Point Loma

Last week my company had a big meeting in San Diego. It was a nice break from the cold weather we’ve been having here. So on Saturday a group of us decided to play hooky. We rented a couple of sailboats and headed out.

With the military bases, the container port, and all of the marinas, San Diego harbor is a busy place. So we motored down the channel to Point Loma before putting up the sails.

But when we started putting up the sails, we ran into a big mess of boats tacking every which way. It turns out that they were staging a sailing race, and the starting line was right at the entrance to the channel. Luckily our Beneteau 40’s had all the mod cons like roller reefing, so we were able to zip through the chaos without too much trouble.

Once we got free of the crowd, we headed south. The winds were pretty light, but it was warm and sunny. It was enough to do a couple of knots. Our boat managed to pull ahead of the other one because they’d snagged an enormous amount of kelp on their keel.

After encountering sea lions lounging on some of the buoys and pelicans diving for their supper, we headed back north to Point Loma. The big Pacific swells were pretty amazing, and when they hit the shallow waters off the point they turn into a long line of breakers. It was pretty spectacular, but we were careful not to get too close.

Then, after meeting a pair of dolphins, we headed back into the harbor in time to get to our next meeting.

Here’s the track from our GPS. It seems to have a couple of glitches.