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THE CRUISE TO SANTA ROSA
By Lt. Marcia Rowland, AP

(Special thanks to Steve Hodges, JN for the photos)

The Squadron had planned the July cruise to go to Beachers Bay at Santa Rosa Island. Unfortunately the midweek weather reports were not good for that destination with 28 knot sustained winds, gusts of 34 knots and swell to 10-feet predicted through the weekend. Fortunately we had a back-up plan to go to Pelican Bay on Santa Cruz and notified the boats we knew were coming by Thursday evening.

Grand Berry with Lt/C William Berry, S and his friends Jim and Mark left Ventura in the fog on Friday making it safely to Pelican in the early afternoon. P/C Richard Rowland, JN and Lt. Marcia Rowland, AP left Santa Barbara on West Wind in sunshine, very little wind but rather confused seas. We arrived midafternoon and anchored next to Grand Berry.
Al & Freighter

On Saturday P/C Don Crowder, SN along with his wife Inge, Lt. Steve Hodges, JN and Lt. Alvin Rice, S aboard Teddy Bear plowed through the fog, giving way to a number of container ships arriving shortly after noon as the sun broke through the fog.

P/C John Profant, SN and Lt/C Shari Profant, S arrived in their new powerboat after diving at the West End of Santa Cruz' picking up some nice fish for dinner. Then the only question the rest of us have, was did John actually set a bow anchor or did he tie off to Teddy Bears stern rode. -- Anyway that is what it looked like from Teddy Bear.
We all enjoyed the lazy day and Commander Crowder became the water taxi to bring us all over to Teddy Bear for hors d'oeuvres and liquid refreshment. I believe that every Squadron member knows that on Teddy Bear you can't possibly go hungry as Inge is always filling your plate with goodies and your glass with refreshment. We all spent a great night in the calm anchorage.
Hoisting the dink
Al, Shari and John
 On Sunday, Steve came to our boat and asked would we like to take a little island walk with the Crowders and him. We said sure, as it was a beautiful day and we had been sitting and veging for days. The walk from Pelican Bay to Prisoners Harbor has gotten longer and steeper since the last time I walked it about 5 years ago. I had forgotten the many ups and downs, the boulders and the poison oak. We didn't quite make it all the way and fortunately Steve would warn us every time he saw the poison oak. I managed to sit down and scoot over a lot of rocks and at one point as I was falling over backward Inge caught me before I fell on top of her.
The views from the top of the bluffs were wonderful. We could see boats in many to the small coves, boats sailing up and down the island, and the large ships moving in the shipping lanes. Close offshore a large group of seals were sturing the water into a froth fishing. The Torry pines planted a few years ago are now producing more trees and parts of the island will soon be pine forest. The wild pigs have really been working overtime uprooting vegetation and digging large holes. The Nature Conservancy is planning a program to get rid of them.
After we upped anchor and hoisted sails, including a storm jib, we set the AutoPilot and stuck our nose out to greet the white caps. But where was the wind? It was no where to be found. Teddy Bear put up all their laundry and tried to sail but could only go 1 - 2 knots at best. We motorsailed and guess that Cdr. Don did the same.
Dick & Marcia on Westwind
Commander Don
On the trip over and back we all saw thousands of dolphins which we felt must have been going to a convention as they were coming from all different directions. We also saw a lot of sharks, which is unusual. Sometimes we would see as many as 6 or 8 small ones together swimming in a circle.
Pulling into the fairway at Santa Barbara Harbor we found the wind. We had 16 knots apparent on the nose with our boat speed of 3 knots. This would make it perfect, I thought, pulling into our upwind slip. Dick jumped off with a line, I followed and went to grab a line when all of a sudden I realized the boat was going backwards. I thought to myself, "I must have it in reverse". Jumping back on the boat I found it was in neutral and it was the strength of the wind pushing it back out of the slip. Once we got the lines around the cleats we felt as if we had been cheated out of a good sail because the only wind was in the harbor or up the coast where we had originally intended to go.
Double dolphins
Sorry that more boats didn't go on the cruise, but I understand, with the weather forecast I was a little leery. Hopefully lots of members will bring their boats to the Pacific Corinthian Cruise on August 9th and the District Cruise to Catalina on August 23rd-24th.