Cruising Active Transport

We circumnavigated between 2008 and 2014. After sailing to Alaska we ended up in Seattle for four years.

19 September 2018
Youtube Video of our Voyage
08 August 2018 | Marina del Rey
Settling in at Marina del Rey
23 July 2018 | Marina del Rey
We are tied up in MDR
22 July 2018 | 25 miles west of Cambria
Good first day
21 July 2018 | Crossing Monterey Bay
Whales
21 July 2018 | South of the Golden Gate
On our way on the last leg
16 July 2018
Enjoying the Bay Area
14 July 2018 | Grand Marina
Change in Marina
14 July 2018 | San Francisco Bay
Back in the Bay After Ten Years
13 July 2018 | Point Arena
Passing Point Arena
12 July 2018 | Thirty Miles NW of Humbolt Bay, CA
Weather Is a Bit More Contrary Than Forecasted
11 July 2018 | Crescent City
Not a Whole Lot to Report
10 July 2018 | Neah Bay
Waiting in Crescent City for Blustery Weather to Die Down
09 July 2018 | Thirty five miles WNW of Reedsport, Oregon
Another Day of Motoring in Flat Water
08 July 2018 | Forty Miles West of Columbia River Entrance
A Successful First Day at Sea
07 July 2018 | Neah Bay
On our way
06 July 2018 | Neah Bay Marina
The Gods of Lousy Weather Don't Want Us to Change Our Minds
05 July 2018 | Neah Bay Marina
Weather Still Looking Good for a Saturday Departure
04 July 2018
Tied up in Neah Bay
03 July 2018 | Port Angeles City Floats
Docked on the Cheap in Port Angeles

Youtube Video of our Voyage

19 September 2018
John
I just added a link to a youtube video of a google earth animation that shows the route we took around the world. The route for our circumnavigation is in red. Our subsequent voyage to Alaska and then Seattle is in Yellow.

Settling in at Marina del Rey

08 August 2018 | Marina del Rey
John
We have been here in Los Angeles for two weeks, at this point, and life has settled into familiar routines.

We bought a car. We got a 2012 Honda Civic that runs on compressed natural gas. Almost all the airport shuttles use CNG for fuel so there are quite a few fueling stations nearby.

CNG and Electric vehicles are the only ones that are allowed to use the car pool lanes with only 1 person in the car. They used to allow hybrid vehicles to use those lanes but ended that program when Toyota sold thousands of Prius cars just so their owners could get the magic sticker that entitled them to use the carpool lanes. The carpool lanes became so crowded that their original purpose, of encouraging car pooling, was negated.

We have both ordered bicycles. Neither has shown up yet but we expect them to be very useful here in Marina del Rey because parking can be a real problem in the shopping plazas like the one where we have to go to pick up our mail.

The bicycle trails are well developed in this part of Los Angeles. It is possible to ride all the way to Malibu on bike trails and there are a lot of cultural activities that we will be able to bike to. We are going to see Shakespeare by the Sea this Saturday evening at Pollywog park in Manhattan Beach. We are seeing "The Merry Wives of Winsor" which is Shakespeare's take on "Housewives of Beverly Hills."

We have also bought tickets to a couple of events at the Hollywood Bowl this month. The first is a performance by the LA Symphony. dorected by Dutamel and with Itzhak Perlman on the violin. The, later in the month we are going to a performance of Carmina Burana.

The Hollywood bowl is a wonderful venue for big performances. It's way too big for a lot of things but it is very nice to have your picnic dinner and wine before the performance starts.

LA has so much going on that we could spend a fortune on everything that is worth seeing.

We have been having a heat wave but here on the edge of the ocean we have cooling breezes most of the day.

Shawn has actively started looking for a job and has a lot of leads on really interesting opportunities. A couple of the jobs he has looked at are in Santa Monica which is so close that his commute would consist of a 25 minute bike ride along the beach.

Im adding a satellite view of Marina del Rey that I snagged from google earth. At the bottom are some of the runways at LAX. Any of our international friends with layovers at LAX can easily come visit us. Give us enough warning and we will pick you up. Visiting some place like Venice Beach would be a lot more fun that sitting in the airport.

The blue dot in the marina is our slip.

We are tied up in MDR

23 July 2018 | Marina del Rey
John
After a bumpy ride around Point Conception last night we made it to marina del Rey around 5 PM this afternoon.

It was a motor boat trip the whole way.

After a couple of tries we got docked with the help of our friend Cecile who was sitting on her boat waiting for us and then did her Vanna White imitation to show us to our slip.

Tomorrow we will be occupied with errands like getting a mailbox, getting driver's licenses, picking up a rental car, etc.

At the fuel dock in Oakland Shawn's shorts got caught on the lifeline and it ripped the pocket off. His cell phone was in the pocket and it had a pocket on the back that contained his driver's license and credit cards. So replacing all that stuff will be among the errands we have to deal with.

Our friend Cecile, who has her sailboat next to our old slip in Seattle, is coming by in a few minutes so we can go get some supper. I ate the last of our KFC this morning (aka the Breakfast of Champions)
Vessel Name: Active Transport
Vessel Make/Model: Tayana 37 PH
Hailing Port: Seattle, Washington
Crew: John and Shawn
About:
John and Shawn left San Francisco in September of 2008 to sail around the world. They completed their circumnavigation when the came out of the Panama Canal in late October 2013. From there they sailed to Mexico, out to Hawaii and up to Kodiak, Alaska. [...]
Extra:
This blog is intended for friends and family who may or may not be sailors. It is not intended to provide technical details of any of the boat's systems. Its purpose is to keep friends up-to-date on our progress and, whereabouts Following the completion of our circumnavigation our blog entries [...]
Active Transport's Photos - St. Helena
Photos 1 to 19 of 19 | Cruising Active Transport (Main)
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This is the view along the waterfront. The harbor is on the right and the buildings on the left are for customs and the port office. Note the staircase running up the cliff in the background. We will show another view of that later
The main street into St Helena shows what a sleepy little town it is. There is one hotel, a couple of restaurants and grocery stores and a bank where they can give visitors cash advances on their credit cards or ATM cards. There are no ATMs on the island but that is all about to change when their new airport is completel
Next to the immigration office is the town jail.
Here is another view of the staircase up the cliff. The yellow building on the right houses the museum which is small but very well done with a lot of informative displays about the history of the island.
As you leave down and climb into the mountains it is very obvious that the town is aligned along a valley that leads to the harbor. Driving in St Helena is an interesting experience as most of the roads are too narrow to accommodate two cars side by side. Those heading up hill have right of way and the cars headed down hill must pull over to make room. There are a lot of switchbacks that make it impossible to see what is coming so everyone drives carefully.
Here is another view down into the town with the HMS St Helena at anchor outside the harbor. St Helena has no airport but is building one. Once the airport is completed the ship will be retired. Its over 30 years old and you can see its age in the buckled plates on the bom.
the plants on the right in this photo are flax plants. Flax was a big business here until synthetic fibers replaced flax for the manufacturer of marine ropes. The flax was imported from New Zealand along with the Maori workers to who knew how to grow and process it.
This is a view from the cliffs into the harbor. The staircase down the cliff is located on around to the right. The mooring field for visiting yachts is to the left. The original harbor is a tangle of crossed mooring lines and even sunken ships.
The museum at the bottom of the stairs will give you a certificate if you climb the staircase. Shawn backed down the staircase a few steps, put on his best exhausted face to make it look like he had actually walked up the steps.
There are two places in St Helena where Napoleon lived while he was here. He decided that the original house they had planned for him was unacceptable so while that building was being renovated he lived with a local planter. this pic was taken in the house where he spent most of his years in St Helena and where he died.
This photo was taken inside Napoleon
Napoleon liked to hike around the hills near his home. On his wanderings he came across a spot that he thought was particularly beautiful and asked that it be the location on his tomb. As you might expect even his burial was surrounded by Franco/ Anglo conflict. The French wanted the grave to simply say Napoleon but the British insisted that it say Napoleon Bonaparte because they did not want to honor him with the single name reserved for monarchs and Madonna and and Cher. So The marble slab on the grave was left blank. A few years later his body was moved to Paris. There were several physicians present at an autopsy following his death The stated cause of death was stomach cancer that ran in his family and was consistent with his symptoms during the months prior to his death. There are, of course, conspiracy theories about his being poisoned.
This is the now empty grave of Napoleon. It is in a beautiful setting with adjacent springs that keep the vegetation lush.
this was the home of the emperor of France. It is now French territory although all the care takers and guides were saints (as the folks on St Helena refer to themselves) The furniture and art from the homes were shipped back to France for restoration but we got the impression that nobody believed that the French were going to send the artifacts back as promised. It was interesting that the French tourists visiting these sights had to put up with presentations in English since the French government could not be bothered to provide French speaking guides.
this is government house with its resident giant tortoise wandering on the lawn. The tortoise is not native to the island but was a gift to an earlier governor. He is well over 100 years old.
Here is the poor solitary tortoise again
While we were at St Helena they were unloading and loading cargo on the RMS St Helena so the port was a very busy place. We were hoping for a good show when the loaded containers onto barges to transport them out to the ship.
Unfortunately lunch time for the crane operator intervened and this picture shows as far as they got before the crane operator took off. By the time he was back our ferry out to the boat had already picked us up
this is the barge they were getting ready to load the containers on. When the crane operator was at lunch the guys on the barge just sat around and waited. You would have to see the motion of the sea to appreciate what a tricky job it was to load the containers on the constantly moving barge.
 
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On the hook in Tomales Bay

Who: John and Shawn
Port: Seattle, Washington