Put A Sail On It: Point Conception

All night sailing left me cold and sleep deprived.

In the year two thousand, a fifty foot research vessel was hit by a rogue wave and sunk at Point Conception. On this leg of the voyage we would be passing by that exact point and all it's infamy. We had been watching the predictions for wave height and wind strength all week and it was looking like we would have the perfect window to sneak by the point at day break.

We would have to set off around eleven at night to pass by Point Conception at the break of dawn and our end destination of Santa Barbara would be another ten hours of sailing past Point Conception.

So with sixteen hours of sailing ahead of us, we departed in the dark from Avila Beach. The further we headed out to sea, the larger the waves grew. We had eight foot waves coming at us directly on the boats side. We endured five hours of the boat rolling back and forth in the dark, not knowing when or how the next wave would hit us. Every half an hour or so, a series of waves would align just right and push Joli’ Elle over so far that her side rail would go under the water, and then the boat would rock back and forth sending everything down below into a disarray. If there was ever a test to see whether or not your were prone to seasickness this would have been it.

As the break of dawn approached, the predicted good weather window held true. We changed course and begun our final approach to Point Conception. The waves built to six feet and were pushing us from behind joined by the wind blowing at fifteen knots. We gave a big thanks to Triton for good conditions and kept an eye out for any surprises.

As we passed the point the sun broke over the mountains and we knew the rest of the trip into Santa Barbara would be a breeze, I took this opportunity for some lounging on the deck.

Ten more hours of sailing lay ahead of us and we filled them with sleep, food and checking out the enormous oil platforms located about five miles off shore. To get an idea of how large these are, look closely and you can see the helicopter on the top right of the platform.

Later in the day the waves and wind returned and I took this video looking from the cockpit out the back. I have been trying to give you an idea of what the motion of the boat feels like through video and it always seems to be less impressive than the really being there, but this video comes close.

About five miles out from Santa Barbara, we were greeted by a large pod of dolphins that played in our wake while doing their dolphin chirp thing. And again as hard as I try, my marine life picture taking is less than desirable But I did get this shot just as the dolphins submerged. If you look closely, you can see one just under the water’s surface in front of the v-wake it made.