During the Labor Day weekend, Daisy and I took a 10-day cruise with the Sausalito Yacht Club outside the Golden Gate to Half-Moon Bay, Carmel and Monterey. This was our first cruise offshore on the Pacific, and we were blessed with excellent sunny weather and calm seas, yet fairly good wind for sailing.

We first went down to Half-Moon Bay, where we rafted up with 8 or so boats from SYC, anchored out in the outer harbor. We made a lot of new friends from the Sausalito Yacht Club.

Regrettably, I left my well-loved Nikon CoolPix 950 somewhere in Half-Moon Bay, to the delight of some native or tourist. This left me without the ability to take pictures for most of the trip. I purchased a Nikon Coolpix 990 in Monterey, an improved version of the trusty 950. Daisy suspects this was all my scheme to upgrade my camera equipment....  :-)   Our friends from SYC have promised to share their pictures so we can display them on the web.

From there, we had a great sail down to Carmel, where we spent three wonderful days at anchor at Stillwater Cove.  We used a picture of us and SIESTA anchored at Stillwater Cove on a sunny morning, just of the 18th whole of the Pebble Beach Golf Course, for our Christmas e-card later that year 2000 (see below)

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And finally, we visited Monterey, where we stayed at their excellent Municipal Marina.

The trip back was uneventful, motoring back from Monterey back to Sausalito, inside San Francisco Bay, in 13 hours. We saw a majestic whale crusing along, throwing a spout high in the air, with many birds in pursuit of the fish crums.

Below, Stillwater Cove at Pebble Beach on a foggy afternoon, right next to Carmel Beach. This pic was taken from the beach, right next to the golfcourse clubhouse.

Below, SIESTA in Monterey Bay, docked at the Municipal Marina. The large fleet of one-design Moore 21 boats was evident everywhere. We had dinner with friends fellow members from the Sausalito Sailing Club, which had organized the cruise south of San Francisco Bay.

Report on SIESTA's recent enhancements for this cruise:

We visited Half-Moon Bay (Pillar Point), Carmel and Monterey.  We left the

Golden Gate at slack tide and returned on an incoming tide. One does not

mess around with the Gate!

Our new navigation instruments worked great during the trip. The new single Raytheon MULTI

display shows everything at the nav station below: depth, speed, wind,

Lat/Lon, GPS data, water temperature and ship battery voltage (with all

the alarms you want to set), all on one display, one item at a time, of course.. A single GPS, a Garmin 48,

 mounted topside, right next to the compass, inputs to 3 points: 1) the MULTI via NMEA 183

(The Multi re-broadcasts via SEATALK to all other instruments, including the

radar); 2) our new hot Standard Horizon INTREPID VHF, so the radio itself

displays lat/lon and can broadcast lat/lon automatically in an emergency,

along with your boat ID (this function is not yet officially monitored by

the Coast Guard, but we are hoping it will be), and 3) to the laptop

computer for navigation, using Navtrek's Visual Series with both raster and

vector charts of our cruising waters. Everything worked GREAT! Our last step

is to install a new Raytheon Autohelm 7000 Autopilot, connected to the rest

of the Seatalk network of instruments. This will happen this coming Spring.

Incidentally, the INTREPID VHF has a really neat option, a remote RAM

spkr/microphone, which I have mounted opposite the binnacle, right under the

helmsman's seat. This speaker/mike can be connected up to 50 ft away from

the VHF radio. This submersible mike, with embedded speaker (a $99 option at

West Marine, the INTREPID VHF itself was $199) allows me to have full

control of the VHF radio below: power on/off, volume, squelch, scan, etc.

PLUS at the press of a key, either side can change from VHF radio to an

INTERCOM, so Daisy and I can comment about what the navigation laptop is

displaying without screaming at each other. The speaker on the RAM mike is

very respectable in quality and volume capability. This VHF/RAM combo is a

hot piece of equipment.

The new Perkins 4-236 engine, with the new re-pitched prop (24 x 18), makes

the boat behave so much better! We cruise easily at 7.5 knots, at 2,200 rpm,

and we max at 2850 rpms, right on spec. And, when maneuvering under close

quarters, SIESTA's rear end really jumps on command, and makes docking much

easier. A truly dramatic difference.

And the new LAVAC head, installed on our rear head compartment, performs

magnificently. For the first three days of our cruise, we had two couples

with us, and all of us used the aft head for major matters. When you need to

use the Lavac head for "serious business", its "sucking sound" vacuum system gives you a

totally spanking clean, half-full bowl of water over and over again, just

like home. I am totally sold, and so is Daisy. We are going to replace our

forward head with another Lavac in the Fall.

The new stainless steel grab-rails along each side of the bimini were great

when going forward on deck. And replacing the four webbing straps (2 fwd, 2

aft holding the bimini up) with stainless steel tubing gives a nice

hand-hold to people coming in and out of the cockpit, plus the whole

structure is a lot more solid. The aft permanently-attached bimini extension

can now be dropped over the aft stainless steel tubes to protect from the

cold wind we were experiencing on our way down to Monterey.

Carried my new 21-speed, 26" wheels folding Montage mountain bike ($450 at

West Marine, with raving reviews in Practical Sailor), and rode the 37 mile

round-trip on the Monterey Peninsula, from Monterey to Carmel and back,

through the beautiful and famous 17-mile drive through Pebble Beach. This is

a handy serious piece of transportation to have on board. It fits neatly in

our engine room, and is ready for a ride through just about anything. We

sold our two Dahon 16" wheel stainless steel bikes at a recent marine swap meet,

and plan to buy another Montage for Daisy.

Took our two Necky Dolphin sit-on-top kayaks on board, on their side,

sandwiched along the starboard forward deck, just inside the tow rail. In

Monterey, Daisy and I paddled among the kelp, and spent a great amount of

time among a group of the cutest six sea otters you have ever seen, just a

couple of feet away.

At Carmel, we were anchored at Stillwater Cove for 3 days, right off the

18th hole of the famous Pebble Beach golf course, at the Pebble Beach Lodge,

and just a half-mile beach walk away from downtown Carmel. I tell you: we

observed it's really hard work hitting that little white ball all over the

grass! We got tired just looking at all these people working so hard! Did

not see Tiger Woods. He had been there several weeks before, and won it all.

From our anchorage at Stillwater Cove, early in the morning before the

breeze set it, we went across Carmel Bay to Point Lobos State Preserve, and

Whaler's Cove, using the power and speed of our 30hp Yamaha on our hard

inflatable, which we carried on our heavy-duty custom S/S davits. For

serious off-shore work, we would take off the 30hp electric start, and use

our 15hp, carried on the stern pulpit. But this Yamaha, with electric start,

wheel steering and automatic oil/gas mixing, is a dream for coastal cruising.

We had a fabulous sail down from San Francisco, but had to motor against 6-8

ft swells all the way back. We saw a beautiful whale and plenty of dolphins

on the return trip. Bought fresh salmon from the boats coming in off

Half-Moon Bay, and watched the pelicans taking extremely fast fully vertical

dives to catch fish over and over and over.

In summary, we are really pleased with the improvements we have made to

SIESTA.