The Voyage to Santa Barbara Island - 2011 Edition

[Eddie Offermann]

For the past three years, I've done a sail out to Santa Barbara Island from Marina Del Rey, CA.

For folks not used to sailing in the area, Santa Barbara Island is nowhere near Santa Barbara. SBI is roughly 50 miles off the cost, roughly southwest of Marina Del Rey. It is a largely undeveloped rock, part of the Channel Islands archipelago, with sparse succulents, a large population of nesting seabirds, and one of the largest sea lion rookeries in California.

Most importantly (to me) it is generally uninhabited or inhabited only by a lone biologist that's involved in replanting the island with native plants and rooting out invasive species. I like it for its relatively undeveloped and inhospitable environment, especially as a way to observe Thanksgiving. It started out as my own way of imitating the landing on Plymouth Rock and the fact that I've failed to make landfall two of the three times I have gone only serves to reaffirm that: it is a long trip, and oftentimes rewarded only by the trip itself and not the destination.

We set out at night, since the trip typically takes about 12 hours at this time of year. The 40-50 miles off the coast that SBI rests isn't far enough out to catch the deep ocean breezes, and Southern California in November doesn't often offer a brisk sail.

That's one of my oldest friends, Chris, who was one of the first to doze off after helping ready the boat and get us on our way. I'd intended everyone to catch some Z's, though was happy to have a rotation of folks to help attend to things and more importantly to help keep me alert and entertained as I captained SoNice through the night.

I had raised the clubfooted staysail, the main and the mizzen, and the 5-10kt breezes we had during the night were enough to keep us moving. This makes tacking easy, and helped with steering, since everything was self-adjusting. I could practically do it in my sleep. I barely shut off the engine, though, except to periodically enjoy the quiet, because that extra couple knots I could pick up with it would save us hours off the trip and get us in shortly after sunrise.
For most of the night, I had Justin (the fellow over on the right) and Teeny (the grinning girl under the blanket, my girlfriend and the best first mate a captain could ask for) keeping me company, alternately nodding off here and there, but staying in the cockpit with me. There's something to be said for a girl that'll stay by you on a cold night, while you steer and keep watch. A girl like that you keep around!

By sunrise, we had a view of Santa Barbara Island. The water was choppy and had grown somewhat more so during the late hours of the night, though the winds had dropped off. There were gale warnings to the North, but though we'd occasionally get a brief blow, we were mostly suffering with a heavier swell and choppy water with little of the benefits of the heavier wind. We did have enough of a blow coming across to help us into the anchorage, and it was a nice way to start off the early morning.

I find sailing in general to be absolutely elating, but arriving at an island is a complete delight. There's something that just excites me about it, and I have to say from my own perspective... Catalina or something similar just doesn't compare. A barren rock, or a sandy little mound just makes me happy. I can go to a restaurant on the mainland: but a challenging approach to a difficult rock... That's fun.

Randomly during the night, I'd radioed for my buddy that was meeting me out there. Finally, after sunrise I heard the radio crackle to life, "SoNice SoNice SoNice, this is Knot So Fast. Are you there?"

We went to channel 69 and sorted out that they had overshot the island heading North and were cutting back (they'd left from Long Beach and stayed on a single tack most of the night).  I spotted the top of their mast as we rode up a swell and let them know they were a couple miles to the North of me and we'd see them soon. They sailed into the anchorage shortly after we'd dropped anchor and started heating up the lamb stew down below.

The anchorage was rough. It was enough to relax in, but even with the relatively light weather, it wasn't comfortable. My friend radioed that he had two girls on board with no real sailing experience, and they hadn't even begun to make the turkey. He wanted to head to Catalina where they could find a calm anchorage.

In his defense, the barely protected anchorage at Santa Barbara Island doesn't provide for much. It's a place to hide from a storm when you can't make it somewhere better. You've got some protection from westerly swells, but most of the weather was coming from the North and the chop and swells and random blasts of wind that would then quickly die back to nothing were making it difficult.

They sailed on, but I was having none of it. I'd spend the night suffering in the rough anchorage or I'd spend it at sea - but Thanksgiving isn't just any other sail for me, and staying in Catalina wasn't on my agenda. I told him if we found ourselves that way, we'd hail him but we were staying.
 

We slept for a bit. We ate a bit of stew, sampled some of the pheasant, but tired and being tossed around, while not seasick, we weren't as famished as we might otherwise have been. I had dinner rolls, though, and Chris made some great pheasant sliders that really hit the spot.

At some point, I noticed that the anchor was slipping. We had a firm catch on the bottom, but it hadn't been properly secured topside and had fed out an unknown distance. We were clearly closer to the rocks than I was comfortable with, and I went to raise the anchor to move a bit farther out. The windlass (the first time I'd really used it since purchasing SoNice) was unresponsive. It grunted ever-so-briefly, but there was clearly an electrical issue... or maybe the motor was hosed. Either way - we were pulling my massive anchor from the bottom by hand.

This was no good. But I called my crewmen to the task and they jumped to it while I maneuvered the boat to keep her facing into the anchor chain and drawing us closer to where the anchor was set. After, I handed the helm over to Chris I went forward to secure the sails that were flapping meaninglessly in the extremely light and sporadic winds. We were nestled in the midst of a low pressure area and woudn't see much wind for a couple days. Knowing that I couldn't ask my crewmen to hoist that anchor again by hand any time soon, and not wanting to dive into electrical repairs on Thanksgiving, I decided we'd stay at sea but not without spending some time around the island.

My girlfriend Teeny (Christina - but she's 5' and 90lbs so her nickname isn't merely appropriate to her name, it's appropriate to her as well) and I relaxed out on the foredeck for a while as I called back instructions to Chris to take us around the island.

Santa Barbara Island is beautiful. And if you don't get that when you sail into the anchorage, you should maybe explore a little.  Sure - it's a nearly barren rock. But it is *teeming* with birds and seals and the swells crashing on the opposite side of the island are something to behold.

We spent a couple hours slowly making our way around the island. We were followed by a seal pup for a while that Teeny was committed to taking home and keeping as a pet. Since then, every time we see a seal, at sea or in the marina, we point it out and joke that her friend is still following us.

We finished our course around the island - and had a few snacks, took turns napping as we traded off who would steer, and started to slowly head back towards Marina Del Rey. It was a New Moon out, and I didn't want to make land under the dark of a moonless night. I've been into MDR a few times on moonless nights, and it's alarming. Definitely come in from the North to avoid the unofficial anchorage to the South where many boats remain without anchor lights and occasionally pose a navigation hazard.

So we sailed back, watched a beautiful sunset (which happened to disappear directly behind the island).  I took a nap for a bit (I hadn't slept since Tuesday night and it was now Thursday night) since I would be keeping watch during the night.

I had the mizzen up to help with stabilizing the boat, and ended up tightening it up and tying it down tight in the darkness as I pointed us into the wind. We were a few hours out from Marina Del Rey, a couple miles past the shipping lanes,  and this seemed like the best place to rest until sunrise. I bundled up, and crawled back on the Cleopatra cushions, propped up against the taffrail, and proceeded to nod my way through the night, watching container ships resuming their course, the lights of the cities coming up and down as their residents arrived home and later proceeded to sleep. Eventually, convinced that we were remaining adrift, faced into the wind, and drifting at about 1kt parallel to the shipping lanes, lit up like a mini lighthouse (in addition to my regular nav lights, I had the spreader lights on, so we were brightly visible many miles out) I moved inside to cuddle with Teeny, still arising about every 20 minutes or so to go outside and check position and proximity to other vessels.

The next day, we decided it was too beautiful to head in. It was warm and still, with clear skies, and having plenty of provisions and all the comforts we'd anticipate at dock, we decided to spend another day relaxing at sea. As pictured (censored), Teeny spent much of it naked, getting some sun, and generally being adorable and fun. We all enjoyed the sail, and in spite of the random, rough chop, I had more of a bout of seasickness than any of my crew though mine passed quickly and encompassed mainly me holding the taffrail trying not to lose face. 

We didn't make landfall on SBI this year. It's a challenge and not always one that we're up for when we arrive. There's no dock, and no approachable beach, and, on this weekend, nowhere that's even particularly comfortable to anchor at. But there's always next year.

Until then,  there's a lot of work to do on SoNice. Next year, she'll be even better equipped - and who knows? Maybe next year, we'll decide not to head back to the mainland at all!