California Coast

[highseas]

Re. Piefer Pt. anchorage.Stopped in there once a long time ago,anchored overnight,must have been calm.Last time sailing south,wind was blowing about 20 knots,anchorage looked like rocky open lee shore,too scary to enter.Kept going overnight to San Simeon.

[jeremiason]

All I can recommend is choose your weather very carefully... We have made that route three times on our present boat and got slapped hard once from Morrow Bay to Monterey in July 2008.

We had 25 knot winds and 10 foot seas on the nose and were making about 3.0 kts over ground, motorsailing. In nautical terms... It sucked!

Another suggestion is have bailout points ready and waypoints marked on your GPS, including routes to get in. San Luis and Monterey Harbor are pretty straight forward, but the remaining harbors on a straight line to San Francisco are Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay (Pillar Point) and they are a little more challenging.

Moss Landing, is a nice harbor, but is on the scenic route and probably be to far out of the way to divert to as opposed to Monterey Harbor or Santa Cruz... unless your hugging the coast line.

Good Luck!