Steve
11/18/2010, I'm not sure

Weather plays a huge part of a sailors life, as I am preparing to leave on my mini cruise I started following the weather forecasts about a week ago, as I get closer to leaving I get almost glued to the marine weather reports. Now lets make it real clear that these guys don't really know what the weather is going to be, my friend Russ Carlson was in the Coast Guard and they sent him to what he refers to as "weather guesser school", now I know that in the 60+ years since Russ was in the guard that the weather guessing has become much better....but yesterday I did not see anything about fog....and as you can see (pic) there is very dense fog here in Coronado right now. I do have to hand it to the guessers that the "forecasts" right at this moment do call for "dense fog this morning" Duh.
I am getting close to having to make a decision about when I leave for Mission Bay, I would like to be there for the Monday night Charger game.. the current weather guessing is calling for "showers" on Sunday....Russ was going to go with me, but knowing that Russ is a fair weather sailor I may have to single hand it on Sunday.....but that wouldn't be all that bad...more practice...or I could wait until Monday "partly cloudy" and leave early so I don't miss any of the Chargers action. Decisions, decisions....Did I mention what a GREAT life this is?
PS I know that Russ doesn't follow my blog....if he for some reason starts now I may be single handing anyway..LOL.

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Steve
11/17/2010, Coronado

Coronado is home to the U.S. Navy's BUD/S (basic underwater demolition/SEAL) training facility. Sailing on San Diego bay you soon get use to seeing the SEAL (sea,air,land) boats coming and going, however now that I'm living just across a small cove from their training facility I am getting a whole new insight on what these brave warriors face in their quest to become a Navy SEAL. I have know many SEAL's over the years, both as clients and as friends, they seem to have a few traits in common, they are in unbelievable physical condition, they have a VERY high level of integrity and they are extremely intelligent. One of the SEAL mottos is "the only easy day was yesterday", I'm beginning to see that first hand. Last week while in Glorietta Bay I was relaxing down below when all of a sudden I started feeling a lot of boat wake, which is unusual for Glorietta Bay, I popped my head out and saw about 4-5 SEAL boats filled with divers and a couple of waverunners with guys wearing cammies and helmets, I'm thinking to myself WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? when suddenly one of the instructors starts yelling "GO GO GO!!" in go the divers and up pop little buoys with small lights and numbers on them, it seems the SEAL's use a breathing system that does not produce bubbles (great idea)...so the instructors monitor the divers by watching the buoys. The little buoys began to slowly float past Si Bon (within feet) as the guys headed to some sort of target. Several hours later I saw the same boats coming back towards the SEAL base...still monitoring the little buoys...I'm thinking "holy shit how long do those guys stay down??"
The other night I was returning from the grocery store, loading my groceries into my dinghy when I saw the same group of boats/waverunners going up the middle of San Diego Bay, slowly following the little lighted buoys, several hours later I'm sitting on Si Bon watching the fog envelope downtown, when the SEAL boats came into sight moving along at a good clip, heading towards their base, I'm thinking to myself, thank God the guys get to come in a little early tonight (10:00), the boats suddenly came to a near stop just outside the mooring area and the now familiar "GO GO GO!!" rings out, Guess they don't go in early after all.
God bless these brave young men, both those that make a SEAL team and those that don't. Our enemies are screwed.

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Steve
11/16/2010, So Cal

I'm getting ready for another So Cal cruise. I'll be leaving on or about Nov. 21 and sailing up to Mission Bay for Chargers Monday night football at Russ's beach house. From there I plan to harbor hop up the coast stopping at Oceanside, Dana Point, Newport Beach and hopefully over to Catalina. I will be trying to keep my legs short (5-7 hours max) and am happy to have any adventurous souls meet me along the way for however long you can pry yourselves away for. There is an Amtrac train that runs up the coast up to San Juan Capistrano (Dana Point), so it's pretty easy to get a one way sail and train back. There is also a ferry that runs over to Catalina, so also easy to get back and forth from there. I have no real firm dates other than MNF and Dinner with my kids in Dana Point on the 28th, so if you're interested let me know what dates you can go and I will try to accommodate you. I will probably be gone for 2 weeks total...but who knows.
This is a GREAT way to get a little adventure vacation for basically free (hey ya gotta eat wherever you are).
I will be single handing most of the trip but being the social butterfly that I am I always love having guests along to share the adventures.

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Steve
11/14/2010, Coronado

This has been a big week for me. Part of the reason I went over to Glorietta Bay was to get a little practice in single handed anchoring, both dropping and picking up the hook by myself, I was able to do both a couple of times. I was also able to get some practice in docking at an unfamiliar dock as when I left Glorietta Bay I used a public dock to fill my fresh water tank, pump out my holding tanks and wash off Si Bon. I also was able to go on and off my mooring ball alone (getting pretty good at it now). I loved being over at Glorietta Bay and exploring the other side of Coronado. Once returning to my ball I had Yvette and Mitchell visit for a great day sail of which I did most (all) of the sailing...more practice at single handing. Yesterday another long time friend, Russ Carlson came down and we went out SD bay for an afternoon sail in the ocean with 10-13 knots of wind...all in all this has been a VERY successful week for me and Si Bon. Ohh...and all of this in weather that was 75-80 degrees in November :-)))
This pic is of downtown Coronado's main town center.

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Steve
11/13/2010, Back on the ball

Yesterday my long time friend Yvette and her not yet 3 year old son Mitchell came to visit me from Orange County. You need to know that Yvette is (or was) your stereo-type Orange County woman, in Real Estate, lives in a big house and use to drive a Mercedes, so I wasn't sure how she would do with the ride in the inflatable dinghy to the 41 foot sailboat bobbing around in San Diego bay routine.....but I had my doubts. Well I gotta tell you I was proven wrong (again). I picked up Yvette and Mitchell in the dinghy, now remember that they are facing forward, so I can't see their faces, but I can usually tell from body language how things are going up front..and it looked like they were old hands at this. I really wanted to go sailing yesterday...and sometimes children, and even some adults (Frank) get very nervous the first time on a heeling (tilting) sailboat....well again they appeared to in the groove as young Mitchell, eyes wide open, took in all the sights of San Diego Bay...he even took the traditional Si Bon nap. Yvette decided that things were going so well that they might just as well spend the night, so we took the dinghy in for a nice dinner and returned to Si Bon in the dink after dark, Mitchell settled in for one of his DVD's (pic) and we hit the sack early for a good night sleep. All in all I would say everything went very well, and that motherhood has been VERY good for Yvette.

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Steve
11/11/2010, Glorietta Bay

Well I'm now officially a senior citizen, at 55 I will now start getting discounts at a few places, for instance I will now save $1.00 at the Coronado Rec center whenever I workout or take a shower...I also just got my health insurance statement and discovered that my monthly cost went up by $154.00 a month....so to save that I am going to have to start working out and showering 5-6 times a day...oh boy. That said I had a GREAT birthday, it started off with calls from both of my wonderful daughters(I love my daughters), I then began receiving greeting after greeting from my facebook friends (I love FB). The day ended as I was sitting in the cockpit of Si Bon (why is it called a cockpit?) sipping a Coors Light (I love Coors Light), thinking how blessed I am (I love God), when up pulls the Svoboda family, Robert, Katrina and their 3 year old son Adam. The Svoboda's tied off their dinghy and scrambled aboard Si Bon with a delicious piece of strawberry cheese cake (I love cheese cake), little Adam sang me the birthday song, I blew out my candle, wasn't sure what to wish for because I seem to already have everything anyone could want, and we all dug in to the cheese cake. So people may say "so what did you do for your birthday" and I would say "I did everything that means anything to me".

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