Catalina Part I - North bound

by Ray 15. August 2009 09:56
Catalina 2009 track
It was a busy weekend preparing for departure and also getting in all the honey-dos I needed to so that the ladies at home were happy while we were gone.

We started loading the boat at 1600 Sunday afternoon and were loaded and ready to go by 1730. We checked out and were underway by 1800, leaving from Mission Bay. Our tentative plan was to use the prevailing North-Westerly winds to sail a few miles out to sea before turning north.  Unfortunately we only had wind to sail until about 2000 which got us only a couple miles offshore and as far north as La Jolla.

At this point we started up the engine, set course of 290 (hand steering the entire way) and cruised very smoothly at about 6kts.  As the sun set things began to take on a surreal feel.  The moon didn't rise till around midnight so it got very dark.  An hour after sunset I could barely make out the difference between the sky and the sea. Conveniently there was hardly any swell or waves at all. It got steadily colder all night long and we eventually ended up in full foulies.  I woke up around 0200 to a very odd sensation.  I looked up and the sky was all lit up grayish-white.  I said to Kurt, in my barely awake stupor, that the sun was coming up.  He laughed and told me not yet...  Then I realized that even though I couldn't see the moon it was shining on the clouds from above and lighting up the whole sky.  We could see for several miles in every direction.

Kurt and I had set a 2 hour watch and the person off watch just rested/slept in the cockpit, Sam slept well all night down below. This being our/my first overnight passage we both wanted the other quickly available in case something happened. At 0300 something happened. Kurt was driving and I was snoozing against the starboard bulkhead. I heard something very odd come from the engine and suddenly the oil pressure light and buzzer went on scaring the crap out of both of us. I jumped to the binnacle and shut the engine down. I checked the engine temp real quick and it looked fine so I headed to the engine. As soon I got in the companionway I could smell the burnt rubber and immediately knew we'd wasted a belt.

I pulled the engine cover off while Kurt raised the main in an effort to limit the rolling as much as possible. I found both belts wrapped around the crankshaft doing their best impression of spaghetti. While the Seaforth staff was showing us through the boat before we left the dude had pointed out the spare belts and a few other spare parts and tools.  Kurt and I nodded our heads, spare parts, right, yadda yadda yadda thanks...  Thankfully they did supply us with spares for both belts! After cleaning out the mess I installed new belts and we were on our way again. Total down time was about 30 minutes.

[quick aside: I was wearing a harness and tether while I was working on the engine. I had the cover off when I told Kurt to start up the engine so I could make sure things looked okay. My tether got kicked by one of the blades on the alternator and suddenly my life flashed before my eyes. Dumb move on my part and my only excuse was it was 0300, which is really no excuse. Beware dangly things when you are working on an engine!!]

Along the way I noticed that the fridge wasn't cooling down.  No fewer than three people had told us the boat had a working fridge to NOT put ice in it because it would mess it up some how.  So I bought one bag of ice to put in our ice chest to cool down a few beers.  The rest of the food went in the fridge.  Well, by early morning the fridge was no colder than when we'd left and I was scouring the boat documentation trying to figure out why the fridge wasn't working.  I actually found NO information on any refridgeration on board.  The only indicator that there might be was the switch on the control panel labeled "Refridgeration".   Well, I moved our one bag of ice to the fridge and noted this would require a call back to Seaforth once we were moored.

After that it was a straight cruise right to the island, though I think we both had pits in our stomachs from nerves...  We saw land around 0400, or a least land based lights...  Around this time we were also transiting the shipping lanes out of Long Beach but we didn't see another vessel within miles of us.  We did start to pick up some radio traffic though.

By sun-up we were off Avalon and on a very smooth ride right to Twin Harbors.  As we were cruising past the island we went through a couple pods of Dolphins.  Man those things are really playful!  They'd swim right up to us, dive under on one side and come jumping out the other side.  Really neat to see!

We contacted Two Harbors on channel 9, the harbor master came out to meet us and give us our mooring assignment.  We ended up on J5.  The mooring field is really tight and I was a bit nervous getting us in there but all went smoothly and by 1000 we were moored and finally relaxing...  I was too tired at this point to realize I'd really enjoyed the trip up, and I was still a little stressed over the engine and the fridge.  While here we needed to find new spares and figure out our refridgeration situation.  Plus we were hungry!
 
Pictures!  Git cher pictures here! 
 
Next up: Island Time
Seaman Ray

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Catalina | Mission Bay | sailing | Catalina 320

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