Monterey Report..... Mornin Gang.. Ok....Phew....home for a few days! We got back from the Cruiser Challenge between 11pm and midnight on Sunday after an 550 mile tow. Had to be back on duty 7am Monday morning for a 48 hour shift. Got home this morning. Kind of a grind...but worth it. Right back into the saddle at work with two fires right out of the gate. LOL Thankfully they were both pretty easy deals. So....I have all the CC XIII cleanup awaiting me with priority 1 as always...de-salt. The Landyacht needs some attention too as there are tanks to be drained and flushed. While we were away playing Havasu suffered a pretty severe storm. Severe thunderstorms made washes turned to rivers and overflow, plugged culverts and swept vehicles and people away. Tragically, a man lost his life after attempting to cross a flooded wash in his vehicle. The rest of the family got out, but the vehicle rolled and was swept 3/4 of a mile downstream....the man was found later that evening all the way down at Rotary Park where the wash empties into the lake (2 miles away). Please guys .....should you ever be in desert flash flood....don't cross those washes. 2 feet of running water will take your vehicle. The power of the water is shocking and devastating. In fact, it's not really water, but more like flowing concrete as the water is moving boulders,dirt, trees, debris etc with it. This was a complete waste of a life. The town is now in cleanup mode. Pavement was washed away and debris is all over the roads. It will be weeks to a month according to public works before they get everything cleaned up. We were lucky with no damage at the house other than out street was covered in dirt where the washes cross. I have some video from the CC that I will post, not a lot....and I also have some still from the BR2 to post. Probably work on that some today as it gets warm and I fade back into the air conditioning. CC was a great time, put on by great folks, and we even had the bonus of a visit from some whales. Incredible experience and guess what?? no video of it!! LOL. The one I saw was upclose and personal as we were close hauled pressing for the windward mark. I was sitting on the low side. The wind had finally picked up and we had Dauntless zippin with a bone in her teeth. I was sitting low so I could work the genoa's telltales through the slot and gain every inch to windward in an attempt to reel in "Paintboy" (we never did). Out of the blue, Darrel and I heard the whale before I saw it. He "blew" as he surfaced on the Port side crossing in front of the bow as he gracefully surfaced his whole back not more than 15 feet in front of us crossing from Port to Starboard. I was shocked! For a second I thought we might actually hit him as we were making 5.5+ but he just descended back down into the depths and I think we passed right over his back. WOW! We never saw him again. About 10 minutes later we had 2 humpbacks paralleling us about 50 yards off our leward side, but we only saw them once and then they were gone. Darrel went out with Kevin Crowder on his Compac 19 Sunday after we had to leave and had an incredible sighting/interaction of which there are incredible photos. Awesome. Light air in the middle of the race had us searching for more pressure....it looked to us that it was better offshore....so we went. Ended up that it filled in inshore first. Bad call by our skipper (me) but...?? The inside guys got a great jump on us and made up all the ground that we had put on them in the initial blast of the start line where we did really well. Now we were playing catchup bigtime. The wind also backed which favored those inside and now made all that ground we had gained to windward work against us as we were now outside the layline for the mark. Driving Dauntless hard and alternately pinching/easing we started walking our way back into the game. Bob and Jonion "Andiamo" had a good line to mark inside of us and it appeared that they weren't needing to pinch like we were to lay it. They were about abeam of us and in a better position. Fortunately for me, Big D is a windward beast, at least as far as cruising boats go, and it also happens that windward is one of my better points of sail. We got down to business and started pushing hard with a fresh breeze helping us. As the puffs would hit we took advantage of every lift we could. As the apparent wind would lift us up we'd allow Big D to ride it and then we'd ease back for speed as soon as the puff backed off. We also had an advantage of last year's experience expecting the swell and current to be working against us at the mark. We went what appeared to be way proud of the layline to the mark before we tacked back on it. Sure enough, closer in to shore the swells grew to big 5' rollers and the kelp was streaming off directly at the mark, the current setting us down on it. The visual is, you go it made. The truth is, you are going sideways as fast as you are going forward. The extra distance paid off and we rounded comfortably , but just. By the time we had rounded and eased we were 15 minutes behind the Sages that had taken advantage of the inshore breeze filling earlier and the backing wind direction. That meant that for the last 15 minutes they had been going 180 degrees opposite of us...meaning they were growing their lead by probably close to 10knots of combined speed. We could see that as we rounded the mark that there was no way there was enough race course left to catch'em. They weren't in our class, but still, I would have like to been up there with 'em. The trip back to the finish line was a reach and with pretty good speed, big rolling swell from the stern, and lots of kelp beds to avoid on the rhumbline. Big D's masthead rig paid dividends and we reeled in the about half the distance the Sages had put on us, but we were out of time. Of admirable note was Bruce McDevitt who rounded the mark right behind the Sages..in is Potter 15, demonstrating that the day was much more about tactics more than boatspeed! He played his cards very well. We didn't even catch him till half way back on the return trip and we had probably 8 feet of waterline on him!! Way to go Bruce!!! After we rounded the mark we had the benefit of putting distance on the other big boats at a rapid rate until they also rounded. Bob and Joni with that big Mac 26 came around the mark and we drag raced down the Pebble beach coastline. We had a pretty comfortable lead on them at this point but I wasn't sure what to expect if they unrolled their genny and put those 26' to work for themselves. Turns out it appeared that we were pretty much a dead heat speed wise. They didn't seem to be making up ground on us, but I don't think we put any additional on them either. Great showing for their first ever race! The most important thing was that there was lots of smiles, handshakes, laughter etc, after it was all over. I think a great time was had by all. Darrel and I were able to grab a first in the Big Boat fleet....Bob and Joni grabbed the second place trophy. "Wrongfleet!" Stan Susman(he tried to sail in the small boat fleet and started with them till they kicked him out! LOL) kicked butt like he always does (ringer) in a boat he'd never sailed before and took overall first across the line with Dave Scobie following his lead for second in the mid size boat fleet. I'm waiting for all the results to be posted so I can get everyone's names correct, and I'll repost them here. Monterey is an interesting venue. The event has been held to the same size each year due to limitations with the harbor and parking. It is a beautiful place to sail and the wildlife there is fantastic. We had numerous Sea Otters curiously check us out while we were sailing. They play and smash shellfish on their bellies while watching the "stupid humans" sail by. They are hilarious. The weather is always cool.....in fact the day before the race is was almost cold. It was grey and misting quite a bit, while just a few miles inland it's cloudless and sunny. Perfect escape from the summer heat for a few days. Don't know if I would like that all the time, but a few days of it mid summer is marvelous. If you go expect big rolling swells. We had OK wind this time....light at first,....then it died....then built to probably 12-13 for the last half or so. Not spectacular, but the latter half of the race made up for the frustrating ghoster portion. The day before the race had substantially more wind. Rigging and ramp access is difficult if everyone that is launching/retrieving is in not in sync. One person tieing up the finger dock and blocking the ramp can cause a complete log jam and lots of unhappiness....and yes, it happens....even with some of our own. The parking lot/rigging area is BEYOND crowded, especially for the bigger guys. So much so that I de-rigged Dauntless on the water and brought her to the ramp mast down to lessen the time we would tie up the rig/de-rig area. A little courtesy and ramp etiquette goes a long way at Monterey. The harbor patrol was very accommodating, as always, and as friendly as could be. The docks are in very nice shape and the bathrooms/showers adequate, although I saw a line a couple of times for the shower. (We utilized the land yacht for those services which meant private shower/bathroom and I gotta be honest...I was glad we took it). Parking is a nightmare. The harbor patrol is friendly and easy going in their parking lot. If you park in the next door "City of Monterey" parking lots, you pay more and have to deal with 18-20 year old parking Nazi's who are ready to swoop on you if you don't follow the rules. We bootlegged it sleeping in the camper for two nights incognito. They figured it out the third night and we got booted to the boat around 11pm. LOL Oh well....Not that we don't ever sleep on the boat...but if the land yacht is available .....it's a LOT more comfortable. We were told..."No sleeping in the parking lot!" I said "no problem we have a boat in the marina, we'll move down there"....and the kid retorted...."I'll be back to check multiple times tonight!" and drove off. Geeze..... LOL OK....we got it! Give a guy a badge and look what happens!!!! LOL There is a LOT of commercial fishing traffic and in fact the purse-seinners were working VERY close inshore catching squid, which is why the whales were all there (Squid and Krill). They are towing their nets...and you had to be VERY careful about working through their fleet and give them room. Not always easy when you are going to weather and you don't want to give up ground...but you have to. These guys are making their living, and have a lot of gear trailing....you gotta do the right thing and give them room. Catching a net would be a disaster for everyone. Of Course we ate at LouLou's on the pier (a tradition) and the Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club hosted our dinner which was great. Not enough can be said for the Potter Yachters. They have done this event for 13 years now. It is well run, organized and a ton of fun. They make everyone feel welcome and bend over backwards to help you out. Fantastic!! Monterey Cruiser Challenge XIII is history now. Another one in the books. Great Job Gretchen, Pat, Mike, Dan, and all who put it on! Thanks for another fabulous trip! It was great getting to see all out friends and spending a great weekend with you!!! 1100 miles + round trip and worth every one. Huge thanks to Gretchen and Dan for allowing us to overnight at their "personal rv park" on the way up there.....and also to my buddy Darrel Heirendt. Darrel was a blast to sail with and an excellent sailor. We tossed ideas back and forth on strategy and tactics the whole time we were racing. Not that it made any matter!!!! LOL All the good ideas were mine and the bad ideas were his.....NOT! LOL Seriously...it is a pleasure to sail with someone with such ability and skill. As I would think, "we need to trim that"...Darrel was already on it. It is great fun to sail with someone that is as focused on the task at hand, even when things get slow. That focus is the only thing that allowed us to get ourselves back into the game. The best picture we took??? A couple of Dorks trying to figure out if the Gopro was recording staring into it...and yes, we had 2 Gopros onboard and going...but due to the ghoster section the dang race lasted longer than the batteries so we missed the dang whale and the whole last half of the race which was the best sailing! UGH!!!! LOL Video to come :-)