09/26/2009, San Diego
We have had a busy couple of days.
Carden basically rises with the seagulls, who start making a racket at 6.30am, and it's "Dora, Cherrios, Dora" until 7.30am. We bribe him to stay belowdeck until about 8.30am with Dora, breakfast, shower and breakfast #2 but by 9am he is on deck trying to climb, fish, feed the ducks, and generally going wild. Just like at home we try and get him to an area where he can run and play and go bananas before he goes stir crazy.
Yesterday we biked all the way to Balboa park to see the Railroad Museum and the Science Centre. It took us an hour and a half and Jeff was grumpy because I tricked him and told him it was a flat ride when it was actually 6 blocks uphill, so steep we had to push the bikes up. (hee hee) But, we had a good time. The model railroad museum is actually quite cool if you have any interest in models or trains. It is quite big and has 3 or 4 really massive, built to scale displays with electric trains and lots of photos and history of the railroads in California. Cardens favourite part was playing with Thomas the Tank Engine at the end. We have been looking for a set to get him ever since. A quick email to Nanny and Grandpa confirmed there is an enormous 15 year collection of brio trainsets in the attic in Whistler. Score! Grandpa is going to get major brownie points with Carden when he shows up with some in October.
Today we went to the Adams Avenue Street Fair. We had to take 3 busses to get there, kind of like bussing form N Van to Richmond. We got to see some different neighbourhoods and the fair was great with 3 sounds stages and some rockin local bands. It was 26 degrees today and we carried Carden most of the way so "Daddy" is now "Donkey". We had some roadside food and went on some rides - (okay I went on the "Bees" ride with Carden - it went round and round about 5 feet in the air - it wasnt exactly the Gravitron)
Jeff and I (since we are 10 month newlyweds - haha) are learning a lot about each other. I like fairgrounds and popcorn and cotton candy and rides and churros and the games where you win fuzzy animals and street fairs and shopping and street food and transit. Jeff hates heat, crowds, endless stalls that sell the same thing, $4 bottled water, fairground rides and strangers with cats talking to him on transit. But he persevered for us and tomorrow is Jeffs Day so he gets to do whatever he wants. He has decided to "equalize the batteries". Great! I'm going to take Carden to the beach and park while my dear husband stares at 8 batteries for 8 hours.
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09/22/2009, San Diego
Tuesday morning Carden slept till 9.30am YAHOO!! and Jeff and I had a sleep in. At 10am we were sipping coffee in the cockpit pondering what to do today when John and Jan stopped by and said they were taking us out on their boat for a tour of the Bay. John and Jan are a lovely couple who have a 40ft Trojan powerboat on our dock.
We motored off Shelter Island and had a fantastic ride into the Bay, under the Coronado Bridge and docked at a Hotel where we went and had a wonderful lunch. Carden was on his best behaviour which made it even better. After lunch we motored around the hotel area. It is at the South end of the Bay (opposite Mexico) and there are beautiful dream homes built right on the waterfront, each with its own dock. or two. The whole neighbourhood is built on land fingers so its a gorgeous waterfront community. You can motor around the different inlets and stare at the houses for hours (which is exactly what we did).
Then we toured the East side of the Bay from the water and got close up to all the Navy ships and boatyards. John is a retired VP of Engineering for a boat building firm and it was cool to hear about the Mercy Military Hospital Ship that they built by converting an oil tanker. It it now the biggest hospital in North America with 1000 beds and it sits (empty right now) in the San Diego Bay. When it is active it has a medical team of 1000, a support team of 1000 and 25 crew. WOW.
We had a super day and its was nice to get out on the water again. Especially on someone elses boat. Especially on a boat that goes faster than 5 knots.
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09/21/2009, San Diego
Hey first off, Welcome little Kadence Dunn - Congratulations Cory and Camille - she is beautiful!!! I can't wait to meet her.
Monday we went to the zoo. New parents, this is a little lesson we learned. Do not hype your two year old up for 2 days before a big event. Big Mistake. Sunday 3.30am and Monday 4am Carden was wide awake yelling "Mummy...Daddy...Go to zoo?...see monkeys?" Ugh!
We got an early start (as you can imagine) and were there when the zoo opened at 9am. It was pretty amazing. We took the "Monkey Trail" first and had loads of fun watching the monkeys climb and swing. It's really well laid out and has upper and lower paths so you really feel like you are walking in a treetop jungle. The apes were cute and the little baby ape was really hamming it up for the crowd.
Next we had a look at the hippos, which Carden loved, and the Polar Bear which was really really cute (behind 3 inches of glass).
The Zoo has a gondola Skyride which was a welcome breeze and took up over the park to the kids area, playground and boring goats at the petting zoo. (Maplewood Farm goats are much more exciting). We saw gorgeous Flamingo's and a sleepy Panda Bear.
We ate the most disgusting lunch ever at the burger shack, regretted a $5 bag of cotton candy and then headed back on the Skyride to see the much hyped Elephant Odyssey.
The most impressive thing about the Elephant display is the engineering that went into the cages. A massive steel monstrosity with bars 10 inches wide and electronic doors that squeeze the elephants from the cleaning area to the feeding area and then out to their 7 acre paddock complete with concrete "shade trees". Really quite sad actually. I think I may be have been a bit spoiled by staying at the Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand 3 years ago where we fed 10 elephants from a raised bamboo platform and then walked them down to the river for a bath. There were no cages or concrete palm trees and the elephants just wandered the property freely. (Hmmm, actually seems quite dangerous now I think about it)
We popped in to give our regards to Mr Giraffe and his family and then left the zoo at 2pm EXHAUSTED. Another lesson learned: Carden will scream bloody murder to walk by himself everywhere in San Diego EXCEPT the zoo where he is very clear about being carried.
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09/17/2009, San Diego
This post may be interesting to other boaters.
We finally perfected our sunshade design.
It is a 10x12 seamed piece of Navy Sunbrella. ($200 for the material, $150 for the professional sewing)
We have 4 11foot lengths of 1" PVC crossing it ($11) - supported by the boom, tucked into sewn pockets. Grommets with bungees keep it in place.
We inserted 4 feet of 3/4' wood dowels ($5) into the middles of each length of PVC to prevent the PVC from warping and sagging into a TeePee.
So far its working!!!
| About the Boat |
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09/16/2009, San Diego
Gosh, it has been forever since we last updated the blog - we really have been neglecting our updates.
So, before Carden and Grandma arrived we relaxed around the boat and explored a bit of the town on our new cruiser bikes.
We hit up the local Home Depot and bought 4 12 foot lengths of pvc pipe for our self designed sun awning. It looked amazing, better than we could have hoped. But... a few days later the pvc pipe melted under the California Sun and drooped into a Tee-Pee style sun awning which was NOT the envy of the marina. So, after much discussion and messing around we have started over and this time we are going to re-inforce the pvc with little wood dowel inserts - I'll let you know how it goes.
Grandma and Carden arrived last Thursday. We had a grand reunion at the airport which seemed like it was in slow motion with cheesy backgound motion (you know the running toward each other arms outstretched and lots of hugs and kisses). Im never letting him out of my sight again -we missed him so much.
Apparently on the way to San Diego the plane was sitting on the tarmac and people were getting hot and frustrated and little Carden piped up in his loudest voice "Ariba Ariba" and the plane cracked up. His vocabulary is insane, he was telling us the whole cab ride that "mummy and daddy lost - i find them - we go to boat - I find daddy - daddy lost". He talks so much - AND he can count to 10!!! He is so smart (or it seems so because Jeff and I have forgotten how to count since being down here)
We have had a wonderful week here with Faye visiting. We have had picnics on the beach, swimming in the pool, trips to the park, lunch at a "Tuna derby", bike ride to Little Italy and the Farmers Market, shopping at the mall and relaxing on the boat. Today we biked all the way along the seawall and took the ferry to Coronado Island then we had lunch at an amazing place called Burger Lounge (think homemade buns, organic grass fed beef, fresh veggies and super amazing fries and onion rings)
After lunch we spent an hour playing at the beach. Butter sand and warm Pacific Ocean. Carden went WILD jumping in the waves and wouldn't do anything else for about an hour, after which he grabbed his toolbox, walked up the beach and said "All done mummy, I go boat" Oh okay, I guess we were done?
On the way back we stopped at Seaport Village a purpose built tourist village for the Cruise Ship crowd. While Grandma zipped around the stores Carden and I went on the Carousel Circa 1895. He rode a white horse that he named "Elephant".
We also dipped into Point Loma Seafoods, a wonderful place where the locals grab halibut burgers. They also sell every possible fresh fish and seafood known to man so we had yummy barbeque gigantic prawns for dinner marinated in my new delicious invention (apricot jam, soy and sesame oil - try it!)
Im uploading more photos to the previous blogs and our albums and will try to be more diligent about updating the blog this month.
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09/03/2009, San Diego
The last few days have been pretty lazy. We are really maxing out our down time before Carden and Grandma arrive. The other day we rented a minivan (that Jeff loved so much he insisted on driving) and drove up to Ocean Beach to buy some bikes. We were looking for used bikes but in the end we bought 2 new cruiser bikes because they were pretty inexpensive.
I love my new bike.
We took advantage of being childless and drove up to the swank neighbourhood of La Jolla for dinner at Georges in the Cove Yum!
The next day we explored San Diego neighbourhoods by car. We parked along the Gaslamp Quarter at 10.30am in hopes of finding a little breakfast place but then we passed a really nice Indian restaurant offering $15 all you can eat buffet and Jeff was sold.
The last few days we have been doing little boat chores, me cleaning and Jeff fixing things. We go for bike rides to see the Sail Repair Man or just for fun. I've managed to get an account set up so that I can make telephone calls on my mac via Skype. It works pretty well except for this morning when I was on the phone to my bank in Vancouver at 10am which coincided with the USAF launching their entire squadron of F14s and Blackhawks to circle the San Diego Bay which made it sound like I was calling from the front lines of Bagdad.
Aside from that, we are great. Jeff has been doing a lot of activity this morning. He got up at 9am. He was reading when I left for a bike ride and when I came back he had moved into the shade. After breakfast he laid down to read and now he's switched cockpit seats. (He must be exhausted!)
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