Sailing to Howland's Landing
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SolMate's route to Howlands Landing (purple) and back (blue).
Spinnaker losing wind as Stan watches dolphins
Sea Launch Odyssey, Catalina Island and dolphins
Dave and Carol invited us cruisers along to LA Yacht Club's facility at Howland's, as their comic relief. They were officiating the last race of the Whitney Series, over to Howland's on Saturday, back to LA, Sunday. SolMate fooled them and sailed early, so the race crews couldn't point and laugh from their hot racing sleds as they left us in their dust.
Cruise, slosh, boogie; pretty much our sailing modes coming and going. The sequence: good wind, no wind, and finally, really great wind.
As the flukey little breeze shifted westward, Thursday, so did our wandering track. We stubbornly sailed until we ground to a halt, motor-sailed with Mr Beke happily humming through the worst of the doldrums, then picked up a really nice breeze closer to the island and rolled out both headsails. Reducing sail as it hit 20 knots, we screamed into Howland's under full main and staysail.
Sunday was much the same, although our ziggy track reflects dodging container ships rather than chasing wind. The wind direction was good, but it petered out in mid-channel, again.
With the wind on our beam, we were able to set our big blue and yellow asymmetrical spinnaker as soon as we dropped our mooring. Reaching farther out in the channel, though, the wind dropped to two knots and we rocked and sloshed and flapped until finally Mr. Beke had to assume control of any and all forward motion. But the crew was busy with other things.
From their control tower atop Palos Verdes, Traffic Control monitors the shipping lanes much like Air Traffic Control monitors flight paths -- keeping a radar eye on the north and southbound shipping lanes for LA and Long Beach harbors, and communicating via VHF. Large ships check in on Channel 14, and SolMate listens. Sea Launch Odyssey checked in just as they left LA and just as we were leaving Howland's. The monster missile launch pad was on its way to the equator to launch a Direct TV satellite. Their course was straight at SolMate, out to sea via the west end of Catalina. Not long after they checked in with Traffic, a big ole square box appeared on the horizon, marching toward us.
We altered course to get out of Odyssey's way as a thousand dolphins joined us. Distracted from the wonders of modern technology by wildlife, we refocused our attention. Having heard that dolphins respond to auditory stimuli, we cranked up some music to see if we could attract them to the boat; and we sang, and we whistled. No dice. The dolphins were preoccupied, busily feeding and not interested in those two dancing maniacs on the bow of the boat going nowhere with its deflated yellow and blue sheet dangling from a stick.
