10 Pounds of Potatoes in a 9 Pound Sack
09 October 2011 | Marina Del Rey, Pacific Mariners YC
Priscilla
After a roller coaster sail into Marina del Rey, 4 loads of laundry and a visit to West Marine, we settled into the MDR life…Monday Night Football at the Del Rey YC, Gloria graciously donated her car to us for most of the week, Sal referred maintenance men, I worked….and, lucky for you, I didn’t take pictures of the Vacuflush maintenance…..and Paul finished stocking up on our “spares”.
By Thursday evening, we were ready for a visit from Paul’s nephew Matt. Dinner at the Chart House, lots of catching up and a great day of sailing on Friday. We were told that just off Redondo, at about the 400 ft depth, the whales hang out at the “upwelling”. Well, that was enough for us so we b-lined it to the trench at a whopping 5 mph….. Along the way, we taught Matt to crew so we could lounge, saw herds of dolphins and howled at them to get them to come over and watched them play at Wind Spirit’s bow. And then…..wait for it…..WHALES! Two BIG blues! I don’t really know if they are big by blue standards, but whoa! These were way bigger than us! So I took about a zillion pictures, but only got two good ones, (that’s why they call it a “fluke”…sorry, couldn’t resist). You’ll find them in the gallery. This is a popular place for whale watchers too, there were 6 or so other sailboats just flopping around waiting for the big guys. When we sailed back into Marina Del Rey, we switched from the Del Rey Yacht Club to the Pacific Mariner’s Yacht Club…that’s where the potatoes come in.
We had seen the slip in the morning, but I guess we didn’t quite understand. When we came back in, there was a big Ketch tied up along the long dock, and they expected us to get into the adjacent slip and partially raft to the ketch. So, Paul put Wind Spirit, a 46’ boat, into a 30’ slip…..we could only use real fenders on one side and when she went “oooooooof” and stopped, we figured we were in and not going anywhere! 10 Pounds of potatoes in a 9 Pound sack…..or an ostrich with his head in the sand not realizing how much of his behind is sticking out! See the Photo Gallery….Rich, we have ideas for docking at RYC… (By the way, the big ketch belonged to Tim Murison’s niece, Sherry – small world) Well, everyone was thrilled that we made it in without any carnage, picked up their drinks again and resumed the position. Sal and Gloria are members here, and got us on the list for a great dinner at the club and after much frivolity, we settled in for a good rest. Hey, we earned it! Somebody’s got to do it!!
Saturday night, we hit a couple of dock parties, met a couple of other HaHa’ers and thought we’d better get out of town before we got too used to this life! So we’ve arrived in Alamitos Bay in Long Beach for dinghy re-gluing for a day or so. We’re at a really lonely yacht club and that’s a good thing! (never thought you’d hear me say that, did you..)…no more potatoes, please…..