Concentric Circles: Our 18 day Journey from Morro Bay to San Diego--Channel Islands

September 2019

Goodbye Morro Bay!

After a 21 hour passage from Morro Bay to Cuyler Cove (San Miguel Island in the Channel Islands), we dropped our anchor in a banana-shaped cove with turquoise-lined water near the shore. There were only two other sailboats--and a lone whale, which we believed was a Gray whale--no more than 25 feet away from us.

What an amazing way to begin our first day at this anchorage!

As we relaxed in the cockpit, we saw the whale making small concentric circles. He/she would surface to breathe, slowly arc below, with his/her tail barely flicking above the waterline. At first I was worried.....we had passed several pods of whales along the coast, primarily from Morro Bay (right out of the harbor) to the point where a vessel would turn due East to head to Avila Bay. So I was surprised to see this lone mammal. I kept thinking, "where is his family?" and "Why isn't he more actively showing his tail, the way we usually see whales do in the open ocean?" I worried that he was injured or abandoned, especially as he continued to trek a circular path throughout the evening and into the next day. He persisted leisurely.

What we saw mostly, just his smooth back

Luckily, we met two of the cruisers on one of the sailboats in the bay (our first official cruisers' cocktail hour was spent with them on what turned out to be our favorite day of our entire trip). Jeff  and Bonnie explained that if it was a Gray whale, then its habits there in the cove made perfect sense. Grays are bottom-feeders; they scrape all of the sand, rocks, and edible habitat from the sea floor and use their huge tongues to push out everything except the goodies. Since we were anchored in only about 35 feet of water, he didn't need his tail to help propel him to the bottom--which explained why we didn't see his bottom half all that much.

The truly amazing part of having a whale in our anchorage happened the second day. Kevin heard him surface right next to our tied-up dinghy and called me up on deck. The whale then swam the length of our boat (I am devastated to say this, but we cannot find the picture we thought we took)...and then started his loop again. Because he was parallel--almost up against the boat, we could determine that he was about 35 feet. Seeing this beautiful creature so up close and personal is something we will never forget.

However, within a couple of hours, we noticed the loop was widening--the gyre expanding--and the whale even stopped at another boat behind us. The next time I looked up, the whale had made progress to the boat furthest to the open ocean....and then he disappeared. We are pretty sure this whale graced each boat before leaving, as if to say goodbye.

We felt so lucky to have been able to explore this most-western Channel island, as San Miguel, according to our research, is often difficult to enjoy. The prevailing Northwest and West wind can create uncomfortable conditions, which we discovered the second night and into the third day, when we left not for Santa Rosa Island, the closest one to San Miguel, but for Santa Cruz Island.

 Pictures from Cuyler Cove:

View from our hike

Retirement looks (and tastes!) great

A little bottom boat cleaning

Perfect kayaking here

Monument for Cabrillo, a Portuguese-born mariner who was part of the first European expedition to explore the California coast in 1542.

Santa Cruz Island

We sailed from Cuyler Cove to Forney's Cove on Santa Cruz Island. The book we used as a "guide" (with brief descriptions of the anchorages and black and white photos) was the same one the previous owner had used when she and her husband first purchased Flying Free (see pic below). This was another circle I kept thinking about as our ultimate goal at the end of September was to have FF back in San Diego, almost 2 years exactly from our trip home to Morro Bay in 2017.

Brian Fagan's Guide to the Channel Islands. This edition is almost 30 years old!

Read the note: just like Kevin and I are beginning our first real cruising in the Channel Islands, the previous owner of our boat gave this guidebook to her partner to entice him to sail.

We had planned to land at Forney's Cove at Santa Cruz Island, but it was much, much smaller than we thought it would be, and it was blowing quite a bit even in the late afternoon...so we decided not to anchor there and motorsailed on to Willows, just a short distance from Potato Harbor where we had anchored for four hours on our trip in 2017.

Willows actually has two different spots to drop anchor; the first inlet is a very narrow channel between a large above-ground rock resembling a miniature Morro rock on the right side and a sheer cliff on the left. Kevin was at the helm and I was at the bow, paying close attention to my anchoring technique since our roles are usually the opposite (I'm much more comfortable at the helm). Because of my slowness in paying out our rode (the chain), it left us swinging too widely--and we quickly decided we were too green to attempt this side of the anchorage. We both agree that this first inlet (west side, not east) is simply too small for a vessel our size.

Once we went past the mini-Morro rock bifurcating this spot, the east anchorage offered plenty of space; however, we abided the general guidelines of setting a stern anchor (a second one), and here we proceeded to learn even more.

Here's the funny thing: there wasn't a sole boat near us or even passing us at this anchorage. But we thought, "what if someone else shows up and uses two anchors?" We didn't want to look like jackasses--so we proceeded with putting out the stern anchor. However, we didn't know the exact technique for doing so....and later that evening we experienced up to 28 knots of wind as the Northwestlies came sweeping over the valley behind us and into our anchorage (yes, the winds did what every expert claims will happen at Channel Islands).

We were not on a lee shore--meaning, the wind would not push us into land if our anchor dragged. The wind was very firmly pushing us out to shore; however, the stern anchor did drag and finally set where we became parallel to land. This isn't a good thing because this meant that both anchors were being pulled at a 90 degree angle (imagine what a tripod hooked at both ends of our boat would look like, and you'll have a good idea of the strain being created).

Lessons learned?
-- a stern anchor is only necessary if other boats in the anchorage are using them (or unless it's necessary to keep the boat pointed in one direction).
--use the dinghy to position the stern anchor where it needs to be (rather than toss it over the back deck).
--browse alternative anchorage sites before committing.
--a good anchor is worth the money! I'm happy that my sweetie insisted on buying our Mantus.

Living the good life!

Yellowbanks

It does look like we're parked on the beach. :)

This navy ship was anchored in the channel (open ocean) directly across from Smuggler's. Anacapa Island is in the background.

After a short motorsail from Willows, we arrived with a view toward Yellowbanks and Smuggler's Cove, two different anchorages that are relatively close together. We were surprised to see more than a dozen sailboats anchored in Smugglers. We wondered where all the other sailors were until this day as we had seen very few boats overall. We opted to anchor in Yellowbanks by ourselves (for a short time, anyway). This nondescript anchorage lacks a true "cove"...but it is easily identifiable by its chalk-yellow cliffside and narrow shoreline littered with shoe-sized rocks by the gazillion.

After setting anchor, we were eager to explore both anchorages and make landfall to stretch our legs (we had not been off the boat in close to 3 days at this point). Unfortunately, the waves were breaking right on the shore, and we opted against having the dinghy flooded.

We were waiting for a strong Northwest wind to pass (no big deal, actually, and we wondered whether Yellowbanks proved its reputation as a good block from NW wind--or whether the forecast was off). We circled around the corner, though, to discover Scorpian's anchorage.

Scorpian's 

Rounding the corner to head Northwest, the first anchorage that greeted us was Little Scorpian's. This quaint spot had multiple rocks forming a partition between sailboats on the east and a larger cove dotted with multi-color kayaks on a generous beach. The beach area looked like it spread backwards, like a tongue extending into the mouth of a mountain. This was the first accessible beach we had seen since Cuyler Cove. But it was also bustling with people, kayakers, snorklers, and hikers. The Catalina Express rolled in to this spot every hour or so and used a short pier to offload and load visitors. SV Flying Free was the only other boat at anchor....and we quickly readied our SUPs to explore the surrounding caves and access the island. I had not researched this anchorage very much, but it turned out to be rich with history and natural beauty. We visited a quaint visitor center and hiked to the top of the ridgeline where we could see for miles all around.

Next up: We leave Channel Islands and head to Catalina.

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