Santa Cruz was a spectacle. Surfers, movies, a bunch of roller coasters, and a miserably rolly anchorage. We loved it but must press Southward.
Bizarrely, in 4 days in town and having watched a movie where the whole sub-plot was about paddling across the bay, we never saw the other side of the bay. The odd part is it was sunny and nice a lot of the time. Evidently, enough fog stuck above the water to obstruct the other side of the bay.
We pulled the hook, motored off into the mist, and expected an open water type jaunt down to Monterey. It never came. We had 4 hours of motoring, and no waves or wind. An astute viewer at this point might point out our reliance on our motor. To which I would say that may be an insult to a person born and bred by the saltwater, but as a land-lubber-couple in origin, we’re pretty proud of our house that moves on a half-gallon-an-hour of diesel from one city to the next. Sometimes we proudly tackle hundreds of miles with our cloth unfurled…but sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.
Anyway, the only boats out that day on AIS were whale watching boats. the “BlackFin” the “Ocean Experience”, and the “Spirit of Monterey”. The only one we got close to was the BlackFin. The whales surfaced between the boats with their plume of mist and their big flappy tail. We were excited to be a touch closer to the whales than the paying customers for a moment. Of course, they had a big ole motor and got real close to the whales for their next breath.
Scooter docked up in Monterey (we did our first stern in, and I was so proud of myself), settled in, did a boatload of laundry, and enjoyed being at a marina again. The mindset change is stark going from being at anchor for several days to being in a plugged-in slip at a marina. Either you’re on water rations, and monitor the battery before flipping the light switch, or you live in a regular house. The realities exist one day to the next in the same little space.
Tay’s family drove in the following day. Kim might be the most welcoming person I know. She called me one of her “muffins” on, like, day 10 of dating Taylor. Chris brings the fun and immediately grabs 5 Busch lights from the back of the car cooler to celebrate being together, and Zac is like a boy version of his sister. He’s so fun to be around and makes you feel like someone is paying attention to YOU.
Her family visit was the best 30 hours of Scooter’s life. Also, it’s worth noting they drove 18 hours each way for a 30-hour visit, but we made the absolute best of the time we had.
We sailed, fished, ate the local fare, celebrated a birthday (Zac’s eve-eve) met the new puppy ‘River’, and had the most fun couple of days.
Now we have to wrap up the Monterey week. On our task list is to expose Captain Eunice to a beach without crazy breaking waves and do more laundry because River (Tay’s parents’ puppy) isn’t entirely potty trained, peed on our blanket, and Eunice has since sought revenge by trying to mark her territory 10x over. We’ve got some projects left, and some hobo logistics to take care of…
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