Two weeks after departing LA, we finally made it back to Oakland! Spent way longer in Santa Barbara & Morro Bay than originally planned, but you’ll hear no complaints about that. And our good friend, Dino, met us in Santa Cruz to join us for the last leg of the voyage. Tied up to the dock in Jack London Square and immediately sought out our favorite ramen – Noka!

The hardest leg of the voyage is done! 19 hours of motoring, ugh. No wind during the day. Then jumped up to 30kts around 3am, with some nice big swells to boot. We knew it would get a little hairy out there, and it was uncomfortable for a bit, but I’m glad we did the trip. We were able to thread the needle through the worst of the weather, and the wind & current at our back got us there two hours early.

11 ft waves at 11 second intervals – would you go cruising? We’ve been waylaid in Morro Bay all week by bad weather (which is, admittedly, a pretty good place to get waylaid). Looks like there might be a brief window on Saturday, into Sunday morning where the winds let up a bit. But the waves are still pretty rough. Generally 9-11ft, with similar 9-11 second intervals. I’m trying to decide if it’ll be too rough for a ~20 hour voyage on our 42ft catamaran. What do you all think??

This place is so damn cute.

Made it to San Luis Obispo last night! I think the strongest wind I saw on this trip was 6 knots true. Mostly it was around 3kts, so we had a nice long, lazy motor from Santa Barbara. Saw a couple of humpbacks in the distance, but too far for decent photos. Encountered a few dolphins too. Pulled into SLO around 9pm, and my anchor cam proved invaluable for picking up the mooring ball. With a live stream on my iPad at the helm, Lauren can just focus on grabbing onto the mooring line without having to holler instructions back to me. 🍰

Began the voyage back to the bay today. First stop: Santa Barbara. Probably stay here for a few days before venturing on to San Luis Obispo.

Just a short trip chasing the sunshine and running from the fog.

Just adding in some old Garmin tracks to fill out some history in my SeaPeople log book. This was our first big trip with just Lauren and I. Oh and Chevy, of course. And between all the beautiful stops along the California coastline, the amazing sunsets and all the dolphins, it was an unforgettable trip.

This was our delivery trip from Seattle, where we purchased Catalyst, down to San Francisco, where we live.