Our kind of LA traffic jam.
Log Book
- Port of departure: Marina del Rey, CA
- Departure time: 11:15 am on Friday, November 27
- Port of arrival: Newport Beach, CA
- Arrival time: 9:15 pm on Friday, November 27
- Total travel time: ~10 hours
- Nautical miles traveled: ~50 miles
- Engine hours start – end – logged: 850 – 854 – 4
- Gallons of diesel start – end – used: 16.8 – 15.2 – 1.6
- Weather: The forecast predicted 5-10 knots of wind from the W/NW, switching to the SE in the evening. Wind waves less than two feet and NW swell 3-5 feet at 12 seconds. Clear skies.
We intended (and by we, I mean Jeff) to wake up at 5am and leave port by 6:30am or so…but someone (and by someone I mean me) stayed up WAY too late the night prior. I knew we had a 50 mile day ahead of us, but we were plugged into shore power (meaning we can be energy hogs) and I was busy scanning important documents, purchasing Mexican liability insurance, sending long overdue emails and researching all there was to research about Mexico and the waters beyond (Jeff introduced me to noonsite.com, which is a great jumping off point). As tends to happen with the internet, I went down the rabbit hole and wasn’t able to wrench myself free of the grip of the ever fascinating interwebs until a woman started yelling at me at 2am. In a previous post I mentioned that Chace park was lovely…it is lovely indeed, but it also attracts some interesting characters.
So at 2am, as our printer is spitting out a photocopy of my passport I hear a loud voice outside the boat, up behind the fence. “Hey! Lady!”
I wasn’t exactly sure if she was yelling at me…though I didn’t think there were many people awake at 2am within 100 feet of me and this other woman. I busied myself looking at papers, convinced that she was trying to get someone else’s attention. Jeff had been snoozing for four hours and I was hoping she wouldn’t wake him up.
“What are you doing?” She yells. “I know you can see me!”
I’m literally in a fish bowl, she can see me, but I can’t see outside. With papers still in hand, inspecting them intently, I open our bathroom door in order to peer out of the bathroom window where it’s dark (I can see her and not be seen). That’s when I hear a knock on the boat.
Her name is Feather (with a name like Harmony, I can instantly relate on some strange level). She’s looking for her friends, three old drunk guys on a sailboat…maybe one is named Tommy or Johnny? She’s worried about her safety, so she’s carrying a golf club around. She didn’t want to freak me and out and she apologizes for bugging me so late in the night, but the passive aggressive security guard is just staring at her and kind of freaking her out. I point her towards a boat where I saw three older guys who may or may not have been drunk. She looked rough, but she was sweet and apologetic for the mid-night disturbance.
It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except for the fact that it woke Jeff up and he was able to look at the clock and realize that I was still wired…3 hours prior to our wake-up time (a wake-up time that had not been clearly communicated to me…or one that I just chose to ignore). I crawled into bed and tried to give myself a little pep talk
Three hours? That’s plenty of time Harmony. You’ll be fine tomorrow. Just gotta put your game face on in THREE hours.
Ironically, thinking about how little time I had to sleep kept me awake for another 30 minutes.
5am came and went…we finally got out of bed at 9:30am and didn’t leave Marina Del Rey until closer to 11am. We entertained staying put for another day, doing a shorter trip or just accepting that we would arrive in Newport Beach at night. We stuck to the original plan – Newport Beach.
Point Vicente Lighthouse and a good omen.
When we first left, the winds were light, around 5 knots, and right on our nose S/SW. About 2 hours into the trip the wind picked up to 10 knots and shifted to the W/SW. It was an awesome day for sailing. We put up our Genoa and had a full main and were making about 5.5 knots. When we turned Point Vicente we went wing on wing with a preventer on the Main and the whisker poal on the Genni.
Wing on wing.
As we were passing Downtown Los Angeles the wind started whistling at about 15 knots and the waves also picked up, which made it difficult to stay directly downwind. We accidentally jibed (the boom got caught by the wind and slammed to the other side of the boat) even with the preventer on (to keep the boom from accidentally jibing). We lowered the main and sailed with just the Genoa for a couple of hours to let the adrenaline slowly ease out of our system. An accidental jibe is a disconcerting experience. In a moment everything can all of the sudden feel out of control. It reminds you just how powerful the wind can be and how attentive we must be to its ever changing moods.
Sunset over Catalina Island.
The wind died down as we got farther into the harbor and we motored the last 1.5 hours or so. The approach was easy in the dark and the bay was quiet and beautiful – lots of fancy houses perfectly adorned with Christmas lights. We checked in with Harbor Patrol at about 9pm and decided to rent a space in Mooring Field B next to some friends from our marina in Portland – nice to see old friends.
Lovely moon to sail by.
The mooring field had two “cans” for each boat. Our new neighbor popped her head out of the window to welcome us and also to watch us gently curse at each other and not so gently curse at the cans as we tried to align our bow and stern with them, wrangle them with our boat hook and run a line through them and back to our boat. If you think watching people dock their boat is entertaining, you would probably get a kick out of watching people parallel park in a mooring field. We made it on our second attempt (not too bad!) and turned our attention to tidying up and eating.
Dinner was ready by 11pm and we were in bed by midnight. Long day. Good day. Glad when it was over day. Now we get to stay put for one whole week!!!! Awesome. Next stop, Mexico!