Dinghy Docking and Days in Port San Luis

9-22-12 – Port San Luis, Avila Beach, CA – Day 82

You can never have too many pics of writing in the sand

Lines everywhere

Updates from Autumn Wind, anchored off Avila Beach in Port San Luis.  Going ashore sounds so simple.  First of all if you can walk out the front door and go for a walk you need to recalibrate your thinking for this one.  Here, as in many other places, we are “on the hook”.  Which is more boater lingo for, we can’t get off the boat very easily.  But that’s why we have our trusty little dinghy.  (by “isn’t too hard” it does take some effort.  Think of it this way: each time you want to drive your car, i.e. leave your house, you just need to mount the tires to the car.  It’s not that hard, it just take some effort.  By the way, we need a name for our dinghy and would love some ideas) So it makes you think twice about that drive to the grocery store for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s now doesn’t it?  Usually getting out of the dinghy isn’t the hard part.  Either you have a beach or a dock to pull up to.  No problem.  Here at Port San Luis we were confronted with a whole new situation; at least new to us.  The piers stand some 20 to 30 feet high depending on the tides, there is no floating dock to tie up to and you’re not really supposed to land on the beach with all the little kids swimming around.  The solution is to provide ladders. 

Don't miss a step!

These vertical ladders lead down the 20 or so feet to the water, no landing, no nothing.  You step off the ladder into the water.  About 30 feet off of the pier is a line tied between two buoys.  The idea is you stern (back end) tie your dinghy to the line and then bow (front end) tie the dinghy to the ladder.  This makes sense as the tide goes up and down and the swell rolls onto the beach your dinghy stays safely off the pier.  Now anyone who has performed this little tie up your dinghy ballet before is thinking “what’s the big deal”.  In reality after you do it a couple of times it isn’t a big deal.  But that first time, it’s like parallel parking for the first time.  You hope no one is watching and taking a video of you looking like a newbie.  That was us for sure.  After a reconnaissance mission the day before, we at least knew to take two lines with us.  Wrap the bow line around the ladder and pay it out until you get to the rear tie off point….but wait the bow line isn’t long enough for this.  Ok, tie up the stern line and pay it out until you get to the ladder, but wait it isn’t long enough either.  What to do?  All these other people figured it out, I have a degree in Civil Engineering, there has to be a formula for this.  After a couple of tries we figure out our plan.  Tie the stern line to the tie off point paddle forward to the ladder and tie off the bow line, then pull in some stern line so you are riding parallel with everyone else.  Now the secret: the mooring balls move. So you can just pull your dinghy in to the ladder by the bow line, pulling the rear anchor line with you, then you climb onto the ladder and let the dinghy spring back into its position.  Just don’t fall off the ladder since your dinghy is now 15 feet away.  It all sounds so obvious after the fact, but it must have been comical watching us the first time.  We are now professionals and have rigged the stern line to the proper length prior to arrival and added a carabineer for easy attachment to the anchor line. 

Doesn't everyone climb down a 30 foot
ladder to get to their "car"?

Each and every time we either pop over the rail of the pier coming up the ladder or matter of factly ease our way over the railing to go down the ladder, someone on the pier gazes over at us and inquires about our doings.  It has led us to meet some very nice people as we describe where we are from and what we are up to.  In the end it is another new experience that everyone in Port San Louis takes for granted as being normal, just like everyone in Reno thinks nothing of tumble weeds rolling across the interstate.  (hard to believe people who live in the Midwest have never seen a “tumble weed”  roll thru an intersection on a windy day isn’t it?)



Washing the sand out of places after
my foray into skimboarding

On other notes; Elizabeth got a new hat, and I got a skim board.  Today alone it has proved me to be an old man as I have fallen on my back, face, arm, hurt my foot and am now sore from trying to ride this thing.  I have vowed to conquer it by the end of our trip.  It looks so easy on youtube.

















You can get wifi at Mr. Ricks and they have happy hour and a plug to charge your computer.  Sounds like a win, win, win to me!

No better place to plan your trip than Mr. Ricks

The people we have met here have, without exception, been exceedingly nice.  From the harbor patrol on the first day, to the fisherman who explained the dinghy tie up situation, to all of the establishments we have visited.  Today a little powerboat pulled up and hailed us and then started talking about how they had noticed our haha burgee and wanted to say hi. They had done it in ’07 and ’08.  Come to find out they were the family from s/v Third Day, a blog I had followed for quite a while back in Reno during the dreaming stages of this.  They are back from four years in Mexico and offered to give us a ride into town for supplies if we wanted.  More people who do not even know our names offering to help us out and give us a ride.  They know of people we had met on the DooDah this year when they met them on the Haha in ’08; and the world of boating becomes smaller yet again.  Either we have trusting faces or these cruiser types are pretty nice. 
So for being “stuck” waiting for favorable weather, it has been a pretty good sticking and we will be sad to leave. 

Avila Pier at night.  AW is second from the left

 

Even got some farm time in.

The anchorage, AW is second from the left

Goodbye Port San Luis