The weekend of July 10-12 was our annual PCYC event. The Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club in Channel Islands Harbor supports us with some spots on their guest dock for Fri and Sat nights and a reserved dining room for our Saturday dinner.
We had three boats that cruised to the event this year. On Friday Cdr Alec Hardy sailed s/v Argo G from its home in the Ventura Harbor directly to the dock at PCYC. Dennis and Virginia Johns aboard s/v Libertad and George Poe and his brother-in-law, Mark aboard s/v Life is Short cruised from Santa Barbara Harbor out to Scorpion anchorage on Santa Cruz Island for the first night. The original destination was to be Smugglers Cove but a check of the weather the night before showed a southeasterly building during the night which would have created an onshore breeze and we didn’t want hourly anchor watches to make sure we were not dragging toward shore.
There was a line at the fuel dock and we idled nearby for about half an hour before Libertad could fuel up and was out of the harbor ahead of Life is Short around 1030. The usual sea lion greeting awaited us at the green buoy 3. This was our “shakedown cruise”
for the season. We had spent the past month checking out boat systems, charging electronic devices, and putting temporary patches on our sails (in the process of ordering new ones). There was a light wind and thus just enough swell as we left the harbor to rock the boat and make it a bit uncomfortable. We put up the main and jib and that settled things down for a nice motorsail over to the island. We saw and enjoyed a pod of dolphins racing and jumping across our bow, but didn’t think to grab the camera soon enough. The marine layer became fog as we approached the shipping lanes reducing visibility to only about ¼ mile. We were concerned about seeing approaching ships and were both on lookout. We activated the radar scanner and a couple of blips appeared ahead of us. Just then we heard the horns from one of the large ships heading west. We tested out our fog horn in response and it worked. We admit that we looked up the horn signals in our handy reference book and confirmed that they signaled a course change to avoid us. We were in good shape to pass astern of them. Then the second ship came into view traveling west as well. Upon sighting the second ship we realized that it was going twice as fast as the first one and the signal from them was advising the leading ship of their intention to pass to their starboard. Now our path was not as automatic as previously thought. We increased engine speed and monitored the bearing of the second ship to be sure we’d pass between the two. As the second ship passed astern of us we could finally relax.
As we approached the island the sun got brighter and the sky clearer. We ate lunch in the cockpit and enjoyed the warming conditions. We could see one Island Packers ferry anchored in Scorpion. We entered the anchorage around 1530, set our anchor and prepared to relax until dinnertime. Looking towards shore we could see many kayaks floating near the beach and one couple playing with a child in the sand. Evidently everyone else was on an island hike. Life is Short arrived about an hour later.
After the Island Packers loaded up and headed out, the two squadron boats had the whole anchorage to ourselves. Life is Short took a dinghy tour to Little Scorpion. We BBQd hamburgers and had a delicious dinner while watching the Never Say Never Again James Bond movie. The scorpion anchorage has a mooring ball for a USCG vessel. We put down about 75 feet of scope in 21 feet of water
with the mooring ball about 50 feet to our south –perfect position for checking our bearings at any late night anchor watches. Sometime in the wee hours the wind shifted as was forecast and came out of the southeast. That repositioned us so later that morning we found our stern bouncing against the mooring ball. It was a very light breeze so we decided shortening scope to 50 feet to draw us away from the ball, would be better than re-anchoring at 3am. We slept through the rest of the night, but about 7am we were bumping against the ball again. This time the breeze had freshened and the scope was not enough to keep us from dragging. This time we did re-anchor, but easily did so in daylight.
Saturday morning both boats left around 0900. Life is Short took a scenic route around the backside of Anacapa Island. Libertad took a more straight line route to Channel Islands Harbor. Once we got back into cell service range we received the notice that the 4th boat that had originally planned on cruising to PCYC was changing plans and driving down. That left only three of us to dock at PCYC and we would likely all fit, no need to raft up. Our prior plan had been to try and arrive last so that we would be the boat to raft up. No need for that now. We again had to motorsail without sufficient wind to use sails alone. We arrived at the dock around 1330. We had been keeping in touch with George and knew they were close behind us. Dennis stayed at the dock to help with George’s dock lines while I went to check-in with PCYC. Before I could finish check-in all three boats were securely docked!
We took refreshing showers, set up two tables on the dock and prepped for our dockside appetizer-sharing paired with the traditional, always delicious, Painkillers generously provided each year by the Slocums.
We all nibbled at the appetizers as we know that the dinners prepared by PCYC are always very filling and topped off with an ice cream sundae. We had 22 of us for dinner, which was delicious.
Sunday morning the three boats left the PCYC dock one right after the other. George and Mark decided to take the long way home around the backside of Santa Cruz Island…or at least head that direction and see how things went as the day progressed. The forecast for the day was for less than 5 knots in the morning and 10-15 knots in the afternoon out of the NW. We headed for platform Habitat with the expectation that rounding that platform, we could sail the final 9 miles to the harbor. The wind gradually grew to a nice breeze and was hitting 17 knots as we entered the cape effect at the harbor. As we approached the harbor we were greeted with a beautiful site of an approaching racing fleet with colorful spinnakers flying. We found out later that the 2026 J/70 National Championship with 37 teams was racing in Santa Barbara that weekend.
We had a lovely weekend sailing, sleeping at anchor, and celebrating at PCYC.
As for our shakedown cruise…we did have one issue arise that we hadn’t discovered before that weekend – a leak in the freshwater system. We left the harbor with 300 liters but we must have left the water pump on sometime during the night (we usually turn it off to conserve energy) and the leak flowed into the bilge and out the bilge pump, emptying the tank. But fortunately we had our backup bottled water provisions which got us through very comfortably.
