Trip to San Diego, What Worked Well and What Didn't Part 3

Here is the final post of the 3 part epic trilogy!

Human compass worked very well!

Continuing with what worked well on our trip from Seattle (Friday Harbor WA) to San Diego.  As I mentioned in the last post they are not in any particular order other than my particular favorite I saved for last.

5. Anchoring Range Finder
After spending 12 hours in thunder storms, gusts over 40 knots, and rough seas all between 6 PM and 6 AM, we were tired and ready to drop the hook.  We went to the south end of Santa Cruz Island, to Smuggler's Bay.  We rested, played in the surf, hiked and generally enjoyed the beautiful sunny day!

Figuring this is a great way to spend the day, we decided to pull up anchor and motor-sail all night to arrive at Catalina Island by 6 AM the next morning and repeat a day of fun on Catalina.  But alas anchoring at Catalina was not so easy.  Most bays are overfilled with mooring buoys.  We headed to Goat Harbor on the east side which according to Charlie's Charts was a good spot to anchor.  No luck the "harbor" a niche in the rock was already filled by it's two occupants.

The highlighted point is where we anchored for the day

So we headed a bit northwest to a little no name niche that was protected from the NW winds by a small point.  It was a steep drop from the beach, so we dropped anchor in about 60 feet of water and backed up towards shore to set (bury) the anchor.  After letting out 200' of chain or about 3:1 scope we were in 15' feet of water and what looked like very close to shore.

That is where the Sig Sauer Laser Rangefinder came in handy.  I was able to put my mind at ease when measuring about 60 yards to the rock to the port (left) and about the same distance to the beach astern.  This comes in real handy when anchoring around other boats as well.  I am always concerned we are too close looking from the boat, then we kayak to shore and I realize there is at least 100 yards between us and the next nearest boat.

After we had a restful day playing on the beach and snorkeling (Julie saw her long sought after Garibaldis!) we repeated another all night motor-sail to Point Loma San Diego arriving at 6 AM with plenty of light to enter the San Diego Bay.  Perfect timing, could not have planned it better a few days earlier.  The silver lining of the all night thunder storms.


6. NMEA 2000 System
The single NMEA 2000 marine data network worked great.  I loved being able to see data from all N2K instruments on multiple devices!  I will sneak in I was able to resolve (hopefully) Annie's (our B&G autopilot mentioned in part 1) temperamental mood,  It all came down to N2K instancing.  So I have learned even more since being in San Diego and hope to have all the glitches smoothed out.


7. Weather Alerts
So about that thunder storm I have been mentioning.  It did not show up on our GRIB files we had been pulling every day.  We were happily motor-sailing along Sunday morning.  GRIBs were showing light winds all day.  Then our Standard Horizon HX870 handheld VHF started squealing at us.  It would not stop until you acknowledged it, sort of like a 2 year old.  Only difference was the Standard Horizon had something important to tell us.

Weather planning...GRIBS are great for Wind and Waves...

I recall reading about this feature and had tuned in once to hear it tested.  It is NOAA's version of the old Emergency Broadcast System.  Great feature and worked well!  Acknowledging the emergency tone, tuned us into NOAA's forecast regarding severe weather in and around the Channel Islands.  Severe thunderstorms, water spouts, high wind gusts, significant wind waves, well you get the picture.  Basically telling mariners to stay at the dock or you will be sorry!  Well, we were heading into it, but still 8 hours away and it should have been over by the time we got there according to NOAA...

8. Furuno Radar
Well you made it to my favorite one.  The Furuno DRS4D-NXT 24W (not 4000W!) Doppler radar.  Meaning it runs on very low power!  I talked quite a bit about the radar in my boat show post.  I loved it at first sight, but seeing it in action was even better.

Was not sure if we could dodge the tankers and the storms

Going back to that storm.  It was great fun to see the thunder heads forming on radar just 30 miles ahead of us and then moving off.  I think we saw the storms on radar before actually seeing the lightening. Well as it got darker and the winds picked up and the thunder was directly overhead, it took a bit of the fun out of it.  Hey that is not the radar's fault!

The radar did it's job and we sailed right through it using the radar to dodge thunder bursts where we could.  Generally we were over 50% successful in dodging the ones that formed further away.  Not bad!



The storm bursts were moving pretty quick, but we dodged some of them!

Another favorite...SSB Weather GRIBS
This will require a whole post on it's own.  I was happily pulling three sources of GRIB files over the SSB (Single Side Band radio)!  It worked wonderfully and gave one a warm nostalgic feeling that old (practically free) technology still works.