Based on the recommendation of a fellow sailor who has been reading our blog, we've moved from Marina Del Rey to Alamitos Bay (Long Beach) for the night. We're told that the restrooms here are very nice, but we haven't checked them out yet.
Last night our friend Sam Lu took us to dinner at a great Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, Garden of Taxco. It was different from any other Mexican restaurant we've been to, and we've been to many. It's prix fixe, for one thing. And there are no menus. A guy (the owner, we think) tells you what the entrées are, and you pick something. John and I didn't realize that we'd be getting courses in addition to the entrée, so I, for one, ate way too many chips with the excellent salsa.
The drive from Marina Del Rey to West Hollywood was slow due to traffic, but I loved it. Sam told us lots of stories about his years in mainland China and the way the Chinese do business. It was fascinating. I had to interrupt occasionally, though, to confirm where we were and ask about landmarks — like the Beverly Hills Police Station. I thought it was some sort of museum or church or something. It was floodlit. After all of the thrillers and murder mysteries I've read that were set in LA (Kellerman, Connolly, and others), it was fun to set where they supposedly took place.
Our wi-fi here isn't free and it isn't very good. We won't be tempted to spend another night. But it does seem nice here. Long Beach looks very pretty from here. I expected industrial, but it looks just like Orange County next door. And tomorrow our voyage to OC and Newport Beach will be short.
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The first thing we did when we got here around 4:00 this afternoon was wash the boat. When we loaded the dinghy onto the foredeck last night, we noticed that we were leaving tracks in the dirt. That Santa Ana wind blew dust and dirt all over. We're far from fastidious about keeping the boat clean, but this was really bad.
The sail down here was uneventful, and we had to motor the whole way. When we went past Malibu, I looked for celebrities, but we were way too far out - probably three miles or more. The biggest excitement was a little sailboat race going on right outside the harbor here. Fortunately, our course was outside the path of the boats.
We've signed up for two nights here before we continue on to Newport Beach. I don't think we'll be tempted to stay longer: they won't give us an access key to the restrooms. We have to go to the office to get access. The office is close, but it seems like grade school.
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She's still pretty weak, but she's getting better daily. Yesterday afternoon when she first came home, she could barely move without shaking. Today she's much better. She even finally noticed the little dachshund across the channel and barked back at her.
The winds here are amazing: day before yesterday we had near gale northwest winds; this morning we had gale force easterly winds. Tomorrow morning when we're heading out, the forecast is for "wind variable 10 kt or less...becoming SW 10 kt late in the afternoon." That's just right for motor-sailing to Marina Del Rey.
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