Day 521 Back to Prisoner's Anchorage.

As we had to be out of the Santa Barbara Marina by noon, we rushed about getting jobs done as quickly as we could. Tracy took off for the laundry room while I went to work to change the oil. While we were in Oakland, I bought an oil pump that, working off 12 volt power, would pump out the old oil through the dip stick tube as there is no other way to get it out. I hooked it up to the "start" battery bank being the closest source of power and turned it on. Suddenly, it started spewing the used oil out the hole where it is supposed to go into the reservoir for the used oil. The seal was bad around the hose. There was oil all over the floor and the towels I had beside me. Luckily, I had saved the receipt from West Marine so I walked up to the store at the marina and returned it. For the time, I'll go back to the old way to get the old oil out--a manual pumper instead of a battery powered one. I know it works fine, it just takes longer to get the oil out. After taking the pump back, time had run out to do the oil change. Another day.

Tracy was having problems at the laundry as instead of using coins like most laundries, this one used credit cards. Not the usual credit cards we carry in our wallet, but a special card that has to be "loaded" from your normal credit cards. You put your money in a machine and then pass the card over a reader that "loads" it on the laundry card. Now the amount you can "load" on the card bears no resemblance as to what you need to do you laundry--$1.75 per wash and .75 to dry. That equals $2.50 but you can only load the card in $6.00 increments so you either have too much on the card or not enough to do a load and have to load more. They never balance out, so they get to keep the extra money that you never use off the card. A nice racket for the laundry folks. They make money doing nothing. It's like getting eight hot dogs in a package but the buns only come in a six pack.

I took off for a last minute shower and once back, we stowed the last of the equipment and we were off for Santa Cruz Island again. This time, we thought we would anchor in Pelican Bay about a mile west of Prisoner's Anchorage. We'd dingyed over to see it last week. As we approached the island from the north, another boat was already anchored in there. We changed course and headed west for Fry's Harbor a few miles away. Once we got there, we found two boats already at anchor. One inside the cove and the second, a sail boat, just outside the cove. There was no room for any other boats from what we could see. One of our "cruising guides" says that he "has counted at least thirty-five yachts on occasion" in the cove. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how they would fit that many boats into such a small anchorage. It seemed full with just the one inside and the one just outside the cove. We headed east along the coast checking the other coves along the way.

As we passed Pelican Bay, there were now three boats at anchor in the small "bay". The third boat--a sail boat was jockeying it's way about the anchorage trying to figure out where he could anchor without hitting the other boats already there. The other sailboat in the anchorage(first one in the bay) had a bow and stern anchor already set out to hold them securely in place against any kind of swing from a change in the wind. With two anchors out like that, it means that all the other boats that come in must do the same or take the chance of swinging off one anchor line and hitting the boat with two anchors out. They appeared to be right beside each other in the small "bay". It looks more like a "cove" to me than any kind of a "bay" being as small as it is. We decided to just float right on by.

Next stop--Prisoner's Anchorage. There were only two other boats at anchor--both much closer to the wharf than we wanted to be. We put ourselves right on top of where we had anchored earlier and dropped the anchor and powered in reverse to set it nice and tight in the sand and rock bottom. We were back at 34 01.353N 119 41.176W all over again. With it being a Friday when we arrived, we expect the anchorages to get busier today(Saturday). We plan to make our way around the island over this next week to ten days or so. We have a reservation at a marina in Oxnard for the 13 & 14th. They are giving away three days and two night berthing to try and attract people to their new marina. George and Celeste off Nereid are there now taking advantage of the offer. There is a big get together being put on by "Latitudes & Attitudes" magazine at Catalina Island on the 16th and 17th that we plan on attending. We'll see how the time goes.