'The Easter Day Hangover Sail'
Voyage2, Marina del Rey, April 20, 2003
At first it did not look like I would get out on the waves at all. Everyone who had expressed interest in going today backed out, it was Easter after all. Anyway, as luck would have it (or was it another 'meaningless coincidence') Ron's plan to take his own boat out this day also fell thru. Which opened the door for he and Andrea to make voyage 2--the Easter Day Hangover Sail---with me.
We sat around for about 1/2 an hour
nursing our hangovers---the previous night was Eric's going away bash at our house (at this point I also realized the importance of keeping aspirin and advil on the boat). During this time, my apprehension over maneuvering the boat out of the slip grew again. I'll get over the fear in time, but for now, I am no where near comfortable with powering Heart of Gold in and out of the slip. And its not due to hurting
my boat---I'm worried about nailing others at my dock.
With the chat and the boat prep out of the way, Ron gave me a push back and then we maneuvered out. Again (like the first time) we were smooth as glass going out. It appeared that my stress over getting out of the slip was completely unfounded.
We cruised into the main channel, and I raised the main--after Ron saw I still had the killer bungee sail ties--and headed for the breakwater. We shadowed some large bluewater cruiser on the way out. It was based out of London, 'Indigo Moth' was the name on the transom. We exited thru the north opening, around the shoal buoys, and put up the jib and set course for the Santa Monica buoy. This was pretty much the same course as the previous cruise.
The main part of the cruise was uneventful. I wasn't nearly as stressed as last time, I even endeavored below for the first time ever while the boat was under sail. After snagging a drink for everyone I went back topside and snapped a couple of photos of the coastline. I had wanted to bring the GPS to map our trip, but I left it in the car. The only sealife we ran into was one lonely seal, swimming about a mile and a half out, heading into the open ocean. I think his name was 'Sharkbait.'
After about 45 minutes, we jibed and headed back. No doubt the hangovers put a dent in our desire to go further. Overall the weather was excellent, little or no organized swell, light winds maybe 10-12knts and a partly cloudy kinda cool hazy day.
We pulled into the main channel, again shadowing a big bluewater cruiser, Deerfoot II. After making the turn we furled the jib, dropped the main and powered up. Since I have a winward slip, I thought coming in would be more of a challenge---the wind had kicked up to maybe 20knts at this point. But again my fears seemed misplaced. With myself at the helm, we powered up our basin, made a turn to port toward my dock and then turned to port into the slip. No scrapes, no bumps, in fact I don't even think we rubbed the dock. Hmmmmm, maybe this docking thing isn't that bad after all...
And that was it! We had some Kalua and celebrated another successful cruise. 'Voyage 2' had come to an end...