Santa Barbara

We entered the Bay of Santa Barbara about 0910 on Sunday after having passed the big bad Point Arguello & Point Conception with very little swell & no wind. The fascinating part of the night was seeing the oil rigs. They are huge & lit up with white, green & red lights. Some of them are four stories high. We needed to thread through them as they are scattered all over. There were a total of ten of them before we reached the bay. While on watch I had my first encounter with a large ship traveling at night. Notice I did not use the word fascinating. That ship came along side of us silently & because it was so dark the only lights it had that I could see was the starboard green light & a mast light. At first I didn't recognize them as moving lights, I just thought they were from shore. It took me a minute of staring to figure out it was a ship & moving fast along side of us. So, I did what any prudent sailor would do. I slowed down & prayed that it could see us or at least move past without getting too close. There wasn't enough time to use the radio to hail them. Thankfully it passed in front of us heading for an oil rig. Since the ship slid up behind us I was forever looking behind us the rest of the trip. The overnight was cool & damp. I kept waiting for the warmth that all the books talked about. We didn't feel it until the sun came out on Sunday morning. About one hour out of Morro Bay, on our way here, we ran over a kelp bed that ripped out a piece of our self steering. So, we decided to continue on even if we had to hand steer all the way. Our choice of Santa Barbara as a destination was to allow us a quick way to order & receive the new self steering part. Santa Barbara is a neat little harbor & once we were in our slip it was great to find out that the bathrooms were close by & we could get internet on the boat! Hence the timely posting of pics & narrative. Emrick has ordered the new part which should arrive tomorrow. He is down in the locker/storage part of the boat checking things out as I write. Our plan is to leave for Santa Cruz island (Tuesday or Wednesday depending upon how easily the new part can be installed), head to Catalina Island & then on to San Diego. We have no desire to port hop along California. It seems to take forever to get in & out of some harbors & we know the traffic will be increasing so our chosen path will allow us to bypass all of that. We don't know much about the islands but do not expect them to have internet so the next time you hear from us will probably be in San Diego. I am still working on the pics posting as I get use to this blog format. Just a note that if you double click on a pic it will enlarge it. Time to go & soak up some sun! See ya in San Diego . . . .