Photo Log – Page 24 – Gresham Family Exodus

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.

IMG_0023 (2) — Exodus on the hook at Little Harbor (This is the photo we used for our cruising boat cards. It was taken by Ryan and Nicole from s/v Noana)

IMG_0705 (2) — Heading out to do some kayak fishing. I guess Tim is the fisherman and Alex is the propulsion.

IMG_9094 (2) — Let’s hope we never take this kind of view for granted.

IMG_9100 (2) — Alex had plenty of room (and time) to practice driving the dinghy. He loved it!

IMG_9105 (2) — Brenden and Dad doing some dinghy fishing.

IMG_9109_edited (2) — Here’s Brenden with the catch of the day. He was quite pleased.

IMG_9113 (2) — Brenden is amazed by his fish!

Logbook – Jan 3, 2013 (Little Harbor to Marina del Rey)

Passage Log Highlights

0932 Engines on
1605 Whale sighting
1812 Arrive, engines off

Daily Notes

Pan pan from USCG

Edit: A pan pan is a distress signal one step down from a May Day. It basically means there’s an urgent situation, but no one is in immediate danger.

IMG_9119 (2) — Flying the spinnaker on the way home

December 1, 2012 – February 24, 2013

We took possession of Exodus in San Diego on Dec 1, 2012. It was a long, overnight sail from San Diego to Marina del Rey via Emerald Bay (Catalina Island). We weren’t official owners yet, but we took possession in order to have time at home for final outfitting and preparation.

When we left San Diego we were intent on sailing (not motoring) but the winds were light and from the wrong direction, so after many hours of going further and further off course we finally motored up. We arrived at Catalina island while it was still dark and although Avalon was the closest anchorage, we weren’t that familiar with it, so we kept going to Emerald Bay, where we felt comfortable anchoring in the dark, since we had previously spent a few chartering weekends there. We got a few hours of sleep and then started the second leg to Marina Del Rey. We were able to sail most of this leg and pulled up to our end tie at Marina Del Rey Marina in the late afternoon.

Logbook Entries from New Boat Owners

Our logbook format evolved over time, and eventually we settled in on one section for passage log (indexed by time) and another section just for daily notes. But in the beginning, it was a bit of a mess.

Logbook – Dec 1, 2012 (San Diego to Emerald Bay)

Passage Log Highlights

0945 Departed San Diego
1140 Raised main and genoa

IMG_0652_edited (2) — French toast breakfast in the salon on passage from San Diego.

IMG_0655_edited (2) — A game of dominoes in the cockpit. It was December, so the weather was on the chilly side.

Logbook – Dec 2, 2012 (Emerald Bay to Marina del Rey)

Passage Log Highlights

0643 Arrive Emerald Bay
1104 Depart Emerald Bay
1231 Light rain
1656 Arrive @ MDR Marina

Edit: From the beginning, we used 24 hour military time for the logbook.

IMG_0657_edited (2) — A rainbow guided our way as we were headed towards Marina del Rey.

IMG_8922 (2) — Exodus on an end tie at the Marina in Marina del Rey.

We had Exodus in Marina del Rey for almost 3 full months before our big departure. During that time we practiced navigating and docking; completed cleaning and maintenance work; and did a ton of provisioning and preparation. There was a lot to do but we also had a little fun.

Logbook – Dec 9, 2012 (Day Sail)

Passage Log Highlights

1423 Departure
1725 Arrive back at dock

Daily Notes

Deanne, Alex, Brenden practiced maneuvering with engines
Left the harbor to watch the sunset

Edit: Being a catamaran, Exodus has two engines, one at the back of each hull. This makes maneuvering a catamaran infinitely easier than a monohull.

Edit: The harbor at Marina del Rey is quite small compared to places like San Diego and Long Beach, so it was easy and quick to get from the dock out to open ocean.