Santa Barbara to Oxnard to Redondo Beach

Sea Day 9 Santa Barbara to Oxnard, CA

We spent the morning cleaning up and getting ready to head out again. We were thinking all sorts of different ideas about where we were heading next. We pulled out about 1145 and headed for the gas dock where we took on 21.4 gallons of diesel. It would seem that we were not getting the same usage of 0.6 gallons per hour but more like 1 gallon per hour, but we have been running the engine at higher RPM.

As we were traveling we really wished that we had wind to sail! Its beginning to feel like we are power boaters, just motoring from port to port.

We arrived at the Channel Islands Harbor, Oxnard in good daylight about 1711 to the harbormasters office to get our slip assignment. We got to our slip and tied up and tidied the boat. 

Our friends Ed and Adrienne live nearby and we made arrangements to meet them for dinner. We hadn’t seen them for about 4 months or so. We neglected to take that selfie while we were at dinner and during daylight. We met up at Toppers for pizza. Yes, Tim and I were really thinking pizza was the right thing to eat. The food set well with us.

After dinner Ed, Adrienne and their son David transported us back to the marina and spent some time with us on the boat. Adrienne wanted to know what it was like being together in this space every day and how that affected our relationship. Well, that’s another question we have to figure out how to answer. We aren’t sure what the answer to that question is.

We all got off the boat and did a selfie in the dark and then sent them home and we went inside to figure out what our next move was going to be. We were thinking we would head all the way to Newport about 80 miles, but then we did calculations and decided that wasn’t going to work out unless we got up in the middle of the night or we left late and overnighted it. Two Harbors at Catalina Island was looking like a nice split point but then we checked up on the harbor to find that Buccaneer Days were happening. No thanks, we will just go to King Harbor in Redondo Beach area instead, 48 miles. Then we will go onto Newport the following day.

Sea Day 10 Oxnard to Redondo Beach, CA

We slept in a bit, rolling out of our berth a little after 0700. Both of us feeling like we could sleep several more hours. We got our coffee and Tim set about finding us berthing in King Harbor for the night. Success! He found a place that will be perfect and at the right price. We checked out and headed out about 1000. Reports said we might actually have sailable wind today! Yes! We found the wind and enjoyed sailing free of the motor for several hours. We needed to make port before dark and sailing without the motor wasn’t going to get us there soon enough so we fired up the engine again to clip along at about 7 or so knots.

I found myself feeling bored so I worked on knots again today, feel fairly confident in my bowline, I worked on the clove hitch and a double figure eight. I even snoozed for a while.

We spend a good amount of our time trying out different things while we are under way. We love to experiment when its “safe” to do so. We worked with our Monitor wind steering vane, we decided to name the vane Monet. The reason why Claude Monet is the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the impressionistic movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature. So we have the power hog Otto and the wind driven Monet. Maybe we need to name the engine? We also talk a good deal about what we are feeling the boat doing. We were doing quite a bit of yawing in the 14-16 knots downwind. So we reefed the jib to the first reef point and it really settled down and we did not lose any speed. In order for Monet to work well we must have our sails in balance and trimmed well, so this is all part of the process. It takes seamanship to feel, see and respond to what is happening on the boat. Monitor wind vanes have been given a really bad rap. If you can’t balance your boat the Monitor can’t do its job. Many cruisers just opt for the power hungry autopilot and then it doesn’t matter as much how well the sails are trimmed up. We have seen this a lot while we were sailing in San Diego. We were even dogged on for spending too much time looking at sail trim while sailing. Let those dog on, we will work to keep our sails trimmed and balanced so Monet can do work for us.

With time on our hands we revisited Adrienne’s question about how being together every day all the time is changing or affecting our relationship. Being together feels normal. Sometimes I ask Tim too many questions when he’s doing something and that frustrates him, I have to learn to ask him less questions. I’m talking about questions like: Do you want me to fill up your canteen? Followed by: Do you want trace minerals? Then to: Are you hungry? Should I make dinner?

Continuing the topic of relational affects, I’m experiencing feelings of being crazy for Tim. His hair has grown out and he looks like when I met him. I just go googoo gaga over him. His looks make my heart race sometimes. I really liked him a great deal when we met. The feelings I experienced when we were first married are just a fraction of the intensity that I feel for him now. Since we are past the raising kids stage we are back to the two of us and it’s amazingly awesome! There are other aspects of how our relationship is now that would simply be TMI (too much information), I’ll just provide an answer I’ve said before on this same topic: its hot!

As we were coming into this port area we were glad to have a local leading the way. The channel is very narrow however Tim did not get the best of directions. We had fairway drama tonight with a little too much wind, no space for maneuvering and a wrong turn from bad directions. Left, no, right! That is not as easy in a boat as it is a car, no brakes! Maximum stress, a couple helpful souls to tell us where we were supposed to be and fending us off. No actual boats were harmed in this incident due to quick thinking and fenders to cushion as we nearly rafted up to another sailboat. Finally we got some speed in reverse to allow for some steerage and back all the way down to where we were supposed to be and pulled off a normal uneventful docking into our slip for the night.

We cooked London broil and broccoli. I had to throw out a couple bags of vegetables that were frozen but had thawed out and soured. We are still figuring out how to use the icebox and fridge. I read the user manual during our trip. 

We planned our next leg and hit the sack quite tired.