At 7:00 AM the wind had not quit but the ocean looked reasonably free of whitecaps behind Cape Mendocino. That suggested a mild wind that I should have lunched into. My marine radio could not pick up the weather channels while nestled behind the cape. I went for a walk out to the tip of the cape and as far around as I could go with out disturbing the vanguards of the sea lion colony. Still the radio would not pick up the weather. By the time I got back to camp it was 8:00 AM. I couldn't be ready to launch until 9:00 AM if I rushed. Then I would be rounding Punta Gorda at 1:00 PM when the afternoon winds are normally picking up. I decided to stay in camp another day.
I lazed around and read "Endurance" by A. Landsing from cover to cover. Perhaps not the best book to read while considering braving an angry sea. Every hour I made sure to check the sea. Calm all morning with afternoon whitecaps, but not tough ones. I think the wind was worse the day before rounding two other points! I should have launched. However, everyone has warned me that the next point, Punta Gorda, is the worst one on the California coast. Even the guy in the campsite next to mine at Humboldt Bay (an old fishing boat captain) warned me about it. "That point creates its own weather" he said. In the afternoon I hiked up to the Cape Mendocino Light. Up there the wind was HOWLING! But the water between the cape and Sugarloaf Island looked calmer than what I had gone through the day before. I should have launched. Looking down the coast to Punta Gorda I could see that the whitecaps became progressively worse, as if the howling wind at The Light made it down to the water. Perhaps it is best that I did not launch this morning.
My radio still could not pick up the weather stations up at the light. But I got some great pictures of the new light, the foundation of the old lighthouse, the sea lion colony, the coast north and south. The foundations of the old lighthouse had evidence that it had been sawed off. I wonder what happened to it?
