Fourth of July Island Trip
Surfing, sailing, spearfishing, perfect weather and good friends, what more can you ask for?Our crew for the Fourth of July weekend consisted of Chris, Carly, Joey and Kirk. Our way out to Santa Cruz Island was pretty uneventful, we left in the early morning early before the wind came up and had to motor most of the way. We figured we should get out to the island as early as possible since it was holiday weekend. The anchorage we were shooting for would be packed and we wanted to make sure we got a good spot. Five hours after leaving the harbor we arrived at Coches. As we approached we could see there were already five boats anchored in the cove. We were able to sneak in as close as we felt comfortable to shore and dropped our anchors.
Once we were all settled, it was time for some fun in the sun! The weather was perfect and I can't remember the last time the water was so clear. We spent the afternoon swimming, laying out, hiking and spearfishing. Joey and Kirk even speared a few good sized kelp bass for a ceviche diner.
Our other friends, Libero, Damon, Corey and Bre were also anchored in the same cove on their power boat, Rum Runner. All of us spent the day on the beach playing bocce ball, horse shoes and relaxing. In the evening everyone came over to Agápē to play Cards Against Humanity and hang out for a bit. It was weird not seeing any fireworks that night but it was still a great evening with friends.
In the morning we packed up early, pulled our anchors and headed over to one of our favorite surf breaks for the afternoon. When we arrived it looked pretty crowded but after a quick check through the binoculars I could see there were only four people in the water even though there more than a half dozen boats anchored up. We dropped our hook, suited up and paddled out! We got on the break right as it was getting good. It was only about 4ft but the rights were awesome and the lefts seemed like they where holding up longer than usual. We surfed for about 5 hours until our bellies we empty and we couldn't paddle anymore. Back on the boat Rachel cooked up lunch and we raised anchor and headed for Yellow Banks to anchor for the night.
It was on this short little hop over that things went horribly wrong!!!
Ok well not that terrible...
Whenever we have people come out with us, either Rachel or I will give a 'how to' speech on using the head (toilet). I guess it's in part my fault since I didn't notice that during this trip's 'how to' talk, one of our friends was sleeping, (you know who you are) and missed the part about not putting toilet paper down the system. Well, this sure came back to bite us... The toilet got clogged, BAD! We tried to pump/ force it to flush free (bad idea) with no luck in clearing the clog. We ended up having to use the good old poop bucket for the weekend. This wasn't our first rodeo with a poop bucket, but when you have six people aboard it is just weird…. You know the whole, "Excuse me! Pardon me, as I come out of the companion way to throw my turd over board…"
Yea, awkward… Thankfully we are all good friends and can laugh about these kind of situations.
So the new less environmentally friendly method was used, and the poop bucket was tied to the side of the boat about three feet underwater when not in use to get cleaned by the sea. This only worked the first time... the second time it was lowered into the water the knot was subpar and our poop bucket was tragically lost. Luckily we had another smaller bucket in the chain locker. Well now I know what my next project is…… ugh!!! A stinky one!
Other than that we had a great evening out at Yellow Banks and got in another surf session in the morning. Our way back home we had 10/15 knots of wind and were able to sail at 7 knots for most of the way. We even spotted several moll mollas and had some dolphins play in our wake.
