Wildlife Everywhere!

We are now anchored off Santa Catalina Island, in Pirate’s Cove to be exact. After a 70 nautical mile cruise from the Channel Islands National Park, with dolphins leaping and spinning out of the water to encourage us onward, it’s nice to have the hook set.

The wildlife over the past few weeks has put on a wonderful show for us. We departed San Francisco with plenty of fog to mask the bridge, and were escorted by whales all the way south to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was cloaked in fog when we arrived in the evening, but as the sun was setting the fog lifted a bit and we could see we were surrounded by sea lions and sea birds. In the morning the sea lions were frolicking all around – leaping from the water, chasing each other, jumping up into the support beams under the nearby pier, and making a lot of noise. Meanwhile the pelicans were dive-bombing into the water all around us for their breakfast. It was magical. We spent an afternoon exploring the town, which happens to have an old amusement park right along the beach. We didn’t go on any rides though because it’s only open in the summer. We also visited the NOAA Monterey Bay Sanctuary Exploration Center. The displays were very informative, and we got to try our hands at maneuvering a small underwater ROV, modelled after the kind NOAA uses for deep sea exploration.

We sailed using our beautiful spinnaker from Santa Cruz to Monterey. We haven’t had many opportunities to use it yet, so it was great to get it out of the sail locker and fly it. When we have light winds (under 12 knots) the spinnaker is the best sail to use for downwind sailing. Monterey was equally as impressive for wildlife encounters. We spotted whales during our sail across the bay, and the beaches there were lined with sea lions. We explored town, visited the impressive Monterey Bay Aquarium, and went scuba diving. The diving was great. It was a little warmer than our old familiar waters of the Salish Sea, and we saw some familiar creatures and some new ones. On our first dive we encountered an unending field of sand dollars. We thought we saw a lot of them at Hornby Island, Canada, but this spot takes the cake. The most interesting new creature we came across was the sea hare. Sea hares are a type of marine snail. They feed on seaweed and turn the color of their food (i.e., eating green seaweed results in a green sea hare, red seaweed results in a red sea hare). Our second dive was after sunset and we were lucky enough to find an octopus! It’s often easier to find octopuses at night because they come out of their dens after dark. A sea lion zoomed overhead at one point, and two harbor seals came to investigate us during that dive. We learned a lot about the history of Monterey during our stay. It has a rich Italian heritage that was on display at the Italia Fest while we were there – live bands, food, and stalls with all sorts of things for sale. We also learned that iceberg lettuce originated there. Prior to refrigeration, rail cars cooled with ice were packed with lettuce in Monterey and shipped back east. The lettuce soon earned the name iceberg lettuce. The Monterey area was known as the salad bowl of the US.

From Monterey, we set sail for Morro Bay. We chose the location because it was a little over half way to the Channel Islands National Park, and it looked very protected. And wow, was it ever protected! We were there with winds blowing over 20 knots, and the boat did not move. The water was completely calm. Upon arrival, we were greeted by multiple sea otters in the bay. They did not seem to notice our boat, and came so close to us while eating that we could hear them crunching on shells to open them. Morro Bay was a very nice relaxing stop with lots of nice restaurants and shops, a good brewery, and live music in the park one evening.

After Morro Bay, it was time to head on to the Channel Islands National Park. We visited San Miguel Island and Santa Cruz Island. After an overnight cruise from Morro Bay, it was wonderful to drop the anchor at San Miguel a few hours after sunrise. The island is largely off-limits to visitors due to potential unexploded ordnance. It was formerly used as a firing range by the Navy. However, we were free to explore the large expanse of sandy beach at Cuyler Harbor and we went ashore two days in a row to cover the entire beach. The only part of the beach we did not explore was the corner where a colony of northern elephant seals were hauled out. It was really special to see elephant seals in person and to watch them wrestle, nap, and bark at each other. The island is also home to the island fox, which are found nowhere else on earth. While we didn’t see any, we did see their tracks in many areas along the beach.

We had perfect sailing conditions from San Miguel Island to Santa Cruz Island, and found a good anchorage in Smuggler’s Cove. It was a bit rolly, but overall protected from rough winds and waves. The surge and break on the rocky shore was too rough to land the dinghy, so we enjoyed the waters around the island instead of hiking on shore. We took ourselves on a nice coastal dinghy tour of the cliffs, arches, and sea caves. We even went swimming off the boat one afternoon. That’s right, we’re finally in warm enough water where a swim is enjoyable instead of shocking. To top it off, we went diving. It was our first wetsuit dive of this journey. Goodbye drysuits! The water temperature at depth was 64 degrees Fahrenheit. We scouted out a rocky reef and kelp forest area on the dinghy the day before and then followed our compasses underwater to find it. What a treat! The kelp was lush and beautiful with the sun shining down through it. We saw a few familiar animals, like sea stars and nudibranchs, but also a lot of warm water critters, including soft coral and lobsters! We are definitely not in the cold north Pacific anymore.

Here in Pirate’s Cove we got to enjoy two great things – diving and meeting another couple with an Outbound. We’ve been in communication with the whole Outbound community via email for two years, and it was so fun to meet in person and tour each other’s boats to compare and contrast. Underwater was excellent. We anchored a short swim from a rocky reef (Hen Rock). We saw more lobsters, coral, chromis, and tons of bright orange garibaldis. As I write this, we’re running our electric scuba compressor off of our solar-charged battery bank to refill our scuba tanks for the next underwater adventure.