Morrow Bay

Approach to Morrow Bay.  

This is one harbor entrance that is hard to miss!  Just look for the rock. 

I can remember from my days in the Navy that one of the great excitements of sailing is entering a new port for the first time.  One reads the cruising guides, port guides, and studies the charts, however there are always little surprises on a first visit.  Also, it is just fun to know that here is a new place to "discover" and "explore". 

Morrow Point is the most popular jumping off point for boats heading South to Point Conception.  It is a small town with a great little yacht club.  One cannot miss the harbor as it entrance is at a breakwater just behind this massive rock that rises 576 feet over the ocean and the town just behind it. 

It was a nice morning, albeit a bit overcast and cold.  Still foul weather gear sailing.  Entrance was straight forward and Astraea quietly motored into the winding channel.  Morrow Bay is not a large wide bay.  It is really like a long and winding river with strong currents and twice daily tide shifts.  There are lots of boats here,  both commercial and pleasure, but all of them were either in one of the few docks along the one side, or moored to mooring balls outside the channel.  Fortunately the Morrow Bay Yacht Club has several mooring balls that they provide for a fee to visiting yacht club members.  As I entered the harbor, about 9:30am, I tried to call the Yacht Club harbor master and go voice mail.  However I found the yacht club and saw a series of several morring balls marked MBYC.  I decided to take mooring ball number three and hope that this would be acceptable to the Yacht Club. 

Another first.  Mooring to a mooring ball.  In a heavy current.  Now Bob and I had done this several times in Sausalito, but it had taken two of us.  One to drive, the other to snag the buoy and attach a mooring line to it.  This time, however, I was alone.  However remembering my lessons from Suzette on how to do this, I approaced the mooring ball upstream and maneuvered to put the ball at the cockpit.  I moved quickly from the helm to the side of the boat, grabbed my mooring line, and was able to get it through the shackle on the mooring buoy the first try.  Jubiliation!  I had done it!  In my mind the act of mooring to a buoy, alone, was a major challenge and I had done it!  I had been up now for about 25 hours, sailed all night, and moored to a buoy.  I was feeling great!!! 

I did reach the Yacht Club harbor master and he said to come to the club dock and register and pay the mooring fee.  This meant launching the dinghy, which was not a big deal.  This time I decided to use the oars and leave the outboard behind as it was just a short 100 feet or so from Astraea to the Yacht Club dock. 

At the club dock I met this lovely lady, a beautiful and friendly, purely delightful lady who was working on ther wooden boat.  She was sawing away with her circular saw and obviously had a major project going on.  We chatted and it turns out that she had the boat built many years ago in Guatemala when her husband was at the embassy there for ten years.   (I did not ask how many years ago the boat was built although I was curious.  It looked to be from the 60's or 70's).  This lady was obviously a sailor and a craftswoman, as she was definitely working hard on her boat.  I would guess that she was in her 70's.

She warned me that the buoy that I had moorred to was not for a boat as large and heavy as Astraea, and that when the current shifted from ebb to flood that Astraea would swing her stern into a channel marker and probably damage the boat and certainly the new Monitor wind vane.  I thanked her for her advice, dinghyed out to Astraea, and shifted to a different mooring that she suggested.  Once again, I was able to snatch the buoy the first try!  Sweet!!!!  

I ran to the store, got some provisions and water, and returned to my dinghy at the yacht club to row my water and food to the boat.  The wind was picking up and was quite brisk now, probably 15 knots in the harbor, and the current a good 3 knots.  It was quite a task to row the short distance to the boat.  Just as I was securely on my boat I saw my new friend on her large wooden boat, solo, driving it deftly out to her mooring buoy and mooring it like the pro that she was.  Wow, what a sailor!  I want to be like her some day.  

A quiet evening in Morrow Bay.  

Time to get some rest for the rounding of Point Conception tomorrow.