Santa Barbara

We had a fantastic sail back from San Miguel Island with 20+ knots of wind on the beam to start and slowing to 5-10knots from astern by the time we reached Santa Barbara. About 1/4 of the way the fog cleared and we had clear blue skies and shorts and t-shirt weather. Welcome to SoCal!

I really like Santa Barbara. It has everything. Great weather, a huge beach, clean marina, clear blue water, lots of sea life, fantastic views over the Channel Islands and downtown that rivals anything with the best shops and restaurants.Its hard to live here unless your retired or a student at the university as there is not much of a local industry, but this makes it very laid back and far removed from the rat race in the bay area. Montecito is the Hillsborough equivalent in the local hills overlooking the bay, one day....

There is a big boat race in a few days so I will loose my spot in the marina. Im OK for 4 nights, then I will anchor off the pier for a few days until there is space again.

View of the Santa Inez mountains from my dock.

Stearns Wharf off downtown Santa Barbara

I'd fallen way behind on my Blog, mainly because I didn't have and WIFI access and posting on my Iphone meant only short text messages and no photos. I finally caught up after a few days in Santa Barbara by spending the morning at Starbucks on State Street. If your used to my blog, you will notice I update the posts as I go along, often you will get a brief initial entry and later I will update it with more info and photos. If a previous posting seemed short, reread the posts and you will be sure to not miss anything.