We just passed Catalina Island. I am in shorts, no shirt and sandals. It's like someone flipped the preverbial switch and turned on the furnace at last. The water is 75.5 degrees and has taken a different shade of blue, the cosmetics are changing rapidly.

I finally feel like we are in California! Another triumph is that Terry helped me figure out via email how to use a secondary system on my boat to navigate by...I am truly embarrassed to say even though I helped design the layout....I had forgotten all about the countermeasures. All systems on my boat are redundant, backed up.

With excitement and angst I loaded a new target into the backup system and switched some stuff around in the autopilot menu, hit the button....and EUREKA! we are now headed to the outermost entrance to San Diego Bay!!! 77 nm to go (that's nautical miles).

Course Dad's comment to my happy dance...no really, you shoulda seen me skittin around on the pitching deck as he was trying to read himself into a short term coma before watch...."WHATDOYAWANT!" (as I'm some kind of irritant or something...hmph go figure).... I'm singing and dancing..."Do da do da doo dooo....I got it to work....I got it to work...Im not such a jerk Herdi Herk a herk" Course my songs make no sense to anyone but me...and the dance, well let's just say I wont be getting a yellow slip to the next level on who's got talent! Dad's response after the deer in the headlights look at my convultions on deck was, "Well JUDAS PRIEST (other explatives used) nice you figured it out 1300 miles into us steering with that damned knob all the way!" Un-fazed at his lack of interest in my triumphant attributes, i about faced, danced my way into the galley and rewarded myself with 1 of the 2 left cookies Mom sent with us....ahhh screw it, I'm eatin em both!!

As I sit here typing yet another entry to the blog that may get lost in space, the autopilot has my back, stays perfectly on course and makes me feel like it was money well spent. I have travelled over 5000 miles in this boat since year 2000. Every damn one of them hand steered without an autopilot....sharpen the ax before going into the forest they say-

Oh, yeah..and Dad the expert fisherman? Uh huh...caught a damn sea bird today....what's with this guy?!??