AYC Solstice Cruise, 2008

Weatherman was obviously innacurate for the weekend.

I spoke to one of the weather forecasters at NOAA Oxnard asking to explain the mysterious "Sun Downers" at Smugglers. He said that it was not a local effect, but anytime there's a strong northwesterly flow it tends to be drawn further inshore in late afternoon and night and blows down the island. He also said there probably is an acceleration at the east end of S/C due to the shape of the island. He said their wind meter on top of Anacapa registered 42 kts. at 9 pm. Saturday night.

Joanne and I had a great time. We headed out on Friday and laid in a course for Smugglers Cove, when we got out to the Island, the wind was blowing from the South East driving the swell into Smugglers Cove, so we decided to alter course to Pelicans. We arrived at Pelicans around 2:30pm and we anchored up in about 30 feet of water about 60 feet away from the west wall with a bow and stern hook. In Pelicans it was hot, hovering around 90 to 100 degrees until the sun went down. The night was magical with the sky full of stars and the dead calm conditions in the anchorage. Joanne I took out some cushions and set them on the bow and looked for falling stars.

Saturday, we headed out at around 9am to meet up with the rest of the AYC cruisers at Smugglers and found what I thought was a good spot and set our anchor. After we got our anchor set it was time for us to cool off so we dawned our wet suits and jumped into the water and swam around for about an hour... As we were preparing our treats for the dinner aboard (LK) the sun downer came and blew to about 30 kts, our boat tends to get pretty wild on a single hook, she dances back and forth. I noticed when we got beam to the wind that our anchor started dragging. We recovered the anchor and started back to our spot and re set the hook. The same thing happened as soon as the boat danced its way a beam to the wind we pulled the hook a second time, we just couldn't get our anchor to stick, so I was ready to move over to Scorpion cove. We got out a little bit to dodge some of the wind and I decided to put out our storm anchor (Bruce Almighty), a big 55 lbs CQR anchor. I thought if that anchor pulled I would eat my hat. We put out 300 ft of all chain rode and anchored a fair distance away from the other boats just in case we pulled the hook again. This time the anchor stuck like glue and we finally got to eat our dinner and relax...

It just makes me thankful that we have a full complement of anchoring gear on board Huba Huba, because you never know what you're going to encounter out there at our Islands, the weather report was way off the mark...

Cheers,

Joe and Joanne Underwood

Lucien and I sailed to Santa Cruz on June 21 with the other boats from Anacapa Yacht Club. We left at 0-Dark-Thirty so that we could arrive at Smuggler's Cove midmorning. That turned out to be a good sacrifice, because the anchoring was easy, and the weather was mild. We even took off the kayaks and paddled around the cove. We learned that during the previous night, the winds had come up violently from the south and had caused one 35-ft. power boat to crash onto the beach. Lots of debris, both in and out of the water. A private Company hired by the insurance company of the boat's owner was identifying pieces and taking inventory. They said, "This a National Park, you can't leave debris." It was hard to imagine that winds could have been that strong.

Well, we found out, starting at about 4:30 that Saturday evening! The winds poured off of the hot island and tried to push us out to sea with eventual gale-force winds. Our plans to get together on Larry's boat for appetizers quickly fell through. We made a dinghy go-around, and that was the last time there were small craft in the water. A few boats couldn't sustain their anchors and changed location. Lucien slept in the cockpit with clothes and shoes on, in case sudden action would have to be taken. The howling continued until about 2:00 a.m. Finally we could get some sleep.

Next morning dawned hot and with milder winds. After breakfast, we took "Carolinne" over to Scorpion Bay, so that I could see the caves for the first time, and from there, we headed for home. Winds allowed a pleasant sail all the way, and we were home by 3:00. Even though this was my first time in such windy weather, I was glad that I had finally seen a bit of the island Santa Cruz.

Out Patient and crew; Trish, Brian and myself, left Channel Islands around 730 am on Saturday. We had flat seas and no wind. The swell was a little bumpy on the beach so we idled down until conditions improved. The trip across was smooth. Other than being in the course of frieghter. We had to do a 360 to keep from getting in front of it. I kept bearing off as much as could but he kept coming at me. However, we saw bonito's or skip jack's tailing and jumping in the channel so we tried to entice them to hit a trolled lure. No luck.

When we got to the island we were met by a shore boat. It was actually a couple of guys from the salvage crew, warning us to stay clear, a 28 foot Chriscraft had washed up on the shore and they were cleaning up the debis.

We found Carolinne and tried to anchor in the area. One of the other sail boats warned us of the winds they had Friday night, the wind was blowing 40 knts and had ripped thier main sail off the boom. They told us to stay clear, he had 180 feet of chain out. We found a area a safe distance away.

Everything was nice, no wind and flat seas. We set up our sun shade and made sun tea.

After we had our lunch we got hit with our first round of winds. It was a warning shot, we quickly put the sun shade away and pulled the sails on deck, down below. Then the rest of the winds hit, It lasted alsmost 2 hours and came from every direction. The boat was shuttering in the gusts but my anchor held. Thier was a power boat above us and they kept getting closer and closer to us. When the afternoon winds died I decided to re-anchor since the other boat was only 20 ft away now. I asked him if he let out any scope in those winds. His response was no, I have a still have 150 ft out. Then I asked him to move off my anchor so I could reset somewhere else. When I pulled my anchor in he had cut one of the strands of my anchor line. I had to get out my spare anchor and set that.

Just as we were about to row over to your boat, we got hit with the first hot gust of the second round. We were beam to, it rolled us over on our side before we rounded up into the winds. My anchor stayed in place on the new set. Every now and then I would ease out another 5 feet of scope. One guy on the radio kept saying it would die around 10. So I layed in the cockpit and watched the stars and satelights go by and waited, then it was 1030, 1100, sometime in there we watched the orange glow of the moon come over the nights horizion, 1115, 1120, 1130 and the wind kept pushing us all over the place. Around 2 am I told Trish this was going last all night. We will still laying in the cock pit, Trish said it was to hot to go below. Around 230 I felt the first cool breeze. The I woke up and I was cold, I tought, damn, we dragged, I thought we drifted out to sea and I sat up and looked around. We were still in the same place but the winds had died. I went below and before long i was up around 530 and made a cup of coffee. Hubba Hubba was on the radio checking on everyone and we were listing to the boat who left ahead of us. They were all ready in 15 ktns of wind and bumpy seas in the middle of the channel. So we packed and left shortly afterwards. We had a nice run across. A couple of times we got to surfing so fast my kayak, which we towed, would surf up behind and flip over. Other than that, we had a fast sail across the channel and made it to the harbor with winds less than 10 knts. Nobody even knew what was going out there.

Thanks for putting this together. Maybe next time will be more pleasant.

Randy, Trish and Brian.