San Simeon

A 67 mile long (13 hour) motor brought us from the anchorage near Pebble Beach to San Simeon Bay.  For geographical reference, the Hearst Castle looks down upon the bay, and when we came in after dark, the lights from the mansion were most of what we saw.

It was a fairly uneventful trip, but we were visited by dolphins!  It was amazing to show Odin and Lars how dolphins like to ride bow waves, they termed it "playing with our boat."  Totally apt. Thanks to the field guide we got at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we think they were striped dolphins, and there were hundreds of them!  And they were jumping so high out of the water! Amazing sight.

In the morning we had two little boys who needed to get the wiggles out so we launched the dinghy for beach time. Surf landings aren't something we've ever needed to do in Puget Sound...and our technique definitely needs some work! Luckily I planned ahead and didn't bring my camera, and I put my phone in a water proof case, because I got wet!  Unfortunately it did scare Lars pretty badly so he was very nervous about getting back out through the surf, but it went pretty smoothly, if again, quite wet. There was a nice man on the beach who helped push us out and he got quite wet too, hopefully he took any valuables out of his pockets!

After that we had a lovely afternoon of school and dinner cooking.  It felt like it was our first day of real cruising.  Wonderful.

When we woke the boys at 5:30 am to give them Dramamine
 and get underway, this is what happened.  We got several
more hours of sleep from them, woo hoo! 

Dolphins!

Riding the bow wave

Hard core beach time at San Simeon, with Yare
anchored in the background