WEB LOG OF OUR TRIP
SAN FRANCISCO TO SAN DIEGO
SAN LUIS - AVILA
Day 21-23
2009
Whale spout
SLYC - area above is the old bunk room from WWII
Commercial shoot at Avila Pier
Oct 2
Moored to mooring ball number 8, a very very large steel ball that keeps trying to attack our hull!
San Luis Harbor is on the coast about 10 miles from San Luis Obispo, inland. The harbor is not distinct from the neighboring town of Avila which has a beach and some beach shops and restaurants and the San Luis Yacht Club where we had drinks and socialized before dinner at the local grocery store...that's right, the grocery is also a restaurant with excellent seafood. The Yacht Club is pretty old (1930's) and has a historic building right on the water at the beginning of the city pier; historic because it was used as a watch-station during WWII.
Getting into town was an adventure. First, we went into the San Luis pier and registered for our mooring at the harbormaster. Then we looked for some small fuel hose for the outboard by walking to three places before we found "Marty". Then we walked to the end of the pier to check on fuel and discovered that we needed to talk to "Marty" about that as well. The fuel dock not being conducive to sailboat landings, Brian and Craig decided to bring in fuel cans tomorrow in the dingy. There is a local ordinance against carrying fuel can across the dock, so we will have to fill them in the dingy...does that mean we have a diesel dingy upgrade? While on the pier, we asked about getting into town and the yacht club. We got a vague answer that there was a dingy dock on the city pier, so we headed out for the mile plus ride across the bay to that pier. As we approached and were preparing to round the pier and get to the dingy dock, we saw a small craft with a couple of divers waving to us. We waved back, as we watched a pretty blue helicopter flying overhead. They waved again, more aggressively, so Craig decided they were a dive group with divers out near the end of the pier. We waved and indicated we would go way around. They waved even more aggressively as a Sheriff's boat approached and told us to hold for instructions. Turns out, they were filming some kind of tire(?) commercial for the Super Bowl and they had the entire pier blocked off until 8 pm. (Would have been nice if the harbormaster's office had told us! As it turned out, the filming crew and stunt driver provided great entertainment from a front-row seat later at the Yacht Club.) Given that we were determined to go into town and look for snorkels for Sue and Brian, we asked if we could make a beach landing. They said sure, 'knock yourselves out'. Perhaps a bad choice of words as the surf was running...but we made a perfect landing and Cleopatra was able to step out of the boat safe and dry.
Coming home after dinner in the dark was a different story. We had originally intended to go into town; go back to the boat and change for dinner and then return to the Yacht Club. This was a daylight run, so we decided to wait until we got back to turn on Seasilk's anchor light. Because of the commercial shoot on the pier and the rough landing, we decided to attempt the landing only once. As a result, we stayed in town until about 8 pm. Two problems: 1) the surf has now picked up and the waves are bigger and more frequent. 2) Seasilk has a dark hull and no lights and is about a mile away. As luck would have it, we did have an almost full moon, and Craig had brought an emergency flashlight, so we struck out. Leaving the beach was pretty wet. As Brian and Sue paddled, Craig pulled and pulled on the outboard to get it started before a wave broke over the dingy. We ALMOST made it. Much wetter, we arrived at the boat about 30 minutes later.
Since we hadn't had enough excitement for one day, we introduced Brian to Chicken Foot, a dominoes game and finally called it an evening.
Oct 3
Moved boat from harbor mooring to "free" San Luis Yacht Club mooring and better protection from the wind and seas. We are now about 100 yards off the Avila city pier in 30 feet of water. This also puts us much closer to the dingy dock and town.
Brian and Craig took the dingy in to meet Steve Davis, the Vice Commodore at the San Luis YC to exchange burgees. (Steve took pic that we will get a copy of by email.) Steve kindly offered to take us into Pismo Beach to get diesel, thus avoiding the potential nightmare of filling cans on the dingy from the dock near the Harbormaster's office, 20 feet above the dingy. We picked up 16 gal. of fuel which topped off the tanks and looked for snorkels at Wal-Mart; no luck on the snorkels.
We all had shrimp on the barbie, watched the full moon rise and played Quiddler (a card/word game) as we listened to the wind building.
Oct 4
Took dingy into pier mainly just to get ashore and do something different than bob around on the boat. We all took showers at the YC and Brian and Craig were treated to a beer by the currently resident members. Sue did some shopping at the Nekkid Spa in town (?) and we bought some potatoes for a future dinner.
Back to the boat, dinner and listen to the weather report; we plan to leave at 0'dark thirty (0330) tomorrow.