Sea Trial Leg 2 - Avalon to Cat Harbor - 32NM, 3.5 hours sailing, 5 hours motor

The next morning (Sunday), as much as we would have like to sleep in, we were all up and about by 8:00 am, mostly due to the continued noises from the mooring ball and the water. Apparently the noise and lack of sleep, coupled with the multiple shots of Tequila and Beers had left Steve a little worse for the wear.

Soon, however, everyone had their "sea legs" again as we motored away from Avalon until we were far enough to run the macerators and empty the heads. When that was done, we put Beethoven on the stereo loudly, and sure enough, around 11:00am, the wind came up and we were able to start sailing. We sailed about 1/2 way along the island before the wind died down around 1:00 pm, just off Isthmus Cove. Steve went below for a nap and we motored to the end of the island.

As we made the turn around the end of the island, about 1/4 mile off shore, at approximately 2:00 pm, I rigged a preventer on the port side for a downwind run to Cat Harbor. The preventer worked well and, after Steve woke up, we all took turns sailing wing and wing, including letting the autopilot try it, which worked surprisingly well, before finally jibing and coming about into Catalina Harbor at about 4:00.

It was blowing pretty good as we came into the Harbor on a beam reach at about 7 knots. We hurriedly put the sails away and made ready to drop anchor. There were quite a few boats in the anchorage and it took us a few tries (maybe 3) to get the hook down in just the right spot (in about 70' of water) so that we could let out 280' of chain and end up in-between two other boats about 100' to either side. Where the boat ended at about 4:30PM was about 50' deep, so I felt pretty good with our nearly 6:1 scope, as it was blowing about 15-20 knots with occasional gusts to maybe 25. I thought the guy on the other boat was giving us a hard time when he shouted out "good job!", until he told us it took them EIGHT tries to get the hook out! So we felt pretty good about getting commendations for our anchoring, as well as being snug and safe on the hook, finally.

Steve wanted to try the "Dinghy Drill", so we got the dinghy off the boat, attached the motor (and fuel tank, and oars, and so on), and started the motor. At first it wouldn't idle, but after a while it seemed to be running ok, so we took the dinghy out for a little spin. We got up to plane a few times and circled Rhapsody and headed about 1/2 mile to near the shore. Steve got pretty wet on the way back tho, as the wind was still blowing and the short 1-2 ft chop caused it to be pretty wet in the bow of the dinghy (I hid behind him so as to stay a little drier!).

After another wonderful dinner, we were all pretty whipped. I went down first, and after a little dinner conversation everybody elese wound down around 10:00 pm. We all slept pretty good that night, in spite of the wind, as there was no banging around while on anchor as there had been the night before on the mooring ball.