Santa Cruz Island

Well we finally got to the Channel Islands. We had hopes of a sail across from Channel Islands Harbour on Friday but alas, no wind at all. We crossed the traffic lanes with ships all around but the separation scheme is generous so we stayed in the middle while a ships passed on either side of us. We ended up in Smugglers Cove on the SE side of the island. The wind was calm and there was a gentle swell rolling. It looked ideal. We dropped the anchor in about 18 meters of water and let out lots of chain. The winds were supposed to come up over night from the NW and we didn't want a repeat of Catalina Harbour. We launched the dinghy and toured around a bit and decided we would go to shore, a surf landing. It looked OK from Tarun but when we got closer, the swell was breaking on shore and given that the water is only 14 degrees C we decided not to swamp the dinghy and us landing in big surf. Maybe we will try surf landings when the weather and water is a bit warmer. We will spend the next few days, generally relaxing and catching up on hobbies. Cathy spent today working with beads and I finally got our walking sticks cleaned up that we cut on North Broughton Island in May. It took a long time for me to get back to them after nearly chopping my thumb off in June when I started cleaning them in Winter Harbour.

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