A Day in The Life

10-1-12 – Somewhere between Santa Cruz Island and Santa Barbara Island – Day 91

I figure it may get old just hearing about where we are and what we are doing day to day.  Yes we are constantly moving on to new locations and you can usually see where we are by checking the SPOT.  (If I remember to turn it on)  So what is it that we really do day to day?  It’s been 91days since we moved onto the boat and we’ve traveled about 900 miles to date.  So what else have we been doing? 

There are sort of three different standard days.  Day one is a travel day.  Day two is a day at anchor.  (This day could be broken down into the subcategories of anchored with city access and anchored with no city access)  Day three is a day at a marina; this being very similar to anchored with city access.

Travel days usually begin earlier than all the rest.  Basically, figure out how far you need to go and then figure out how long that would take you at a brisk walk/jog.  Then figure out when you need to leave in order to arrive at your destination about an hour before dark to allow for anchoring etc..  Then there are the generalizations about weather to consider, like you shouldn’t round Pt. Conception much after noon as the wind comes up or usually the wind gets heavier in the afternoon.  For a simple example figure we need to go 50 miles one day.  That should take us between 8.5 and 12 hours.  It’s nice to be at your destination at about 6:00PM this time of year.  So that means we would leave somewhere between 7:00 and 8:00 AM.  Before departure you need to have a morning workout of raising 35 lbs of steel and 50 feet of 3/8” chain off the bottom of the ocean, make some coffee, lunch for later, eat breakfast and listen to the weather.  The do a final check of everything, and I mean everything, in the boat to  make sure it will not move if shaken vigorously and tipped at a 35 degree angle for extended periods of time. 

 This does help to keep the counters and tables clean as nothing will stay there long if forgotten.  Once the anchor is up and we have departed all that’s left to do is get to your destination.  You now have 8 to 10 hours to kill.  Books, charts and the local cruising guide works well to kill time. 

Looking for billion ton freighters

Someone needs to pay attention so little Autumn Wind doesn’t get run over by a billion ton freighter going 25 knots.  That person basically looks up at least once every five minutes or so, looks around the horizon for big moving things, checks the wind, sails, engine temp if under power and generally takes stock of what’s happening around us.  Then they do it again in five minutes over and over.  Like driving you don’t have to pay attention all the time, just when things are changing.  They just change a  lot slower at 6 miles an hour.  Then again billion ton freighters going 30 miles an hour don’t stop very quickly either, so you need to take that into consideration.  Depending on the weather we may sail almost immediately after leaving or motor for a while if there’s no wind or motor with the main sail up to help us out.  Basically trying to maintain some forward progress towards the destination so that we actually do arrive during daylight.  At some point we have some lunch, a snack, some tea.  In Southern California there is an endless stream of chatter on the VHF to listen to.  Sometimes someone we’ve met along the way will hear us hailing a freighter and call us on the VHF just to say hi.  Those are always nice calls to get, lets you know that someone else is out there.  The person on watch looks out for crab pots, lobster pots, fishing nets, kelp, other boats, dolphins (hoping they come closer), whales (hoping they stay a long ways away) and any number of other things that seem to be floating around in the ocean. 



Always time for a nap.

Today for instance we encountered about a dozen mylar happy birthday balloons floating in about a mile radius 20 miles offshore.  After giving a couple of them a wide berth thinking they might be a fishing net we realized our folly and stopped worrying about them.  You never know what you’ll see.  Now all of this assumes that it is a nice day, not dark, not nighttime, not foggy.  When those things are included in the equation everything seems to take on a higher importance.  Now you must look intently into the fog as if you can see something, then down at the radar, hoping you see something there before you do in real life; then repeat endlessly.  If you do see something on the radar and determine it is a boat then you need to hail them and make sure they see you also and then make sure you don’t hit each other.  These situations can be stressful.  Once at your destination you either drop the anchor, yes the one you picked up earlier that morning, or tie up to a dock. 

Anchor Downs in the cockpit

This is when the Anchor Down comes into play.  It is a very important part of your day, used primarily to make sure your anchor doesn’t move once set, but sometimes employed even at a dock. 

So that basically encompasses the day of a vessel in transit.  Wake up and lift the anchor.  Move the boat via some propulsion method to the next location.  Drop the anchor.  Feed yourself somewhere in there and try not to get run over by things bigger than you.  It’s pretty straight forward in the end.  That may be why it is so rewarding.  You know for certain if you were successful or not at the end of the day!  I’m happy to say that we have been very successful to date; although those whales did get pretty close today… 

Moon rise (yes, moon rise)

 

Days at anchor and days at dock to come in the future.

P.S.  The dinghy has been named Papa Kilo.  You’ll have to dig deeper in the blog if you can’t figure that one out.

Can you find PK on the beach?

Papa Kilo - Our little Dink

Nothing to do with this post, just having fun.