"In the Shit."

Steep, breaking waves behind us. Wind howling. Chris, looking positively gleeful, eyes glued to the land in front of us and the seas behind, ever watchful. My heart pounding, mouth dry. Yep. We were in the shit.

Point Conception had loomed large for me for a long time. It's the area where Northern meets Southern California for a custody exchange, taking a vessel from the turbulent northwesterlies to the balmy breezes of Santa Barbara. It's known to get a little hairy. It's described, in our cruising guide, as the "Cape Horn of the Pacific." Warnings follow, with words like formidable, caution, risky and notorious. It was time to see what we had in store for us.

We'd started off from Avila Beach in fog, and motored for a few hours in the calm of the morning. Then it cleared a bit and by early afternoon we were coasting along at a good clip. As we neared the Point, I shared my apprehension with Chris, and he said, "Oh, I think we're good. If it was going to get crazy, it would have already."

And so I put my fears aside and enjoyed the ride. And then the wind picked up. And the the seas kicked up. And my fears came back in a hurry!

We took down almost all of our sails. First a reef in the main, then two. We dropped the jib. With just a little tiny main sail, we were still getting over eight knots. For Liberte, that is fast. We were almost dead downwind, which is great for speed, but with the waves coming steep off our stern, it took some pretty heads-up steering to keep us from rolling off to one side or the other. Luckily, the captain has some experience driving boats. That meant it was me running around taking down sail. With the boat rocking like a Southern juke joint on a Saturday night. I was swift! I was efficient! I was freaked out. Not so much about the conditions, but the future. In sailing, I feel like it can go from, "Oooh fun!" to "Oh shit!" with a quickness. I wanted to keep it the former way. Chris's favorite moment, in contrast, was when we turned into the wind a little so he could pull in one of the reefing lines and took a wave to our side, with spray going all over the boat, which would have drenched him, had he not been waterproof head to boot. He thrives in those situations of stress, with wind howling and waves breaking and the sails straining.

So we made it. We went fast around the Point, and she gave us a good ride. And as we coasted into the next anchorage, the evening sun came out from the fog, we could feel the heat radiating from the land and the gentle waves lapped against the hull. Welcome to Southern California.