Rebooting the blog
16 November 2015 | Ensenada, Mexico
Annette
We're cruisers again! After a 2 year commitment to work, pay off loans and finish the major construction needed on the boat we have cast off the dock lines. When we first arrived into Santa Barbara, 2 years seemed like an awful long time to endure, but we made the best of it enjoying daily life with family and friends, spending lots of time out at the Channel Islands and contributing to the welfare of our country. It's amazing how quickly one shifts gears and slips back into the routines of life on land. Only when fellow cruising buddies passed through did we feel the pain of being land bound, but it was always very special to see our friends and a reminder of what lies ahead.
This time we cruise without locked in departure dates or arrival times, which is a good thing because so far every time we made a plan to leave on the next leg of our journey we're delayed due to weather, repairs or package arrivals, but what's the rush! Our intention was to leave Oxnard November 1st, in reality we set sail on November 7th first stop Santa Barbara Island, 42 miles. SB Island lies between Anacapa Island and Catalina Island. It appears as a faint speck on the distant horizon, on that exceptional clear day, from the top of Romero Canyon trail(above Santa Barbara). It has been our goal to get there for over 35 years. We were lucky because windows of opportunity to actually make it out to the island are rare, but because of our delay we had the perfect day! Weather conditions were hot,dry with amazing visibility. At about 25 miles off shore standing on Rum Doxy's cabin top, we could see Point Conception in the north and down to San Jacinto (Palm Springs) southeast!
We arrived at the island and anchored up just in time for happy hour. Shortly after dark, and quite by accident we happened to go outside for a look around when we witnessed the most awesome sight, a fireball racing across the sky from the south and exploding right above our heads!!It produced a great white vapor ring cloud, with a florescent green light in the center that lasted well after the white vapor ring evaporated. We heard rumors later that the Navy treated us to a submarine missile launch,
which could be seen as far away as Nevada. The next morning we circumnavigated the island with the dingy and hiked every trail before setting off for Catalina Island 24 miles down the way.
As this blog is becoming too long I'll just say that we ended up spending three nights at Catalina instead of the 1 overnight we intended and 3 nights in San Diego.
Yesterday, Sat. 14th we crossed the border into Mexico, Viva Mexico!!