We had a wonderful sail over to San Miguel Island today. It was about 23 nautical miles and we sailed the whole way, we made it here in just over 3 and 1/2 hours. The wind was on the beam, starting out about 10 knots and building to about 20,(hard to tell for sure without a wind speed indicator). Anyway Cat's Paw just flew across the water, we reefed and then double reefed and took in some foresail and she was still doing over 7 knots, yippee!! San Miguel Island is gorgeous, tall steep craggy hills with long beaches and sand dunes along the waters edges in the harbour we are in. There are huge sea lions frolicking around on the shore and pelicans soaring along in formation before they dive beak first into the water after their supper. There are some sea caves that need exploring as well.
We are unable to go ashore at the moment because it is howling up a good blow out there. There is a stiff west wind and it is sweeping down over the hills into the valley and straight at us. This is probably the most wind we have seen since the west side of Vancouver Island. We have lots of chain out and it seems to be holding just fine. The wind usually drops at night and we hope to get to shore in the morning when it is usually calmer. Not sure what the plans are tomorrow but the skipper is not happy with the anchorage we are in, due to the wind conditions, so I imagine we will move on.
We are unable to go ashore at the moment because it is howling up a good blow out there. There is a stiff west wind and it is sweeping down over the hills into the valley and straight at us. This is probably the most wind we have seen since the west side of Vancouver Island. We have lots of chain out and it seems to be holding just fine. The wind usually drops at night and we hope to get to shore in the morning when it is usually calmer. Not sure what the plans are tomorrow but the skipper is not happy with the anchorage we are in, due to the wind conditions, so I imagine we will move on.
