Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz

We pulled up the anchor at 06:30 and got underway by 06:45.  We found out that Half Moon Bay has excellent holding in MUD.  We motored out past the fog horn (every 10 seconds and two days later I can still hear it).  We set the main to steady us and continued south under power in light winds.  By 10:00, the winds had come around to the NW and with 8-10 knots, we set the pole on the headsail and headed downwind wing on wing.  About an hour later, we got smart and hooked the Monitor and let that steer us.  We had not really used the wind steering down wind and were really impressed at how well it kept our course.  Over the next 5 hours, the Monitor kept us on course with only a few tweeks now and then.  I’m still kicking myself for not getting it set up properly earlier, BUT on the other hand, we are getting confident that we now have the low maintenance 3^rd crew member.  We decided to get a dock at Santa Cruz as the anchorage is listed as marginal in NW winds.  We managed to get dock space on the west side just as you enter Santa Cruz, much to our relief, as we had been told earlier by the harbour master that we would likely have to raft.  Docking rates are pretty reasonable at $25.20 for our 36 feet of boat.  Not as cheap as San Fran but better than we thought it might be.  We paid for a couple of nights as we want to head to Monterey on Monday for a few days.  We spent this morning walking around the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.  Kind of cool place if you like tourist kitch.  It wasn’t too crowded so we had a nice wander around.  Back to boat for lunch and a few odd jobs to while away the afternoon.  A nice lazy Sunday, cruising the west coast of the USA