Goodbye, Catalina

Sailing away!

It's time to say goodbye to Catalina!  We spent a month at one of the best anchorages, Cat Harbor, but not it's time to move on...sailing back to San Diego to ready for the Baha Rally for Mexico!

Last night in Cat Harbor

Sunset to San Diego

Great sailing!

Left Cat Harbor at 3:00pm in light winds behind us sailing 5 knots with sails "wing to wing" that means headsail out on one side of mast with main locked out on other side...wind vane doing it's great job of keeping the helm...easy ride...

From my log:

"Beautiful clear night, clouds starting to form- weather? Carnival cruise ship all lit up in the distance on its way to Ensenada. The AIS ship locator on the chart plotter tells me information about all the surrounding boats...like that tanker moving at 5knots-took forever to pass our course!

The constellation, Orion, guides us through the night sky- my favorite with the 3 stars in a row..."

....until 3:00am when winds died to less than 3 knots.

John made the decision to drop the sails and use the auto-pilot, but darn thing didn't hold the course!

So, we ended up at the helm, hand steering all night taking a one hour turns! That is the fun part of sailing...NOT!

I'm horrible at night sailing...I can't see and what I do SEE...looks horrible to me! Like that light on the horizon that looks like a boat heading right for impact...oh, really?...it's only 6 miles away?...oh, OK, that's better...

John is my guiding light and decision-maker and I listen and learn. This passage taught me a lot: 

John

•  I can hold a compass course
•  I can interpret the chart plotter
•  I can "woman" the helm all night in a dark, empty ocean (well, almost empty)
•  I gained confidence