fly home and while it’s pretty easy to do that, it’s just another logistical piece we wouldn’t have to deal with if we stay here a bit longer.  Once we make a decision about batteries and who we are buying from, we will know about the timeline for ordering, and then everything else should fall into place. Either move on down Mexico way or stay stateside. Crossing fingers on that.

 

Does it not seem like goats would enjoy all that sweet green grass on the hills? We saw a deer way up at the top, but no goats yet.

Although we have not seen any goats here, Goat Harbor is one of the sweetest anchorages we’ve ever enjoyed. Here are a number of photos, just taken with my phone, of the wonders of rocks that abound here.

That beautiful Catalina Blue Schist, and some sandstone. The blue of this schist is like the blue of the deep ocean. I’ve never seen rocks this beautiful shade of blue. Also, this sandstone! Wow!

Blue and green schist, formed at different temperatures, and therefore different colors, and again with this unspeakably lovely sandstone.

This sandstone! Am I right?

Yes, it’s really these colors of purple, yellow, cool white. I just get a little gaga over this stuff.

A close up of this area that I swear someone with consciousness had a hand in designing. Unreal.

But wait! There’s more. You are lucky I did not photograph literally every single rock on the beach or in the arroyo because I’m telling you there were no losers here. None. They were all beautiful.

How’d this little guy get in there? Ok, he can stay.

The metamorphic folding on this guy! This was the entire side of one area of the beach. I would take a class in Geology if they didn’t use so many big words that I literally would not remember. I wonder if I could find one where they just explain things to me like I am 5 years old listening to storytime. I would remember it that way.

I love that there are three different beaches all easy rowing distance from our boat. I would like to stay longer, but we are running out of fuel for the generator. Stupid dying batteries.

Ok I won’t make you look at more. S/V Galapagos standing by on channel 16. (Lying. We have it turned off for now. So peaceful.)

 

 

Catalina Island: Four Wheel Drive Edition

Posted on by

The last time I checked in on the blog, we were cooling our heels in Morro Bay. Since then we’ve spent a wonderful week at San Miguel Island and then did an overnight passage to Catalina Island in advance of yet another gale. It was really too bad. We didn’t want to leave San Miguel Island. We’ve been lucky there twice with extended beautiful weather and we had the island to ourselves for several days this time around after all our friends left the anchorage. We got in some lovely snorkeling and also spent a night at anchor on the west side of the island so we could visit with even more seals. I wish we’d been able to stay a few more days.

Approaching the back side of Catalina Island in the early morning.

We arrived here last Sunday morning after a peaceful night passage and due to my work schedule, today was our first day to have the entire day to do some hiking. This island is lousy with hiking opportunities. And thus it came to pass. We took the dinghy to the beach in our anchorage at Catalina Harbor and decided to hike to the top of the hill for the view.

The last time we were here, Kevin and Cressie Baerg were also here on their boat S/V Blue. Back then we took the main trail, which is actually a road, from Two Harbors up, up, up the hill and into the desert. Mexico has nothing on Catalina Island when it comes to scrublands. What I remember about that hike is that the road went pretty much straight up into the heat for infinity miles. No one can keep up with Kevin as he flits from one rise of the road to the next like a hummingbird goes from flower to flower. It seemed effortless for him. It was…not…effortless for me and although that was 5 years ago, my memory of how punishing the road was is still strong. I did not want to do that again. It did not sound like the kind of fun I was after.

Michael observes that Galapagos is where we left her. She is the furthest to the left in the photo.

It seemed to me the best choice, since our destination was pretty much right above the anchorage, was to take what I call the ‘goat trail’ up the side of the small but mighty mountain. This way, I would have switchbacks to follow and could enjoy looking at rocks in the dried mud on the way up. I will do a lot to observe rocks in their natural habitat.

I am never more wrong than when I am trying to keep a good thought.

We view the peak from the aft deck. It beckons the way a demon whispers in your ear.

We started out strong. Although the path was steep, it was not difficult and I was feeling chuffed about choosing this route. I stepped in a lively fashion, avoiding ankle-breaking holes, knee-twisting loose gravel,  and sticker bushes. I figured the switchbacks would begin right about where I thought I could see a level place in the terrain further up the hill. Turning around I could see Galapagos below us in the blue of the sea. I thought I could hear her laughing but figured it was probably just my imagination. Maybe altitude sickness was beginning early. I hear it’s a problem for the aged and infirm.

Soon I was in a sort of trance with my steps beating out a regular cadence as we climbed up further. Michael was behind me and that fact encouraged me to keep moving smartly because if I let him lead he would surely just leave me behind. To get around me he would have to get off the trail and considering the slope and the precipitous drop on one side, that would probably not be a good idea. The wind was blowing maybe 10 knots; just enough to make me worry about being blown over. I put my head down and carried on.

I stopped to take a couple of photos and slow the heart rate down. Looking up, it seemed maybe we were about halfway there but I could not be sure. I noticed some wild dill growing and decided it would be nice to have a few leaves to put in a chicken salad later on. This excuse to tarry gave Michael the chance to get around me; a mixed blessing as now I would take my time but also he would quickly outpace me. Oh well. I sort of trusted him not to leave me to die alone on that hill so I told him to yell when he found the switchbacks. This was a good time to reapply my lip sunscreen. Maybe have a drink of water.  Alas, this hill would not climb itself. I recommenced.

After a good while, who knows how long, I came to an awareness of Michael standing on the hill above me and shouted, “Did you find the switchbacks? Are you at the top now?”. It was not to be. He just wanted to warn me that the goats had deserted us, taking their clear path with them,  and that this part of the ‘trail’ had been washed out, leaving a large and irregular gully of dirt and rock and, if humanly possible, an even steeper incline. He turned and continued on, leaving me to it.

I observed the terrain in front of me, craning my neck and holding onto my battered sombrero as I looked at Michael’s tiny figure above me. I turned and observed the terrain behind me, wee Galapagos winking in the sun on the water below. I was not going back down the way I came. No way. There was nothing for it but to continue on. Had I not promised myself that I would make better life choices, that I would consider my actions before taking them?  Had I not begun to realize that with the passage of time came the responsibility to be more careful with this body of mine so as to avoid injury? The answers are yes and yes, and yet, there I was on the side of this steep hell. But hey, I’m no quitter and besides, I brought water and a snack due to thinking ahead. I might roll down the hill to my death, blown over by the infernal wind,  but by God I would not starve out here or die of thirst.

Michael trudges in an upright position. I feel unstable just watching. Do you see the top of that rise ahead of him? Don’t be tempted to think that’s the top of the hill. It isn’t. It’s just this hill’s version of a mean prank.

Taking the measure, once more of the angle of heel of this slope, as well as what I strongly believed was loose gravel/rocks, I felt there was little choice about my next move.  I dropped to all fours and began a small meditation, if not prayer, as I scrambled. “Watch where you place your hand. Be aware of snakes. Watch where you place your foot. Check to see the rock is stable before putting your weight on it. Do not look up or down, just keep going. Watch out for those dratted sticker bushes because they hurt like hell. One hand for you, one hand for the hill. ” Simian-like, I crept up this part of the hill, Michael way above me somewhere in the distance, having trudged upright like other human beings. Time ceased to exist as I meditated my way toward the light.

These are dreadful and remind me of the kinds of stickers we used to have in the grass in Texas. Vile things.

I have no idea how far that part of the “trail” was. The change in elevation is about 1000 feet total. But I do know this: those step trackers that tell you how many steps you walked that day are complete and utter bullshit under these conditions. A person should get credit for at least double the steps if they have been using all four limbs in order to propel their body through time and space. Anyone who does not believe we share common ancestors with the great apes has never scaled a vertical rocky wash on all fours.

As I breached the top of the four-wheel-drive portion of the climb, I saw Michael standing on the road at the top. He had found the switchback. There was only one. It was almost at the very top and it had a large sticker bush smack in the middle of it. I feel like that was really unfair and that we deserved better at that point.

At the little picnic table on the landing we had our snacks and remembered being there before with Kevin and Cressie. That had been a grand day in spite of the grueling uphill climb on the road. This would be the road we would take back to the boat. As it turned out, my memory of that road was 100% correct. It was very steep, and very long. For us that meant downhill almost the whole way.

Almost back to the dinghy. Nice and flat. My knees tried to recover from the long downhill walk.

For the rock lovers, Catalina Island is home to this beautiful Blue Schist. It’s really, truly that lovely shade of blue. Magnificent.

 

We will be here a while longer as some good snorkeling weather is coming up. We’ll be taking advantage of that while we allow the sea to support our weary legs and heal the toll gravity has taken on them.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Morro Bay: Well Heeled

Posted on by

And on the fifth day in Morro Bay, the adventure began. The word ‘adventure’ as used here means an event that will make a good story some day but while you are living it, the suck outweighs the fun in a dramatic fashion. This word, adventure, also means ‘things you already knew but somehow forgot and now they’ve made you feel like a chump’. But so it goes out here. As Captain Ron so famously said,  “Anythings gonna happen, it’ll happen out there.”  Or, in our case,  in nice little Morro Bay.

We awoke to a wonderful sunny day, bright with the promise of a long and leisurely walk in town; perhaps an espresso somewhere; or lunch. It was about 10:30 in the blessed AM when I hear Michael up in the cockpit turning on the chart plotter. “Hey, Melissa! I think we have a problem here.”.  Great. Those are just the very words I was longing to hear. I was not even dressed yet.  What was up?

“Our depth sounder is showing only 1.5 feet under the keel. We need to reset the anchor.”.

Oh. Ok. Well that’s not so bad. I mean, sure, a stiff wind had piped up from the east, which was a little strange. The other boats in the anchorage were sashaying around in a disorganized fashion. I noted S/V Copacetic was pulling up anchor. Maybe they were leaving. I wondered if they had checked weather as there was going to be a gale tomorrow. We got our headsets on and Michael went to the the windlass to prepare to pull the anchor up. I put the engine in gear and gave her some gas to move the boat forward, as we do when pulling up anchor. We like to baby the windlass when we can.

This time, the boat did not move. What the what? With 1.5 feet below the keel, we should have 7.5 feet of water under us. Not great, but enough to move out to deeper water. I push the engine to 2500 RPM. Nothing. She was definitely not moving. Shit “She’s not moving.” , I speak, without yelling, into the headset. Mike tries assisting with the windlass. He pops the breaker. I scurry below to reset that, my stress level rising. We are hard on the mud somewhere.

Back in the cockpit I radio the Harbor Patrol and ask them if they can come assist us. They send a guy on a paddle board, which stresses me out because the tide is falling rapidly and there is no way he is going to be helpful. But he gets out to us quickly and radios for a boat to come help. They are there quickly and I begin to breathe more easily. I have full confidence that they will be able to lend enough engine power that we’ll come off with no problem.

Paddle board guy was there in 2 minutes.

My confidence turns out to be badly misplaced. They do their very best, engines churning the water fiercely,  but, after all, the tide is swooshing out and we have a heavy boat. We are not going anywhere. They wave goodbye, with apologies for their failure, but everyone is good natured about it. This happens frequently in Morro Bay.  I mean, it could be worse. It could be rocks. Or coral. (Shudder.) This is just mud. We’ll be fine, if uncomfortable for a few hours. I mean, how bad can it be?

We prepare the boat for careening. Or falling over. Whichever term you prefer. We pull in the boom to the center position. Drop the dinghy into the water and tie it off to a cleat. We begin stowing things below as though we were preparing to go offshore in heavy wind. As I go below to stow some stuff I note that we can already feel the floor tilting a bit. Not a lot, but there is a definite tilt. We sigh; collectively. I close all the hatches on the low side, just in case we fall completely over somehow. I know we won’t but I do it anyhow. It is now 11:30. Low tide is around 4:00.

Today we will be the entertainment for Morro Bay. Oh well. It could be worse. It could be raining. We settle in to wait. The tide is still screaming out of the bay. It was almost high tide when we got stuck. Almost. After 4:00 things would begin to get better.

The whale watching boat. I hope they know Galapagos was not a beached whale. I waved happily as though we meant to do this, as though we were, perhaps, European or from the UK where to careen a boat is just the thing you do. Had I gotten out there with some bottom paint and started brushing it on, people would have just thought we were thrifty and smart. Missed opportunity.

As the boat begins to list gently to starboard, helped along by the 18-20 knots of cold wind blowing from the north by this time, I am doing well. I am handling things. Mike is in good spirits. We find the humor in our situation, which, as I say, could have been worse. We could have been in a location less populated and with no one to help. On rocks. Or with big waves crashing us around.  I turn the wheel hard to one side to lift the rudder up out of the water. I don’t want pressure on the rudder. We like our rudder.

As the inclinometer begins to inch toward 30 degrees of heel, I begin to feel ansty.  Things we have not yet noticed have begun to crash down below. Drawers that were not quite closed  suddenly open. Items stored behind closed cupboards crash into the doors, making us afraid of what we might find later. Things that have never moved from their places before begin to slide off Mike’s workbench. We go below and make another pass. It’s getting hard to walk down there.

A bit later in the day Michael would practice walking at an angle. Probably should have held the camera at 40 degrees for this shot. Maybe you can turn your head a bit. to get the full effect, which is, basically, an amazing core workout, Note  red stretchy band that is hanging straight down, as gravity causes it to do.

By the time the inclinometer reads 40 degrees my brain and my body are at odds with one another. My brains says, “You know this will be fine. It’s just mud. Galapagos is a heavy boat and well built. She will be fine. My body says ‘we should have reefed 20 degrees ago. We have too much sail up! This is dangerous! The boat is probably out of control!”. I am now fighting anxiety, which is what happens when your body’s signals do not match what your logical mind knows is true. I decide I better do some doom scrolling on my phone, so I set up in the cockpit and begin.

I mean, to be clear, I did not exactly sit. Because by this time we are heeled over 45 degrees so it’s more like I am hunched down in the cockpit bracing my legs in a semi crouched position. It’s not comfortable, but I’m trying to keep my weight on the high side, as though my weight will make any kind of difference in this situation. But everyone knows that when the boat is heeling you put your weight on the high side. So there you go. I’m doing my best here. I scroll through social media and the news and play a couple of mindless games, losing them all because I can’t concentrate. Good thing I’m not really a gambler.

As an aside, note Mike is wearing his coastal life vest in the photo above. We both spent the whole day wearing our PFDs, which could not have been more useless. Had we fallen overboard, we would have just stood up, muddy and possibly covered in eel grass. Maybe it’s just that when things feel weird a life vest seems like a good idea.


Still a great view! And I am so close to the birds on the mudflat, just like I wanted to be. Except the wind is very cold and blowing like fierce and I am not interested in sitting outside with the wind in my face.

It’s at about 50 degrees of heel that I suddenly decide to look up the tide for that evening.  I note that the high in the evening is going to be 3.76 feet. The tide that put us on the hard was 4.38 feet and Mike was seeing 1.5 feet beneath the keel. The math was not adding up for me. By my logic, we would need at least more than 1.5 feet under us in order to power off the mud. That would be 1.5 feet of water we probably were not going to get. My usual string of curse words sprang forth as I began to stress on the idea that we would not be getting off until the next morning, when the tide would rise to 4.75 feet at 10:01AM.  We might be spending the night at 55 degrees, and I do not mean fahrenheit. I was filled with dread at the thought. Not that I felt like anything would happen to the boat. Just that it would be a sleepless night. Which I hate.

One of the saddest sights a boat owner can have. Could have been worse. There could have been damage. There was none.

Right around slack tide some new friends from the anchorage dinghied over with wine and snacks. Liam and Heather from S/V Karma had come over earlier to meet us and chat and we enjoyed them a great deal. They are a young couple making their way on a small boat and having a grand time. They have already had a lot of interesting experiences and are truly cutting their teeth on the cruising lifestyle; solving issues, replacing an engine in Uclulet, British Columbia, and generally living their best lives. We could not be more pleased for them. Liam’s parents were here to visit and they came over as well. We were quickly joined by Zack and Lisa from S/V Copacetic (one of the greatest boat names ever). They are a young couple from Victoria, also cruising down to Mexico, and also embracing the kind of problem solving that will make them wildly successful as cruisers. These folks figured out how to make an auto pilot meant for tiller steering work on their wheel steering boat. I am in awe. We all yucked it up and toasted to the cruising life, even with ‘interesting’ experiences. We loved it. It was a very much needed respite from the stress of the day.

We were reminded of the time we were anchored somewhere in the northern Gulf Islands of British Columbia and we awoke to a sailboat in the anchorage; hard aground at low tide. We rowed over to talk to the couple, who were pretty stressed out. They had anchored many times in that same place and never had an issue. But something was different this time and when they awoke, they were aground on rocks. We climbed aboard with coffee and snacks and kept them company waiting for the tide to rise, which it always does. Now these new friends in Morro Bay had done the same for us. It was truly a bright spot in an otherwise fairly stressful day.

As we chatted and snacked, the tide turned and soon our toe rail was no longer under water. Not long after, the lower port in the midship cabin peeked above the water line. As the tide began to come in we started being hopeful, but I reminded Mike that this was not the ‘high’ high tide of the day. If we got off, we would be lucky. Mike noted that the bow had shifted a few degrees to starboard due to wind and current. He considered this an auspicious sign and who was I to argue?

Heather and Liam look over our hull and give us a barnacle report. Result: only a few small hangers on.

Once we were heeled only 20 degrees or so and things were feeling more normal, Mike got in the dinghy and took soundings around the boat with our portable depth sounder. It was clear that forward of midship, the water was deep enough. It was the rear of the boat that seem like it got over a small hill in the mud. As he climbed back aboard he said, ‘Too bad we have all that chain in the aft lazarette. ‘.

What?? I had completely forgotten about that. We added 200 feet of chain to that aft lazarette to add weight to the back of the boat when we took off the mizzen. I suggested we just take that to the bow, and he added that we should also take everything of weight to the bow. The fuel cans? To the bow. The generator? To the bow. The stainless steel swell damperner? The bow. Even the stern anchor and rode. We carried it all to the bow and crossed our fingers.

As the water crept up and the depth sounder approached 0.00, which would give us 6 feet, the amount of water we draw, we turned on the deck lights fore and aft so we could see better in the darkness. Mike cleared as much of the floating eel grass and kelp from the anchor chain as he could reach with the boathook. We turned on the engine, Mike put her in gear, and …..she budged. “She moved!” he shouted in my ear. I love our Sena headsets, but sometimes…Our hopes were rising with the tide.

It’s possible he took only two strides to reach the windlass. I was already in the cockpit and at the wheel, making sure our course was straight out, the rudder perfectly centered; this after examining the chart, the boat’s heading, the wind, and all the depths around us. It seemed like our best chance. I put her in gear and she moved enough for him to get the anchor bridle off. Then I gunned it quite suddenly, without even any drama,  we were free and floating in 16 feet of glorious water. I literally just gave her a quick burst of power and she drove right off like she was never stuck in the first place, like she was just joking around with us.

“You’re off! You’re off!” Mike shouted from the bow as cheers erupted from the crowded cockpit on S/V Karma.

Still clearing weed from the anchor rode, we tarried a few minutes in the anchorage, then went further in and got anchored for the night. We were both pretty stressed and tired, mostly from trying to move around a boat heeled that far over. There is no place to walk when the floor is at 55 degrees. We got full body workouts all day long.

This morning we upped anchor, got pumped out, and then picked up the last mooring ball, close to our personal friends the sea lions. A gale has been blowing outside the harbor and we’ve been glad to just have a day of rest. Galapagos got through her ordeal in fine form; no harm, no foul. The fuel filters are fine (we worried about muddy water in the intake). We learned that roofing tape is, indeed, very water tight as the midship viewing port did not leak a drop.

Last night we had a celebration party aboard Galapagos, our first real social time since we left the dock in Olympia way back in August. We had Lisa and Zack from S/V Copacetic out of Victoria, Mark from S/V Eva G from Seattle, Heather and Liam from S/V Karma from Seattle and Liams parents, Grant and Kate, who are here visiting. It was a real party and we stayed up well past our bedtimes without even realizing it. It was worth being on the mud for a day just to bring all these fine people together aboard Galapagos, swapping stories, sharing resources, talking books and boats.

No post with dramatic photos of a boat on its side would be complete without examining the mistakes we made that resulted in this fiasco. So what did we forget, that we absolutely already knew? Here’s the low down:

1). We’d been in this anchorage for 4 days. It was time to reset the anchor, just like in Mexico in La Paz. Just like in La Cruz. There is a lot of current running through here, so the boat swings 180 degrees twice daily. In addition, winds had clocked around from several different directions. Reset the damn anchor, Team Galapagos. Reset the damn anchor.

2). There is a ton of free floating eel grass and some kelp. The anchor chain is quickly wrapped in it. All the more reason to pull anchor, clear the chain, and reset. It is hard to overstate how much weed floats through here.

3). Did we drag? No. We did not. What we did, though, is fail to realize how the low tides were changing day to day with the waxing of the moon. Even 4 days made a big difference in how close we were to the mudflat, and it gets shallow really quickly. Had the wind not been blowing like stink from the east, we would have been fine. But when that wind shifted it basically put us on a lee shore. The back of the boat floated over a hump, and the rest is history. It took a very short amount of time for this to happen.  We also learned, from a local boat captain, that during the big storm of January 2023, winds and rains were so intense that the depth charts are no longer accurate in parts of the bay. That jives with what some other cruisers were seeing, and with our experience in places. The sands do shift.

4) This is a small anchorage. When we pulled in, we had no choice about where to put the anchor. It was either put it down where we did, or go to a mooring. At that time we  had plenty of water under the keel (see #4). The first 5 days of anchoring are free here. After that it’s about 18$/day, more or less. We put down the anchor. Harbor patrol thought we were fine where we were and also gave us the option of anchoring just outside the channel, since there were other boats that may have been too close otherwise. As the low tides get lower with the waxing of the moon, the useable part of the anchorage gets smaller. When a 4th boat showed up,  that would have been a good time to take stock of where we were and get to the mooring ball.

Ouch. Nothing bruised but our egos. We could have cleaned the hull but it was too cold and windy. Also the hull is pretty clean anyhow. Good to know.

We’ve taken our lumps and kept our sense of humor with this. Harbor patrol was out today and I hailed them to motor over to the boat so I could thank them for trying to help us out yesterday. They were glad to see we had got off and had no damage. As they said, in parting, “If you haven’t been aground, you haven’t been around!”. True words. This was a first for us, and we hope it will be the last. But if not, I know which drawers to check to see they are firmly closed.

The neighbors on the mooring ball.

S/V Galapagos, floating and standing by on Channel 16. We made it to San Miguel Island and are now technically in Southern California and wearing shorts.