October 2, 2004
Santa Barbara (N 34o 24' W 119o 41')
On Thursday we moved from Pelican Bay to Little Scorpion anchorage. Little Scorpion is on the east end of Santa Cruz Island and when we arrived there were two other boats in the anchorage. The guide book says to get as close to the two tall rocks at the north end as possible for shelter. There's definitely a trade off. The rocks are covered by roosting brown pelicans. Get too close to the rocks and the odor is quite strong. We got a great spot and only had to deal with the fumes until the wind came up a little.
We were invited to happy hour on Sol Mates and had a great time talking to Stan and MJ, along with Dennis and Cathy from Pinecone. MJ treated us to bread sticks which she made fresh herself, yummy!
I tried fishing off the point. I was going after sea bass again, under strict orders from the crew not to bring back any more bonito. No success. It's very frustrating to have caught those two near Fry's anchorage so easily/quickly and now I can't seem to find them again.
Friday morning we started out for Santa Barbara at 0900. We soon set sail out in the channel and were treated to the site of hundreds of Pacific White Sided Dolphin. Most of them seemed to be feeding so didn't come over and play in NAKIA's bow wave, but several did so Linda and Sharon had a great time cheering their antics from the bow sprit.
As we got closer to Santa Barbara a sea lion started to trail NAKIA. It would swim from one side of the boat to the other, coming as close as 10 feet away, jumping out of the water and then swimming right under the rudder. This went on for over half an hour. We all whooped and applauded his highest jumps and this seemed to get him going even more.
Santa Barbara Marina is very busy as we got the last guest slip in the marina. Many of the transients are doing the Ha-Ha. It's great to get to know a few people we'll be doing the rally with, though it makes it hard to get down the dock when you stop to chat with every tenth person. One couple in particular, Gene and Pat from Chalet Mer, were very kind and offered us a ride in their rental car to West Marine and the grocery store. This made running errands very quick and pain free not having to carry everything back to the boat on foot.
Saturday we had breakfast at the original Sambo's (yes, that Sambo's - 1957!) and then took Sharon to the Amtrak station for her ride home. We were both sorry to see her go but are also expecting to see her turn up again on someone else's boat in San Diego and/or on the Ha-Ha.
We'll be back out to Santa Cruz island on Monday (more errands on Sunday) and then down to Catalina. We'll probably be in San Diego earlier than we had anticipated but with all the Ha-Ha boats going down, getting a slip is proving very difficult. Hopefully getting there early will help in that department.
John and Linda
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