Finally We Go to Catalina

Sea Bear finally got to sail to Catalina Island. He went to Two Harbors, Isthmus Cove to stay for two nights. He motored from Marina Del Rey through Santa Monica Bay. Then after he past the Palos Verdes penisulla the wind picked up to 10-12 knots and he went flying across to the

island. Needed to reef the jib to keep from heeling too much. Left Marina Del Rey at 9:50AM and arrived at Isthmus Cove channel entrance at 5:30 PM. We got help finding and picking up the mooring. We spent a peaceful night on the boat.

In the morning we had coffee and breakfast and lounged around until it got a bit warmer. I added air to the blowup boat and droped it off the bow and tied it up to the stearn. Arlene and I paddled to shore to explore Two Harbors. Not much there, a small General Store, a snack bar, restauarnt and bar. We walked around had a Coke, watched the few people come and go.

Saturday night was peaceful and uneventful. We did have some problems with the batteries. I turned off battery two and just ran everything on battery one. What is every thing, just a FM radio which when the power went low wouldn't work. For lights we had separate LED lights with their own batteries.

Sunday morning we stowed all our gear to make the trip home. I went to start the engine and it would not start right away, I was not feeling good. I wondered if there was such a thing as a jump start for boats. Eventually the engine started, whew, I think we need to get new batteries, these won't do for a trip.

We left at 9:30 am to very calm seas and almost no wind. What wind there was, was on our nose and we couldn't sail, so we motored to Palos Verdes and caught some wind to sail home to Marina Del Rey. I found that the engine seemed to work best at 1200-1300 rpm as read on my Tachometer. If I ran it faster it seemed to be close to overheating. So, our speed was about 4.5 knots. We arrived at the entrance to MDR at 4:30 PM. We didn't leave MDR until about 6:30 PM. It took all that time to motor to the slip and pack up to go home.

One more piece of equipment that I need to learn how to use most effectively is the autopilot. It seem to work best when motoring, it kept a good course. I haven't learned how to dial it in for sailing. Need more practice.

We did have a few visitors on the way home, we saw many dolphins, a few swam with us part of the way. Fun to watch them play.

A few more pictures

The view from Sea Bear at Isthmus Cove