This was one of those days when Mother Nature was holding back a bit on the wind, but made up for it in other ways.

It was a beautiful day, light winds notwithstanding, and looked like a good time to launch at Dana Point Marina and find out what things were like down there from the sea. Dana Point was named after Richard Henry Dana Jr, a famous 19th century sailor and activist who visited this port on the cargo ship Pilgrim.His most famous work was the book Two Years Before the Mast in which he describes the life of a 19th century sailor. A digital copy of the book is available here from the Library of Congress: Two Years Before the Mast.

The Pilgrim was not a particulary large vessel, being a brig of about 86 feet, only 20 feet longer than the Schooner Ya-Wim (see last log entry). One day when the Pilgrim was anchored off San Pedro, two of Dana's shipmates were flogged and Dana swore to do something to improve the lot of sailors. He had gone to sea to improve his eyesight and general health and as a break from his studies at Harvard Law School. Upon his return from the voyage, besides publishing Two Years Before the Mast, he represented sailors in court and continuously worked to improve conditions on the high seas. He was largely successful in doing so.

In the words of Jimmy Buffet, "history's over my shoulder and I can't look backwards too long." Many thanks to Dana for the glimpse into maritime history - on to todays voyage.

Traffic was fairly light on the San Diego Freeway and we made Dana Point Harbor in about 30 minutes from Slowdance's storage facility in northern Orange County. Rigging took the usual 1 hour almost to the minute and we were in the water by about 11:30. The ramp at Dana Point is very nice (also fairly expensive at $10.00) and has a few finger piers available making launching much easier. I have the technique worked out fairly well and, with a finger pier, can easily launch and retrieve Slowdance without getting my feet wet.

Winds were light at about 3-5 MPH so we putted out of the harbor and made sail just beyond the breakwater.

Here is a view of part of the harbor as Slowdance motored out. The ramps are just beyond the building on the left (one of many restaurants) and to the left.

This is the sign that greets boats as they enter the harbor. I believe that his the harbor master's building just beyond.

This view is looking at the end of the breakwater. This will be on your left as you leave the harbor. You can also see fog just beyond - looking more or less to the southeast.

As you can see from the pictures, the wind was fairly light. I pointed the boat to the south and headed out to sea. After about a mile, the wind picked up to about 3 to 5 MPH and we were able to move along nicely with no chop and the very gentle roll of a 3 foot swell. Just for fun I tied the tiller amidships and let the boat go on her own. The wind was fairly steady and the boat was able to hold a course in this fashion with only occasional variations +/- 5º or so, always returning withing a minute or so to the original course. I spent about the next half hour standing on the companionway door sill and leaning agianst the main boom. It was very pleasant and I had a pretty good view of what was going on around me - at least on the starboard side. I had to duck down every now and then and take a peek under the boom to see if anything was happening over there, but there was very little traffic to worry about.

I put about at around 5 miles out and sailed a reciprocal course back to Dana Point. The wind died down again until we were barely making way. I also had a problem with kelp again on this trip. There was a lot if it floating by in different areas and, even though I was careful to dodge the obvious clumps, I still managed to get enough caught on the keel to slow us down even more. Twice I had to heave-to and raise the keel to get the kepl off and once I had to let the rudder kick up to get if off of there.

About a mile and a half out, I decided to let Slowdance sail herself for a bit again and go below to grab a couple of crackers to nibble on. Just as I stood up, the sea around me came alive with dolphins. This had to be the largest school I've ever seen. Apparently they were feeding as they were moving about rapidly, splashing a lot and there were a number of birds accompanying them.

As you can see in the photo above, the dolphins were coming right up to the boat - one pair leaped out of the water just under the port bow a second after these two swam by.

Slowdance was doing a good job of sailing along through all of this, but her skipper probably looked like a complete idiot. The dolphins were on both sides, near and far, and moving quickly. I was staggering around, standing in the cockpit and trying to see everything at once. I had a small Canon ELF in a case on my belt and I started with that, but it proved to be much too slow to catch most of what was going on so I ducked below and grabbed the Nikon D100. This camera is very quick and a blessing at times like this.

I still missed many of the possible shots - getting glimpses of white splashes showing where the dolphins used to be. Hopefully none of the boats off in the distance were watching through binoculars as I'm pretty sure they would be conviced that I had "slipped my cable" as the old sailors used to say.

At least I came back with a few shots and a great memory of some of Nature's most wonderful creatures.

The kelp encounters reminded me of the seas around Bermuda. This area of the Atlantic is known as the Sargasso Sea after a kind of seaweed that grows there. The Seaweed, unlike our kelp in the Pacific, grows on the surface of the ocean and great mats of it can be seen floating around. It can be thick enough to capture sailing vessels and has been known to do so in the past.

One of my encounters with this seaweed, or rather one of it's inhabitants, led to the only time I have ever been seasick.

I was ages 6 through 9 while we were living in Bermuda and we sailed a 28 foot sloop. She is pictured above moored in Dolly's Bay, which was just behind our home. I know little of the boats history or where she may have ended up, other than that she was supposedly sailed in from the US at some time in the past. I would guess that she was 20 years old when we got her, putting her build date somewhere back in the '30's.

You are probably wondering what happened with the seaweed. Well, we were sailing the 28 footer one day and she was heeled well over (she seemed to like it this way). I was hanging over the lee rail and catching gobs of sargassum for sport. One batch I picked up had something alive in it, so I pulled it in and dropped it in a bucket. It turned out to be a very bizarre looking fish called, appropriately, a sargassum fish. I was very fascinated with the fish and spent a lot of time staring at it in the bottom of the bucket.

One of the things that the sea around Bermuda is noted for is the fairly large swell - often 20 feet - and it's not uncommon to have three large swells coming in from three different directions. The net result of the combination was mal de mer. I have been able to avoid it, since that time, but the experience was enough to keep me very sympathetic to anyone else that is experiencing it.

Back at Dana Point... The wind continued to drop until I was about a quarter of a mile out and it finally gave up completely. I took in the sails, cranked up the outboard and headed in under power. By this time, it was only around 4:00 PM so I had quite a bit of time before sundown and I gave myself a tour of the harbor. There is a very nice little beach area near where the Pilgrim is normally docked (she was out this day) and there were several boats anchored there with the occupants enjoying a swim.

There were also the usual seals and pelicans. One seal came cruising by just a few feet away as I was headed back towards the ramp and I saw another, rather large one, begging for food (or perhaps complaining) near a couple of anchored boats across from the Harbor Master's dock.

There were not a lot of boats waiting to dock at the ramps so it was only a few minutes before Slowdance was back on her trailer and I was busy taking down the rig.

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