First Time Cruise - Monterey to San Diego

[Jason mack]

I'm located in Channel Islands Harbor. Drop in and share some experience. I'm looking to sail to S.F. this summer. Good place to restock and can offer a steak on the bbq in exchange. It's a lot less pricer than SB.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Yup!!!...Same experience. I call Ano Nuevo, Mini Conception.

Now you're talking about my back yard! We used to race up to the Ano Nuevo buoy in all kinds of weather--the fastest way is short-tacking up the coast. Tomorrow I'll test the point on a delivery up to Alameda--should be a nice 5-10k on the nose, but it blows harder from Anno Nuevo to Davenport than any other section of that coastline. Normally I would leave about 10 pm, but need the high tide at 7 am to clear the harbor bar.

As mentioned before, going south is usually the easy way and you will experience mild weather once round Conception, especially along the coast. When racing south, we usually head for aptly named 'windy lane', then cut between Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa.

Coming up the coast I usually leave Santa Barbara after dinner and arrive at Conception about 0500-0600. My experience is that the wind out there peaks about 0200, gets spotty with gusts till about 0500, then lies down till about 1000 when it starts to build again.

July will normally have less wind than June. If you luck out and get a southerly for a while coming up the coast, plan to duck in and wait out the NW surge which follows, especially in the Spring months.

Its a good trip for gaining experience. If radar is not in your sailing or energy budget, get an AIS receiver for $200 which will tell you where the big boys are.