We're home!

It feels so nice to be here. It wasn't really that long ago that we left - and it almost seems like we never did. We're just fitting right back into a familiar fold. In 24 hours we've sifted through the stacks of mail, opened all the packages, and had our favorite pizza.

Our passage from Ensenada to San Diego was uneventful, with mostly calm winds and quiet seas, but we both felt off - maybe we got soft after 9 cushy days in the marina, we'd lost our sea legs. I felt listless and queasy, Allan was just quiet. We nibbled on crackers and I took lots of micro naps in the salon, moaning in bleak discomfort. It was just a lot of melodrama - queasiness mixed with a bit of sadness at the realization that going home meant the end of our footloose cruising season, mixed with a bit of excitement at seeing family and friends again, mixed with the unknown about what next season holds.

Clearing in at the border was amazingly easy - we downloaded an app a few weeks ago, CBP Roam - a surprisingly UN-bureaucratic thing in an increasingly bureaucratic world - which required pre-loading all our info - passports, addresses, waist size, etc. so that when it came time to actually gain clearance into our homeland, we just made a request on the app and within minutes, approved! We understand they sometimes want to see your faces via a video call, but not for us, not today. A few minutes later, I saw a fancy-looking buoy in the water, a rather James Bond-ish looking thing, and when I pointed it out, Allan said "That's the border!" Weird. So, we waved at the border and a few hours later dropped anchor in America.

Mission Bay, San Diego, to be precise, in the placid anchorage of Mariners Basin which sits between Sea World to the east and Belmont Shores Amusement Park to the west. The beaches all around this calm bay were crowded with families and colorful umbrellas, and happy squeals filled the air. Even at 7pm little clumps of wet and presumably cold people, newly set free on their on summer vacations, were splashing and hanging out, chatting in the 62-degree water. As the sun set, the roller coaster at Belmont Shores clattered away, and then at dark, Sea World welcomed us back to our homeland with a fireworks show. Little bonfires lit the beach, and we wondered how many marshmallows were being charred to a melty ooze.

We rose at dawn for a 9-hour motor in flat, calm seas to Dana Point, where we dropped anchor in the small anchorage on the north side. More happy vacationers crammed the beach, and weirdly, it was blue and turquoise umbrella day. We thought it would be nice to replenish the fridge with actual fresh vegetables, which had dwindled to half an onion and some pithy celery, so we ordered an Uber and an hour later had all our favorite goodies from Trader Joe's. On the drive to and from, I couldn't help noticing how tidy everything was. Tidy roads, tidy sidewalks that weren't obstructed by telephone poles, or dotted with gaping holes, the buildings and landscapes were so new and clean, it was almost too perfect. It was Dana Point, granted, and that's a tidy area, but it was almost weird. We felt more tension in the air, more of a sense of rush. Things were clean on the outside, but felt unsettled.

Another early sunrise departure on Tuesday had us in Seal Beach at the Long Beach Yacht Club guest dock by 10:30am, musing at tiny people in tiny Sabot sailboats, capably maneuvering their craft at 5 and 6 years old, while instructors hollered instructions from a 4-boat fleet of dinghies, motoring alongside and ready to assist at any second.

We had arranged to meet Allan's dad, Grant, and his wife Phyllis for lunch, which took a little effort - places we'd chosen were either permanently closed or not open until dinner. We finally found a table outside at a hip seaside brewpub with that new detached way of being a restaurant these days - is this a Covid thing? An LA thing? Or is this just a thing? We were met by a polite host at the front counter, who told us to sit anywhere, QR the menus, and then order online or at the bar. Sensing impending failure at that, I asked for paper menus, a few of which were reluctantly produced. We found a table, I QR'd the menu, aiming my phone at the little square taped to the edge of the numbered table, trying to see the screen in the bright sunlight, scrolling up and down, clicking here and there. I tried to be modern and order online but special requests like "extra pickles" and "no ice" were not options, so I gave up and went to the bar, where the guy struggled on his computer with the same special requests. Our food was efficiently delivered by young adults with brightly-colored hair and shredded jeans or incredibly short shorts, all wearing t-shirts with the names of one of the beers brewed or represented by the establishment. They were polite but distant. No one person was assigned to our table, any number of different servers came by. The service was good, the food was good, but it all felt so detached. Culture shock stuff.

After waving farewell to Grant and Phyllis, we took a short nap, and then I went for a run in the neighborhood. Naples. Wow, talk about tidy! It was like being at Disneyland. A gorgeous/adorable/impressive array of homes from 800 to 10,000 sq ft all crammed into each other, with balconies and drought-tolerant landscaping, tiny front porches looking out over the harbor with fire pits and colorful throw pillows. A canal system wanders through, with boats tucked in "back yards." When I got back to the boat Allan suggested a short kayak trip. The harbor was filled with vibrance - the little kids were done with their sailing lessons and the medium-sized kids were at it in the slightly larger and faster (and capsizeable) Lasers and Sunfish. People were everywhere on SUP's (stand-up paddle boards) and toodling around in electric boats. There was activity and warmth and health and vitality in the air. We paddled along the fancy houses for about 45 minutes and then returned to shower and get ready for our dinner with my cousin John and his wife Mary.

John and Mary spent 10 years living aboard their Norhavn trawler in the early 00's, and had a marvelous few years of cruising from southern California, through the Panama Canal, all around the Caribbean, along the east coast to Maine, up (or down?) the Inter-coastal Waterway, back through the Caribbean, the canal, and up the coast to home in Long Beach, CA. Over dinner at the beautiful and historical Long Beach Yacht Club, we loved hearing some of their stories, especially those about the Caribbean, as it's one of the places we ponder exploring in the future.

We loved our time in this energetic harbor, and wished we could stay a few more days, but winds were forecast to pick up (going the wrong way) on Thursday, and we were anxious to get north, around Point Mugu and home into our waiting slip before nightfall on Wednesday.

A 4am wake up, and we were underway just minutes later, the boat wet with dew, the lights from the harbor reflecting on the low cloud layer, providing good illumination for our night departure. The Long Beach Harbor, or the LA Harbor (I can't really figure out which is what and what to call where) is busy. This is the main place all the stuff we buy from China and other parts of the world arrives. Gobs of behemoth cargo ships anchored or hovered outside the harbor, waiting for their turn to dock and be unloaded. We're glad we left a bit early, because as the dawn dawned, the pilot boats and cargo ships began to stir, the big ships firing up and moving slowly into the harbor. Everything was waking up. Nice to be past all that before it became too much of an obstacle course.

It was the last day I'll make toast in a pan - a new Oster 2-slice toaster awaits us at Mark & Pam's. Our pan-fried toast, smeared with the last of the avocado made a nice breakfast, a nice first-breakfast, anyhow. The sea was flat and calm as Palos Verdes slid by on the right, all those big houses! So many! Where does all the money come? Who ARE those people?

We caught up on things, the blurb, the logbook, remembering stuff at the last minute, such as - where are our marina gate keys? Did we leave them with the office in December? Will we get in before the office closes? Where can they leave them if not? Do we have our dock neighbor's phone number? Is he even still there? How will we get our car? What's for dinner?

We had second breakfast (cereal for Allan, a banana and almond butter for me) and then I went back to bed. A few ours later Allan went back to bed, and while he was sleeping, I heard a plane fly overhead. Kinda close to overhead. It sounded familiar ... I leapt up and went into the cockpit in time to see a little yellow airplane flying off, turning and readying for another pass. I jolted Allan awake hollering "Allan! Your brother is buzzing us!" We got back in time for Mark's second pass - but idiotically we both forgot to grab our phones, so we missed a fantastic shot of our little yellow Woodstock welcoming us home! It was so cool. Well done, Mark!

Allan went back to bed and I started organizing my head. Not an easy task, these days, but I needed to ponder what happens after we return home, aside from the obvious goal of seeing everyone. We have some things to change-out on the boat, things that were superfluous and things that were redundant. When I loaded the boat last year I over-estimated our needs. I always do. I needed fewer, and simpler clothes, fewer flip flops, fewer hats. Far fewer things in the galley. Less dishes, and one thing we all learn is that we don't need to stock up on food as though we were going to the moon. They DO have groceries in other parts of the world, it turns out. We don't need all the books we have onboard, since we have almost everything on Nook, Kindle, or Audible. So a lot of mildew-prone books will go away, helping to lighten the load and raise the waterline a bit. Oh, but wait! More stuff is coming aboard! I've been ordering things ... we have a stack of packages to unwrap when we get a chance - the toaster, a cooking spoon, a few SPF sun shirts, hats to replace the lost ones, a new SUP! Cookie sheets! And more! So the waterline is probably not going to see any change.

So - 7 months from gone to back, and here's what we did:

Sailed 3800 nautical miles (4375 statute, or, as Allan says, "normal" miles)
Burned 1590 liters (420 gallons) of diesel fuel
Went to 47 different places
Anchored 55 times
Stayed in a slip in a marina 8 times
Stayed in yacht club guest docks twice (thank you Southwestern Yacht Club in San Diego, and Long Beach Yacht Club!)
Stayed on a mooring ball 4 times (all in Puerto Escondido, Baja California)
Lost 3 hats, one of which made it across the Pacific in 2010
Drowned 1 iPhone
Had 19 massages
Ate 1,000,000 tacos
Got 14 mosquito bites (Really! We were so lucky!)

I tried to come up with a list of things that broke, so I could substantiate the old adage that cruising is just fixing broken things in exotic places, but happily, very few came to mind. Some things here and there but all easily remedied, largely thanks to Allan's resourcefulness and myriad capabilities, and the wise input from a few experienced friends.

It was a delightful 7 month escape, we loved almost every day. México is beautiful, varied, and loaded with great people. The weather was amazing! I don't think we hardly saw a cloud after we left Ensenada in January. The boat is all we could have hoped for, we love it more every day.

Now, we'll spend a fun summer flying our little airplane here and there, catching up with friends and family in our "home" town. But as our old sailing friend Dick Dreschler used to say, "Home is where the hull is."

Thanks for following along.