The last few days have been very busy getting ready to sail the next leg of the journey. This time we are going from San Francisco Bay to San Diego. It is a distance of about 550 nautical miles as a ship would travel. My crew, my brother Doug and his daughter Jane, arrived last night from the northwest.

Yesterday morning I rented a car and did some grocery shopping. I also took time out to have a nice lunch and conversation with Casey Wing, one of Elisabeth's good friends from her days at Stadiun HS. We had pupusas at a Salvadoran restaurant in Berkeley. I went to West Marine to pick up some boat items, including another life vest with harness and a double tether so that all three crew members would have this safety device and stay tethered to the boat while on deck. I also purchased some new boat shoes and a boat hook. Later, I braved the Bay Area traffic to pick up Doug and Jane at Oakland International Airport. We went out to dinner at Jack London Square at a restaurant appropriately named Fat Lady.

Today we went over menus for the voyage and our checklist of items to get accomplished. We made a run in the car to REI (sunglasses for Jane), Costco (big grocery items), Safeway (the smaller grocery items), and Trader Joes (snacks and things we really should not be eating). We put water in the tanks on the boat and reinstalled Wally (the windvane's) rudder and did some organizing. We went to an early dinner at a Peruvian restaurant. After that we returned the rental car and walked about a mile back to the boat.

Our plan is to leave mid morning and get out of the bay before the flood grows. We are about 18 hours from Monterey and don't want to arrive there Friday before the fuel dock opens and in daylight. I don't like entering a strange harbor in the dark. The water is often shallow and there can be obstacles. Lights from the shore can be very deceptive as well. We plan top off our fuel tank in Monterey and leave immediately. We will make a longer run of about two days to get south of Point Conception. The weather predictions are that we will have a following wind for a good part of these two days that will allow us to sail.

We are excited to travel with our new dodger and bimini with solar panels (pictured above). The covers will come off the windows and the connector between the dodger and the bimini will be removed. The dodger will act as a wind and spray break if we are going upwind. Both will shade the cockpit from sun. And the new solar panels will reduce our reliance on running the engine to charge our batteries.

We will be mostly out of touch for the next 5-6 days before making port in San Diego.