Mini-Shakedown Cruise

December 29, 2012 – January 3, 2013

Shakedown cruise is a term referring to when a vessel is taken out for performance testing and or crew familiarization. It’s used in the nautical community for vessels of all sizes and also used prolifically within the sailboat cruising community when someone gets a new boat or does major repairs or upgrades and wants to test it out before venturing too far offshore. We did what we called a mini-shakedown cruise with Exodus, getting off the dock for a few days and venturing out to Catalina Island, which is part of the Channel Island chain off the coast of Southern California. We spent the first two nights at our favorite spot, Emerald Bay, and then also took a day trip out to Santa Barbara Island. The boys and I went ashore at Santa Barbara Island, and the dinghy drop off and pick up was quite adventurous, since we basically had to grab on to a ladder which was hanging down while the dinghy was bouncing around in the swell. We had a nice walk around the island, and the guest book at the visitors center showed that they don’t get too many guests this time of year.

We left Santa Barbara Island a little late and ended up arriving at Cat Harbor (the backside of Two Harbors) after dark on New Year’s Eve. We carefully navigated the forest of mooring balls until picking up one that turned out to be set up for a boat a bit longer than ours. The boys were ready to rally and go ashore, but Mom was the party pooper. We all ended up in bed before midnight.

The next day we headed to Little Harbor, which was the highlight of the trip. There was one other boat there with us, a young couple on a small monohull, and they went for a hike and took some great photos of Exodus from up on the ridge. The boys fished, tried out the new blow-up kayaks, and practiced driving the dinghy. It was cold, and we were all very much looking forward to the warm weather when we went south. (There will be days in the tropics where we will long for this weather!)

Logbook – Dec 29, 2012 (Marina del Rey to Emerald Bay)

Passage Log Highlights

1740 Departed MDR
2320 Arrive Emerald Bay

Daily Notes

Under engine the entire way
Anchor alarm went off twice after arrival

Edit: The anchor alarm is basically just an iPhone app. You set a waypoint where the anchor is located and then set a distance threshold, and if the iPhone GPS location exceeds that distance threshold from the anchor waypoint then the alarm goes off. The alarm is intended to be an indication that the anchor is dragging. The trick was always setting anchor waypoint accurately, so you don’t get false alarms. Eventually, later on when we were in Mexico, we developed a procedure where I would drop a waypoint on the boat chart plotter at the helm when we were dropping anchor, so we would have a more accurate anchor waypoint. Then I would transfer that waypoint location into the app and it became quite a reliable indication of anchor dragging.

IMG_9028_edited (2) — Sunset reflecting off the California mainland as we head to Catalina.

IMG_9034_edited (2) — Captain Tim, fully equipped with his harness and everything. The harness serves two purposes. It lets you clip yourself onto the boat when moving about in order to prevent an accidental man overboard. It is also a flotation device in the event you do go over.

IMG_9038 (2) — Brenden at the helm, but not exactly navigating.

IMG_9039_edited (2) — Chips help with seasickness, but Alex doesn’t get seasick. He does like chips.

Logbook – Dec 30, 2012 (Emerald Bay Day Sail)

Passage Log Highlights

1330 Engines on, depart
1740 Engines off, arrive

IMG_0435 (2) — Notes from the deck log. There were no further occurrences of crew meetings in the log.

Logbook – Dec 31, 2012 (Emerald Bay to Santa Barbara Island to Catalina Harbor)

Passage Log Highlights

0630 Start engines, depart
1215 Arrive, anchor down, SB Island
1545 Just after departure from SB Island
2036 Secured to mooring at Cat Harbor, engines off

Daily Notes

Deanne, Alex, & Brenden –> Hike on SB Island

Logbook – Jan 1, 2013 (Cat Harbor to Little Harbor)

Passage Log Highlights

1520 Engines on – leaving for Little Harbor
1626 Anchor down, engines off at Little Harbor. Heading 196 deg, depth 10.4 ft

Daily Notes

Going ashore for lunch and ice cream (1300)
Alex & Brenden test out the new blow-up kayak

IMG_0701_edited (2) — We had lunch (and of course ice cream) at Two Harbors on New Years Day, and I walked up the hill to get this shot. When we have gone to Emerald Bay in summers past I have run from Emerald Bay to Two Harbors, and this is the view that greets me as I’m approaching Two Harbors.

IMG_9066 (2) — Trying out the new blow-up Kayak (we bought two of them, so they should be fun for the whole family).

Logbook – Jan 2, 2013 (Little Harbor)

Passage Log Highlights

1352 Start engine for day sail for Man Over Board (MOB) drills
1453 Arrive back at Little Harbor
1548 Re-anchored due to original location too close to another boat

Daily Notes

Alex took the dinghy solo – started it himself
Tim and Brenden caught a rockfish while out in the dinghy
Ryan & Nicole on SV Noana – took photos of Exodus
Ran out of water. Ran watermaker for 4 hours
Fault alarm on watermaker – service pre-filters

Edit: Our dinghy engine was a 20hp 4-stroke, which had a pull cord starter. It didn’t take Alex long to master the mechanics of getting it started. It took Brenden and I just a bit longer.

Edit: Running out of water is a rookie move. It won’t be our last.