You would think that going 5 NM (nautical miles) from slip to mooring ball couldn't have to much excitement...HA, think again. As I motored across the bay towards North Island Naval Base (not really an island), I noticed a large aircraft carrier outbound coming up the bay...already knowing that the navy wants you to keep your distance, I cut a sharper angle and reduced my speed so as to give the carrier plenty of room. I turned around to see if anything was behind me and sure enough there was another large warship and some sort of landing craft inbound, the bay was also full of Naval Security boats buzzing around, lights flashing, sirens wailing, all I could think of was "I need to get a picture of this for my blog"...everything worked out and I was able to stay clear of the warships with no problem. I have noticed the security guys seem to pay MUCH more attention to Si Bon when my 20 something year old daughters and their friends are aboard...go figure.
BUT WAIT...there's more. So I get to the ball, remember I'm by myself, I slowly come up to the pick up pole, I run up the deck grab the pole and quickly discover the my mooring line is wrapped around the anchor chain of the mooring bouy (Fritz warned me about this), this means that my 15 foot mooring line is now effectively about two feet...which is not enough to be able to tie off the boat. After nearly being yanked off the boat, I said to myself *&%#, then I started tugging and pulling the mooring line and was finally able to get enough line to get it onto my bow cleat...but the line still had plenty of wraps around the chain that I knew I had to deal with soon. I quickly dropped my dinghy off the deck and went up to take a look....I could tell that the only way I was going to be able to untangle the mess was to dive it...so on went fins, mask, snorkel and into the 63 degree water I went...note to self, next time wear your wetsuit.