10/26/2008, San Diego
Saturday was a great day as San Diego was buzzing with activity from the Baja HaHa fleet. The Follow You Follow Me crew arrives Friday and Saturday and we spent the day on final chores, topping off fuel and water, etc. Skippers rally meeting today is followed by the Halloween party at West Marine, where all 180 crews converge.
We leave for Mexico at 11am Monday... After the comfort of sailing the California Coast for the last month, with 7x24 internet and cell phone coverage, access to family, etc, it feels like we are preparing to sail to the metaphorical end of the world... visions of Columbus' ships getting to the horizon and falling over the cliff danced in my head at 2am this morning.
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10/22/2008, Shelter Island at San Diego
We arrived yesterday in San Diego after a 10 hour motor from Newport.... 10 hours on the same course, at the same speed...the only non-constant was the weather. We started at 5am with a bright moon overhead, but it quickly fogged in as we made our way south. The straight shot took us about 10 miles offshore, where the water was eerily flat. With the fog, there was no horizon, making it easy to become disoriented.... for those that get seasick easily, it was bad, as your eyes were no help in establishing a baseline for your brain. As dark turned to light, the fog eased slightly, but still no horizon. About 10 miles from Carlsbad, it finally started to thin and by the time we neared Point Loma (above pic) it had cleared and our (as well as daughter Megan's) excitement started to increase.
Megan is thrilled to have us visiting her new home in the east San Diego suburb of Spring Valley, having recently moved out of her 1 bedroom apartment in a neighborhood near the SDSU campus that was quickly becoming a battleground.
We've already run into Sherri and Rich Crowe on Tabu here at the Kona Kai Marina. Sherri was the skipper of the Alaska Eagle when Rina and I did the HaHa in 2006. There are blue HaHa burgees (flags) waving from many a mast, and we can't wait to get out there and visit. This week will be chock full of activity, with dinner on the boat tonight with Mom, Gene, Megan and Edd Ozard, dinner at Megan's tomorrow might, Phil Josie coming in for the HaHa on Friday and Corey and Bernice on Saturday. The big HaHa costume party is on Sunday and we depart for Mexico on Monday. A week vacation on our boat in Mexico for anybody who can guess what our costume theme is... There are 6 of us aboard. Go back and look at their pics early in the blog and see if you can figure it out.
In our copious spare time we will be finishing last projects and provisioning for Mexico, using our little port runner foldable bikes to visit the many marine stores in the Shelter Island area.
WooHoo, were almost there!!!!!
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10/20/2008, Newport Beach, Ca
Being in the same port for 5 days begins to provide opportunities to climb down from the rigors and activities of being at sea. While Rina has been out of town, I have been visiting with my aunt Pep and John, and then Mom and Gene arrived, all providing opportunities to visit and do stuff, but otherwise, it's been enjoyable finding time to read, tour the harbor and unwind a bit... it also helped that a bug/allergic reaction/food poisoning of sorts knocked me low, but more importantly it helped me slow down. The to-do lists do not swirl around my brain with the same velocity... and when a sudden urge to take action rears its head, I quickly quash it...
This will pass soon, as we head to San Diego to complete our final provisioning for Mexico and the Baja Haha. The next 3-4 weeks promise to be chocked full of activity, fun and new adventures. Rina reflected on the way into the harbor as she made her entry into the log book... "33 degrees, 36 minutes North Latitude...This is the furthest south we have been on our boat" From here on out, we will be breaking new ground.
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love and miss you!
10/16/2008, Newport Beach, Ca
Remember Tom Vu, (in)famous for those commercials of him on his yacht with all the lovely ladies in bikinis? We must have seen 5 huge motor yachts go by with wanna-be Tom Vu's and the requisite harem on board... amazing. There is also a top notch collection of sailboats in the harbor, including several round the world race boat winners.... Alaska Eagle, which Rina and I sailed on in 2006, several America's Cup cast offs and race mules. And by the way, no signs of an economic slump here!
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10/15/2008, Newport Beach, Ca
Arrived in Newport Harbor on a bright and brisk afternoon and saw a wonderful sunset moored near the entrance to Newport Harbor. The amount and variety of traffic that parades by our boat at all hours of the day is amazing.
We are visiting family here and get some land time.... Rina heads for Morgan Hill for Donnica's 40th Birthday Bash (Happy Birthday!) and I get the use of a car for doing shoreside errands....
Newport boats have been swamped by Sealions recently, but so far we have had no uninvited guests...
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10/14/2008, Marina Del Rey
One of those things you take for granted on land is a frost free refrigerator. We installed a very efficient fridge for dealing with Mexico heat but keeping the temp balanced has been a chore. The cooling plates freeze most stuff that touch them, so we got creative and found these plastic dri-deck squares that will allow the air to circulate and keep the food away from the plates.... Rina really enjoys that I got a picture of her cleaning the fridge, by the way, although it was a team effort.
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10/14/2008, Marina Del Rey
After leaving Catalina Island, we retreated to Marina Del Rey for a mooring at the transient docks where we *knew* it would not be rocking.... While the Santa Ana winds did come up over night, it was nothing like the moorings at Catalina. Rina and I both got a good night of sleep. We've been exploring the many bike paths here and doing the odd errand, like getting our bikes tuned up. It's amazing how annoying the shift mechanism is when it doesnt work well. A local bike shop fixed us up great for 12 bucks. Bargain. Speaking of bikes, riding as much as we have been lately sure gives you a different perspective on cars.... it won't be the sea that kills us, but it sure could be a car.
We're spending our time here preparing the boat for our Baja Haha crew, finding homes for everything and making it easier for the 6 of us to co-exist on the boat for 10 days. Little stuff like non-skid on certain surfaces, cheat sheets for where important thru-hull valves are.... May-day calling procedures, description of important switches on the electrical panels..... Fun stuff, right?
Many have described the trip as an extended vacation.... While it certainly is a break from work and the hectic pace of California life, there is plenty to keep us busy. Just getting food, without the convenience of a car requires careful planning.... Maintaining a boat of our size and complexity takes constant vigilance. Plus, I'm a "maintainer" meaning I reeeelly like to keep things looking and working well, so I (no surprise) tend to obsess on this stuff. We were talking with some fellow cruisers at the Banning House Lodge overlooking two harbors and getting a chuckle out of the boat cleaning mania, and the long time boaters in the crowd assured me this phase would pass.... Both Rina and I are making sure we balance our days with time to read, explore and (the hard part) stay off the friggen internet,.... A time sink if there ever was one. That will get easier as well once we are out of California as wifi spots will be less frequent as we get off the beaten path.....
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10/11/2008, Two Harbors, Catalina Island
Ok, my story about boats in the middle of the night, Hot, fast winds, knocking boats off their moorings. As Allan said, the boat next to us was rocking and ended up dragging the mooring over towards us, we were fending him off at midnight till 1am or so. Then Allan decided to get some sleep(yea right)...went down for a couple of hours and so I kept watch from the cockpit with my fuzzy blanket and hot tea. There was a 68' power yacht, unhooked! floating down the moorings, bang, he hits his neighbor, plows over his own dinghy(crushes it), the harbor patrol pulled him back away from the other boat he hit, and sent him off to Cat Harbor at 3am...then 2 other large sailboats get unhooked from their bow lines, spinning back of their stern line, they almost hit other boats, the harbor patrol unhooks them also and sends them off. Can you imagine coming over to catalina without appropriate crew to help you even turn the nav lights on/off or pull lines on the bow?!?!?! This 40' older wooden boat, 1 captain, 4 guest(useless apparently), engine to small for the boat, pushing it to 2000 rpms, only making 1 knot in the water against the wind. He asks the harbor patrol to help him, they said, "Buddy, maybe you should be able to handle your own boat! Put up a sail and head south!" I ended up monitoring the VHF radio all night, ended up staying in the cockpit all night...Allan came back up later in the morning. Then we went back to bed for a couple of hours....Exhausted. Feeling better now, they are still expecting wind tonight, but we rotated the boat, bow to the wind. More soon!
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10/11/2008, Two Harbors, Catalina Island
What a night.... after a wonderful day, with smooth seas and light winds, the Santa Ana winds piped up about 1am this morning. All sailboats were moored fore and aft "bow in" facing the shore, and when the winds, sustained at 22 knots with gusts to 25-30, hit us, they hit our big fat flat sterns and pushed us all around. We stayed put, but the brand new Catalina Morgan 44 with a rookie driver was inches away from gouging a hole on our port midship hull. Several boats had to be untied because they were dragging the weights on the sea floor.... and once loose, their only option was to go all the way around the island to Cat Harbor, a 2-3 hour motor, to anchor in the better protected anchorage.
So what does "pooped" mean? When you you get pooped, it means waves come over the stern of your boat into the cockpit. Several times waves came through the open transom and filled the cockpit floor with 3-4 inches of water, which then drained quickly. Nobody slept for the remainder of the night due to the crashing of waves on the back of the boat, which made it shudder. Rina ended up sleeping in her big fuzzy blanket in the cockpit, with the VHS tuned to channel 9 listening to all the calls for help from harbor patrol. Speaking of harbor patrol, they were fantastic. Calm and collected at all times while helping boaters get out of trouble. Rina has a great story about a boat full of people with only one person qualified to run the boat.....coming up next.
Santa Ana winds are predicted for the next couple of days so we are plotting strategy.... if not too bad, we are headed to Avalon, if worse, we'll head to cat harbor tomorrow morning to wait them out.
and yea, this picture does not *even* begin to describe what the conditions were like.....
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10/10/2008, Two Harbors, Catalina Island
After a brisk motorsail from Marina Del Ray to Catalina Island in light fog yesterday, we awoke to clear skies and even clearer water this morning. The anchorage is quiet while we enjoy morning tea in the cockpit. While quiet now, it's expected to much busier later today as cruisers descend on the harbor for a weekend cruisers rally.
We conducted an exercise in battery management last night. Normally our batteries will deplete to about 60-70% of capacity overnight, without any concern for amp conservation. We pretty much leave whatever lights on we want, leave the inverter running to power TV's and Stereos and such, as well as leaving the refer/freezer running all night.
Instead, we powered down everything except the lights after watching a thoroughly depressing movie (Monsters Ball). The lights we did use were LED's so they drew very little. This all made a huge difference and we woke up to 86% battery capacity, down from only 88% when we went to bed.... This all translates into less charging time, either through the engine alternator if we are motoring or motorsailing, or via the genset while we are in port. As we will be in port for the next 3 days, minimizing genset time is a big deal. Another reason is that you never know if the genset will break. While in Santa Barbara Marina, a main transformer went out on the dock for 3 of the 4 days we were there, forcing us to use the genset to charge batteries. After an hour or so, the genset would quit with a "oil pressure" error" We had seen this previously, with intermittent oil pressure sensors. Turns out the spade connector to the sensor was installed wrong, with the spade between the plastic shield and female connector, and had rattled loose, but not off, causing the intermittent behavior. Since reseating, it has worked fine.... a good example of the sort of persistent monitoring and troubleshooting required on the boat (see boat lesson #1 from previous post)
Anyway, time for some downtime for the next 3 days...
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mom, i'm still jealous of your wide-brimmed hat.. you look great in it! I wish I was there to make friends with your dolphins, seal, and bird.
Megan can't wait to see you guys. I think she has the whole house to herself that week you guys are in san diego.
