Newport to San Diego via Oceanside

Friday Oct 16 was a relatively uneventful trip down to Oceanside – mostly motorsailing. We did pass some military exercises (e.g. hover craft on right). Since we didn’t need power or water and didn’t want to hang out of the 34’ slips they had available, we stayed on the long “Dolphin dock”. We thought it should have been called the “Pelican Poop Dock”. We did manage an early evening walk to the shops and restaurants at the marina end of the harbor, and out to the beach.

Saturday morning we left for San Diego. As soon as we got out of the marina, we were enveloped by fog. Visibility was 1/8 to 1/4 mile ALL DAY. We kept thinking it should lift as afternoon wore on. We ran the radar the whole day and kept a careful watch, but sometimes small runabout fiberglass fishing boats that didn’t show up on radar would just pop into view as they passed our boat. As we approached the entrance to San Diego bay, the fog seemed to just get thicker. We thought we had gone far enough off Point Loma to avoid the kelp beds there, but ended up going even farther out, dodging crab pots and fishing boats that appeared through the fog. As we turned into the channel, the fog seemed to close in even more – 1/8 mile visibility at most. When we heard a loud HOOOOOOOONK directly behind us, we scurried over to get just OUTSIDE the channel buoys. Thankfully as entered the bay, we ran out of the fog to a glorious blue sky and view of the San Diego skyline, and easily found our way to our slip in Cabrillo Isle Marina. Looking back at the fog, it looked like the thick kind of fog that we are used to seeing streamjng thru the gate into Francisco Bay.