Californian to Dana Point

I wasn't back two weeks from the Festival of Sail in Los Angeles when I found myself going sailing again. I have to be honest here; the reason why I never sail on the Californian is because I've always been terrified of the skipper who is most often her captain. He's a very tough guy who never smiles, and there are all sorts of stories about him chewing people out because they didn't know what they were doing.

So when I saw the list for the trip to Dana Point on the Californian, I was very excited to see that the skipper of the Surprise as Captain and one of the really nice guys who've been around for years as the mate, I was happy to volunteer to sail up and back. It was a great weekend. The sailing was marvelous, especially on Saturday, when we had wind that let us go up to 8 or so knots.

We left SD on Friday morning around 3:30am, and being on the first watch, I had the good fortune to watch the sun come up behind La Jolla. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen. Later in the day we saw dolphins, a sunfish, and three Fin whales played and fished nearby, completely unconcerned by our ship. We even had an apparently exhausted seagull who, after trying several uncomfortable landing sites on the ship, finally settled on the still-furled inner jib. We tried chasing him away by throwing pancakes at him, which he ate, and then the heaving line. This bothered him, but did not persuade him to leave permanently. Oh well. He stayed till he'd had his fill of the sun and relaxation, then left.

Once we reached Dana Point, we picked up passengers and headed back out for the afternoon's Parade into the harbor. Once that was through, and we'd rafted the ship to the others in the harbor, we ate and slept. The next two days consisted of opening all the ships up to the public from 10 to 4, at which time we all loaded up with passengers and headed out for afternoon gun battles. Six ships participated in this: The Californian, the Spirit of Dana Point, the Lynx, the American Pride, and the Exy Johnson and Irving Johnson.

The best moment of the two days of gun battles was on the first afternoon, when the Exy and the Irving came down on us together. We went between them going the opposite direction. What they didn't know was that unlike most of our engagements, we had two gunners on baord that day. So when they came up on us, we fired both broadsides at the same time. It was beautiful. The most talked about moment of the weekend.

Being such a full weekend, with so much that happened, I'll continue this in a second post, with pictures too. Cheers!