Kevin Carothers
MMSD Volunteer Crew
July 16, Location Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey
Now where was I… oh yeah! COLD!!!! So night watch on the Californian is one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. During the day from deck while on watch you can see for maybe ten miles on a clear day but at night without any lights on the horizon it seems like there is a curtain around the ship and all you can see or hear is the water running down the side. The nav lights just barely catch the water as it foams but aside from that everything is black.
During the night watches on the way to Santa Barbara there was nothing to see but on our way to Monterey it was a little more interesting. The night watch in that leg was just as we were rounding the point so we got to watch the lighthouse move along the horizon, and just as we were getting ready to make our northward turn (I was on bow watch) we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins who were rushing about in the ships bow wave. I've never seen dolphins at night so it kind of surprised me when I heard a rushing sound around the bow and saw a bunch of trails of white water around the ship.
The next morning we saw a BUNCH of whales, more dolphins, seals, sea otters, and sea lions. We have also been seeing these weird birds that float around and take off by running on the water for a while until they can get enough velocity to get airborne.
These past few days have been a little slow so today I decided to go shake things up. I went for a walk around the marina and talked to the Harbor Master. He told me that there was going to be a regatta later today and I might be able to find a spot on one of the boats. Unfortunately it corresponded with the anchor watch I was supposed to stand but Connie was kind enough to stand my watch for me and let me go have way to much fun when she could have been going out on the town with "the gang".
Thanks Connie!
I got down to the dock where the sailboats where getting ready and asked around to see if any needed some more crew. The only boat that was open was a Moar 22 with a patchy record and only one first to her name in her yearlong career. Anyway I joined the crew of two and helped them get the boat in the water. We tacked out of the marina with light wind and made our way out into the harbor where the wind was a lot stronger.
We got into position for the race about three minutes late and all the other boats were ahead of us but soon we began to gain on them. Before we hit the first marker we had past all the other boats in our class! As we were rounding the marker though we had trouble getting the spinnaker up and the swell was kicking up a bit more. We had a good run down to the second marker and were well ahead of all the other boats in the class but just as we passed the last marker and made for the finish the jib halyard dropped broke and the jib dropped down into the water. The boat slowed to a crawl and the other boats were catching up with us but some quick action from the bowman and me got a secondary halyard rigged and the jib set again.
We managed to push our way forward and passed through the finish in 1st place! When we got back the skipper and the bowman sent me up in a bosuns chair to assess the situation with the jib halyard. It turns out that the sheave in the mast for the halyard had popped part way out and was jamming the halyard up there which somehow broke the shackle and released the jib.
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