Chapter Eighteen Sailing down the coast of California and thrown overboard solo

   I have been watching people sail their boats up and down the channel off the shores of Sausalito California and after a year. I begin to sail solo across the San Francisco Bay from Sausalito and then after skirting the Golden Gate Bridge and catching the downward wind on the San Francisco side of the shore, I would enter into Aquatic Park Anchorage area and then after a while I would take my vessel back to Sausalito after making a straight shot and passing Alcatraz and making it back home with the help of a four-cylinder gasoline engine to help me make the final entry back into Sausalito Harbor when the wind dies before I make it all the way to the harbor and it is never failed going the round trip and I've never had a serious problem or break down or engine never starting and it was a learning experience and like clockwork it seem the wind would begin to die just as I entered back into Richardson Bay and then I would use my engine the final way and then so I decided that I would Sail a smaller boat that I had named Seraph, the name of a type of Angel closest to the throne of God and it was about 24 ft long single mast and made of heavy plank wood and had a single cylinder Lister diesel engine. I had someone with and we left before Dawn and motor sailed outside the Golden Gate Bridge and for the first time in my life, I was sailing in the open ocean and of course it was the strangest of feelings and kind of still half asleep from getting up Before Dawn things were kind of foggy or hazy in a way and or if I recall there was a certain amount of morning haze but no heavy fog and then I noticed in the gray of the morning and offshore of cliffs and not beachy Sands like people like me used to think and but most of the coast is she rocks and the walls and you would never want to get slammed into a sheer Rock by ocean waves and that's what I was looking at while hugging the shore and starting to hallucinate hieroglyphic images on this year walls of these rocks, after leaving San Francisco Bay and going down the coast to our first stop at Santa Cruz Harbor and then after the sun came up and the wind picked up and me and my companion we're on our way down the coast and my friend was tired and we were both drowsy for the excitement of not being able to get much sleep before leaving Before Dawn and one begins to hallucinate a little bit like a driver in a car when he starts hallucinating things when one is tired and the walls of the cliffs were my hallucination of hieroglyphic type of symbols and a warning, not to get anywhere near shore when you're sailing down the coast of California and for one is safer the further they are from the coastal rocks and at one point my first mate who is drowsy from not enough sleep and it was a lazy hazy day now with mild weather and no fog and a breeze of the Wind and he lay down on top of the deck to sleep and after a while the wind started picking up and I was still in a half a weekdays like an airline pilot who says most of his job is boring until it's time for takeoff and Landing and I was in the boring State of Mind and was not paying attention enough and the wind started picking up and the boat started Keeling over to a degree and at one point he started rolling off the deck and caught himself and I was thinking in a worst case scenario and if he had fallen overboard it would have been virtually next to Impossible to turn the boat around in the Wind and the tide and even with the engine, to reach him in time without a life jacket and we certainly were not prepared properly and to use an expression we were flying or Sailing by the seat of our pants. After a while the afternoon wind started to blow at a thermal Gale picked up the Seas and we were bobbing like a cork over waves around two stories high and our boat just slipped up and down between the waves and it was nothing we could do about it and there was no way to step off the ride and say I've had enough and one finds themselves in a frame of mind that one might as well enjoy the ride because this ain't Disneyland anymore and eventually the afternoon thermal Gale subsided and we were able to motor sale comfortably with just the jibsail up and motor running also, if I recall. At one point we came to an abandoned looking Lighthouse or some sort of abandoned military facility on an island just offshore and my sailing partner wanted to take the vessel between the island and Shore as he thought it would be safer and I thought that that body of water between the in Santa Cruz Harbor island and Shores may have a lot of rocks in it and we would be safer staying offshore and miraculously as it began to get dark and the wind had virtually completely died and all was still and quiet and just to sound of our one cylinder motor chugging, we motored into San Cruise Harbor and off of its Pier, by nightfall in one day, after leaving San Francisco Bay. In Santa Cruz Harbor anchored off of its pure in the open ocean and nah inside the real Harbor area where the Yachts are and things like that and so the weather was coming up and my first mate bailed and had to go back to work and caught a bus back to Marin County and I enjoyed Santa Cruz Pier the smell of popcorn and the seagulls screaming and maybe even the Pelican you know that you can hand feed and all the smells and Sensations in a ocean Pier the smells of fish and all that Sensational stuff and I saw what looked like money floating on the bay off the pier and I got into my skiff of which was told which of which was tied to Santa Cruz pure and rode out to us to it to see what denomination bill it was and it turned out to be a dollar bill and so I rode back to the pier short row and was walking down the boardwalk so to speak and a kid was on his hands and knees looking under a car and crying out that a dollar bill something like I found a dollar bill and just then I took the dollar bill that I found floating in the ocean and it must have been counterfeit because a real dollar bill will sink in water and so other than a miracle of which seems so minuscular I tossed the dollar bill towards the kid as I walked by him looking under the car at the dollar Billy found and miraculously the dollar bill I found floating off the pier landed miraculously right in front of him like instantly out of nowhere and I will never forget the imaginary look on his face and I seem to have remembered the look on his face of all and like saying this is a real miracle and so that was my enjoyable part of the experience on Santa Cruz Pier and the next morning, solo I wrote out to my 24-ft heavy wood sailboat and tied up to it and wait anchor and still mind you anchored in the open sea and the swells started Rising on a beautiful sunny day and no fog and people out in the recreational boats bobbing around and watching me Sail away from the pier in this old boat that was obviously unequipped for such a journey and I'll never forget the looks on their faces it's like none of them seem to wave you know and looking back I should have waved at them as my old looking classic boat go sailing by them in their motor boats and everything is beautiful and clean and respectable I Come Sailing through like some rigidine our pirate looking and unsavory character and what in the world is he doing going out into the Open Sea and I don't even see a life ring on the boat and I can't even remember if I brought quotation devices at least we have those but I don't remember even wearing them. I remember hearing a story that around the world sailors, don't wear life jackets either and or because if they fall overboard the life jacket will just prolong their Agony and death and yet I say at least always have a life jacket on board and I do believe we did and didn't where all the time and few that was a tough one to talk about life jackets. I know someone whose life was saved just with a water skiing lifering around his waist and when he was like way offshore in Mexico and the storm and pounding winds that sank his boat and even something as small as a water skiers life ring around their waist, could save someone and as I sailed past the safety and comfortable feeling being around recreational users of the water that day and into the Open Sea by myself and I felt I could make it to Monterey the former capital of California in one easy day cuz I could see Monterey from Santa Cruz and it looked like an easy one shot like piece of cake and like how can anything go wrong and so I sailed on and I got caught again in a October November thermal Gail and this is the second day I've been on the ocean and the second day that I'm in a thermal Gale and the waves looked like two stories which is like 8 to 16 ft High and maybe cresting a little higher and again I felt like Magellan and felt like I could sail around the world and the small boat like I've heard stories tell and all of a sudden the floor disappeared out from under me as I was standing in the cockpit of my sailboat and I went straight down into the water for the boat had disappeared out from under me and got knocked down sideways like flat and miraculously I was able to grab the gun rail of the boat and hold on as a second less powerful wave hit and then always reasonably calm enough for me to climb into the cockpit of my boat and the engine was still running and the boat was still moving and the front sail was up and I had taken a direct hit by a sneaker wave. What happened was to up to 16 ft waves merged together to become one big wave and it threw my boat virtually into the air my heavy wood boat and I went straight down into the water it was like something out of a movie that I would never want to experience again and yet I had no fear and for there is no time to fear when you're holding on to your boat that you just been thrown out of and I did have a rope tied around my waist of which could have drug me to death like a horse rider who gets his boot caught in the stirrup and I may may not have been able to pull myself up if I lose hanging or dangling by a rope behind my boat and so I'm so glad I didn't have to use that as a last resort and I was so glad it didn't have and in the future I will never go solo without a safety harness, of which I didn't have at the time and I lived to learn without being dragged behind my vessel could have happened short of a miracle when I look back for it was completely unexpected to have the cockpit deck, disappear in an instance and after the second and lesser way and my radio still playing in the corner of the cockpit without getting wet and the portholes on one side bent inwards into the boat for it head landed on its side after being apparently hurled into the air and slamming but it's port side and there was broken glass and everything ended up in the gangway of the boat and it was getting dark at the same time simultaneously and couldn't find anything and not even a flashlight off hand and I continued motor sailing with the for sale up and the diesel engine still chugging one chug at a time with the single cylinder blister diesel a marine engine that could go underwater as long as the water got into it's intake and after a potentially panicking period of time and continuing moving down to Coast of California off of Moss Landing of which unbeknownst to me is a canyon as deep if not deeper than the Grand Canyon between Santa Cruz and Monterey and is known locally as the Devil's Triangle of California and as I was moving along and recovering from my knockdown and overboard experience and when I was motor sailing along and it was getting towards dust and I was judging my distance from Shore by the lights on Shore that I thought were Highway lights and thinking that I was about 3 miles offshore or at least a safe distance offshore and as I was moving along and still Shook Up I noticed White foam on the water to my port side or Seaside on my left and I thought I was so far offshore that a boat went past me and left a trail of foamy water and then it hit me and I realized that it was breaking water and not a trail left behind buy a yacht a few miles of shore and I was heading right into the serve in the dark and for I had lost I'll judgment and or perception as to how far I was offshore and the lights I saw were deep Inland or deeper than I ever thought. I then scrambled to drop the the jib sail off the bow sprint and Cut the engine to the best of Memory Dropped and threw anchors out to break me from going into the breakers and just in time, just before going into the surf and the anchors stuck and then one of the anchor lines snapped, because it was made of a type of hemp rope and was old and apparently had begin to rock and weaken with age without me noticing it and but the second anchor held fast and I was dangling and hanging on with one anchor and miraculously the wind died to a virtual dead still miraculously, after going through a thermal gale that day and now had become a dead  calm im in a pitch black night and cool and Starry Night and I could not and dare not look behind me as I could hear the waves breaking behind my boat and I felt like somebody who is on a great height and wouldn't look down, from concern about fear or freezing up or feeling a panic and I pictured my boat being washed ashore on the deserted beach on Moss Landing and sitting on the beach with my Beast boat like a whale laying on its side and nobody around except me, God and my vessel and now another problem has developed for the wind had virtually completely died and I remember now the drivetrain went out while I was sailing and the main gear from the motor for the drive shaft has stripped completely and the motor was useless and I had no way of Motoring out of the situation and another concern came to me for that I did not know if it was high or low tide and if it was high tide and if the tide goes out after 6 hours the ways May reach my boat and I did not know if it was high or low tide and that was another concern and it was so dark inside my boat and everything a mess after the knockdown and all I had was a flashlight if even that from my memory and no way of knowing if the tide was high or lower in the middle for every 6 hours that tide changes too high tides a day and two low tides a day. No radio operating I hadn't connected it and plan on doing it while I was sailing like I was planning to attach my depth finder of which was not hooked up either of which could have showed me that I was heading to shore and with a depth finder in those days you could tell how far you're offshore and you can navigate the Contour of the coast depths, by staying in the deeper water and following the deep water Contour down the Coast and it is all still a little jumble in my mind from my memories and but this is the gist of it. I prayed and told myself that I have only one opportunity to sail out of this situation, dangling in front of breaking surf and with the wind virtually dead except for a light Breeze, I carefully and prayerfully started pulling the anchor line up in the pitch dark and as I did the anchor line was glowing with phosphorescent microorganisms and it was a beautiful sight and just to see light and even if it was just on my anchor line. As I slowly pulled up the anchor line with the sails up, to catch the ever so lightly wind. The boat started sailing with me on the bow at the same time pulling up the anchor line until it came to the anchor and then the anchor came up without a struggle and the boat slowly and ever so slowly, the ship begin to move at like a 45° angle away from the surf and I was never so glad and happy, to be going back out to see and it seemed like forever and a day and so slow, in the dead and quiet of the night with no lights around on shore and just empty beaches and needless to say I never felt so all alone with God and end of the Cold Dark Night slowly and painfully slowly, my small little ship begin to be free from the magnetism of the coast and begin entering into the magnetism, of going back out to see, towards my destination of the coastal city of Monterey and of which used to be the capital of California at one time as a forest said and after sometime going out in the ever so slightest Breeze and win, I eventually came to a large Maritime sea bouy and later realize that this was a naval targeting and practice range area and the buoy was apparently a marker, a border marker, of the restricted area and I even thought of tying up to the buoy in an emergency and wait for daylight to get rescued and towed to the Monterey Bay Mooring area and but I can't going and a fog Bank was approaching and I started to lose my bearings and it was them that I decided to finally shoot a red Rescue flare of which I had no time or sense, In fighting The panicky feelings, of losing my boat and my pride of being washed ashore and after a while a small airplane came out and found me and circled me in the dark and with just enough light to see from the moon and the stars shining down through the fog of what start of which was starting to envelope my small ship. Then out of the fog came a big fishing boat of which the pilot had radioed my position and the fishing boat apparently Also may have saw my flare and the skipper or the captain of the commercial fishing boat called out to me and said something like skipper how are you doing and I told the captain my situation with my engine down and the wind down and was just basically bobbing around in the ocean and not even sure I could find my way to the Monterey ocean Pier, Harbor and safety and it was the first time anyone called me a skipper and I felt so proud that I had come this far, after watching people sail on San Francisco Bay for the first year and then I began sailing from Sausalito to San Francisco and back and then eventually, overtime felt that I could go outside to Golden Gate Bridge and start sailing down the coast to Ventura California, my original destination and after a while a coast guard boat came out after the fisherman captain and airline pilot No Doubt radioed my position and the aircraft Circle so close, that I could see the pilot inside a the cabin of the plane, looking down on me and my vessel. The Coast Guard towed me just outside the fishing boat pier outside Monterey the inner Harbor and yet still out in the open ocean exposed except, in the armpit of the harbor and the Contour of the land and Beach In a safe place From the Open Sea waves and either tied me to the only Mooring ball off the pier, where commercial fishing boats tie their vows to the pier by a line and have a Stern anchor, holding their ships in place and I was on the only Mooring ball at the time, again if I can recall properly and or they set my anchor for me, can't quite remember and from the best of my memory, I ended up on my anchor in the deepest water, that I had ever Anchored and is where I ended up for days and one night in particular when the wind was blowing offshore, out to the Sea I was really concerned and but another yacht was anchored near me and a Gentleman looking Skipper set in the back of his boat, watching out over me I felt in case my anchor slipped and was blown out to see again and it was harrowing at a time of great prayer and eventually after a few days a Sea Hippy showed up and anchored nearby also and I got to know him and talk to him and he arrived in approximately 30 ft older looking catamaran and he came by to visit me and I gave him some tea or coffee and he said he had no tear coffee on his boat and that he just drank hot water and smiled and was totally sailing Bare Bones and with no engine and we were both included in the beautiful armpit outside of the Monterey Marina Harbor and he asked if I wanted to Convoy with him down to Catalina Island his destination and I said no thank you I needed some more time to chill out after being rescued by the Coast Guard and he was very patient and tried to Sail Out of the protected armpit and around the harbor into the Open Sea and two or three times he attempted to Sail Out without a motor and couldn't and I think it was his third try he caught the wind and sailed off with no fancy equipment and probably no electronics and a simple and bare-bone sailor as one can imagine and so I call him the sea hippie, like something out of water world that hadn't come out yet the movie that is and to be continued and if you like this unedited and unpunctuated chapter by chapter book and or if you would like to correct chapters for me for a percentage of future publishing rights please feel free to and you can text me the corrected chapters and I can upload them as I go and I live in Word and living book in progress and if you like what I'm doing and would like to send a tip to help me feed others which is my passion as well as spreading the gospel you can by downloading the cash app and using the code $Cajidog or my PayPal address at 415 374 0734 and thank you very much and for I have no needs of my own for God is taking care of me and I like to help others and especially feeding them here and in places like Pakistan