Sailing Out of Santa Cruz

The core group of people I sail with most of the time (now calling ourselves the 6-pack) decided to sail out of Santa Cruz for a change. Kerry chartered We're Out of Here from Pacific Yachting, and off we went!

It was a hot day and had been an extremely hot week with record-breaking temperatures all over the bay area. The fires in the Santa Cruz mountains were still burning, so there was smoke in the air. We were all glad to be escaping the heat out on the water with a nice, cool breeze. We all applied sunblock and hoped for good wind.

The docks in Santa Cruz wind around quite a bit, so Kerry motored us out of the marina slowly. As soon as we got away from the docks and other boats, up went the sails, off went the engine, and we were sailin'!

We had really nice wind and sun for a while and started sailing up the coast about a mile offshore, taking turns at the helm. Then the clouds started moving toward us from the north, and we all suited up in foulies and warm clothes. Although we were sure it was still about 90 degrees on shore, we were cold.

Sandi was at the helm when the rain started. What? Rain in June in northern California? Unheard of, but there it was. The rest of us huddled under the dodger and left Sandi out there by herself! Every once in a while we saw lightening and then counted off the seconds until we heard the thunder. The storm was at least 15 miles away.

To be safe, we started listening to what people were saying about the weather on the radio and tuned in to the weather channel for a while. It seemed like heavy thunderstorms were slowly making their way down the coast and would be lingering off Santa Cruz for the rest of the day and evening. The weather channel said that mariners should make their way to safe harbors. We considered it, but it was still only early afternoon. So our skipper, Kerry, decided to sail in closer to land to wait it out for a while and see what happened. Listen to the thunder in this video clip!


As we got closer to land, the wind died off. So we floated around for a while and watched the clouds. Kerry called Marc, the owner of Pacific Yachting, for advice. Marc said things looked ok and that he was taking a class out shortly and didn't see any reason for us to come back in. So we headed out again under the thunder clouds.

I steered us straight out away from land for a while and was catching a nice fresh breeze as we passed through a band of thousands of black birds, many of whom were just sitting on the water and others who were flying north above the band. As we crossed the band, they disbursed and flew out of our way. A short time later, the wind died completely, and we ended up bobbing around in 2' to 3' swells with no wind about 2-3 miles out. Ugh...

At that point, we decided to head back to shore and drink the wine that Kerry had gotten from his father-in-law's vineyard. We motored back until we hit some wind and then sailed the rest of the way back to the marina. We lowered the sails and motored in, all the while stripping off the layers of foulies and warm clothes, because we were back into sunshine and summer weather! The clouds and rain (which had turned to hail at one point!), were still right offshore. Where there was wind, there were clouds, rain, and thunderstorms. Where the weather was sunny and warm, there was no wind. We just couldn't have both.

After cleaning up the boat, we all sat down and relaxed with a bit of wine. Our friend Ron was taking a class there, saw us, and stopped by the boat for a drink and a chat. Eventually, we made our way over to the Crow's Nest for dinner. Sitting upstairs on the deck was a perfect combination of warmth, sunshine, and breeze. The food was good, and the company was great, as usual. Just another pleasant day out on the water with good friends. What could be better?

You can see more pictures of this day in my Picasa web album. Thanks to Sandi for the pictures of the birds and relaxing on the boat after our sail.