After three or four days of rain and wind we caught a bright blue sky day and hustled down to the Aventura clubhouse in Dana Point Harbor. The Me II Me II, a 30 foot Catalina was available so, despite the small craft warning and the six foot swell, we checked her out. Me II’s throttle linkage checked out cleanly (see Sailor’s Log 1.29.09) so we loaded our gear and ran through the remaining check out procedures.

For those of you who don’t know, the Dana Point Harbor lies tucked against high cliffs in the lee of a promontory. The result is a harbor sheltered from both the sea and the wind. So it wasn’t a surprise that we could see no evidence of wind as we pulled away from the slip and made our way past the Ocean Institute’s tall ship, Pilgrim, and her companion privateer, Spirit of Dana Point.

As we approached the mouth of the harbor the swell made itself know and by the time we had cleared the break water and turned into the wind to raise sails the swell was very pronounced. With sails up and trimmed we set out on a course of 250 degrees which had us pointed roughly in the direction of Santa Catalina Island. Our intent was to clear the rocks of Dana Point by a wide margin before turning up the coast toward Laguna Beach.

As we crossed the point the swell seemed to increase in size and at one point a sail boat we were watching in the distance would regularly disappear as it passed down into the troughs. I have to admit that dispite the Bonine I had taken a couple of hours earlier Me II’s slow rise up the swells followed by a short roller coaster on the downside began to get to me. I guess Howard saw me turning green because he suggested I take the helm and concentrate on the horizon. His tactic worked, and I recommend it to any of you who start to feel queasy.

About four and half nautical miles off the coast we headed up on a course roughly toward Laguna Beach. Out in the middle of nowhere we passed a small pod of what may have been common dolphins.  Regrettably the encounter was so brief we didn’t have time for a photograph.

Eventually we set a return course back to the harbor. For those of you with charts we ran back along the reciprocal (90 degrees) of our then course of 270 degrees. In due time this brought us back on the seaward side of the red buoy off Dana Point to the mouth of the harbor.

The sail was a good one, but it was nice to get in out of the swell.