It all started back in about 2004 when we purchased this boat then called "Jet stream". Russ and the crew brought her up from Long Beach to Vallejo California in three legs. Each leg had different crew. It was a replay of one of Ilene Quinn's songs except instead of a "bobsled" ride through hell it was a "beat" to windward through hell. It took a week or more "Jet stream" finally arrives in Vallejo.

We then proceed to gut her to put in a new floor plan. It took four and a half years a lot of hard work on Russ's part and the boat was safe and pretty much ready to go. We received a call from Rene about free batteries. Why of course I take some so we decided to hold off our leaving for a day to get batteries.

It was a start of a new chapter in our life on November 22, 2008 as we set out from Vallejo, California in our sail boat Smoke-N-Blues. Our destination, all ports south however, not sure what port will be called home next.

The dock lines were cast off, coiled and put away. The adventure has begun. We motor sailed all the way to San Francisco Bay where we met up with Rene Steinhauer on "Witch Doctor" formerly "Mischief". Rene had a lady friend Leslie in a dinghy to take pictures of both vessels side by side. Witch Doctor and Smoke-N-Blues headed for the Golden Gate Bride. It would possibly be the last time Smoke-N-Blues went under that bridge for quite some time. Out the gate we went and it started to get lumpy as it is known for and yet it still was an amazing sight to look back on. Out to the sea buoy and turn left next stop Moro Bay. The conditions went from clear to fog to stars the wind was 0-25 knots and the seas were 13 feet every 11 seconds. The auto pilot saved the day. I'd buy another one.
During our high winds and confused seas we took a beating and the main traveler jam cleats did not hold and the head decided not to flush. When the sun came up we decided to make Monterey our destination after being awake for 32 hours.

On November 23rd, 2008 we took slip H7 checked in, ate and was in bed by 5:00pm and woke up the next day at 9:00am. The damage assessment turned up, the foot of the Kevlar jib was torn, the lazy jack fastener brook off and was lying on the bimini roof. Amazing it was still on board. The starboard lower gate was too tight and the steering cables too loose. We stayed in Monterey for three nights waiting for the front to pass and do repairs. I started to research the Garhauer rope clutches for the main traveler while Russ started on the jib lazy jack fastener. The rope clutches are ordered and should be here in a couple of days. Each day we repaired all that needed fixing including the toilet. It happens that the exit valve was splayed open like a flower (note to self do not use lime away in head). Both intake and exit valves were replaced. I ordered a repair kit. Russ also fixed the chain wash down battery boxes.

November 26, 2008 starts the leg from Monterey to Moro Bay. The winds are NW 5-10 knots, seas 7 foot every 11 seconds. Weather conditions rain, fog, and stratus. It was a nice trip. The Radar and Auto Pilot are great. We motor sailed all the way into Moro Bay Yacht Club. Arrived at 10:00am November 27, 2008 and fixed breakfast. Had to find a club member to check us in and get a key. Hot showers, oh did I mention HOT SHOWERS, they were nice. It was early to bed tonight. Thanksgiving Day, had a captains platter at Rosa's grill for dinner. Since you never start a voyage on Friday we stayed put and jerry jugged fuel in our little folding creates getting ready to leave for the Channel Islands on Saturday.

Channel Islands here we come. November 29th, 2008 another overnighter, third one of the trip so far. It is a great motorboat ride. The stars are bright and shinning. Leaving Moro Bay we saw some of the largest otters we have ever seen. It was 7-9 foot seas every 14 seconds and the wind was about 10 knots or less in the direction we needed to go. During the night we were visited by seals and the largest pod of dolphins I had ever seen. We had rounded point conception about 2:00am and about an hour later we motored through some kelp (because at night you can't see kelp) and sucked it in the intake stopping water flow to the engine. Russ had to do exploratory surgery to find the problem. After checking the sea strainer and clearing it he started the engine. WELL, that was not it so back to surgery. The intake hose had to be dissembled to clear out the grass and get water flow. Sure enough this was the problem. They say you have to pay your toll to go around Conception. We paid the toll. Meanwhile we had no engine and making 1 knot or less on headway we were rolling badly (being tossed from one side to the other side). We arrived at Forney Cove, Santa Cruise Island on November 30th, 2008. We stayed here for a night pretty rolly anchorage.

We headed for Santa Cruise Island - SW point by the light house. Weighed anchor December 1, 2008 and off to the next perfect spot about a half day ride. This looks better than the previous anchorage, it even has a beach. We will spend about three days here before moving on. Russ decided that he would hook up the four batteries for the windless. While installing the anchor windless extra batteries (under the v-berth), tying all four together and hooking it up he blew a solenoid in the windless, now the anchor only wants to go out. This is not good. One would prefer to have a windless pull up a 66 pound anchor and 125 foot of chain instead of letting it out. The ideal situation; would have the windless do both pull up and let down which it use to do. So, he'll have to do more surgery. He gets his tools out and starts taking the solenoid apart to determine what bone he has to repair. He discovers that the contact point bar was now in two pieces. Back to the junk pile to find a piece of metal that might work. WhaLa!! It really pays to carry all that stuff around for years. He has just the piece. Now with a little doctoring we'll see if it works. It's pretty amazing when you are out in the jungle and use jungle rules how well it works. We now have a full functioning anchor windless that does both up and down.

December 4th, 2008 left Santa Cruise Island to head for Anacapa Island about 15 miles away. Slowly motored picking our way through the kelp beds to cut off a couple of miles from the trip. After the tip of Santa Cruise Island the wind pick up to 10-15 knots and the swell 5 foot or less. Sail combination: full mail and 95% blade, hard on the wind doing 6 knots over the bottom with 10 degree of heel. We are in 7th heaven. What a great sail. Got in close and dropped all sails and motored to the first possible anchorage spot. It looks ok; however it might be better around the next point. So this became a back up spot. We were right, around the next point was better. We now have seen our first sail boat "Imagine". We dropped anchor and they picked up anchor and headed for mainland. The anchor did not hold in this spot, so raised anchor and moved to a different spot. Anchor held this time. This island is like sheer cliffs with blow holes. The pelicans roost on the ledges of the mountainside and the seagulls take the low rocks down by the water. There are birds I have never seen before. The anchorage is a little rolly but not bad for an open roadstead. We will be here for a few nights then off to, we hope Marina Del Rey area.

December 06, 2008, we left Anacapa Island 6:00am. Motored away from the island then turned on heading of 090. Sailed for about one hour then it died. Reported wind from NOAA was 8 knots from the east. Yeah that is the direction we are headed. Motor sailed for about 3 hours and sailed the rest of the way into Marina Del Rey. It warmed up to 78 degrees and Russ decided to take a sun shower.

The Pacific Mariners Yacht Club is wonderful. The club members are really nice. There are laundry facilities and showers and Peter lent us his truck to get supplies. We spent more time here due to approaching weather. We decided to rent a car for one day. We had enough on our list that it made it worth it. The Ice machine died, so back to Camping World which is about forty miles away. Then to Costco and Home Depot, Wal-mart, Boaters World, and Marine Communications store.

Friday December 12 was the Christmas dinner at PMYC. It was great. Cornish Hen, Rosemary Potatoes, Seasoned Green Beans and desert.

Saturday December 13 Richard and Suzanne Rosso came for a visit. They brought us an ice machine (theirs) and the porta potty (Zero Dump Zone) from storage and of course our mail. They left on Sunday morning early. We went back to bed after saying goodbye. Rex (PMYC member) is a Ship Wright. He came aboard and thought that Russ has done a fabulous job. He told his wife Tina she had to see the boat. Tina works with an organic greens farmer. She delivered a bag full of different kinds of greens. Rex offered his car for us to go to the movies since he was not going to need it. So we went to see "The Day The World Stood Still".
On the way back to the car Jodee found her boat shoes.

December 14th we left PMYC and motored over to the California Yacht Club. We stayed the night. We walked a half mile to the post office and had lunch at Chipotle Grill and stopped at Ralphs for a few groceries.

December 16th dock lines were brought aboard at 9:00 am and we are off. We motored out of the harbor at about six and a half knots. About a half hour later Russ said "put the engine in Neutral and shut her down" the oil pressure was too low. He checked the oil and all parameters were normal. There is no wind and the swells were 2-3 feet every 13 seconds. Nice and smooth. Oh, but wait there's more.

Now we are a beam Redondo Beach when Russ came up and said "Shut the engine off we have an oil leak". Now, as you may know, this means exploratory research. Russ disappears below to commence investigation. After hearing a few sounds from below that I am all too familiar with, Russ again comes us and announces that we are "NOW A SAIL BOAT". My reaction is, oh great. This 25 mile sail was to take about five hours. Now keep in mind the wind mentioned earlier. Russ had determined that the cam shaft seal had let go and that was the source of our half quart of oil in the bilge.

We sat off Redondo Beach for at least three hours listing to the sails pop from side to side. This plays a lot on the psychic. Then Russ had the idea to use the dingy and 2.5 Suzuki engine to motor Smoke-N-Blues to our destination of Shoreline Long Beach Marina, which is about 18 miles away. We lashed the dingy on the hip and started the Suzuki. Now we are real excited. The GPS has gone from 0.0 to 1.9, 2.0 knots of speed. We'll take it. Oh, did I mention Russ had to climb down into the dinghy every hour and half to put fuel in the motor.

We finally got to sail for a couple of hours just off the Los Angeles breakwater into the general anchorage. We positioned the boat just right to calculate drift in order to get the main sail down and the Suzuki engine on the mount and the dinghy back on the deck. Now, to start the engine long enough to get to the check in dock inside the marina. The final arrival time with dock lines secure 2:00 Am. As it turns out this leg took 17 hours to complete and averaged 1.47 knots of speed created mostly by the Suzuki engine and a little wind at the end. Who would of thought that a 2.5 hp engine would push this 30,000 pound boat, Amazing. The Suzuki engine is now broke in.

Today (Dec 18), another adventure begins. We took public transportation to get parts. First went to West Marine by bus. Then the GPS said that the auto parts store "Amigo Auto Parts" was about .7 miles away from the boat. Well as it turns out the GPS was incorrect. It was actually 5.5 miles away. We are getting to know the public transportation here in Long Beach. By the way the bus runs so often that we never had to wait for one. We arrived back at the boat about 3:00pm and Russ started tearing the engine apart to find out that the problem is not the cam shaft seal that dumped oil in the bilge (Sig our cam shaft seal was dry as a bone). He thinks that it might be one of the two seals on the front of the engine. It's Time to call John the Baptist in Canada to get a mechanic's name. We will call him tomorrow. Meanwhile, I loaded the weather fax software and hooked up the demodulator to the computer and radio. The software appears to work however; I never was able to receive a clear weather frequency on the radio so the weather fax would not print. I will try tomorrow.

Dec 19th Russ discovered that the Intermediate Shaft wobbles excessively. So out comes the computer and up go skype and an hour phone call with Mrs. Pathfinder (Inge). She said they have not had a problem with this in 30 years. However, if the belt was overly tight it could pull on the shaft and could cause a problem. Russ knew in his gut that this was our problem, however we won't know until he takes it apart. We found a local mechanic who has experience rebuilding the Pathfinder engine his name is Richard Chavez and his business name "Keep It Running". With Russ's knowledge and experience he was able to talk to Richard about the problem and Richard got the parts. Now with the problem diagnosed and a solution in the works it is off to the Transmarine Christmas party. What a great night. There was plenty of food and drink but most of all great conversation. The
DJ and his helpers were a lot of fun (videos to prove it).

It is Saturday 20th. Richard the mechanic is here and has replaced the front shaft bearing with in an hour. He pulled the intermediate shaft out and the front bearing came out floating on the shaft, this should have stayed in the block. The bearing was elongated (not good). The shaft and block were not damaged, thank god! I believe this is because Russ watches the gages all the time and listens to his gut.
The engine is now put back together and it is time to test. The plan: to use the starter to build oil pressure before starting. The actual: the engine started on the first push without glow plugs. Is that a happy engine or what? We leave tomorrow.

We depart Long Beach harbor masters dock at 9:30 am on Dec 21st (Sunday). It was a great motorboat ride into Dana Point. The wind was light and on the nose. The engine purred and sounded like it should. The engine rpm was 2400 and speed was 6.2 knots, now that is what we like. The seas were 2 foot or less every 15 seconds so Russ decided to install the rope clutches that we ordered while in Monterey and delivered to Long Beach. Hello Dana Point. We arrived at 2:30 pm inside the breakwater and headed to the fuel dock to take on fuel before setting the anchor in the perfect spot. What a novel concept not doing an overnighter. Great calm anchorage. According to the weather we will be here for 2-5 days. It is cold tonight. I had to cook to warm the boat.

The temperature in the boat this morning (Monday Dec 22nd) was 53 degrees. Now that is a bit nippy. We had fried potatoes and eggs with ham all to warm the boat. Russ put the chain snubber on this morning and found out the anchor winless decided to only pay out and not pick up. It is real gratifying when you can fix something (not on the list) then put it on the list and cross it off at the same time.

The front blew through about noon and the winds have swung around and the air is colder. Good to be in a calm anchorage instead of out in the open getting beat up. Today was filled with weather fax software and Russ put in a valve in the bilge pump hose so he can bleed it. The voltage is down to 12.1 volts. It's time to start the engine to charge. The engine started easily and ran for about forty minutes when we heard a sound that was not an engine sound. We both jumped up, I muted the DVD and Russ went out to check the engine gages, all was well there and then he pulled the engine door off and found that the alternator belt was no longer on the alternator. Russ now knows what tomorrows projects are.
So much for sleeping in. I can't wait until all I have to write about is great anchorages with perfect sunsets and wonder wild life and great friends and of course warmer temperatures.

December 23rd Tuesday Russ replaced the alternator belt. He then researched the anchor solenoid. With the solenoid ordered we decided to take advantage of the sun and go ashore for lunch and walk around. We found a washer & dryer. So it's back to the boat for laundry. Russ dropped me off to do laundry and he went back to the boat to repair the anchor solenoid. He repaired the solenoid by the time I had laundry down. The test proved that it worked.

Today is Russ's birthday Dec. 24th. I let him sleep in. After breakfast he got to work on the designing and installing the chain cascading device (Rube Goldberg) in the chain locker along with cutting a floor board for the bathroom. This took all day. I read a book and took a nap.

December 25th the sun came out for a few minutes and we (Russ) decided that the fenders needed to be polished. So we polished the fenders and finished just in time for the storm to blow through packing 35-40 knots of wind and the anchor drug about 20 feet. This is not good in any case. We are anchored close to a bait barge because the anchorage is rather small. Dragging 20 feet gives all the birds a close alternative to the already over crowded bait barge. Now here is where it gets good. If you can picture this, the aft (back) companion way (way out of the boat) was lock and the cover snapped down so rain could not get in. The dinghy is upside down on deck and tied down for sea duty. The hatches can not open because the dinghy is on them. So we are snug as a bug in a rug. We went to go outside to check on things and low and be hold there was a pelican in the cockpit looking through our lexan (see through) companion way. We scooted him away and he flew off and we came back down below. After the 35-40 knots of wind we tried to go out to check out our position and the weather. Oh, but no we are being held captive in our own boat by "Ralph" the pelican again. Only this time he decided he liked the top of the companion way hatch. He would not move no mater how much we jiggled the hatch. So Russ said "I'll show him and he got the flash light". He shined the flash light up through the hatch and Ralph thinks it is something to eat and opens his beak and chases the light. Now this was pretty funny. So then Russ started banging on the hatch and Ralph decided that he did not like this kind of vibration and moved over to our cockpit storage boxes. We have a see through window on the dodger (windshield) and Ralph thought he could go out that way. Russ kept coaxing him out of the cockpit on to the side of the boat and on to the gas cans and to fly away. Ralph never did return the rest of the night. Note to self: Never anchor by a bait barge.

It was a 4:00 am get up this morning Dec 26th. We left Dana Point at about 6:00 am. The NOAA weather is calling for 2-3 foot seas every 13 seconds and the wind 15-25. We left the anchorage and the seas were about 6 foot every 10 seconds. We waited until sunrise to put up the main. When we turned to line up with the waves the wind was from a different direction. The seas are now about 10 foot every 10 seconds. NOAA weather was reporting 3 foot at eleven seconds. It is now too dangerous to climb up the mast to unzip the main cover. A lesson to re learn is to put the main up in the calm of the anchorage before leaving even if it is oh-dark-thirty. The forecast was to calm down the farther south we went. It did not calm down enough. Russ thinks that we caught up with the front that just went through Dana point. This was an eight hour rock and roll ride. We rolled from rail to rail all the way. We surfed in the entrance of Mission Bay at 10 knots eight hours later. The anchor is set at Mariners Basin. What a great anchorage spot. All had a good night sleep.

Today (Dec 27th) we did research half of the day. The folks at the Mission Bay Yacht Club are very nice. They let us dock our dingy at there dock. None of the Marina's here could handle our 44 foot sail boat that has 8 foot draft. We called Dennis Talbot to meet us at the Mission Bay Yacht Club. I was glad to know that Dennis had purchased a Garmin GPS. Downwind Marine here we come, then on to get propane and lets not forget dinner. We were back at the boat by 7:00pm.

Went to the yacht club to watch the Chargers play the Broncos (Dec 28th). We stayed until half time and motored back to the boat. December 29th we picked up Dennis at the Mission Bay Life Guard Station to help bring Smoke - N - Blues to the San Diego Police Dock.

We arrived at the police dock about 2:30 pm. You can stay for a total of 10 days in a 40 day period. The first five days are at $10.50 per day then it goes to $21.00 per day. We have been here from December 29th to today Jan 05, 2009 and hope to leave on Jan 07th for Mexico.

Rene Steinhauer was in town and came with a couple of friends to say hello. We also got in touch with Sally (a friend from Vallejo back in the 80') and I went with her to pick up a few things and then we all had pizza and a little conversation.

Today we went and paid for our fishing permit, next to the border and walk across to Mexico and to get our FMT (tourist visa) and TIP (temporary import permit) for the boat. The Mexican Liability Insurance has been paid and issued. Other than getting fuel and water along with a couple of boat projects we will be ready to roll. We have been too busy to do any sightseeing. While here we have meet a few cruisers heading south on about our time frame. The first couple is Gary & Phyllis Stratton on s/v Apolima and David & Christy on Kailani. Dennis was nice to lend us a few things so we headed over to his apartment to return them and say our last goodbye.