Sunday
October 3, 2004

We enjoyed a comfortable night's sleep in Namequoit's cozy cabin, which provides comfortable sleeping quarters for the two of us. We pack our clothing and gear in drybags, which allows us to store them on deck when we're sleeping, keeping the clutter down to a minimum in the cabin. We woke up to thick fog, gray skies and cool temperatures, so we started our day with a hot shower. Our plan for the day was to get some breakfast, do a bit of shopping, and then head out before the wind came up. We would do some more fishing or just relax on the boat near Capitola before ending the trip back in Santa Cruz.



One of the great things about boating in Monterey Bay is the abundance of wildlife to see. There are sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, porpoises, pelicans, cormorants, blue herons, shearwaters and dozens of other sea birds that I can't identify. On this day, some of the wildlife was joining us in the harbor in the form of a pair of otters, who were catching their breakfast on the bottom, and munching it down as they lazily floated past our slip. We didn't know it at the time, but it would turn out to be a great day for wildlife viewing on the bay.



For breakfast, we went to LuLu's Griddle in the Middle, an impossibly tiny diner perched on the edge of the commercial fishing pier. The smell of bacon cooking on LuLu's griddle had permeated the inner harbor, so our appetites were worked into a frenzy from the minute we awoke. We were lucky enough to get one of the half dozen little booths inside, and were immediately greeted with two steaming mugs of coffee and a platter of homefries with parmesan cheese on them. We feasted on heaps of fluffy pancakes and home made sausage among fisherman, yachtsmen and townies with their Sunday papers, and downed enough strong coffee to keep us warm long into the morning.



After breakfast, we strolled around Portola Plaza, and bought some gifts for our babysitters and for my sister's 40th birthday. By eleven, the fog had lifted and we decided it was time to ship out. We checked out at the harbor office, packed up the cuddy and got the boat ready to motor across the bay once again. The forecast called for winds increasing to 15 knots, and 4-foot seas by early afternoon. Since our course would have us heading directly to weather, we decided to don our foulies to ensure that we'd make our passage both warm and dry. As we headed past the breakwater, I was pleasantly surprised to see little more than a ripple on the water, and almost no wind blowing. About 12 miles out of Monterey, I saw a large group of birds working bait on the surface. Since it was still flat calm, we decided to investigate, thinking we might still have a chance at a late season king salmon. I quickly rigged some rods for mooching, hoping we'd find some fat chinooks driving the anchovies to the surface. As we approached the birds, I could also see some juvenile sea lions circling and diving in the same area. As I maneuvered the boat just upwind of all the activity, I realized that the birds and sea lions were scooping up the leftovers from a humpback whale that was bubble feeding on the surface. I quickly grabbed my camera, and proceeded to take a dozen or so photos of frothy water where a whale had just been. I finally figured out how to get my camera in to rapid-fire mode, and managed to get a few photos of him as he fed and breached just 10 yards from the boat. After watching this show for a while, I put the camera away, thinking the whale had finally sounded since we hadn't seen him for several minutes. The birds seemed to lose him as well, and began to scatter in the sky. Suddenly, he surfaced one more time, not a boat length away from Namequoit, and then he was gone. Nancy and I watched in awe as he silently disappeared beneath the boat.



We crossed the bay to Capitola before the wind came up, and set up our gear for halibut, drifting in 50 feet of water as we listened to the Giants game on the radio. There were no other boats around, reminding us that the summer had drawn to a close, and winter was not far away. The fishing was slow, and the wind started blowing pretty hard by around 2 o'clock, making us glad that we did the 25 mile crossing earlier in the day. We pulled up our lines and motored the last few miles back to Santa Cruz, straight into the wind and a stiff 3-foot chop. We stayed dry behind the canvas pilothouse, and found sunny skies waiting for us as we idled up the harbor channel towards our slip. We were a bit sad to have our cruise draw to a close, but we were excited to see our kids and anxious to tell them about our trip, and already dreaming about the next one.

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