Steve
08/18/2010, San Diego

It is an amazing feeling when you can say goodbye to the electric company. The solar panels are finally installed...it's been almost a week since I was plugged in to shore power and my 740 amp hour house battery bank is nearly fully charged. I say nearly because it's 0800 and they are down a tiny amount due to night use. Right now under cloudy skies we are running Si Bon and putting 2-3 AMPS back into the batteries. Even as I am writing this my AMPs in is climbing...and by the time I get back from my walk I'll be fully charged.

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Steve
07/22/2010, Catalina

A large bison landed in the dinghy of S/V Si Bon last week off of the small island of Catalina. The skipper, Steve Cook and his crew did not notice the large animal at first as they were busy trimming the sails due to an unexpected slow down of Si Bon. Other than a large bison paddy left behind (no pun intended) there was no damage to Si Bon or her dinghy.

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Steve
07/19/2010, somewhere between Catalina and Mainland

From time to time I will put into my blog some equipment/rigging items that I have been busy working on in order to improve the performance and safety of Si Bon. The latest rigging improvement to Si Bon is a Whisker pole, a whisker pole, once deployed holds the Genoa (AKA; jib, headsail) out on one side of the boat while the Main Sail is put on the other side of the boat and held in place with a preventer. this sail configuration is used when sailing with the wind (downwind). The Sailing term for this is "wing on wing", I believe that my European friends will refer to it as "goosewing".
During our sail back from Catalina we deployed Si Bon's new whisker Pole for the first time, and after much help/advice from the crew we were sailing along at 7 Knots with the auto pilot on, we were able to continue along like this for about 6-7 hours. Everyone on board agreed that is was one of the most pleasant sailing experiences ever.

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Steve
07/17/2010, Catalina

We decided that Catalina was so nice that we would delay our departure by one day. We sailed from White's Landing down to Avalon on Sunday afternoon, this put us a whooping 3.5 miles closer to home......but we got to see another side of Catalina. Avalon is a neat little seaside town full of resturants, bars and plenty of tourists. Next time I will plan on staying an other day at Avalon....maybe that's the beauty of the cruising life....no plans cast in concrete.

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Steve/sunny and warm
07/16/2010, Catalina

White's Landing is an amazing little cove. We hiked, Kayaked, sailed and visted with friends. We even saw a Bison, it is crazy that this place is only 25 miles from the Los Angeles mad house

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Steve
07/16/2010, Catalina

Been sailing all night my hands wet on the wheel..... left Sun Harbor Marina, San Diego at midnight and were on mooring ball at White's Landing, Catalina at 1400. Watching radar and GPS all night (this is a shot of GPS coming into Catalina)...we saw plenty of dolphins, a whale pod and of course other vessels. Sailing at night is a whole different deal...... I've got a thing its called radar love.

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