SEAYANIKA - Cal Vader 49

SHAKEDOWN CRUISES

May 2004 Catalina After several trips up and down the coast between San Diego and Newport, we finally took our first "offshore" trip - to Catalina Island. Aside from wanting to shakedown Seayanika away from shore and away from the umbilical cord, there were two other reasons Catalina was chosen. On May 14-16 there was a planned cruise for all Cal boats in the area, and on May 22-23 our new yacht club, "Little Ships Fleet of Long Beach", was gathering at Two Harbors.
We left accompanied by Erik's sister, Laura. We found some good wind just outside the harbor and raised our main, jib and staysail. We averaged about 7 knots under sail for about half our trip across, but then the fickle wind turned on us and we had to turn on the motor and motorsail the rest of the way. About an hour outside of Avalon we encountered a huge group of dolphins, at least a thousand, that followed us for around 45 minutes. Once in Avalon, we picked up a mooring and went out to dinner.
On Tuesday we headed up to Howland's Landing to await the arrival of the Cal fleet. There were a total of about 22 Cal's that showed up, and surprising to us, eight of them were Cal 46's. We had a great time meeting all the fun people who showed up and had a cocktail party on Seayanika on Friday night. We think there were about 25 people on board. Saturday night was the beach barbeque where the food and drinks were flowing. Most of the Cal's began departing early Sunday, but many of the 46's stayed until Monday. Our wonderful friends, John & Rita on Sonrisa travelled with us around the island to Cat Harbor for a couple of days and during that time we took a three hour hike to the top of one of the harborside mountains.
On Wednesday (May 19), John & Rita left for the mainland, and Erik & I came back around to the south side of the island to Two Harbors. A white bass fishing tournament was being held for the weekend, and it was great fun sitting at the mooring watching all the power boats arrive. Saturday morning our friends Brad and Yolanda arrived in Two Harbors on the "cattle boat" and later that afternoon we were joined by our Port Supply rep Costa and his wife, Allison. The Little Ships Fleet barbeque got going at around 5:30 pm. on the beach. Again, another great group of people! During this get together we were installed as new members of the yacht club and received our burgee and membership card. In the morning, some of the yacht club members came to Seayanika to see us off and to watch us raise our burgee for the first time.
We left Two Harbors about 10:00 a.m. enroute to San Pedro to drop off Brad and Yolanda. Unfortunately, there was little wind, so we motorsailed across. We docked at Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club and enjoyed the evening at their bar.

June 2004 Moving Around The beginning of June found us at Dana Point. It's a great place and we're trying to get things done, but hey, there's just too many friends and too much fun to be had.
Memorial weekend for example was something else. We had heard that there was to be a raft up, mainly consisting of boats from Shoreline Marina, Long Beach. Also, quite a few slip renters from Dana Point were going to come out to the anchorage. Erik and I came out first in preparation. In an anchorage where we normally see between 3-7 boats, suddenly there were 95. We began our own small raft with Seayanika, Enchantress, Journey, Sailfisher, Sea Forth, a Cabo 26 and a Boston Whaler. We were having a great time playing musical boats and blender wars while watching the pranks and fun around us. Everything was perfect....until Sunday. (To be continued...)

In the early afternoon on Sunday, the wind began to pick up, and pick up, and pick up, until it was a continuous 30 knots. Our raft up started twisting and all of a sudden Erik realized that the raft was dragging into the channel. Everyone jumped up and pitched in. We brought out our spare 60 lb Danforth anchor, 100 feet of chain and 250 feet of rode and asked the Boston Whaler to take it way out to drop it. Then, using our primary winch, Erik and a couple of beefy tailers managed to pull our 120 ton raft up back into position. Unfortunately, we were soon dragging again. We spent about 3 hours trying anything we could think of, but eventually realized that the raft up was going to have to break apart. By this time however, all of the stern anchors were under the boats and well out to the front, so that was our first order of business. Then, just as the first boat (Sailfisher) was pulling off and retrieving his bow anchor, the wind shifted and he became the upwind boat. There was nothing we could do to keep Sailfisher from becoming impaled, beam-to, across three of the bows of the rafted boats. We eventually freed Sailfisher, to our collective relief, and one by one the other boats pulled off without too many complications. In all it took us about 5 hours and we were dead tired when it was over.

July/Aug 2004 Sitting Around We've spent the entire month of July in a sublet slip in Dana Point doing more work on Seayanika. See "In the Water Works" in the "Construction Progress" section for details.

Sept/Oct 2004 Fun in the Sun Most of September flew by hooking up more systems...and of course...spending more money. On September 24th we cruised to Catalina (Howland's Landing) to gather for another CCCCC (a get together for owners of Cal boats). Fun was had by all. On the following Monday we left for Two Harbors to wait out the week until Buccaneer Days.

Buccaneer Days was a blast! Both my sister Valeri, and a friend of ours from Dana Point, Dirk, joined us on Seayanika for the weekend. Dancing, drinking, merriment and a lot of "aargh's" were the name of the game. Here are a couple of photos from the weekend. On the left is Dirk, me and Erik (behind the rigging) on Seayanika's aft deck preparing to join the scaliwags on shore. On the right are a few 'dressed to the hilt' pirates posing for the camera.

Oct 2004 Final Preps The time has come and final preparations had to be made. We moved Seayanika back to San Diego for the last time and obtained a slip at the Police Docks. Erik started putting together a list of spares we would need and I made almost daily trips up to Vista to clear up paperwork and prepare my sister and daughter for taking over the property management. I supposed it wouldn´t have been so bad except that a couple of BIG snags with the City of Vista and the Franchise Tax Board were dominating my time and thoughts. I took care of whatever I could and left my poor sister with the rest of the mess. Thank goodness she´s more than competent!!!

The last couple of days on the docks were a flurry of activity. Friends were stopping by to say adios, I went to nearly every store in San Diego buying provisions (ok, that´s a bit of an exageration), and Erik was making final connections to our SSB radio and modem. My daughter, Nika, took time off work and spent the final four days driving me around and running errands. Then, the day of departure arrived. Geez, I hope we didn´t forget anything important!

Friends and Channel 10 began arriving at 8:00 am. I spent most of my time hugging and crying and don´t remember much of what went on or what I was interviewed about. Mass confusion reigned. After four years of planning, building and worrying, at 10:00 am on October 25, Erik and I, Valeri, David and Bruce, released the docklines and simultaneously called our final ¨Sea Ya Nika¨ on our way to the Baja HaHa starting line.

The Cruising Journal continues in the ´Mexico´ section.

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May 2004	Catalina	After several trips up and down the coast between San Diego and Newport, we finally took our first "offshore" trip - to Catalina Island. Aside from wanting to shakedown Seayanika away from shore and away from the umbilical cord, there were two other reasons Catalina was chosen. On May 14-16 there was a planned cruise for all Cal boats in the area, and on May 22-23 our new yacht club, "Little Ships Fleet of Long Beach", was gathering at Two Harbors. We left accompanied by Erik's sister, Laura. We found some good wind just outside the harbor and raised our main, jib and staysail. We averaged about 7 knots under sail for about half our trip across, but then the fickle wind turned on us and we had to turn on the motor and motorsail the rest of the way. About an hour outside of Avalon we encountered a huge group of dolphins, at least a thousand, that followed us for around 45 minutes. Once in Avalon, we picked up a mooring and went out to dinner. On Tuesday we headed up to Howland's Landing to await the arrival of the Cal fleet. There were a total of about 22 Cal's that showed up, and surprising to us, eight of them were Cal 46's. We had a great time meeting all the fun people who showed up and had a cocktail party on Seayanika on Friday night. We think there were about 25 people on board. Saturday night was the beach barbeque where the food and drinks were flowing. Most of the Cal's began departing early Sunday, but many of the 46's stayed until Monday. Our wonderful friends, John & Rita on Sonrisa travelled with us around the island to Cat Harbor for a couple of days and during that time we took a three hour hike to the top of one of the harborside mountains. On Wednesday (May 19), John & Rita left for the mainland, and Erik & I came back around to the south side of the island to Two Harbors. A white bass fishing tournament was being held for the weekend, and it was great fun sitting at the mooring watching all the power boats arrive. Saturday morning our friends Brad and Yolanda arrived in Two Harbors on the "cattle boat" and later that afternoon we were joined by our Port Supply rep Costa and his wife, Allison. The Little Ships Fleet barbeque got going at around 5:30 pm. on the beach. Again, another great group of people! During this get together we were installed as new members of the yacht club and received our burgee and membership card. In the morning, some of the yacht club members came to Seayanika to see us off and to watch us raise our burgee for the first time. We left Two Harbors about 10:00 a.m. enroute to San Pedro to drop off Brad and Yolanda. Unfortunately, there was little wind, so we motorsailed across. We docked at Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club and enjoyed the evening at their bar.
June 2004	Moving Around	The beginning of June found us at Dana Point. It's a great place and we're trying to get things done, but hey, there's just too many friends and too much fun to be had. Memorial weekend for example was something else. We had heard that there was to be a raft up, mainly consisting of boats from Shoreline Marina, Long Beach. Also, quite a few slip renters from Dana Point were going to come out to the anchorage. Erik and I came out first in preparation. In an anchorage where we normally see between 3-7 boats, suddenly there were 95. We began our own small raft with Seayanika, Enchantress, Journey, Sailfisher, Sea Forth, a Cabo 26 and a Boston Whaler. We were having a great time playing musical boats and blender wars while watching the pranks and fun around us. Everything was perfect....until Sunday. (To be continued...) In the early afternoon on Sunday, the wind began to pick up, and pick up, and pick up, until it was a continuous 30 knots. Our raft up started twisting and all of a sudden Erik realized that the raft was dragging into the channel. Everyone jumped up and pitched in. We brought out our spare 60 lb Danforth anchor, 100 feet of chain and 250 feet of rode and asked the Boston Whaler to take it way out to drop it. Then, using our primary winch, Erik and a couple of beefy tailers managed to pull our 120 ton raft up back into position. Unfortunately, we were soon dragging again. We spent about 3 hours trying anything we could think of, but eventually realized that the raft up was going to have to break apart. By this time however, all of the stern anchors were under the boats and well out to the front, so that was our first order of business. Then, just as the first boat (Sailfisher) was pulling off and retrieving his bow anchor, the wind shifted and he became the upwind boat. There was nothing we could do to keep Sailfisher from becoming impaled, beam-to, across three of the bows of the rafted boats. We eventually freed Sailfisher, to our collective relief, and one by one the other boats pulled off without too many complications. In all it took us about 5 hours and we were dead tired when it was over.
July/Aug 2004	Sitting Around	We've spent the entire month of July in a sublet slip in Dana Point doing more work on Seayanika. See "In the Water Works" in the "Construction Progress" section for details.
Sept/Oct 2004	Fun in the Sun	Most of September flew by hooking up more systems...and of course...spending more money. On September 24th we cruised to Catalina (Howland's Landing) to gather for another CCCCC (a get together for owners of Cal boats). Fun was had by all. On the following Monday we left for Two Harbors to wait out the week until Buccaneer Days. Buccaneer Days was a blast! Both my sister Valeri, and a friend of ours from Dana Point, Dirk, joined us on Seayanika for the weekend. Dancing, drinking, merriment and a lot of "aargh's" were the name of the game. Here are a couple of photos from the weekend. On the left is Dirk, me and Erik (behind the rigging) on Seayanika's aft deck preparing to join the scaliwags on shore. On the right are a few 'dressed to the hilt' pirates posing for the camera.
Oct 2004	Final Preps	The time has come and final preparations had to be made. We moved Seayanika back to San Diego for the last time and obtained a slip at the Police Docks. Erik started putting together a list of spares we would need and I made almost daily trips up to Vista to clear up paperwork and prepare my sister and daughter for taking over the property management. I supposed it wouldn´t have been so bad except that a couple of BIG snags with the City of Vista and the Franchise Tax Board were dominating my time and thoughts. I took care of whatever I could and left my poor sister with the rest of the mess. Thank goodness she´s more than competent!!! The last couple of days on the docks were a flurry of activity. Friends were stopping by to say adios, I went to nearly every store in San Diego buying provisions (ok, that´s a bit of an exageration), and Erik was making final connections to our SSB radio and modem. My daughter, Nika, took time off work and spent the final four days driving me around and running errands. Then, the day of departure arrived. Geez, I hope we didn´t forget anything important! Friends and Channel 10 began arriving at 8:00 am. I spent most of my time hugging and crying and don´t remember much of what went on or what I was interviewed about. Mass confusion reigned. After four years of planning, building and worrying, at 10:00 am on October 25, Erik and I, Valeri, David and Bruce, released the docklines and simultaneously called our final ¨Sea Ya Nika¨ on our way to the Baja HaHa starting line. The Cruising Journal continues in the ´Mexico´ section.