July 5, 2012: It's onto Newport Beach Harbor, another new place for us to see. We were a little concerned about the public anchorage area being shallow and full so we opted for a mooring buoy. What a mistake that turned out to be. First of all, we had to tie up at the Harbor Police dock to check in, pay and get our assigned buoy. That wouldn't be so bad except the length of the dock was so short we barely managed to fit. And compound the problem with lack of cleats to tie to.

We got directed to mooring field A, mooring ball 52; it wasn't too hard to find once we could identify the number thru the marine growth and it wasn't hard to snag the mooring line. From there it went to hell. It was not a well maintained buoy and the line was full of marine growth, mud and little critters. Bob worked his way down the line to the loop that ties off to the bow. Now we had to attach the stern. It was not a pleasant task sliding your hands down the line from the bow to the stern to find the aft loop. First time didn't work since the line was getting hung up on the rudder. Okay, now to Plan B. We shifted our focus to running the line to the port side of the boat. I managed to reach the whip that was attached to the line via a long boat hook and we found the loop for the stern tie. Success, we are now properly tied bow to stern and spaced correctly between the other boats.

After much cursing, we assessed the mess these lines made on our boat. Mud is everywhere and little sea creatures are running around on the bow while the "whip" is beating up against the boat. I have fiberglass splinters in the palm of my hand from grabbing onto the whip that now hurt like hell. Besides all this we were hungry ... never a good idea. Once I made lunch and Bob got the mud cleaned off it was nap time for me. How can something so simple like tying to a mooring buoy cause so much stress? I like the PNW buoys where you just tie off your bow and swing with the wind. We paid $25 for this fun.

Newport Beach Mooring 33°36.033N 117°53.292W

July 3-4, 2012: Luck was on our side for a change and we were able to tie up to guest moorage at the Oceanside Yacht Club for the 3rd & 4th. Sometimes life does work out very nicely as we got to enjoy front row seats to the 4th of July decorated dinghy parade with cruiser friends Mike and Julie from SV Slacker. Later that night we watched the Camp Pendelton fireworks that delighted us and well as the surrounding crowd. The show was on par to the well known 3rd of July fireworks in Poulsbo, WA.

Oceanside Yacht Club 33°12.589N 117°23.764W

July 2, 2012: With sadness we untied the lines and departed San Diego for Mission Bay. We really enjoyed SD each time we have visited mostly due to its great climate, the ease of getting around and our ability to see family. But times are a changing and we must move on to achieve our goal of getting back to the Pacific Northwest.

Mission Bay is a new stop for us. There is only one spot for us to anchor and that's in Mariner's Basin. It sure was filled with numerous "private mooring buoys" that left very little room for transient boats. We were too lazy to lift the dinghy and motor off the mother ship for a dinghy cruise so we decided one night was enough since the weather and seas were calm to keep moving. At least the fireworks at Sea World were fun to watch.

Mission Bay 32°45.903N 117°14.864W