“Comedy Is Tragedy Plus Time”

That quote is accredited to many different people. And I couldn’t find the true answer. But just know that I’m not that clever.

Well, I don’t know if we can call the story of our voyage along Big Sur a comedy yet. Although, I have to say it’s kind of a joke how many things are going awry.

We last left you after a bunch of turmoil. We got some rest & tried to put things into prespective. I was feeling really blue. I was wondering if I could even finish the trip or if I would end up with PTSD. However, Matt gave me a good pep talk. And it definitely got me slowly starting to get out of the depression I was in.

     San Simeon was fairly rolly. But I think at this point it felt like nothing. That day was kind of a blur. Matt fixed the autopilot. He also fixed the bilge switch. -And probably a ton of other things. Yes, he is a super man! I think the most I did was take a nap & get dinner together.

Afternoon in San Simeon Bay.

The really tall dock. People call it a dock but I would call it a pier. I mean, I guess a cruise ship might be able to dock next to it.

The next morning we left at 11 AM. We meant to leave earlier but I think we were still feeling slow & tired.

It got super overcast. There was no wind. The swell was probably about 5 feet. It didn’t feel horrible. -I mean not much would after the night before. However, the bilge pump was still not getting rid of water. So we both had to still hand pump. Actually, it did work some of the time. We just had to keep checking on it. It was very nice to have the Harriet back & healthy though.

The overcastness turned to fog. -Really thick fog. Another reason that it was so nice to have the autopilot. I could barely see anything.

No luck in sailing. I think we may have tried to no avail.

Bye bye San Simeon!

On our way to Morro Bay.

Oh but guess what? The Macerator works! I told Matt that we should try it since we were 3 miles offshore. And just before he started it up he said, ”Well there’s something that works!”. I almost slapped him! I totally thought he was going to jinx us. But no. It did work! Hooray for that! Maybe things are going to get better.

Coming in to Morro Bay!

I think we got to Morro Bay around 4 PM. We navigated into the harbor channel pretty successfully. -Until I ran aground! Yep! I didn’t see the red buoy that we were supposed to have gone around. OMG! Were we going to be stuck?! I tried going in reverse. Then forward. Then reverse. Then forward & actually got out! Thank you God! Of course we did have an audience. Although, not sure they were really watching. Maybe they see this happen all of the time. So we are now proud members of the ran aground club!

Tried & tried to get a hold of The Morro Bay Yacht Club. They are who run the guest slips & mooring balls in the harbor. I left a message for them the previous day, saying that I knew that they didn’t take reservations but what was the protocol to check in once we arrived. The answering machine gave away nothing. It didn’t state that it was the Morro Bay Yacht Club or anything. -Just to leave a message after the beep. No one returned my call. I tried calling the harbormaster. No answer. So we decided to tie up to one of the Morro Bay Yacht Club mooring balls & thought we would just wait around for someone to come by & collect money. No one came that night. Or in the morning. They were having races from their dock in the morning so we couldn’t even motor over with the dinghy to go to the office to pay someone. It didn’t really seem like anyone cared about us staying on the mooring ball so we decided not to care either.

Matt actually did figure out what was causing the bilge to keep filling up! The rudder hole is letting in water whenever there are rough or I guess just moving seas. This might only be resolved by getting a haul out. We’ll have to keep checking on it.

Since we were going to leave that afternoon for another night/long sail, I was nervous about finding the fuel dock. It wasn’t listed on any of the maps of the harbor I had. There was no info about it online either. I called the harbor master several times. No answer. I called a ton of other places. No answer. It seemed that no one in town likes to answer their phone. So Matt decided to take the dinghy out. -Which is a process in itself to get the motor on. -Along with getting all the seagrass that had got stuck on our dinghy lines. He motored off to look for the fuel dock & maybe a marine store to get some things replaced/repaired.

He came back with the accomplishment of finding the fuel dock. But not having any luck in finding a marine parts shop.

I called around again everywhere to find out the answer to this problem. Still no one answering their phones. I finally got a hold of the Morro Bay Visitor Center & they gave me the name of one place they thought might work for us as a marine shop but did mention that it was pretty small.

I was very happy -only to discover that they were closed during the weekend & wouldn’t be open again until Monday. Nice! Oh well. At least nothing was too dire that we couldn’t move on.

We did decide to go onshore for a little while to see if we could find any stores that may be useful. So the 3 of us got into the dinghy & found a place to tie up tie it up to along the waterfront. Got out & walked around. Zephyr was stoked to be on solid ground for walk. No parts store for boats but we did find the Marine History Museum, which was really cool! There are lots & lots of restaurants. in Morro Bay but also lots & lots of people at them.

A little after 2 PM we decided we needed to get back to MerSea in time to make it out of the harbor & start on the next leg of our trip around 4 PM.

We got in the dinghy & rode it half way to our boat & then it stopped. Why? Well, we ran out of gas. Because we had lost one oar, we had decided to put the one we did have inside our boat. So, there we were with no engine power & no oars. What could we do besides wait for someone to rescue us? Paddle with our hands. I am not making this up folks! Laughing at us? I don’t blame you. This is completely our fault & lack of smarts. So I have one arm out on one side paddling & Matt is on the other side doing the same thing. Embarrassing? Humiliating? -Yeah, I’d pick the latter. People were pretty focused on these small boat races so I’m not sure many people noticed. We were only about 6 boat lengths away from reaching our boat but we were going agains the current.

Then there was an angel or should I say kayaker who offered to tow us to our boat. We couldn’t thank him enough. He was nice enough not to laugh hysterically as he rowed us the the stern of our boat. Very lucky he came by. Once we were back on the boat Matt filled up the outboard tank.

Back on the boat, we were on a race to get out of there! This was the one night that Point Conception was supposed to have no wind around it at all. That happens like once in a blue moon or even less. So I was not going to let this opportunity get away. Otherwise we may have had to stay in Morro Bay for a week! I turned into a tyrant & rushed us both around to get us off the mooring ball & to the fuel dock. -Which who knows, the way things run in this town, could close at 4 PM.

We did get out & made it to the SUPER TALL fuel dock. -Ten minutes to 4 PM. The old man, with a beard & a lack of words beyond yes or no, filled up our tank & we were out of there! I think we got out of the harbor at 4:13. Phew!

Now to see what was in store for us in the next several hours…..

Adios Morro Bay Harbor! Maybe we’ll try you again & hopefully you won’t disappoint us so much!

Out of the harbor now, the swell was about 4 feet. And pretty smooth! So nice, so far. No wind but we were expecting that.

One thing we came across, shortly after our departure, that I don’t think we had ever seen before, were jumping seals! They were swimming as dolpins do. Just surrounding our boat playfully for the longest time! A good omen? Maybe.

The sun came out for a brief moment.

It did cloud over lightly. We saw whale spouts on the horizon. Tons of them far away! Sooo cool! Another good omen? Hopefully.

So things were going pretty well. But I did manage to break the door frame to the head by falling back on it when I was getting something out of our little closet. Who knew my booty was that strong.

Matt said it was easily fixable. -Well, at least for him. And that he could do that later. In the meantime we were lucky enough that we could still close the door to the head. -Though it was a bit tricky.

Night came. We got a tiny bit of wind. We tried to sail with the genoa. But the lines ended up being twisted in a weird way. Matt went up to fix them. Yes, he was clipped in. And then we tried to sail again but the wind was squirrely & we just couldn’t sail. So we brought the genoa in.

I think an hour later it looked like the wind was staying steady. So we decided to give the mainsail a go this time. Of course when we got the sail up the wind had died down to 3 to 4 knots. So we put it down. And just accepted the fact that we were lucky to have no wind rather than the usual 25 knots in this section of the coast.

Content being at the helm, I decided I just wanted to stay there & stay up all night. Harriet was doing just fine in steering us so I didn’t have the same toll on my body that I did a few nights before. Matt slept. -He had been working super hard all day. So I didn’t mind at all.

I sat at the helm. We got around Point Arguello just fine. There was a lighted rocket launch from the Vandenberg Airforce Base, which looked kind of pretty. At night you definitely wouldn’t know what it was -unless you were smart like Matt. Then a little further on I could have sworn I was next to a few of the floats in the Disneyland Electric Parade. I figured out that they were oil platforms. They each looked different from one another. So even though they were sucking up oil in the ocean - not a pleasant thing to think about, they did give the night a festive feel.

Around 4 AM or so, I could see the light from the Point Conception Lighthouse. It was very far away. But a pretty relieving sight. There was no wind & the swell was now at 3 - 4 feet. I couldn’t wait to get around it! We were so close! Were we going to make it around the corner without incident?

It started to get slightly lighter around 5:45 AM. -And then lighter & lighter. We were getting closer & closer! We saw container ships. Humongous! The sky lightened up & we were actually going around the point! The lighthouse there is actually really pretty! -Or did I just think so because I was so relieved?

We finally anchored in Cojo at 8 AM. There were about 7 other boats there. We made it! We made it around Point Conception without incident! We were happy but tired. All I remember is having a smile on my face as I got into bed for a morning sleep.

Going to save the next few days for next week. So stay tuned! I apologize if there are more errors in this post than usual. I may not get to go back & edit before we are without WiFi. Wish us luck!

Zephyr wants to know if you have food for him?

Thanks for reading!