Sailing North! - Sailing Avocet

I'm Marissa and this is Chris and since 2018 we have been refitting our 1979 Choi Lee 41 named Avocet in preparation to cast off for good in search of treasure beyond the horizon. After four years of non-stop boat projects it was finally time to exchange the effort for adventure. On September 17, 2022 we caught a southerly wind to take us north up the California coast leaving our beloved home port in our wake. You heard her, we're doing it. It was an emotional send-off but a celebration nonetheless. Our friends joined us as we exited the breakwater making our goodbye bittersweet. We reached Santa Barbara by sunset and set anchor for the night. It was nice to leave the harbor and stop in a familiar place before we ventured on into the great unknown. It also gave us an opportunity to decompress from all the emotions involved with such a big change as well as soak up the last of the southern California summer. 6 30 in the morning and we are just leaving Santa Barbara. We've never taken Avocet farther than Santa Barbara so this is exciting and a little bit scary but mostly exciting. For now I'm going to sit here and enjoy the sunrise. We have some beautiful rainbows off our beam and one off our bow. We're just gonna soak it all in. Engine is off, sails are mostly full and it is raining and the swell is getting bigger. Pretty much immediately after we left Santa Barbara it got very cold and wet so we put our foulies on ready for northern California sailing nearly. In transit our sheer pins on our autopilot decided to just not be sheer pins anymore so luckily we had spares. Chris just had to dive deep into the lazarette to find said spares and then fix it and now we're good to go again. So we're back on course making good time. We should be rounding Conception around three hours ish. Three hours from now. We are officially passing Conception to our starboard. Say it a little more excited. We're officially passing... I California and is notorious for sneaker waves and strong winds that can make even the saltiest of sailors yearn for solid ground. This area can be very dangerous and carries the reputation for some of the roughest sea conditions on the west coast which is why we took the weather window when we did. Fortunately for us our rounding was uneventful. I am on the first watch as you can probably hear the engine is on because most of the wind is gone. We are going about four knots right now and we've gone 42 nautical miles out of the 208 we have to go. We passed by a lot of dolphins and a few whales which is pretty cool. It's been good so far. I'm stoked. It's not feeling real yet but I feel like it will soon. Of course naturally as soon as I emerge to take my watch the fog returns and it is thick out here. So I have my tea. I have a pack of saltines and I have AIS going on our phone because for some reason the AIS on our chart plotter is not working. Add to the list of things to fix. We'll get there eventually but thank goodness for Starlink to keep us connected so we can have this great plan B by using our phone. The fog does make me a little bit nervous but we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. Good morning everybody. It is Tuesday morning at about 7 30. A decent night. The swell died down quite dramatically as soon as I fell. Not been any wind which has been a bummer but we have been motoring along ever since conception and so far the motor has been running decently. We had a fuel leak that I found. I was able to mend it. It's not completely fixed so we are going to have to deal with that when we get to our next port. One of the injector lines has a crush washer that just isn't happy so I have tried to fix it all the way underway and last time I did that it kind of made a little worse so I'm a little afraid to touch it right now. It's weeping very slowly. When I found it it was dripping like drip drip drip drip so now it's only a weep. I'm gonna take that as a win and keep going. So right now we are just passing San Simeon which is right to our starboard. Pretty uneventful night. No boats that we've crossed. First I found some whales and some dolphins but on my watch is I had no animals at all. Just me in the sea and dishy. Having internet at sea is pretty weird. That's about it. I think I'm gonna make my coffee in a minute now and wake up. Yes! We are sailing by Vixa right now. You can actually see Vixby Bridge right off our starboard side which is pretty freaking cool. Right around the corner is my home water Monterey Bay. I'm also excited to sail underneath the Golden Gate. That's something that I've always wanted to do with Avocet so it's starting to feel real. Our main sail just ripped when Chris was bringing it down but luckily we have a big beautiful head sail thanks to Precision Sails that will get us where we need to go. Luckily Chris has some sail tape that can fix it temporarily until he can bring the sewing machine out and put a bigger patch on it but I mean that's an indicator that we're gonna have to start looking into a new sail so. Alright so we are just getting into the San Francisco area. It's raining quite a lot which is kind of funny because on the weather forecast there shows no clouds, no rain, nothing. But I can confirm it is a downpour and it has been ever since about been a heavy six hours of rain. Luckily I do see a break in the clouds in front of us. We have sailed, motor-sailed, sailed, motor-sailed, whatever, for three days straight have not touched land in three days, haven't stopped moving in three days. So right under that bridge is the promise of a good night's sleep. We're gonna stop in Emeryville which is actually another safe harbor marina who we know very well and we're gonna stop in there, refuel, and then head over to Clipper Cove right across the way. So I'm excited to be back in the bay. Chris is excited to be back in his old stomping grounds where he has so many family memories sailing on his family's Mason 43 so it's really cool that we're going to be able to make new memories on our own boat. All right so we are making our way towards land for the first time in three days. Emeryville is going to be where we're going to get some fuel, drop off some garbage, fill up our tank for water, and just kind of reassess before we get to our anchorage which is Clipper Cove. So even though we left Ventura Isle Marina we are still, I guess, safe harbor members probably at least until the first which means we get to reap the benefits of the fuel dock discounts. So if you're a safe harbor member you get a fuel dock discount which is pretty cool. So we're headed to Clipper Cove right now and we draft about six foot maybe six five. The entrance to Clipper Cove is very very shallow to the point where there's literally like a route, a snake route you like kind of have to follow in order to get in and it's still about a 50-50 chance of whether or not you're going to get stuck. So right now the tide's coming in and so we're going to try it. It's not a negative tide so I think we should be all right but it's going to be really tight I'm not going to lie. I'm a big fan of showers, love showers.