San Luis

Brad on Abby Normal had devised a plan to get south of Point Conception that would keep us 1 day in front of the bad weather and minimize night sailing. And that sounded real good to us. The down side is that we would be on the move every day for the next week - not so great. But it's all about give and take and chose your poison, so off we went.

Andante decided to stay in Morro Bay and do some boat maintenance so it was down to Abby Normal and Rapture. The trip to San Luis took us past the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. We were happily sailing along in the lead when Gay raised us on the radio. She said "you are not going to go inside the security zone for the nuclear power plant are you". To which I replied "what nuclear power plant"? None of my charting said anything about a power plant. But I did notice a funny little half circle made from a red dashed line on my chart plotter and put 2 and 2 together (yeah I know, it's 4, not 5!). I asked how far out are we suppose to be and someone from the power plant quickly replied "1 MILE!". Oh... sowwy, my bad. It was a short little 3 or 4 hour sail around a point to get to San Luis so I was just staying a safe distance off shore (just under a mile as it turns out). So we quickly gave a little space BEFORE we crossed over the little red dashed line half circle. Thanks Gay!!

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

As we approached San Luis we noticed this place up on the hill. I'll bet that was a nice place to grow up.

San Luis is another one of those places that is just a small cove off the side of the ocean with a small spit of rocks partially protecting it from the swell. But in this case it was just enough. We were tossed a few times by a rogue wave here and there, but for the most part it was quite comfortable. I was a bit concerned as evening came and the party on shore started ramping up (loud music and people yelling on microphones) but I was out like a light when my head hit the pillow.

There was a small town that looked like it might be fun to check out, but we were trying to stay ahead of the weather. The last hurdle we had to cross on the way to San Diego is Point Conception. Point Conception is the point on the California coast where it changes from mostly north/south to more east. It is also notorious for really bad weather and treacherous seas. The weather forecast has been very stable for several days - it will remain calm for one more day and then kick up to 35+ knots for the foreseeable future. So first thing in the morning it was off to the next place - Cojo Beach.