The leg from Monterey to San Simeon was a delightful sail and we were able to almost sail to our anchorage. We’re learning to work better together in somewhat stressful situations like docking and anchoring. Headsets help 😎

San Simeon is a deep water harbor, which has a nice pier that was built to accommodate the construction of newspaper magnet William Randolph Hearst’s castle. Ironically, the pier is inaccessible by dinghy, so it is difficult for boaters to visit unless someone stays with the boat, thus we skipped it.

Next stop was one of our favorites thus far, the beautiful community of Morro Bay. Poulsbo Rotarian Rick Grantham recommended the Morro Bay Yacht Club, and Commodore John and a helper caught our boat at the dock, in 25 knot winds. They couldn’t have been more hospitable. While normally we cook on the boat, we splurged for dinner at Tognazzini Dockside, where I had swordfish with caviar lime!! Caviar lime is a lime that looks like a fish egg sack. Sublime.

We extended our stay in Morro Bay to two days, then departed to anchor in San Luis – a brief 23 NM sail (about four hours) in preparation for the trip around Point Conception. Although we sailed directly in San Luis and didn’t move throughout the night, our tracker shows us going out to sea and onto land.

Point Conception, known as the “Cape Horn of the Pacific”, is where the water and air temperatures change from the cooler NW Pacific to the warmer Southern California temperatures, which can cause turbulence.

The next day, we headed out for a mild 59 NM motor around Point Conception. Other than the fact that we had to motor for nine hours, we were grateful for such an easy trip around the point, with “winds” topping at 3 knots.

We were planning on heading directly to the Channel Islands, then decided to stop in Santa Barbara to refuel and provision for an extended stay in the islands. We also wanted to talk to members of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club to hear their recommendations for the Channel Islands.

Our next firm destination is San Diego on October 25, where Tieton will be de-masted and re-rigged in preparation for the continuation of our trip. We’ve heard so many great things about the Channel Islands, we’ve decided to skip the LA area completely so that we can take advantage of the hiking, snorkeling, and scuba diving of the islands!