Going North

We decided to take a short trip north out of the Bay of LA with another boat, Rhythmic Breeze. We might circum-navigate Angel de la Guardia over the course of a week or two, or we might just go to the north tip and then back to the Bay.

With no real plan, we set out from the town in 15-20 knots of breeze, tacking out of the anchorage and heading north. As we sailed up, there were large gusty spots where we’d heel over 25 degrees, go like hell, then hit the end of the patch pop back upright and the sails would start to flap with no wind. It was really strange sailing.

Both of us managed to sail up to the top of Isla Coronado when we could see a wall of white water waves off in the distance where the anchorage, Ensenada Alcatraz, is located. We were both guessing over the radio that the night time “Elephantes” or Westerlies like the Santa Anna’s in California, had kicked in. As we approached, the wind did a 180 shift to the west and started to howl.

We rounded Alcatraz Island and entered the bay with the wind blowing about 25 knots. As we anchored, we realized, that as the sun went down, we were probably going to get blasted even harder. Typically when the sun goes down, the thermal difference between the land and the sea cause the Elephantes to increase.

All night long we were blasted with 35 to 40 knots of wind. Fortunately there was no fetch, so the waves didn’t build up, but the racket of the howling winds kept Sherrell awake most of the night. The next day the wind just couldn’t quit, it blew all day long at a respectable 20 knots or so. Braving the winds, we went ashore on the golden sand beach with a beach umbrella.

Huddled together out of the sun we relaxed and thought how silly we must seem to have a 2 mile long stretch of perfect sandy beach and then to see the four of us with a small umbrella trying to stay in the shade. As a lone plane flew over head we thought the excitement might kill us. I wanted to change channels on the tv, but I forgot we no longer had a tv. But this channel wasn’t too bad. A good sized seal decided to try to catch some fish about 20 feet off the beach in front of us. Swimming all around he leapt out of the air and performed a barrel roll. Not bad!