A Side Trip to Santa Cruz
A scenic drive back from Santa Cruz
In my desperation to find somewhere to put my boat I cast my net a bit wider. I recalled that there was a bit of a sailing scene in Santa Cruz. Maybe they had a lift and a place to put my boat. A quick Google searched piqued my interest. At non-rush hour Santa Cruz is a shorter drive from home here than going to Vallejo. There is a yacht club there and they have a lift and dry storage. All very promising. A couple phone calls later and it was extremely promising. The yacht club does have dry storage and a 2 1/2 ton lift. The lift is for yacht club members use and the dry storage is managed by the yacht club but the city marina manages the access and payment. A quick call to them and I discover a 1-2 year wait list and I have to come there in person to apply and pay a fee to be on the wait list.
Well, since I had nothing planned for Saturday morning I decided to drive down to Santa Cruz to check it all out and see if it could be a better option than Vallejo was looking like. The early morning drive to Santa Cruz was easy and took less than 45 minutes. I went for a nice breakfast at a restaurant on the main beach and then headed over to check out the Santa Cruz Yacht Club. Their dry storage area is small but filled with some good looking sailboats. Lots of very nice looking Moore 24s in the yard but the largest other boats were Olson 30s. Clearly no open spots available. I wander over to the city marina office and inquire about the waiting list and am told it was currently about 1-2 years and would require a fee of $125 per year to be on the list. After a quick thought about this I decide to pass for now. I can’t imagine the list was growing so quickly that I couldn’t wait a couple days. As aside, I had received a call from the Westpoint Marina that they had a spot come open if I needed it.
I continued to walk around the marina looking at boats and walking out to the entrance to the harbor. I dropped by the yacht club building again and found someone there to chat with. It was all closed up when I had gone by earlier. Had a quick chat about the club activities and got on my way. Since I had nothing else planned I decided to take the most scenic way home I could find and had fun trying to confuse my navigation software when it had signal to figure out a route home. I discovered some interesting roads and interesting spots.