Elise Cruise Day II - at Half-Moon Bay

Wiping out the waterproof charts, got a little wet. See what's hiding behind the gas cans? It's the BUCKET!
Green energy boat...
Reading with little frog.

The day after, we woke at the crack of dawn, around 10:30am, looked up at the mast and saw that the VHF antenna might require some work. The radio was still working so perhaps it was only cosmetics. In any case, this might need a little examination.

We headed out for a nice warm breakfast at Cafe Classic, and as we were walking back, Nathan suggested to use this day for repairs, including sleep repair. In other words, some farniente in Half Moon Bay. The weather was beautiful and the air warm enough to spend a day outside without any problem.
The only problem I had with this cunning plan was that it didn't seem to include sailing at all. We compromise on an afternoon of sailing and the rest of doing nothing.




We concluded this wonderful day with a very festive dinner - the best oysters ever!!!
Living dangerously...
In the afternoon and until dusk, eg until the solar-energy-powered Taktik ran out of juice, we played around in the Bay with Elise. We set, jibed and doused many times, switching roles. There was just a nice little breeze and the whole experience was just extraordinary. I had never spent much time in Half Moon Bay and it is a beautiful bay - so long as you avoid kelp forests and rocks.

We also practiced something that we actually need to practice before the Pac Cup: retrieval of a man who has fallen overboard. We determined that the weather was a little too cold to be our own guinea pigs so we used a baby fender instead. Nathan innocently threw the victim overboard and I had to retrieve it. The OCSC method of figure of eight was a bit long and was taking the boat a little too far away...so we opted for a faster method. All of these retrieval techniques are based on the same concept. The boat sails below the victim and then head upwind to stop the boat. There is indeed only one direction a sailboat cannot follow - that of the origin of the wind so putting your boat head to wind is a good way to stop it since I haven't yet seen boats that were equipped with brakes. The idea is to stop the boat right next to the victim.

We haven't lost the fender - in fact, I think that we retrieved it every time. We did this little game quite a few times, it really was a lot of fun!



In the morning or what was left of it, we decided to take a look at the "damage". We were faced with the decision of who would go up the mast. I looked at the combination of Nathan-my biceps and got the feeling that hoisting Nathan wasn't going to be a fast business. So I went up there and with a pair of pliers could straighten up the VHF antenna again. There was nowhere we could buy a new windex fly in Half-Moon Bay so we decided to sail back the following day with yarn attached to the shrouds to give us the wind direction.
Playing around in Half Moon Bay.

This cruise also taught us a lot about power consumption of lights, instruments, etc...and in the morning, we recharged the battery with a big solar panel. We will buy a MUCH bigger one for the stern of Elise for the Pac Cup but if this one can keep up with our luxury habits, then we should be in good shape when I bring the 150 watts stereo ;-)
Our electrical grid is a lot of loose jumper cables right now, so we use manual switches as per the picture above...
The beauty of being in a harbor, even if it is right next to fishing vessels that attract a lot of seabirds who think that Elise is a toilet, is that you can take a hot shower in the morning AND you have plenty of time to dry up your towel - or T-shirt if you forgot to take your towel...
Nice view. Can you tell the difference between this picture and the other one? If so, you win an Elise bucket experience. I was using a rock-climbing harness - picture this in the middle of the ocean with a kite up!
Hanging out...