Jason & Dad - To Two Harbors and back

8/14-8/16/2014

It had been over a year since I had bought Spirit of Adventure and finally a few weeks before this trip, Mary (my wife), Jason (our son) & Robin (Jason's beautiful wife) and I got to go out for a day sail.   Now Robin had been requesting a day sail for quite awhile and I found Jason also very eager to go out sailing.  I don't believe Jason had been sailing for almost twenty years and as a young boy, he didn't really like sailing.  He and his mom would sometimes get sea sick (which is no fun) and with me dragging my family back and forth to Catalina, I think I wore him (and my wife) out.   After this family day sail, Jason told me that he thought he would like to go on the Baha Ha Ha in October of this year.   I was very surprised, but I couldn't be happier.   With Robin's encouragement, we decided to do a shake down cruise to Catalina Island to see if Jason could really live on this small boat for a period of time.   Thus, another adventure began.

As we pulled out of the marina, Jason and I noticed that we had some nice (15-20 knots) wind from the north-west.   As we got the sails up and got on our first tack, we were pretty sure that we could make Catalina Island without changing course.   We would be close hauled, and we might even be able to make Two Harbors if we were lucky.   Jason quickly took the tiller and didn't let go for the next four hours that it took us to get to the island.    After the first dousing of salt water over the bow and over both of us, I offered Jason my foul weather jacket and all of a sudden, I was looking at a real sailor.   He seemed to love the speed of the boat and having control of Spirit with the tiller.   We were really sailing fast (in the 6-7 knot range) and the weather couldn't have been more perfect!

As we neared Two Harbors, we lost wind and had to motor for about the last hour.
We got a perfect mooring on the west side of the bay with some much larger boats.   After dinner we relaxed and talked before taking a shower (w/solar shower) and then going to bed.

The next morning saw a very peaceful bay and we quickly mounted the outboard engine on the inflatable and began to explore.   After breakfast, we went ashore and hiked over to Cat Harbor on the other side of the isthmus.   Jason remember us staying on the other side with my last boat.   Later that afternoon, I wanted to go snorkeling and so with my neat "GoPro" camera Jason dropped me off along the cliffs in some shallow water.   The fish were beautiful and as I snorkeled, Jason stayed in the dinghy and just motored around until I was finished.   It only took a little coaxing for him to decide to put on the mask and snorkel and have his own fun.   That night we enjoyed dinner on the boat and turned in early.   The weather and company couldn't have been better.   It was great getting to know my son again on a one to one basis.  

A real sailor!

The next morning we had to vacate the mooring by 8 AM and so we ate and motored out of the bay on our way back to Long Beach.   We almost had enough wind to sail but decided that we would be going so slow that motoring was the better option.   Jason again manned the tiller the whole way back and after about four hours and fifteen minutes, we tied up at the slip in the marina.    We quickly cleaned up the boat and headed home for a real shower.  

Jason passed the test for the Baha Ha Ha with flying colors.   Three days after our trip, his wife text messaged me and said, "Do you realize that Jason has not stopped talking about your trip since he has been back?"    I was overjoyed!

For the Youtube video of this trip click on this link- 
                             http://youtu.be/Il8T9EW8tlY

Thanks for reading this adventure with my son and me.