Besides waiting for the weather north of us to improve, the omnipresent question in Bodega Bay was this: whether or not to go into San Francisco? After days of evaluating wind, swells, tide, storms, and wary of being caught again for days in yet another harbor town, we opted to avoid The City altogether. As soon as the swells lay down we slipped out of the harbor and pointed our bow south once again.

Each leg of our voyage thus far has started out with an idyllic morning of sailing in fair conditions: light airs, following seas, sunshine and dolphins. Each leg has also found us soon motoring as the wind died, then running before larger-than-forecasted swells and winds, being doused by unpredicted rain and making ominous bar crossings. It was hard not to look over my shoulder as we tacked breezily across sunny Bodega Bay, and then once again had to turn on the motor as the wind died.

Skirting the outer edges of the shipping lanes and precautionary zone, we glided past Pt. Reyes and then the Farallon Islands, black and toothy. We waved at the two red pillars of the Golden Gate Bridge, impressive even at 30 miles distant. Darkness enveloped us as we cleared the last of the three main shipping lanes going into San Francisco, and we saluted our fine route planning.

A quick listen to the weather radio gave us the confidence to pass up the Half Moon Bay anchorage and continue through the night to Monterey.  We seemed to be alone on the sea as we followed the procession of lights down the coast: Points San Pedro, Montara, Pescadero, Pigeon, Ano Nuevo, and then the reflected light of Santa Cruz as we cut across Monterey Bay in the wee hours before dawn. Time to go ashore or continue motoring: we’d both been to Monterey, so onward to Morro Bay.

Morning came, pale and watery. The ocean was flat, silky, a drapery of pale grey-blue, and Pelican Moon rose and dipped to the smooth, low swells as we motored along. The water barely rustled against the hull. We saw no dolphins, whales, or seals. Five miles from shore a sea otter popped up to stare, the lone visitor from the aquamarine world below us. The entire day passed in this manner as we traversed the wild Big Sur coast: a world of deep forests, cliffs and steep summits to our left, the ocean horizon stretching endlessly to our right, disturbed only by the ripples from our passing wake.

The boat seemed bound in a gelatinous net, and we were losing ¾ knot each hour due to some mysterious current. Not a breath of wind, and only the insistent Yanmar to convince us we were not dreaming. A fine sunset trailed a red path across the sea-cloth and brushed the distant mountains. Terns nestled and squeaked on the passing clumps of broken kelp. One more check on the weather: conditions seemed auspicious for a nighttime transit of Pt. Conception, and we left Morro Bay glittering astern in the dark.

Sometime around midnight, I stirred from my break and tuned in to the weather one more time before we made passage to Pt. Arguello, the first point on the giant horn that turns the west coast from a southward journey to an eastward one. “First winter storm of the season. . .” droned ‘Iron Mike,’ and I rummaged around in the nav desk for a pencil. Wade asked me something, I answered, and then I heard it – the forecast I’d been dreading: 12 to 15 foot swells, 40 knot winds, gale warning, snow at lower elevations, traffic advisories on the freeways.  I climbed up the companionway and sensed conditions in the dark: still dead calm, no wind, Wade struggling to keep awake at the sluggish helm.

“You’re not going to like this,” I said, “But weather has changed and I want to go back to Morro Bay.” He gave me a look like I’d gone mad, then turned the boat around. I went below to listen for more details. There were none.

I tuned to all four weather channels we were receiving and listened to the full cycle of buoy reports, weather forecasts along the coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, conditions in Nevada, temperatures far inland. I never heard another repeat of the dire forecast, save for a brief winter advisory inland, far from us. The forecast for Pt. Conception remained benign: 3-4 foot swells, winds 10 – 15 knots. I had no choice but to go back to Wade and tell him to resume our course.

I’ll be honest: this unnerved me. The real monster lives between the ears, and it was raving. I know that I heard the gale forecast – I wasn’t so sleepy as to have hallucinated a crazy weather report. I told myself the channel must have played a report from far north of us, perhaps one last time as we passed the frequency boundary where northern reports are dropped and southern ones are given. It didn’t matter. When I took the helm again at 0200 and began the traverse of Pt. Arguello, I wrestled both with the decision to proceed, and with the negative creature in my head.

Passing the mockery of Christmas lights illuminating the dark hulk of oil platform Isabelle, I felt the wind stir. I turned the helm nearly due east: we were making the “Cape Horn of North America” in a slight breeze of four knots in a dead calm sea. And I was very nervous.

By six in the morning the gloom was brightening, swells of four feet were beginning to urge the boat sideways in erratic patterns, and the winds had picked up to 12 knots. Wade came on watch and we raised the genoa. Dawn was clear, with sharp whitecaps tossing on crazy five-foot swells coming at us from both west and south. As I went below to pretend to sleep, the winds were still rising.

After wedging myself in the quarter berth with pillows and spare life vests, I lay wide awake, tuned to every quake of the hull. The movements grew sharper, harder, jagged and rapid. Waves thudded against the hull. The wood trim in the cabin moaned and complained under the strange stress. I poked my head into the cockpit. Winds at twenty knots and rising. Wade, finally sailing in some real wind, looked happy, and told me to go to sleep.

Another hour of increasing noise and movement, and I again went out to check. Swells still seemed to assault us from all directions, now rising up behind the helm as if to enter the cockpit. I asked if the wind had come up and Wade said “a little.”

“Is everything ok? Should I come up and help?”

“Everything’s fine. Finish your break.”

Two hours later, unrested, I climbed into the cockpit. The sun was shining, and the waves seemed more normal. We had passed the point and were sailing smartly for Santa Barbara. Winds were down to a happy 15 knots, and Wade looked . . . content. “How big did the winds get?” I asked him.

“Oh. . . up to about 20.”

Later, after we had found a slip in the harbor and were preparing to go out for an evening walk, I asked him again what the true conditions had been around the Point. Glancing at me sideways, he confessed in a backhanded way: winds had never risen to 30 (meaning they were up to 29 knots), and only one wave had splashed into the cockpit (meaning it had been rough). Wondering only briefly if the monster I feared was walking right beside me, I took his hand and we sauntered off into the bustling seaport sunset.

(I couldn’t resist the picture: as always, Wade is my hero.)