Santa Cruz – April 2023
Between storms and strong winds, my father and I found a window of mild weather to sail from Berkeley to Santa Cruz. We motored from Berkeley to just past Alcatraz, at which point the winds quickly picked up. I had chosen the genoa due to the light wind conditions, but we were quickly overpowered. As we headed to a more sheltered position near the San Francisco shoreline, I swapped out the genoa for the class jib. With just two tacks, we had cleared Lands End and were sailing comfortably along the coast on an upwind tack. We stayed on the same tack until Half Moon Bay. Around Montara, the already mild winds died down even further. I put back the genoa, which we probably could have been using for most of the day after clearing Lands End. As we got closer to Half Moon Bay, the winds shifted and we were sailing downwind between the buoys marking the approach to the harbor. After clearing the last of the marker buoys, we found ourselves sailing upwind to a nice breeze leading up to the sea wall. We sailed in the lagoon behind the sea wall and dropped anchor for the night. …