The Monterey Yacht Club had kindly offered us a side tie, free of charge, but warned us to arrive at high tide out of concern for shoaling. High tide was about 1:30 pm, so we departed in fog and no wind from Capitola at about 9:00 am on Friday, September 12. It was one of those erie mornings with zero visibility where radar and AIS were essential. But then whales appeared! At first they just looked like huge logs floating in the sea, until they moved! We probably spotted at least a half dozen. I think they were hump back whales, not grey whales. Shorter and didn’t spout as much!
The Crossing from Capitola to Monterey – a straight shot motoring with no wind for about 4 hours, mostly in dense fog
Rick of course wanted to fish again. We trailed a line, but no luck except a big chunk of seaweed. We decided to use the time wisely and try to run our watermaker under real world conditions for the first time. Pure water resulted, just like our initial tests! After the water passed the salinity tests, Cindy was the guinea pig again to test the taste. Excellent!
The watermaker at work
The testing bottle. We decided to use the tester to fill our drinking water bottles so our drinking water will never even hit the tanks
Cindy testing the a water
Approaching Monterey
We learned our lesson from the trip down to Half Moon Bay from San Francisco on September 4 that seas opposing the wind direction make for a very uncomfortable and long trip, so we are trying to plan our next trip more carefully. This will be our first all nighter, from Monterey to Morro Bay. We want to maximize chances for a good trip by choosing the best weather window. This might mean we are going to be in Monterey longer than initially planned. As of now, sustained ideal conditions of moderate winds, small waves with a long period swell, all coming together from the northwest, are not predicted for the next week, so we will just have to wait and see. Monterey is not a bad place to hang in the meantime, especially with a free slip provided by an hospitable yacht club, sunny weather and tons of things to do!
Having dinner at the Monterey Yacht Club Friday night
Cool Change looking hot at the Monterey Yacht Club/Monterey Harbor. Lots of club members asked tons of questions about our beauty. Rick was like a proud father, showing her off.