Oct. 19, 2004 - Ventura, CA

(Oct. 19, 2004 - a bit out of order since we haven't been able to get net access for awhile) There's some really snotty weather headed this way so we hightailed it out of the Santa Barbara anchorage early this morning and sailed over to Ventura (with the wind on the nose, as usual). It hadn't rained in the Santa Barbara - Los Angeles area since April... until we got here. We've had a couple of rainy days with some pretty heavy showers, but the stuff that's on it's way sounds pretty unreal - the VHF weather broadcasts are saying several inches an hour are possible, up to 6 or so inches total with severe flooding expected... good thing we're already afloat! Some new friends on "Icarian" that we've been keeping in touch with over the SSB radio have been staying at the Ventura Yacht Club guest dock and gave it high praises (i.e. free showers, laundry, friendly folks, free docking with no real time limits, etc.). If we have to wait out a storm, we'd much rather do it at a dock where we can get off the boat occasionally. Unfortunately, it puts a damper on our plans to cruise thru the Channel Islands, although we're still going to try to make it to Santa Catalina for the Latts and Atts cruisers party on Saturday. The current weather forcast is for the rain to keep up thru Wednesday, then the winds to lighten up (arrg!) to around 0-10kn for a couple days, which means we're probably going to be motoring again... A bunch of other boats that we'd met up with are holed up in Morrow Bay on the north side of Pt. Conception, and are probably not going to be quite as comfortable as we are. The Yacht Club is having a potluck dinner tonight and they've invited us and Icarain to join in! We've been made to feel very welcome here, and it's too bad we'll only be staying until the weather turns favorable.