Cruising with Zelda

We have had quite a trial finding the right boat. We lost $10K to the supposed owner of one boat (suing in small claims court). BUT we have finally purchased the last boat we will ever own. Her name is GOING to be the Zelda Fitzgerald, after my grandmother (not be confused with F Scott's wife). Her current name is "Delight" out of Ventura. She has been anything BUT a delight so far. Let's start with the bash up from Morro Bay. We hired a delivery skipper, Laurence Sunderland. Absolutely the best guy ever. He put up with a lot to bring this boat up the coast of California at the beginning of summer. Neither my husband nor I have had any experience out in the open sea, so we thought it best to have someone with experience do the job. Little did we know were about to meet a rather famous person in the body of Laurence Sunderland and his friend, Pieter. This is the same Laurence whose son, Zak, and daughter Abby, single handed around the world. A more devoted father and husband you will never meet.
Anyway, so Laurence and Pieter take possession from the previous owners in Morro Bay. The first leg was to bring her to Moss Landing (near Monterey) to be hauled so we could see the bottom. WELL...as they say, the best laid plans! On the way they encountered some fairly interesting weather, as all who sail the Pacific in summer know. It is anything BUT Pacific! The first thing that went was the main sail. Shredded to the 2nd reef line. So they were sailing this boat with a shredded Mainsail up the coast of California. Well, they made it in one piece to Moss Landing. We came and met them. They were planning on continuing on up to San Francisco Bay. All we were waiting for was the wire transfer from the bank to go through so we could take possession of the boat. We called the bank, who assured us the transfer would be made at 9 am. Hours went by. We took the guys out for breakfast, watched the Brits play soccer on the TV at the restaurant. we waited, and waited. I finally called the bank back and they told us the wire had not gone through yet. After some expletives on my part, they finally sent it.
Around 1 pm Laurence gets a call from the owners saying the money had gone through. Off they went. We drove the 2 hours back to San Francisco. Within an hour of arriving back in Oyster Cove we received a call from Laurence that they had to turn back. The wave action was so fierce that he decided that they were putting themselves at risk to go any further. They were about even with Santa Cruz, so we tried to get an overnight slip there. No chance. Santa Cruz harbour had been damaged heavily during the Tsunami. There were no slips available and the local boat yard, Aquarius Boatworks, were so busy that they could not take the boat to do the haul out. So, back to Moss Landing. We drove the 2 hours to Moss Landing and waited for Laurence and Pieter to get in. It was getting late, but right around sundown I saw the boat coming in.
We met them at the Boat yard, because the harbor couldn't accomodate us.
We tied up to an old fishing vessel and then helped the guys off the boat. We then drove them to Morro Bay, another 2 hours away, to pick up their car.
Quite the adventure was relayed to us. They had gotten out to sea and were hit by some pretty significant wave action. If it hadn't been for Laurence having a firm grip on the jib line, he would have been swept over board..I, personally, would not want to be responsible for the death of Laurence Sunderland! Laurence told us that this was the first time he had ever turned around during a transport. I can only imagine what it was like out there.
So, we then made the trip back to San Francisco, another 4 hours. So far we had driven 10 hours total that day. It was 4 am when we got in. The next day we had to drive back to Moss Landing to move her into a slip at the Marina. We found a slip. the wind was blowing rather significantly to starboard. We were sharing a slip with a nice powerboat. My husband had never sailed this boat and she is considerably bigger than our William Atkins, Colin Archer designed, Thistle..Iolanthe. Getting into the slip was further hampered by the presence of dredging pipe down the center of the slipway. Needless to say, this didn't go very smoothly, either. The only good thing I can say is that we did have boat insurance, as of the day before.
In a vain attempt to get into the slip, our wonderful boat decided she did not want to do what was expected of her, swung her bow to port and hit the powerboat. We took out a nice piece of teak railing and scraped some of the fiberglass below. Not a good start! after much coaching and help, we got her into the slip without creating any more problems. The combination of fatigue, new boat, wind, unfamiliar marina= mess.
The plan was for Laurence to do a powerboat delivery to Sausalito the next weekend, so we went on home.