After departing from Santa Barbara around noon we anchored at Cojo anchorage, just south of Point Conception, around 8 pm.  We’d been watching the weather for several days and decided that the early morning hours would be a good time to round Point Conception (aka “The Cape Horn of the Pacific”) and Point Arguello (aka “The graveyard of ships”).  We headed out of the anchorage at 4 am with a bright moon shining down us to light the way.  Giving the land lots of room, we rounded both points uneventfully, flat seas and almost no wind – the picture of calm.  Whew!

It is normal operating procedure to have the VHF radio set to channel 16 to listen for US Coast Guard notices or other vessels hailing you.  We heard a partial safety announcement about an incident in our area at around 6 am and then noticed something strange about a mile east of us, so we went to check it out.  I’m really sorry that I don’t have a photo, but it turned out to be an almost totally submerged 260′ barge with just the stern end sticking up out of the water about 10′.  A really strange sight.

Some people have asked me what we do all day aboard.  When we are underway we are keeping an eye out constantly for any obstructions, etc and watching our course.  If we are sailing, there are usually small adjustments to be made frequently.  We listen to music and talk.  So far we don’t do much reading while we are underway, but as the travel days get longer between ports I think we’ll try it.  We are also always looking for marine life to watch.  Yesterday we didn’t see any dolphins but we were entertained by many sea lions and seals as well as seabirds.  When we got around Port San Luis we saw several whale spouts off of both sides of the boat.  I’m pretty sure one set of spouts belonged to a mother California Gray and her calf, heading north.  The others, further offshore, were very large spouts, so perhaps blue whales or another of the larger kinds.

We were able to get a few hours of good sailing as we got closer to Morro Bay and that was wonderful.  The sun even came out for us!  We arrived at the harbor and tied up to the Morro Bay Yacht Club’s dock at around 6 pm.  Our son Jacob and his dog Charlie came over from San Luis Obispo, where he attends Cal Poly, and we made a simple dinner with some Rockfish given to us by a neighbor on the dock here.

We’re planning to hang out here for a few days and enjoy Morro Bay.

Sunrise after rounding Point Conception

This is the way Sea Lion’s rest at sea, with their fins sticking up

Sailing in the sunshine!

Hello Morro!

So happy to see our boy!

Jacob and Charlie visit – both love the boat