Wednesday Nov 13
We had a fantastic day! We (all three boats) set sail at 7 am, had the sails up and the motor off by 8 and Renee’ had her first fish on the line by 8:30.
Then, the reel exploded and she had to bring the fish in by hand winding the line around a 2×2 piece of wood. So, the fish was aboard by 10:30. It was identified as a Skipjack Tuna (dark meat, not particularly tasty, according to the fish book) about 2 feet long. Probably 2 lbs of meat off the fish.
We sailed all day, Around San Geronimo island and the Sacramento Reef. We were probably the faster boat, (length and clean hull) “Lucky Pearl” was probably the slowest, (dirty hull, and reefed mainsail due to having torn along the boom previously). We had great wind, around 20 knots or less most of the day. Then in the late afternoon, after we made the turn in from due south to east to get to San Carlos, the wind came up, stead at up to 30 knots, with gusts to almost 40. The “Merry Lee” got beat up pretty good in this, Josh lost a hoodie that was almost dry from his previous falling in, and it went over the side. They also had a shelf that was above their bed fall down, and all the plants and dirt that was supporting the plants. All in all a huge mess, they also broke a spinnaker pole. As we were approaching land, with the wind in the high 30 knot range, we started to get our sails down. We got the Jib in, and in the process had an accidental Jibe, and broke the gooseneck on the boom, specifically the HINGE PIN a solid block of aluminum that has one bolt through it to connect to the boom (a horizontal bolt) and another bolt that connects it to the mast (a vertical bolt). We got the mainsail in and arrived at the anchorage just after “Lucky Pearl” and maybe 20 minutes or so before “Merry Lee”. Probably all three of were anchored by 3:30 or 4pm. 55-60 miles today.
I texted Bob via the Iridium that I was going to try and call him when we got anchored. The phone call did not work well, the iridium had too low of a battery charge to work on deck, and while in the window and plugged in, it lost the signal as the boat swung around the anchor. So, we texted back and forth about the situation. He got in touch with Steve at Pacific Offshore Rigging in San Diego who is going to look up the part number and figure out how to get it south.
Josh from “Merry Lee” took Bodie (their dog) ashore and then came over and brought his fish (a Bonita about 2 and a half feet long) and showed us how to clean the fish. Then he left his fish here, and went back to his boat and worked on cleaning it up. The plan is to get together tomorrow for fish tacos.
We went over to the “Lucky Pearl” to see their boat, chat and have a beer. About the time we were ready to leave our boat, the dinghy in the water and we had hosed down the deck to wash off the blood from the fish and had our flashlight etc. we went on deck in the dark and Renee’ said….. “Where’s the dinghy?” We used the flashlight and found it about 100 yards south of us and drifting away. I called on the radio for Jeff from “Lost Pearl” for some help, this was based on knowing that Josh was beat. Josh beat Jeff out in the water and got the dinghy, got it started and was headed back to us. Just as he was about 3 feet from the back of our boat, I asked him about the painter he said he did not have it, almost exactly at that point is when it wrapped around the prop, and killed the outboard, and he started drifting south. He was able to untangle the line and get it restarted and brought it back to the boat. He then said he was going to bed, and headed back to the “Merry Lee”. So, Renee’ and I got in our dinghy and went to the “Merry Lee”. It was an enjoyable time.
During all of this Bob was busy in California working on our problem, he got in touch with Steve at Pacific Offshore Rigging who said he would look up the part number in the morning and work with an importer to get it to us.
Like I said, we had a FANTASTIC DAY! (Some good and some not so good, but that is what makes memories).
