Overnight to San Simeon

Six pm and we are off. The swell is gentle and the wind is quiet. We will be motoring tonight. As we head off into a glorious sunset of crimson red and orange a large pod of dolphins whizz past us. A few alter course to say hello and others leapt out of the water to show off their glistening bodies silhouetted against the setting sun. Does it get any more spectacular than this?

As the sun sinks into the ocean and darkness settles in we start to pick up some heavy rain ahead of us on the radar, followed by flashes of lightening. We have never been on the water with lightening like this, and it is certainly nerve racking. Most of the flashes are over the hill ahead of us, but we watch one fork that hits the water. Spooky. Putting Fynn to bed I had to control my fear as I watched the sky light up through the portlights. It was scarier inside as I couldn’t tell where the lightening was, making it seem directly above us and causing my imagination to run wild. I thought of how scary it would be to be hit and what I would do. In the end there isn’t much to be done, so I stuck the iPad in the oven and hoped for the best.

I had the 8-10pm shift and I watched us pass through the storm and finally disappear behind us. After that the night was quiet and uneventful. We arrived in San Simeon by at 6:45 am, just as the sun was rising.

San Simeon was gorgeous. The water was clear and emerald green, Heart Castle was lit up and glowing in the dawn light and the smell of eucalyptus was wafting down from shore. Sadly this was only to be a very short pit stop. As the sun came up it quickly became apparent that there was no way to land the dinghy in the swell. The waves were crashing onto the beach incessantly. So we took it all in one more time then hauled anchor and continued south to Saint Louis Obisco, or SLO for short.