We made it to Santa Barbara!
We left San Francisco at slack tide on Saturday (around 9:30AM) and arrived in Santa Barbara on Tuesday afternoon around 3PM. We sailed non-sstop for the first two days. On the third day, we stop in the beautiful Secate Anchorage past Point Conception to ensure that we would arrive in Santa Barbara in daylight.
Unfortunately even though our weather predictions had called for some wind for us to sail the first day, it ended up being right on our nose and in confused seas. So we motored for the entire first two days. The first day in particular was a bit rough due to the sea state, but we powered through and kept going.
On the third day we killed the motors and and sailed through some rough waves around the infamous Point Concept, sometimes known as the "Cape Horn of the Pacific". The waves were only predicted to be 6 feet but we got at least one 10-12 foot wave that lifted us out of the water! Fortunately we were prepared with jacklines (extra lines to clip on to for safety), life jackets, and tethers for everyone on board.
Just when we decided to turn on the motors to head for our anchorage, a mysterious floating rope floated through the water. We spotted it in time and put the motors in neutral before it wrapped our propellers, which would have resulted in a very dangerous situation. However, the rope did get wrapped around both of our rudders!
We had to act quickly! Adam hooked the rope with a boat hook, while Stephanie quickly cut it free. The port rudder immediately came free, but we could see that some rope still wrapped around the starboard rudder even after cutting it as short as we were able. We were forced to enforce our anchorage on a single motor.
The Secate anchorage was absolutely gorgeous with crystal clear water. There were kelp patches which made anchoring slightly difficult, but also protected us from the waves. Owen dove under the hulls to rescue our starboard rudder from the rope, in spite of some trepidation after hearing that the area was known for Great White sharks!
After a night at Secate, somewhat bounced by canyon winds, we headed on and motored along the coast to Santa Barbara.
We had hoped to have left the fog in San Francisco, but we were mistaken. We motored through fog along almost the entire coast to Santa Barbara. Thank goodness for radar and AIS!
Our slow motor into Santa Barbara also turned out to be the best day for dolphins and whales! We saw pod after pod after pod of dolphins, and many of them came to our boat to come play and say hi. Apparently, Stephanie squeaks like a little girl for dolphins, so the original audio is omitted.
It's a serene feeling to have sailed somewhere completely new that you have never been before, but we feel so accomplished to be here. Huge thanks Adam for coming down with us. The sail was definitely better with friends to help! Hopefully we'll be off to the Channel Islands before we know it, after rediscovering land for a bit in Santa Barbara.