November 21, 2009
Today was a monumental day. It was the milestone event of our very first shakedown cruise. The destination: Catalina's Isthmus Cove. Our accompaniment: our wonderful dock neighbors and Anne Marie's son. It started off an early day, both of us rising about seven. We continued our duties of making our vessel shipshape. This included getting the rest of the items off the topsides and stowing loose items in the cabin, beneath. At about nine, we cast off all lines and motored over to the fuel dock. Here's a shot of our companions with their Halstead 31, the Serendipity in transit to the fuel dock.
After we both got a good dose of diesel, we headed for the open ocean. As luck would have it, there was a good wind coming directly from our point of sail, allowing us to easily set sail while heading toward the breakwater. I hoisted up the main, a much more difficult task than it should have been. Practically every slide got caught in two places on the way up: a portion of track where a screw was too far out, and the gate. I had to give individual attention to each slide as it passed through these points, making for a very tiring hoist. Dan saw the trouble I had to endure raising the mainsail, so he came forward and raised the genoa (the difference between a jib and a genoa is a genoa, when sheeted in, goes past the mast while a jib does not) while I manned the helm and recovered.
As soon as we passed through the breakwater, we beared starboard and began our port tack toward Two Harbors. The wind was amazing and soon we were cruising along at what we estimate to be 7 knots. We killed the engine and passed our friends, who soon radioed us asking if we were still under power. We happily replied with a “negative”. We had a fair sail for about an hour with good winds keeping our sails full, when it dropped off suddenly. We lay there, becalmed, for about another thirty minutes before starting up the diesel again. While hanging around waiting for any gust to grasp onto, we were passed by a beautiful brigantine under power also heading to Catalina.
As we sailed along, we strove to keep our fellow sailors on the Serendipity within eye sight. This became a more and more difficult task as it seemed they couldn't keep up with us at all. So we just hung bobbing around on the 3 foot seas. Eventually we were feeling a little hungry, so we figure we'd drop by them to ask if they had a sandwich (we were ill-prepared for this voyage foodwise) So we tacked back towards them and it seemed they did likewise. But once we got about 100 meters away we realized it wasn't the Serendipity at all! We tacked back and gave this ketch a friendly wave and I radioed Serendipity inquiring as to their location. They quickly replied with their location: mid channel between LA Harbor and Catalina. At this point, we were only about three or four miles off Palos Verdes Point, with a lot of catching up to do. So we kick on the motor to assist us on our way. After about another hour, we spot the location of “the other ketch”, the Serendipity.
Most of the motoring to Catalina was benign. At one point, nearer to Catalina, we had to pass through a shipping lane. A big freighter was bearing down on us, but he turned to port and we passed each other without fuss. I also snapped a few more pictures as we closed in on Two Harbor.
Making headway, Catalina slowly underwent an evolution. It begin changing from the ominous silhouette it's always been, to a land form with contours, shapes, and actual depth. I was surprised the first time I looked over and spotted a ridge on the island. It slowly began to reveal more features: palm trees lining the harbor, cliff faces, channel buoys, and eventually people fishing off of the rocks.
The scene coming into the harbor was truly magnificent. This harbor was like none I had ever seen before. The water was actually blue. The air was fresh, there was little smog to be breathed twenty-six miles upwind from Los Angeles. The Serendipity led the way in and presented another good shot.
The next step was anchoring in position. We had never anchored her before, but it went off without a hitch. I let the rode down hand-over-hand until it reached bottom. We motored backwards let out a bit of scope and the anchor set. The crew of Serendipity dropped their anchor off to the right of ours, backed up and tied up next to us. We had a very wonderful dinner and then went back to our respective boats for the night. But something unforeseen had happened while we were having our jolly times below. The wind had shifted and our anchor rodes were wrapped around each other. At first we pondered just leaving it for the night and dealing with it in the morning, but that would allow them to wind around each other all night, so we went forward with untangling. Luckily we had only done a 180, so it was easy to undo. We parted ways and each lay on our own anchor for the night.
That night we noticed another problem with our boat. She wants to sail even when she is bare poled. Instead of pulling directly back on her anchor at all times, she would take the wind (and waves) beam on and try to sail off. It's wonderful that she is such an efficient sailor, but it makes for a very tipsy boat to sleep on. Dan suggested putting up a rear stabilizing sail. We didn't take the time to rig it that night, but I'm sure we will some day. Edit: We were actually presented with a good solution by some other marinamates. They showed us a device called a rocker stopper. It's four bowl-shaped objects strung on a line hung off the side of your boat, via the boom, during anchorage. The surface area of these absorb the rocking motion of the boat, making for a better night's sleep.
November 23, 2009
The next morning, I . We messed around for a bit just enjoying the view until we got a whiff of potatoes. Our neighbors were cooking breakfast! We quickly upped anchor, and motored over to their boat. A quick exchange of docking lines and we were tied together (this time with only one anchor down). They had prepared a continental breakfast and were happy to share because they love us. Thank you for the great meal that gave us the energy to get back. Here's a picture of the sleeping Serendipity a bit after sunrise (notice the steadying sail):
After breakfast, we decided to step foot on the island. Anne Marie, Travis, (our neighbor friends) and I were escorted to the dock by Tom on our water taxi, the Serendipity. We took a fairly short hike across the island to Catalina Harbor (the twin harbor to Isthmus Cove) and were presented with a beautiful, expansive view. As we crested a hill, we were shown the Pacific, unspoiled by tankers, boats, or people. Just a wide expanse of water painted an elegant blue. We enjoyed this view for a while by cruising along the beach checking out quartz rocks and then headed back. We parted ways and started making our way back to LA Harbor.
The trip back from Catalina was more interesting than the trip there. We started off about noon with good winds coming through the isthmus. I hoisted up the genoa and with the fair winds, we started gaining some speed. As I was heading back to hoist up the main, I commented that the water was so clear that I could see the bottom. A, quickly taken, second glance revealed that the bottom was only about fifteen feet away. Uh-oh. Remembering a chart of the harbor, I recalled a reef that we happened to be heading directly over at that moment. After I informed the helmsman, Dan, we made a very necessary correction turning to port. We made it around the channel marker and were in safe depths of water again. I still needed to get up our main though.
I headed back over to the winch and started hoisting. I ran into a problem with every single slide like usual, netting a very tiring experience. We were luffing for so long that we had fallen into irons (no steerage) and Dan came forward and helped winch up the last few feet as I gasped for enough air to recover from the first thirty-four feet of sail. Then we slowly fell off the wind and started sailing away from Catalina.
We had good air for a few minutes of sailing and got about a mile out when it died. And we went back to our procedure of trying to grasp onto any baby gust to get us out of the lee of the island. Both the Serendipity and us ghosted around searching for pockets of air. Here's Serendipity searching for air windward of us:
Eventually we caught some and starting making headway towards San Pedro and the harbor. Along the way, we spotted a bucket that the crew of the Serendipity had lost the night before. We knew it was expensive because it was branded “West Marine”, so we began a recovery operation. We approached it at about 7 or 8 knots as I hung on the leeside lifelines waiting to grab it. As it neared, I readied myself by leaning out into the spray. Dan steered it right to me, but right as it passed by the bow, a wave breaking against the bow smashed into it and pushed it just out of my clutches. This same wave also partially submerged the bucket making it harder to find for our next pass, which was also a failure. We twisted up the genoa and ended up losing sight of the bucket in the end. After unwinding the genoa with jibes and tacks, we got back on our point of sail. The ocean was being kind, giving us one to three foot waves at reasonable intervals and the wind a nice light air, making perfect use of our genoa. As the hours passed, the sun set behind the edge of Catalina, making for a good exposure:
We continued sailing into the night. But a few miles out from the port, our wind died. We tried to continue sailing, determined to make it to the harbor without motoring (we made it this far!), but the genoa became listless. So we started up the motor and headed toward the large bank of lights ahead of us. The channel entrance was easily found due to the cruise ships departing through it and we made that our new heading. About three quarters of a mile out, doing about 4 knots with motor and sails, we noticed another cruise ship heading for the breakwater exit. We tried to make it to the entrance but a sheriff's boat with flashing blue lights breaching the breakwater convinced us to give up the standoff. We waited outside the breakwater for the ship to pass and then made our way in.
Arriving at Larson's exhausted and satisfied, we showered and headed to bed. We both had full body aches and sleep deprivation which made for a great night's sleep. We also slept well knowing we had accomplished a feat: our first shakedown was a success. Today we went over the new problems we encountered on our venture to Catalina. The mainsail and foresail winches both need lubrication, our engine needs to be prevented from venting diesel vapor into the cabin, the mainsail track needs to be made smooth, and we need a steadying sail to stop the boat from trying sailing off the anchor. Only a few more items for our list.
Today, we had a pretty relaxed day. Dan slept off his head cold and I cleaned up the cabin a bit. Heeding advice from my father, I decided to use the 50mm lens he provided me to take some pictures. The clarity of focus was so spectacular I decided to take pictures of various inanimate objects. Here is a freshly washed cup perched upon the dock:
Speaking of photography, all the shots I took on the trip to Catalina were shot with the Olympus E-1 with the 40-150mm lens (excluding the glass in the last picture) in aperture priority mode using varying stops.
Since we have recovered today, we will of course get right back to work tomorrow. I'll probably end up working on the engine to try and resolve its unburned diesel vapor problem and Dan will probably get to the solar panel installation. It should be another day of getting closing in.
Today was a monumental day. It was the milestone event of our very first shakedown cruise. The destination: Catalina's Isthmus Cove. Our accompaniment: our wonderful dock neighbors and Anne Marie's son. It started off an early day, both of us rising about seven. We continued our duties of making our vessel shipshape. This included getting the rest of the items off the topsides and stowing loose items in the cabin, beneath. At about nine, we cast off all lines and motored over to the fuel dock. Here's a shot of our companions with their Halstead 31, the Serendipity in transit to the fuel dock.
After we both got a good dose of diesel, we headed for the open ocean. As luck would have it, there was a good wind coming directly from our point of sail, allowing us to easily set sail while heading toward the breakwater. I hoisted up the main, a much more difficult task than it should have been. Practically every slide got caught in two places on the way up: a portion of track where a screw was too far out, and the gate. I had to give individual attention to each slide as it passed through these points, making for a very tiring hoist. Dan saw the trouble I had to endure raising the mainsail, so he came forward and raised the genoa (the difference between a jib and a genoa is a genoa, when sheeted in, goes past the mast while a jib does not) while I manned the helm and recovered.
As soon as we passed through the breakwater, we beared starboard and began our port tack toward Two Harbors. The wind was amazing and soon we were cruising along at what we estimate to be 7 knots. We killed the engine and passed our friends, who soon radioed us asking if we were still under power. We happily replied with a “negative”. We had a fair sail for about an hour with good winds keeping our sails full, when it dropped off suddenly. We lay there, becalmed, for about another thirty minutes before starting up the diesel again. While hanging around waiting for any gust to grasp onto, we were passed by a beautiful brigantine under power also heading to Catalina.
As we sailed along, we strove to keep our fellow sailors on the Serendipity within eye sight. This became a more and more difficult task as it seemed they couldn't keep up with us at all. So we just hung bobbing around on the 3 foot seas. Eventually we were feeling a little hungry, so we figure we'd drop by them to ask if they had a sandwich (we were ill-prepared for this voyage foodwise) So we tacked back towards them and it seemed they did likewise. But once we got about 100 meters away we realized it wasn't the Serendipity at all! We tacked back and gave this ketch a friendly wave and I radioed Serendipity inquiring as to their location. They quickly replied with their location: mid channel between LA Harbor and Catalina. At this point, we were only about three or four miles off Palos Verdes Point, with a lot of catching up to do. So we kick on the motor to assist us on our way. After about another hour, we spot the location of “the other ketch”, the Serendipity.
Most of the motoring to Catalina was benign. At one point, nearer to Catalina, we had to pass through a shipping lane. A big freighter was bearing down on us, but he turned to port and we passed each other without fuss. I also snapped a few more pictures as we closed in on Two Harbor.
Making headway, Catalina slowly underwent an evolution. It begin changing from the ominous silhouette it's always been, to a land form with contours, shapes, and actual depth. I was surprised the first time I looked over and spotted a ridge on the island. It slowly began to reveal more features: palm trees lining the harbor, cliff faces, channel buoys, and eventually people fishing off of the rocks.
The scene coming into the harbor was truly magnificent. This harbor was like none I had ever seen before. The water was actually blue. The air was fresh, there was little smog to be breathed twenty-six miles upwind from Los Angeles. The Serendipity led the way in and presented another good shot.
The next step was anchoring in position. We had never anchored her before, but it went off without a hitch. I let the rode down hand-over-hand until it reached bottom. We motored backwards let out a bit of scope and the anchor set. The crew of Serendipity dropped their anchor off to the right of ours, backed up and tied up next to us. We had a very wonderful dinner and then went back to our respective boats for the night. But something unforeseen had happened while we were having our jolly times below. The wind had shifted and our anchor rodes were wrapped around each other. At first we pondered just leaving it for the night and dealing with it in the morning, but that would allow them to wind around each other all night, so we went forward with untangling. Luckily we had only done a 180, so it was easy to undo. We parted ways and each lay on our own anchor for the night.
That night we noticed another problem with our boat. She wants to sail even when she is bare poled. Instead of pulling directly back on her anchor at all times, she would take the wind (and waves) beam on and try to sail off. It's wonderful that she is such an efficient sailor, but it makes for a very tipsy boat to sleep on. Dan suggested putting up a rear stabilizing sail. We didn't take the time to rig it that night, but I'm sure we will some day. Edit: We were actually presented with a good solution by some other marinamates. They showed us a device called a rocker stopper. It's four bowl-shaped objects strung on a line hung off the side of your boat, via the boom, during anchorage. The surface area of these absorb the rocking motion of the boat, making for a better night's sleep.
November 23, 2009
The next morning, I . We messed around for a bit just enjoying the view until we got a whiff of potatoes. Our neighbors were cooking breakfast! We quickly upped anchor, and motored over to their boat. A quick exchange of docking lines and we were tied together (this time with only one anchor down). They had prepared a continental breakfast and were happy to share because they love us. Thank you for the great meal that gave us the energy to get back. Here's a picture of the sleeping Serendipity a bit after sunrise (notice the steadying sail):
After breakfast, we decided to step foot on the island. Anne Marie, Travis, (our neighbor friends) and I were escorted to the dock by Tom on our water taxi, the Serendipity. We took a fairly short hike across the island to Catalina Harbor (the twin harbor to Isthmus Cove) and were presented with a beautiful, expansive view. As we crested a hill, we were shown the Pacific, unspoiled by tankers, boats, or people. Just a wide expanse of water painted an elegant blue. We enjoyed this view for a while by cruising along the beach checking out quartz rocks and then headed back. We parted ways and started making our way back to LA Harbor.
The trip back from Catalina was more interesting than the trip there. We started off about noon with good winds coming through the isthmus. I hoisted up the genoa and with the fair winds, we started gaining some speed. As I was heading back to hoist up the main, I commented that the water was so clear that I could see the bottom. A, quickly taken, second glance revealed that the bottom was only about fifteen feet away. Uh-oh. Remembering a chart of the harbor, I recalled a reef that we happened to be heading directly over at that moment. After I informed the helmsman, Dan, we made a very necessary correction turning to port. We made it around the channel marker and were in safe depths of water again. I still needed to get up our main though.
I headed back over to the winch and started hoisting. I ran into a problem with every single slide like usual, netting a very tiring experience. We were luffing for so long that we had fallen into irons (no steerage) and Dan came forward and helped winch up the last few feet as I gasped for enough air to recover from the first thirty-four feet of sail. Then we slowly fell off the wind and started sailing away from Catalina.
We had good air for a few minutes of sailing and got about a mile out when it died. And we went back to our procedure of trying to grasp onto any baby gust to get us out of the lee of the island. Both the Serendipity and us ghosted around searching for pockets of air. Here's Serendipity searching for air windward of us:
Eventually we caught some and starting making headway towards San Pedro and the harbor. Along the way, we spotted a bucket that the crew of the Serendipity had lost the night before. We knew it was expensive because it was branded “West Marine”, so we began a recovery operation. We approached it at about 7 or 8 knots as I hung on the leeside lifelines waiting to grab it. As it neared, I readied myself by leaning out into the spray. Dan steered it right to me, but right as it passed by the bow, a wave breaking against the bow smashed into it and pushed it just out of my clutches. This same wave also partially submerged the bucket making it harder to find for our next pass, which was also a failure. We twisted up the genoa and ended up losing sight of the bucket in the end. After unwinding the genoa with jibes and tacks, we got back on our point of sail. The ocean was being kind, giving us one to three foot waves at reasonable intervals and the wind a nice light air, making perfect use of our genoa. As the hours passed, the sun set behind the edge of Catalina, making for a good exposure:
We continued sailing into the night. But a few miles out from the port, our wind died. We tried to continue sailing, determined to make it to the harbor without motoring (we made it this far!), but the genoa became listless. So we started up the motor and headed toward the large bank of lights ahead of us. The channel entrance was easily found due to the cruise ships departing through it and we made that our new heading. About three quarters of a mile out, doing about 4 knots with motor and sails, we noticed another cruise ship heading for the breakwater exit. We tried to make it to the entrance but a sheriff's boat with flashing blue lights breaching the breakwater convinced us to give up the standoff. We waited outside the breakwater for the ship to pass and then made our way in.
Arriving at Larson's exhausted and satisfied, we showered and headed to bed. We both had full body aches and sleep deprivation which made for a great night's sleep. We also slept well knowing we had accomplished a feat: our first shakedown was a success. Today we went over the new problems we encountered on our venture to Catalina. The mainsail and foresail winches both need lubrication, our engine needs to be prevented from venting diesel vapor into the cabin, the mainsail track needs to be made smooth, and we need a steadying sail to stop the boat from trying sailing off the anchor. Only a few more items for our list.
Today, we had a pretty relaxed day. Dan slept off his head cold and I cleaned up the cabin a bit. Heeding advice from my father, I decided to use the 50mm lens he provided me to take some pictures. The clarity of focus was so spectacular I decided to take pictures of various inanimate objects. Here is a freshly washed cup perched upon the dock:
Speaking of photography, all the shots I took on the trip to Catalina were shot with the Olympus E-1 with the 40-150mm lens (excluding the glass in the last picture) in aperture priority mode using varying stops.
Since we have recovered today, we will of course get right back to work tomorrow. I'll probably end up working on the engine to try and resolve its unburned diesel vapor problem and Dan will probably get to the solar panel installation. It should be another day of getting closing in.
dude those are some of the best pictures yet i'm still jealous
ReplyDeleteYes, we love you guys!
ReplyDeleteGreat shot of the Serendipity. Thanks! Tom has uploaded pictures that we took to his mobileme account, but I can't seem to post the link here. I'll send it to you guys later. :)