While trolling around the Blogger site for other cruisers, I noticed that Zephyr had moved to Sailblogs. Since we moved the other way (from Sailblogs to Blogger) a couple of years ago, I decided to check out what Sailblogs is up to these days. Tim has certainly added a lot of nice new features, and I've added us to some groups. I've also added a link to our main Web site and our YouTube channel. We'll be staying with Blogger, so please come and visit us there.

Today we're rolling out our new blog on another service. SailBlogs has been great while we were getting started, but now we need some features that we would have to pay for here: most importantly, the ability to email in our posts. We're going to be away from Internet access, and we want to keep our blog updated.

SailBlogs has some really cool features (for a fee) that our new blog doesn't. So if you're considering SailBlogs, please don't let our departure dissuade you. We already pay for our main website and can't afford to pay extra here. If we didn't have a website already, we would probably stay here and get the super-premium features.

There's a link to our new blog in the "Favorites" list to the right and on our home page.

Fair winds,
Shirlee and John

Based on the recommendation of a fellow sailor who has been reading our blog, we've moved from Marina Del Rey to Alamitos Bay (Long Beach) for the night. We're told that the restrooms here are very nice, but we haven't checked them out yet.

Last night our friend Sam Lu took us to dinner at a great Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, Garden of Taxco. It was different from any other Mexican restaurant we've been to, and we've been to many. It's prix fixe, for one thing. And there are no menus. A guy (the owner, we think) tells you what the entr�es are, and you pick something. John and I didn't realize that we'd be getting courses in addition to the entr�e, so I, for one, ate way too many chips with the excellent salsa.

The drive from Marina Del Rey to West Hollywood was slow due to traffic, but I loved it. Sam told us lots of stories about his years in mainland China and the way the Chinese do business. It was fascinating. I had to interrupt occasionally, though, to confirm where we were and ask about landmarks — like the Beverly Hills Police Station. I thought it was some sort of museum or church or something. It was floodlit. After all of the thrillers and murder mysteries I've read that were set in LA (Kellerman, Connolly, and others), it was fun to set where they supposedly took place.

Our wi-fi here isn't free and it isn't very good. We won't be tempted to spend another night. But it does seem nice here. Long Beach looks very pretty from here. I expected industrial, but it looks just like Orange County next door. And tomorrow our voyage to OC and Newport Beach will be short.