Morro Bay

Morro Bay

We arrived here September 29, 2018, along with SV Luego and SV Jean Anne. Dave and Kelly from SV Arctos were already here working on an install of their water maker. Our sail from was pretty mellow from Monterey, our previous port. We did continue to encounter more pods of whales continuing with their migration and every time you see them it is just as exciting! 

Morro Bay is a well-protected bay and has a distinct feature of a 576 ft rock at the entrance. It is a fantastic navigational aid and has been called the "Gibraltar of the Pacific". It is illegal to climb the rock as it is a breeding ground for the Peregrine Falcons as well as a sacred site to the Salinan and Chumash tribes.  It has a crazy current in the bay and gets very shallow. There are also some fantastic sand dunes to walk in with a trail directly to the beach. I found tons of sand dollars here on the beach and I guess Pismo Beach and Morro Bay are well known for their abundant sand dollars!

 This trip afforded us a longer stay than most places as we wanted to celebrate Stephen's birthday and also see a good friend Larry. Larry is a local resident of Morro Bay and was a great resource to Stephen when he was doing the refit on the original Soulstice, our 24 ft Nimble we sailed in Lake Tahoe. This extended stay allowed us to do some boat projects (ALWAYS), get a hike in Montana De Oro, have a great night at the Farmers Market in San Luis Obispo and celebrate Stephen's birthday with our cruising friends at the Sycamore Hot Springs.  Dave and Kelly also have some good friends here Stu and Terry, local surfers and Stu owns a surf shop in town. They were very generous and had us over for a lovely meal in their home in SLO. We kept saying, " so... are we going to house for dinner, a house?".  We had not been in a house since we left Minden in July. 

Space X also had their launch on October the 8th. We were having cocktails in the cockpit of SV Arctos and did not realize until we saw this huge glow in the sky. It was a fabulous sight just from Morro Bay! Thank goodness we were outside and caught this historic event. 

Today we are heading to Avila and then to the Channel Islands, starting with San Miguel! Hoping for lobster, great hikes, and enjoying the marine life, flora and fauna these Islands have to offer. 

Celebrating Stephen's Birthday 10/4 with cake and champagne on SV Jean Anne with Chelsea and Steve, Brad and Sonni and Dave and Kelly

Sycamore Hot Springs! I rented the Lagoon - great for bigger parties. Stephen and I did come here once before and they have private tubs all up in the hills. Well worth the visit! 

Beach by the trail head in Montana De Oro. 

Great trail in Montana De Oro. For the all the mountain bikers out there - this place was loaded with folks having great single track rides. There are so many trails and possibilities for great rides. 

Beautiful Birthday Hike Day!

Farmer's Market in SLO - those are smiles as we know we heading to Mo's BBQ!!!

Tree I saw running in  Morro Bay State trails loaded with vultures -hmmm what are they looking at? Hope they don't think they could feast on a visitor 

Me happy trail running:)

You can never take enough sunset pics while sailing

Black Hill! I had to add this because I liked to run up here several times during our stay. I got great views of the bay and this is how I fill my soul cup and like to start my day. And sometimes you need some vertical in your life, at least I do!

Views from trail in Morro Bay State Park

View from top of Black Hill

top of Black Hill

My moon sighting on my watch on overnight passage from Monterey to Morro Bay! Looks impressionistic ( thanks iphone camera)  

There is a great 1 mile board walk section at the south end of the town where I found lots of bird watchers perched out here with large tripods 

Monterey

Monterey

We left Half Moon Bay on September 24th and arrived early evening to Monterey. We motored initially but then had a fabulous sail reaching across the bay the last 3 hours. Sails were put away right before entering Breakwater Cove. We were greeted by many seals, sea lions and sea otters on the breakwater, it was LOADED with all of them. In Seattle our breakwater had the usual seagulls, then in Half Moon Bay they were full of pelicans and now we had a change of crew. Hmmm, what is next?

The sea otters are as cute as they are like to take mussels and break them on the bow of the boat causing quite a bit of damage. We noticed all the boats kept fenders low on their bow to protect it from these mischievous creatures. They were all over the marina and fun to watch as they are playful. We did try to discourage their behavior when we saw other boats being assaulted. 

Stephen and I did stay at a marina as we had some laundry and showers in our future after anchoring out the last time. I had some nice runs on the trail on the coast. We used to come to Monterey quite a bit in the past to paraglide on the dunes so it was fun to arrive by a different mode of transportation and with different activities in mind. Despite all of our frequent visits, we never went to the aquarium so that was achieved on this trip. Additionally, we decided a dive at Breakwater Cove in the Kelp Forest would be cool and since we had dive gear on the boat it seemed proper we check this out. This "checking out" include 7mm wet suits ( we only have 3mm on board so we rented these) and then it was told to us for the weight we needed 10% of our body weight and additional 10lbs just to get down. Holy Moly HEAVY dive gear!! I have never done a shore dive and oh boy with all this weight it was pretty funny to watch me WADDLE across the sand just to get to the water. 

Visibility was fair obviously. 

Uggh!! Heavy tank, lots of weight, 7mm suit -can I just step off a boat???  Soon....

1st dive in a while! Nice to feel good about your gear and look forward to warmer water dives

Steps down to San Carlos beach at the Breakwater Cove

Out to Sea is a great dive shop/fishing shop next to the cove and on the marina grounds.  Chris and Erin, the owners, were ridiculously helpful. They gave us information on the dive and they will cart over your gear to San Carlos beach and refill your tanks. They treated us like we were paying for a big charter even though we had our own gear and really would just get refills. Stephen and I dusted off the cobwebs ( I had not dove since going to Australia 6 years ago) and Stephen was 10 years ago when we both dove in Thailand. We did some mellow shallow water dives and check out the kelp forest and appreciated the decorator crabs and some cool sand dollars.

I loved the Jelly display in the Aquarium - Jellyfish are gorgeous animals and very hypnotic with their movements. I found them tranquil to watch but I can sure say this is NOT how I feel about them when I see them in the water with me!!!

Ethan gave us generous pours and we enjoyed some wine! 

Cribbage, yummy wine thanks to Alise and Adam, and very rare Yeti wine glasses ( ha!). Stephen FINALLY plays cribbage with me - yahoo! 

Tomorrow we will take off for Morro Bay and catch up with Dave and Kelly SV Arctos. We have a good friend Larry there and will spend some time enjoying the area.

Sorry about the video that would not post! I am over trying to download it- Blogger is not always user-friendly :(

Half Moon Bay

HALF MOON BAY:
This is a quick blog from the San Francisco post. We left SF on September 22nd, the Fall Equinox, and arrived to Half Moon Bay early afternoon.  We plan to head to Monterey next and wanted a spot to break up the next cruise so we could get an earlier arrival to Monterey and Half Moon Bay was perfect. We got some fuel at the fuel dock and then anchored in the bay. We re-commissioned our dinghy and headed to shore to check out the Coast Trail.  The Coast Trail is a nice path along the shoreline with great views. You can also just walk the beach which extends for quite some distance.

Before we headed into shore too soon, Stephen convinced me the Johnson outboard motor needed to get some time on her again. The truth is he loves dinghy rides but he REALLY likes fast dinghy rides. She gets on plane pretty quick and we had a good race around in the water avoiding going too far into the surf. We then headed back to the dinghy dock and chatted up some fishermen. They had black cod, ling cod, king salmon and some rockfish for sale on the dock.  Our freezer is tiny and full so we held off on buying any fish at this time. We took a great walk on Coast Trail and by the time we returned SV  Jean Anne and SV Luego had pulled in to anchor as well. We had a great time on SV Jean Anne for the evening and then returned back to Soulstice, just a short dinghy ride away.

Today, September 23rd, all the cruisers went for a walk on the trail and took the SV Luego's dogs, Pip and Mac, to get some good doggy fun in. They raced along the beach, ran in and out of the water, played fetch and ball. They had a great doggy day and it always warms my heart to get dogs out and get them good playtime! I always say I am like a dog:) if you walk me and feed me I'm fine but I need both to keep me happy! We had plans to meet up with our friends Krysi and Ryan Sanders and their 3-year-old son Sawyer. His Birthday was today and they were headed to Santa Cruz to do a train ride through the Redwoods to celebrate his special day. They were able to meet us for lunch and we took them out to the boat to hang out and see our tiny floating home. It was such a good visit and we feel blessed to have another great visit with good souls.

Walking alone the Coast Trail

SV Jean Anne crew ( Steve and Chelsea from Tacoma) , SV Soulstice crew, and SV Luego crew ( Sonni and Brad from Spokane) 

We have really enjoyed hanging out with these guys, sharing meals on boats and fun activities in town. They are heading to Santa Cruz tomorrow and us to Monterey but we will ALL  be heading to Mexico! We will probably see them again in Morro Bay.

Krysi and Sawyer ( and very large beer cans from Hop Dogma Brewing Co. with Silly Gimmick DIPA  inside - you can pick a beer and they fill these cans for you on a To Go order:) pretty sweet!)

Now that is some serious smiling on Sawyer's part - that is a "I am 3!" smile.

Captain Sawyer

Stephen and Ryan catching up in the salon. 

The Sanders Family

Thanks again Ryan and Krysi for making the stop to see us and SV Soulstice! We are grateful to have such good friends and the timing was perfect. They have an amazing adventure coming up to Vietnam and Bali so we are excited for their travels as well!