Santa Barbara

By David

It was after dark as we departed the train in Santa Barbara. A six block walk had us back at the harbor and, after all we'd put aboard Minimus before leaving, it was a relief to see her still afloat. The cabin was packed so full of provisions and gear that we couldn't possibly get in, so spent the next half hour pulling enough of it out into the cockpit so we could sleep. And sleep we did, like the dead.

The next 3 days we spent re-packing nearly everything, tensioning the standing rigging (cables that hold the mast up), bending on sails, setting up running rigging (ropes for adjusting sails), attaching solar panels, setting up the self steering system and too many other tasks to mention. Despite the long days, I (David) felt more relaxed than I had in a long time.

We've found Santa Barbara to be a place of surprising contrasts. It has a nearly ideal climate, with flowers in abundance despite this being mid-winter. And, despite it also being a place of much wealth, there are a surprising number of homeless living here. Perhaps that's not so surprising when we think of some bitterly cold places where we've seen homeless in winter.

Despite some rain over the past couple days, Minimus is now rigged and ready. The winds look favorable for a morning departure. By Monday morning they're forecast to become contrary and stronger, so we may anchor at Catalina Island Sunday night, assuming we get that far by then. By Tuesday morning wind is forecast to become fair again, so we'll proceed to San Diego.

By the way, if any of you are interested in seeing what the wind is doing, our go-to website is

windytv.com

It shows what the wind is doing everywhere on earth and also shows the wind forecast up to 7 days in advance. It's easy to zoom in on areas of interest and many other weather variables like cloud cover, rain, etc. can also be seen.

Our next report will likely be from San Diego.   

The usual pre-trip mayhem as we try to load it all aboard

3 days later, Minimus is finally ready

We come across this amazing fig tree right behind the train station 

It's a Moreton Bay fig, producing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of figs 

Here's the story behind the tree