Chris and Scott invited me to join them onboard Chris' Farrier F-27 for race 3 of the interclub inside-the-bay race sponsored by Oakland Yacht Club. Six different fleets raced, each with an average of six or seven boats, on a course that was 13.7nm for the slower boats and 18.1nm for the faster boats. We were one of the faster boats.
Dylan and Roshie invited Sara and me to join them for the historic Vallejo Season Opener race on their ultralight custom Dogpatch 26, "Moonshine". We love the Vallejo race - it was the first race we sailed on Velella, our much-beloved Ericson 27.
Dylan and I sailed his custom Dogpatch 26 "Moonshine" in the doublehanded lightship race, a short offshore race outside the SF Bay's Golden Gates.
When heading south we did all our coastal hops in the daylight, but going back north we chose to sail overnights as much as possible. It's harder to push off a comfy pier after dinner, but the lighter overnight winds and reduced waves are worth it.
This was our last passage on Wanderlust!
We weren't exactly feeling awesome about our six-hour stop in Morro Bay, but we had already arranged to meet Sara's sister Amelia in Monterey on Monday afternoon and those 120-odd miles weren't going to sail themselves. Sailing on a schedule is never a good idea.
Our next leg was around Point Conception, one of the more dangerous sections of the California coastline. This is where we were almost struck by lightning and were warned about the half-mile diameter waterspout on the way south, so we didn't want to mess around. We sailed from Ventura along the Santa Barabara coastline to Coho Anchorage just before Pt Conception, anchored until midnight, and finished the rest of the trip to Morro Bay in the dark.
We left San Diego before sunrise with a mission to make the ~85mi north-west passage to Avalon Harbour at Santa Catalina Island. Our plan was to take little hops north but sleep anchored (or on a buoy) each night.
Ensenada to San Diego is short enough to qualify as a day-trip, and what a fantastic day-trip it was. At this point in our northerly passage, any non-overnight sail is by default fantastic, and although the weather was perfect, this day was special for another reason: we were leaving Mexico and returning to the United States!
We're back in the United States! I've shaved my 'Baja Beard', we're both enjoying two or three hot showers a day, and we're enjoying constant cellphone access, accurate weather forecasts on the VHF, delicious Giardia-free water, and lots of family and friends.
This is the final leg of our trip as we take Wanderlust back to San Francisco.
This last section of the Baja bash was what we'd been least looking forward to: the 500km passage from Turtle Bay to Ensenada. Our good luck ran out on the weather front and warm sunny shirtless sailing was over for sure.
We split the trip into three sections: a short sail to Isla Cedros, the long trip across Vizcaino Bay to San Quitin, and another short hop to Ensenada.