I got back from the most amazing trip a week ago and thought I'd share it here. My brother, some friends, and I do an annual guys trip and this year's trip was to
Catalina Island. We had volleyed emails for months and I had arranged a
Hunter 33' for the trip, which would have been tight with 5 of us aboard. My friend Scott secured a 42'
Hunter from Windward Sailing Club in Lido. She was a nice
boat and suited us quite well.
After jockeying to make schedules
work, we decided to cross the channel at night. I watched the
weather reports all week to get an idea about how foggy the channel gets in August. We had great visibility all the way across. We did encounter a large
oil tanker in the
shipping lane. I spotted her and kept an eye on her for more than a half hour. It was easy to determine direction of travel, but harder to assess the speed. She passed safely more than a mile behind us.
Picking up a
mooring at White Cove was a little challenging at night, but we made it
work. We moored there all three nights because
Avalon was completely full and Hamilton Cove is not ideal for overnights because it's very rough.
We anchored just north of Hamilton Cove the first night. My friend who was the
skipper had chosen a spot too close to another
boat for my liking. I shared my opinion. Some skippers don't care for that. We pulled the
anchor and reset it at the request of a
Catalina 320 skipper who was concerned he would not be able to raise his
anchor when the
wind shifted. We reset the anchor further away and I was much more comfortable with the position. I read a book by Bill McNeely and in it, he said that anyone aboard his boat can veto the anchorage if they don't like it. I'll have the same policy when I skipper.
We sailed Sunday in 14 knots of
wind and got the
Catalina ripping along at 7.6 knots on a beam reach. The
sails were pretty worn and the leech line on the
jib was about done. I was surpised to see the leeward
shroud come loose while we were under sail. The crew reattached it at the chainplate and we didn't have any further issues with it.
After the sail, we picked up a
mooring at Hamilton Cove. It was like being moored in a
washing machine. We took the
dinghy to shore, ate, had a few drinks, and returned to the boat. We left the mooring and went back to the calm, sheltered moorings at White Cove.
We left White Cove reluctantly on Monday morning and sailed for a while. The wind died down and we slowed to 3.9 knots. Unfortunately, we were forced to
motor sail the rest of the way back. We saw two blue whales in the
shipping lane. They were amazing. We also encountered a pod of dolphin closer to
Newport Harbor. They are fun!
When we got into more traffic and turned off the auto
helm, I took the
helm for a bit. I turned to starboard to give a
commercial fishing vessel plenty of room. He was headed toward us and turned to his port side. He dragged his
fishing net almost underneath us, which I wasn't too happy about. We didn't snag it. In the future, I'll get on the
radio and coordinate with the other boat's
captain.
We got back into
Newport Harbor safely, but it was hard to accept that our trip was over. I can't wait to go back.