San Fran to Half Moon Bay

So the day had finally arrived, we were to leave our base of over a month, Emery Cove Yacht Harbour, for the big blue ocean. We all had mixed feelings about leaving. On the one hand we had met some fantastic people that had been amazingly helpful in getting us ready for the big day and the marina was really nice. On the other hand we had spent over a month on a boat that seemed to be self destructing by itself (or whenever Mike tried to fix something). We had repaired the sails, generator, toilets, fuel tank, nav instruments, dinghy...scratches, winches, scuba tanks...batteries, water pump, macerator...needless to say we had all worked hard. We were ready to go sailing and have some fun. So we set the date, we planned to go from our base in Emeryville all the way to Monterey. What a first leg it would be, sunrise sailing under the Golden Gate, whales and dolphins welcoming us to Monterey Bay, sea lions and otters playing around our boat and by nightfall we'd be sipping champagne in Cannery Row eating fresh oysters. However, if you've read the title of this blog you'll have noticed that we don't end up in Monterey :)

Our intentions were good, we checked the weather, all seemed fine, we knew it would take a while to get there so we set off at 4am...Yes 4am!

Unfortunately, as with weather forecasters the world over, they don't know what they're talking about and the wind was blowing a nice strong Southerly (the exact opposite to the weatherman's prediction and the exact opposite to the way we wanted to go). Incidentally the exact opposite to the prevailing wind on the Californian coast and the exact opposite to the way it had been blowing for the month we were in Emeryville! So, there you have it, fate handed us a cruel blow. After 2 hours of motoring we reached the start of our journey in time to see the sunrise under the Golden Gate Bridge and after another 6 hours we were 20 miles down the coast (60 short of Monterey).

We decided that it was better to cut our losses and try again the next day when the wind would hopfully be blowing our way. We anchored up in Half Moon Bay at 12.30 after an eight hour day of motoring, we didn't even get the sails up. Tired and a little disappointed we were cheered up by a few playful sea lions barking and playing around the boat. It wasn't long until we were all like nodding dogs and dropped off to sleep to the rocking of the boat.