Santa Cruz Island
Trinity leaves for Santa Cruz Island and Sula
stays behind for a day.
The kids were devastated to learn that we were
planning to leave without Sula for a day. Trinity headed over to Santa Cruz
Island, Prisoners Harbor today about mid-afternoon. The sail was a good one,
with plenty of wind on a close reach (18 - 25 knots). We got into Prisoners
Harbor at 1600.
The anchorage was a
rolly (i.e. there was swell that came through and made the boat roll while at
anchor).
The next day we decided to
try to head upwind to Painted Caves, where we thought Sula might try to meet us
mid-afternoon. But by the time we got up there, it was way to rough to stop,
with 22 knot winds and 2 - 3 foot wind waves, unsheltered by the coastline that
was running roughly parallel to the wind. We went ahead and continued around the
western tip of the island, and around on the backside, where it got really nice
with a down-wind run.
We ended up
anchoring in a little place mid-way on the southern part of the island called
Coches Prietos, but we didn't stay because it was a very small anchorage and we
knew that Sula probably wouldn't come that far around the
island.
We ended up in Smuggler's Cove
on the southeastern tip of the island, and we arrived at just about the same
time as Sula (having come from Santa Barbara that day), at
1658.
We didn't go into shore at
Smuggler's because Steven instead opted to work on the solar panels and to dive
on the boat to change the zincs. Steven donned his drysuit and snorkeled,
changing the prop and refrigerator zincs on Trinity. He also swam over to Sula
and checked her out, and replaced the one zinc there that needed it.
The water was beautiful around the
island, with at least 25 feet of visibility. This was the cleanest water that
we've seen so far.
The kids of course
got together and played on one boat or the other.
Posted: Sun - October 3, 2004 at 01:43 AM