Santa Catalina Island to Encinada, Mexico

We are finally crossing into Mexico.
Sadly while in Dan Diego I had news of my father’s death. He had been very ill with cancer throughout his body and dementia which had got very bad very quickly. All of the family had been hoping he would not live long as his life had become really painful and confusing for him, nevertheless when it finally happened it was very upsetting, being so far away made it very difficult. At least we had had a good visit in January and I had known then that I would not see him again as it was obvious that he was very ill. Kristen Kyle and baby are going to visit my mother in Jan and Feb so we will fly over in April or May to give her something else to look forward to.
The happier family event of consequence, the birth of Kristen and Kyle’s baby has not happened yet. It is due tomorrow but appears to be in no hurry. I am flying back to see the new grandbaby on the 22nd of November from Cabo San Lucas so I hope I will not be dealing with a hormonal 91/2 month pregnant daughter.
Our trip in Southern California has been enjoyable, it is certainly easy to see why everyone flocks here, the climate and lifestyle are easy(if you are amongst the lucky rich).
We met Jenny, my high school friend in Santa Catalina Island and had a great visit with her. Catalina Island is a desert like island with every bay filled with mooring buoys as it is the closest place for LA cruisers to visit. The town of Avalon is a cutesy touristy village; we arrived for the jazz festival so enjoyed the great music sitting in the sun overlooking the bay—not too hard to take. The restaurants are great and as is the case in all of this area Mexican flavour prevails. We enjoyed the people watching as everything is very “Californian” with great looking young people and lots of botox and hairdos on those who wish to remain young looking. Note the Elvis lookalike in the pics.
Everything here is larger than life and although we have loved it the opulence on the coast is a little overwhelming—a starter home was listed for $800,000. I think the younger people and Mexicans who tend to all of the rich live inland further and I am sure their life is quite different. I think George W’s idea to keep the illegal Mexicans out would sorely decrease the standard of living enjoyed by the rich.
We sailed to Newport Beach with Jenny who had a car and took us to Trader Joes which is the local supermarket with amazing prices. Two buck chuck is their trademark wine at $1.99 a bottle. Although it is not great it makes good Sangria which has become a staple on our boat. There are many other cheap wines available and Rosemont Shiraz which I remember paying $16 a bottle was on for $5.99 and 10% discount if you are buying 6 bottles of wine. We now feel anything over $7 is to be saved for a special occasion.
We spent the next few days biking along Newport Beach, another trendy coastal city. Lots of palm trees and bougainvillea and the lovely gardens are indeed beautiful.
Then down to Dana Point for a night and on to San Diego where we were to meet up with Judy from Calgary and see her very large new boat (55ft Tayana). It was great to see her again and we had time to catch up on everything Calgary. We toured Old Town in San Diego with her enjoying all of the colourful pre Halloween Mexican traditions there.
The rest of our time in San Diego was spent touring the city, went on the aircraft carrier Midway which was in commission from 1945 to 2002. It has been made into a museum and it was amazing to see the size of it and the evolution of aircraft flown from her from the second word war to Vietnam to Desert Storm. It was absolutely huge having a crew of 5000 at any one time. We also rented a car for a day and did the “Costco, Trader Joes thing” stocking up with our favorite foodstuffs, wine, batteries, printer ink and an external antenna to pick up wi fi on our laptop. Got more spare boat parts so feel that perhaps the last of the big money spending days are over and we are stocked for a while and can spend less time shopping. We were fortunate to meet a retired doctor, who with his wife very generously took us on a sight seeing tour of the city. Drove up to La Hoja which is amongst the most expensive areas in the US—I think everywhere we went seemed to qualify!!
San Diego was another “cruising groupy port”. The police docks are available for 10 nights at $10 a night for the first 5 nights and $20 for the rest including water and power hookup so everyone ties up at the dock to do their last minute provisioning. It is a chance to meet up again with those boats we had been traveling on and off with since Canada, whom we will probably meet up with again on our Mexico voyage. The disconcerting thing sailing in this area is that it is a huge naval port and the VHF radio is constantly being used by “warship one to warship 90” and they are requesting that all other boats keep out of their way. We certainly did our best, somehow “naval vessel one” is less threatening than “warship one” as a call sign but I assume that is the point.
We leave for Mexico having enjoyed our US sector but are ready to go back to reality. It makes you appreciate the Canadian values and I have to admit that if only there were a few palm trees and bougainvillea on the Gulf Islands they would surpass in scenic beauty anywhere else we have sailed. The fallacy that everywhere else has great winds for sailing has been proven to be untrue and the bane of all of us down here is that perhaps we should be traveling on a trawler!!!
We are enjoying the lifestyle and have decided to take one more year in the America’s. Len and Shirley have agreed to one more year in Saltspring so we will go slower on this sector and travel to Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador and will leave the boat in Ecuador and travel in Peru, hopefully to see Machu Pichu and other parts of South America before heading across to the South Pacific March 2008