FYC Club Cruise to Santa Rosa Island

Keith Blodorn

Engine troubles delayed our departure from Channel Islands Harbor by two hours, until nearly midnight. The problem with the starter was resolved by banging on it with a wrench handle. We had enough breeze to sail southwest toward Arch Rock for a couple hours before putting the engine back in gear to motor sail through very light winds the rest of the night. We reached Punta Arena at the southwestern end of Santa Cruz around sunrise, and turned northwest to head around Skunk Point to the anchorage north of the pier at Becher’s Bay. We dropped anchor just after 9am Friday. In the afternoon, most of the cruisers gathered on the pier for a hike through Cherry Canyon on Santa Rosa, led by Park Service employee and FYC instructor Mike Delaney. The spectacular striated rock formations from the Channel Islands’ tectonic origin were only surpassed by the incredible views of the island’s coastline. On returning to Mistral and attempting to start the engine for battery charging, we found that the starter issue that delayed our departure had returned, and this time was not resolved with violence as before. We decided to head for home in the morning, with the plan to call for a tow if and when the winds subsided. Dan Beck offered to provide a dinghy tow out of the bay, and to lend us the asymmetrical spinnaker from Big Zephyr to help us along in light winds. Shortly after 9am on Saturday, we weighed anchor and headed northeast for the West Point of Santa Cruz. After casting off our dinghy tow, we raised the spinnaker only to see the light morning winds dissipate to nothing. We drifted becalmed until about 1330, when light winds finally arrived to get us underway. Rounding the point seemed to take forever, but as we made our way further into Santa Barbara channel the winds continued to build until we were making a consistent 6 knots under the main and spinnaker. We reached the southbound shipping lane well within daylight hours and with consistent wind. On entering the northbound lane, the winds strengthened to 10-12kts, leading us to douse the spin and continue on our broad reach with Mistral’s Genoa. Keeping a broad reach took us north of our rhumb line toward Ventura, but allowed us to sail a consistent 6 knots well into the night. A jibe to starboard tack for a half hour, and winds clocking more to the north also help us shape our course for CIH. The winds strengthened finally subsided just after midnight, 4 NM north of the harbor entrance. We gradually made another 2.5 miles of progress while waiting for TowBoat US to tow us the rest of the way to our berth, where we tied up just before 0200 on Sunday morning.