At the left is a link to photos from the trip - under "Favorites." :-)

Judging by the 'Lectronic Latitude address, you won't be able to click to get to the KodakGallery photos. You'll have to copy and paste the address. I still have to caption the photos....

Well, since I paid for this service for a year, I'll continue to put our sailing stuff up on it.

We spent 2 1/2 days unloading & cleaning - the boat is put back together and ready for Catalina trips! I can't get the day-after-Thanksgiving off, so we won't be going to Catalina, but I ALREADY put in my request for next year.

We won't be trying the HaHa again next year - I just don't have the VC time.

Soon I will post a link to the photos we took....not yet sure if the link will be available live for clicking, or if you will have to copy and paste to get it to work.

Regarding the J120 that sank, there is a really good report in Latitude 38's
'Lectronic Latitude, here's the link, go to Nov. 9 entry "What Really Happened...."

http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/LectronicLat.lasso

Pulled back into our slip yesterday at 5 p.m. Last two days (Oceanside to Newport Beach & Newport Beach to Redondo) sailed mostly in 100-200 feet of visibility, sometimes 50 feet. Cold fog, not warm, so we skipped Catalina and came on home. My own bed & pillow and VERY LONG HOT no-low-flow shower were like heaven. We'll start unloading and cleaning up today - I'm hoping that perhaps I can get the Friday after Thanksgiving off so we can go to Catalina for that upcoming long weekend, weather permitting.

Went up to the club and had the first of my tequilas :-) told the story over and over and many more times to come, I'm sure! In fact, Ron Schmid and Julie Coll, who saw us off exactly two weeks ago today, welcomed us back.

Everyone, thanks for your comments and input and support. My only real regret is the waste of vacation time.

Every other aspect of this, even going back five years to purchasing Kaholo and every purchase since to prepare us for cruising has been nothing but an education. (An expensive education, true!) I'd say I've worked harder preparing for this than any other thing I've ever done - including the B.S.J. and M.L.S. degrees!

Anyway, safe to say we are happy to be home!

So....Marty calls the recommended Volvo mechanic. He says "that engine, that year, a little fairy told me one thing is to check that nothing in the cockpit locker, like a life jacket, got tangled up or jammed against the back of the panel"....nothing was touching it at all, but SURE FREAKIN ENOUGH, Marty gets in the cockpit locker and JIGGLES THE BACK OF THE DAMN THING, and it clicks back into place and works again. I had a jumping-up-and-down stomping stamping fit on the dock. But HOW would one KNOW to do that????

In any case, it's fixed. It cost nothing. We headed north this morning and are back in Oceanside; tomorrow to Newport. Then either to Catalina or Redondo. Flat seas and almost no wind, we headed up w/ the mainsail up an motored all day. Saw a large pod of Risso's dolphins. Nothing else. What else can we do but laugh???

Seems like a bad Halloween joke, but it's not. Thursday evening, just after sunset, went to start up the engine. We were south of Ensenada. Transmission wouldn't shift into neutral. Opened everything up we could think of, nothing obvious. With no engine, no recharging: no fridge, no autopilot, no communications. We thought about heading for Ensenada but figured it would be hard to find a Volvo engine expert.
SO - we turned north. Spent the night bashing and tacking - we figure we sailed 60-70 miles to make 15 miles north. Yes, it sucked. Friday morning we called Sea Tow, who met us about 11 miles south of the Coronado Islands and towed us (8-9 knots!) back to San Diego. Now we are at the guest dock at Southwestern YC. Trip over - we can't catch the fleet and can't get to Cabo in time for me to make my flight back to return to work.
We'll be heading back north to home once the problem is resolved.