Southbound passage, the Maiden Voyage part deux

Meeting the crew in Santa Barbara with our girls was such a relief.  They made it. After exchanging hugs they each took turns recalling the last 52 hours.

"Even in all our long underwear and foul weather gear we were freezing. Everything was wet. We've had one good meal since Saturday.  We hit the worst part at 3am and could only see 12 foot white caps towering over the solar panels. Todd puked most the way down. You and the girls would have wanted to die."

Sounded more like a recap of a Deadliest Catch episode than a quick hop down the coast.  I was thankful that the girls and I opted out of that portion of the trip and that everyone made it in one piece.

After a nice dinner and some good sleep, we headed towards the Channel Islands Tuesday morning. Todd needed a bit of convincing after his miserable past two days but decided to stay with us for the rest of the trip.  With great wind we made it an hour ahead of schedule and found a cove to anchor for the night.  None of us could believe that the temperature gage for the ocean was correct.  Really? 69 degrees.  In June?  That's warm for us.

The Nance family getting in their first snorkel trip at the Channel Islands.

After what seemed like only 30 minutes of sleep we were off to Two Harbors on Catalina Island.

Our beautiful cove off the Channels Island proved to be a horrible place to attempt any sleep. We rolled all night making it near impossible for anyone to sleep, Phil kept waking up and peeking out for fear that we were dragging an anchor.

These two. Our girls cruise best in their pajamas.

We were all a little disappointed in the lack of sea life we didn't see. The only pod of dolphins we saw were the ones that greeted us at the entrance of San Diego, which was a nice way to sail home. No whale sightings. We did have the occasional seal and sea lion swimming around but not what we had encountered on previous trips. 

Once we hit Catalina we all grabbed hot showers and ate at the only bar in town. Our mooring in Two Harbors was protected and we all got a good nights rest.

The next morning we moved north and anchored in Hamilton Bay for the day. Hamilton Bay is a great place to anchor if you like to snorkel. After snorkeling for a few hours we decided to move again to Avalon for the night. We wanted to be closer in without rolling all night.

Once we were stationed in Avalon and it got darker we could see what appeared to be little glow worms swimming in the ocean. At first it looked like droplets of glow in the dark paint bobbing around. You'd see the glowing worm bob around for a bit then a fish would come up and eat the worm.  Evolutionary reject? How lame is that. A glowing worm to serve as a beacon for hungry fish at night.

After 7 days at sea, the crew was ready to head home. Home was a 12 hour trip from Catalina to San Diego, perfect time to get reacquainted with your Ipod.  This trip served as our families first experience sailing on our boat. SV Terrapin proved to have enough room for all of us and sail comfortably. We learned that Jessica just like her father is a true salty dog.  She never once felt "icky", even when spending time in our cabin playing games as we rocked back n forth. She's accepted the position of "look out" and won't give up the binoculars for anything. 

Emma needs a little bit of time to get her sea legs. This involves eating Cheez-It's and sitting on the bow with the wind in her face. According to Todd, Cheez-It's saved his life on the way down. I may need to see if they're willing to sponsor us. Once Emma gets used to the boat, she's fine. Although she can't hang upside down riding in the cabin like her sister, she's good. She's our official knot maker. Always great with her fingers, she quickly became fond of all the different knots she could make and didn't put down her rope the entire trip. When Jess was having a hard time tying a figure 8,  Emma showed Jess "her way" and was able to teach Jess how to do it.  Phil was having a hard time with the bowline knot....Emma showed him "her way"....student teaching the teacher.

I'm on my own with the knots being a lefty. Just like school, when the teachers would show everyone how to make something and I'm left to figure it out. I'll be real impressed if Emma can show me how to do knots "lefty"

After 12 hours...we made it home. We will be at the Harbor West Marina in San Diego till December.