Now that we've spent a few days in Monterey, we've finally mustered the energy to re-live our exhausting 46-hour sail to share with our followers.

After spending a week inland in Davis, CA, Anna decided to come back for more adventures, and arrived in Bodega Bay on Tuesday afternoon. We got the boat ready to go, grabbed a short night’s sleep, and left Bodega Bay on Wednesday morning around 4:00. Dinghy in tow, the wind was calm, which gave us a chance to try out the new outboard. The verdict: it was mounted too high, which meant that it bounced in and out of the water, not giving us much forward propulsion. Ten minutes off the dock and the list of projects to do at the next port stop had already began. We were forced to become traditional sailors, only moving when the wind was blowing.

That afternoon the winds filled in out of the NNW, which meant we’d be sailing down-wind for this leg. We rounded Point Reyes again, knowing we were still within range of the Bodega Bay Coast Guard if anything were to go wrong. Fortunately it didn’t, and that night we passed by the Farralon Islands and crossed 3 shipping lanes outside of San Francisco, successfully avoiding all traffic.

Early the next morning the auto-pilot, who had been our most valuable watch-member, became disabled when part of the bracket fell off. With Gilbert alone on watch (and Eliah and Anna comfortably asleep below), he found himself tied to the tiller, and not able to do anything else on deck. He watched, not able to prevent it from happening, as the whisker-pull broke and fell overboard, and as our Genoa jib became tangled in itself, its sheets, and the spinnaker halyard .

The swell built throughout the day, and outside of Monterey Bay we were in steady 15+ foot seas. This time no one got sea-sick, but no one was too interested in cooking or eating either. One 18-foot wave pooped our cockpit (crashed into the cockpit, for our non-sailor followers) and filled it up. Fortunately our hatch-covers proved to be water-tight, as no water leaked below deck. Another wave flipped our dinghy, which essentially turned it into a sea-anchor. Eliah re-led the tow line and hauled it in on one of our winches, and we made it off to our Starboard side, where it would sit for the remainder of the journey.

At about 10:00 Thursday night, we were 4 miles off of Monterey when the wind died. Not wanting to be traditional-style sailors in an area of traffic, we started the outboard and motored in for those last 4 miles, a journey which took us 4 hours. We came into the marina about 2:30 AM Friday morning, gorged ourselves on fast-food, and went to sleep.

Now we’re in Monterey Bay, and we’re excited that we finally made it to an intended destination. Monterey is famous for its marine life, and we’ve seen seals, sea lions and sea otters since arriving.
-Written by Anna Peters