Crew Log 238 – California’s Cape Horn

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May 23, 2010 – At Sea, 34º 38’N, 120º 42’W
By Herb McCormick

Adjacent to the harbor in Santa Barbara, California, right next door to the fine facilities (and folks) at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, is a restaurant called the Breakwater, a place we’d come to frequent over the last several days. The three-egg omelets at the Breakwater are to die for; so, too, are the huevos rancheros, the turkey/jack cheese/avocado scramble, the perfectly buttered sourdough toast, the icy cold orange juice and the endless cups of hot coffee. At an outdoor table with the Sunday New York Times to my left, and the L.A. Times to my right – it is wise in life to strive for symmetry and balance – I really can’t imagine a better way to fritter away a sunny California morning.

Man, I wish I were there. Except that writing about all that food at this precise, bouncy and extremely uncomfortable moment almost made me barf.

That’s because today on Ocean Watch we are once again engaged with the elements, or more specifically, the tossed and roiled Pacific Ocean, which this afternoon was anything but pacified. The bad news is that we’re currently getting flicked around like a bathtub toy in seas ranging from 5 to, say, 12 or 14 feet and winds in the mid-20-knot range; the good news is we’ve rounded Point Conception, also known as the Cape Horn of California.

How did we find ourselves here? It’s an excellent question, and I’m happy to explain. Briefly.

Anyone who’s been anywhere near the coast of California the last few days knows it’s been blowing the dogs off the chains, with steady winds at times in excess of thirty knots and gusts above fifty. We’ve been waiting for a window to depart for Monterey for several days now. Yesterday we were bored enough to take a drive out Highway 101 to have a look at the coast, which was truly ugly. But last night called for a brief lull so skipper Mark Schrader made the call to get underway.

So, at 0230 this morning, we made ready to set sail. The NOAA weather radio forecast was still pretty sporty, with a high wind advisory until 6 a.m. and offshore buoy updates reporting winds at 25-30 knots in various locations up and down the coast. Overhead, the flag in the marina was snapping and cracking in the breeze. A lull? Um, not so much.

About 35 miles to the west lay Point Conception. Two years ago, when we delivered Ocean Watch north to Seattle soon after her purchase, we rounded it on a sun-soaked afternoon in winds around 10 knots. We knew today would be a different movie, and the idea was to head as far as a little anchorage called Cojo just to the east of the point, and re-evaluate things at that point. If it was truly snotty, we could duck in and hide, a tactic my old sailing friends Lin and Larry Pardey had done before and highly recommended. With this strategy in mind, off we went.

Motor-sailing with a triple-reef main, we made pretty good time to the point, aided by a favorable current that was a double-edge sword; we enjoyed the extra knot and more of speed, but not the seas that were stacked up due to the wind-against-current scenario. At 1000 hours, however (10 a.m. Sunday), we were abeam of California’s Cape Horn, so named because it’s difficult to negotiate and has caused its share of shipwrecks. In fact, ominously, we could easily see a sailboat high and dry on its shores. But we were doing okay so the skipper decided to press onward.

First mate Dave Logan remembered the day we sailed around the real Cape Horn last January. “If this is supposedly another Cape Horn, why aren’t we flying a spinnaker in a 20-knot tailwind?” he wondered. Yup, that would’ve been sweet…but not today.

We carried on, noting the long series of offshore oilrigs, to seaward, and the dusty outline of the Santa Ynez mountains rising from the coastline. A couple of hours later we were around the other significant waypoint of Cape Arguello, dotted with buildings large and small at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Once out into the Pacific, the seaway became miserable. For now, let’s leave it at that.

Oh, just one more thing: It’s cold out here, and temperatures this evening are forecast to plunge into the forties, not counting wind chill. Last week, I went home for a few days and, most intelligently, deposited much of my best cold-weather gear there, figuring I wouldn’t need it any more. I can just about see my wonderful Patagonia parka, which got me snugly through the Arctic, sitting right on my bed back in Newport, R.I., where it’s doing nobody any good.

Drats.

-Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

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