I wish I could say that the trip from San Diego to Morro Bay was uneventful, but we ran into a couple of problems. The most serious of which happened as soon as we left Santa Catalina on the second night. We were motoring north along the coast of Catalina heading to Ventura harbor when I went below to get a couple hours of sleep. All of a sudden I heard a noise and sat up and saw that the floorboards were underwater, (the boat was taking on serious water.) So we turned around, I flipped on the bilge pump, handed Chris the manual pump and went to check thru-hulls etc. Unfortunately, the electric bilge pump failed, there was a crack in the manual pump and we were still taking on water. I had a hand pump for the dinghy and had to use that to get the leak under control. Its funny how everything seems to fail at the exact moment that you need it.
After our little night of excitement things did calm down. We rounded Conception with no issues, (Point Conception is the sketchiest part of the trip up the coast.) As we pulled into Morro Bay however, the engine exhaust pipe shattered, pumping water into the bilge (the reason we were taking on water the first time was due to a crack in the exhaust system that I had just PAID someone to replace in SD.) I shut her down and we managed to grab a nearby mooring ball. The Morro Bay Yacht Club was very welcoming and I found someone to weld my broken exhaust elbow.
I had to get back to Santa Cruz to work, but I am heading down at the end of the week to finally get her up here. Below is a picture of our first landfall in Catalina.
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