Half Moon Bay was a nice beginning to our California “meandering”. We stayed through dawn Monday morning on our way to Santa Cruz on a somewhat windless day. We now have a functional dinghy, after stowing it coming down the coast from Washington. Given that Tieton is named after the river and near

by town of the same name that Herman grew up near, Herman let me name the dinghy. P’bo is what some Poulsbohemian’s call our lovely city of Poulsbo. We took P’bo into Half Moon Bay (HMB) and got soaked by rain along the way, so we consoled ourselves by enjoying a beer and nachos at HMB brewery.

Otherwise, we stayed on the boat and enjoyed watching the sea life. Several times a day, we’d hear a cacophony of seagulls who were hopeful of stealing some salmon from the seals. Seals fling the salmon around while they’re eating it and make quite a show.

Ironically, the moon was full during our stay at HMB and we got a beautiful photo of our neighbor’s boat, Happy. It gave us an excuse to connect with Hugh and Lynn, Happy’s owners, the next day.

Next we went to Santa Cruz, where the Fantastic Dave at Ullman Sails fixed our main in a day! FYI, when we put the sail up after coming out of San Francisco, it came out of the groove on the mast (operator error) and flailed around until we could get it down, which damaged the batten pockets.

We also took the opportunity take a walk to the Santa Cruz boardwalk while waiting for our laundry to process. My (Meredith’s) family spent some summer vacations, and I have fond memories of time on the boardwalk and roller coaster rides on the Giant Dipper. The boardwalk is now only open on weekends during the offseason, so we had to view it from afar.

We enjoyed our walk back with our laundry in backpacks and a bedroll in Herman’s arms, which might have made us look homeless. We wrapped up our activities in Santa Cruz with “Taco Tuesday” at the Santa Cruz Yacht Club. Some of our biggest pleasures are the wonderful people we’re meeting along the way.

Next stop is Stillwater Cove.