pics from Catalina to Encinada

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

even more pics

More San Francisco To Catalina Island Pics

San Francisco To Catalina Island Pics

San Francisco To Catalina Island

Wow, we seem to have done so much since we left San Francisco, this is a lifestyle which is very full and busier than I had envisioned. Where is the lazy retirement I had been looking forward to??

We left San Francisco with the Blue Angels (US version of Snow Birds) flying over and around us in formation as we went out under the bridge. It felt like a farewell salute!! (I think they were there for the air show but I like to think it was us).

We sailed to Halfmoon Bay 21 miles away where we spent the night. It was a lovely, as the name suggests, long crescent shaped white sandy beach. Took a long walk on the sand and after purchased some tuna (more fish!!!!) from a fisherman for $3 a pound.

We were traveling with three other Canadian boats that were traveling down at the same time. It becomes a very “groupy” lifestyle where you join and leave various boats voyaging in the same direction. Appies or dinner with others is the norm. Our boat having the biggest cockpit as Judy had suggested has become the obvious choice if there are a number of people involved.

Next day onto Santa Cruz and then to Monterey where we had a few days. It is a great place, very quaint with old buildings on stilts over the sea. Lots of artsy shops to explore—too bad I have neither the money nor the space to be able to buy much!! There are lots of sea otters who are very cute as they lay on their backs with their paws holding their food as float around.

We took a bus with Peter and Marnie from Vancouver to Carmel for the day. It is where the truly rich and famous live!! It is a beautiful seaside treed town with gorgeous gardens. The stores are full of very expensive items. I was talking to one store owner who said that some of the stores were paying $25,000 a month for their leases!! Needless to say we didn’t buy anything there either. One older lady was nonchalantly trying on a diamond bracelet which was “only $9000” and would have matched the other glistening gems on her body.

There was some magnificent art and blown glass---no clay, I think it is regarded as not expensive enough.

Next stop was Morro Bay which was a welcome relief. It is a very blue collar town which has a dying fishing industry. They are working on building up tourism and it ,has a nice atmosphere. There is a great surfing beach and we had a great sunset walk. We biked around the great coastal marshy area which is full of all kinds of birds—our new camera is proving fun trying to capture them.

We took a bus with Marnie and Peter again to Hearst Castle. It was built by Randolf Hearst who was a newspaper magnate in the 1920’s. He had inherited money and then increased his wealth and built a number of different residences around the country. This was his favorite and he spent 15years building the castle which was designed to surround, in keeping, his amazing collection of Mediterranean marble statues and tapestries. It was bequeathed to the State a number of years ago and they maintain it. It was mind boggling. He had entertained many of the silent movie stars during their time. His parties must have been incredible. The comment made by the guide was that if it looks like silver it is and if it looks like gold it also is!! The tiles on the ground surrounding the outdoor pool were inlaid with gold leaf. He was a movie buff and had a theatre and even when they were building it he would hang a huge sheet up in the garden and have nightly movies. I can’t imagine in those days there would have been enough good ones to watch one every night!!

Our next challenge was to be Point Conception where the winds from the north meet with those of the south and can create some very hazardous conditions. We left Morro Bay in tandem with the other Canadian boats only to find the winds had gone and we spent most of the day motoring—another anticipated situation becomes a non event.

Next stop Santa Barbara, which has become one of our favorite places, they seem to have balanced the rich and poor and created a neat town which is very relaxed and low keyed. They close the main street off from 4 to 6pm on Thursdays for the local farmers market so we were able to stock up again. The last of the peaches, strawberries, raspberries, apples, oranges, lemons, limes and grapes were also available. I cannot figure out the seasons here. Mind you everything is in full flower so perhaps it is just one big long ongoing one.

We got our bikes ashore again and biked up the coast. There are great bike paths and lanes everywhere we have been so is easy. It is a beautiful coastline.

One last pot luck with the other Canadians and we headed off to Santa Cruz Island for a couple of days. It is an uninhabited nature reserve and it was really nice to anchor in a little cove alone surrounded by the cliffs and near a beach. We picked up about 50 dolphins that played in our wake and bow on the trip out. We explored a huge cave which is 80 feet high and you take your dingy in at low tide.

As I write this we are on a night crossing to Santa Catalina, we travel at night if we can’t make it in day light as we do not want to enter a new port in the dark. We will get in about 9am in the morning. It is a dark starry night – I do love the moonlit nights best—there is something magical about sailing when the whole sky is lit up.

We are meeting up with my school friend Jenny from NZ who is now living in Palm Desert on Catalina for a few days which I am looking forward to.

We will head to Newport Beach with her and later go to San Diego for the 28^th to meet up with Judy from Calgary who will be there and will show us her fancy new huge boat.

The weather is great, sunny skies and 70F or so. The seas have turned blue which is a good sign (those in Canada and northern US are dark green) so I guess the tropics cannot be far!!!

Hope life is treating you all well, keep warm and keep in touch!!! We love hearing from you.

San franciso pics

Here are the photos from the San Francisco portion of our trip. A little belated as we are now in Santa Barbara.
Anyway we will be updating that in the next week or so.

2 weeks in San Francisco

We have had a wonderful two weeks in San Francisco and it is with some sadness we leave this great vibrant city.
We were anchored for the most part in Sausalito which is one of the trendy suburbs of San Francisco and of course is one of the most expensive—why do I only want to live in the most expensive areas of any city I would choose!! Apartments are around $1,000,000 and houses $5 or $6million!! Oh well I guess I will have to be happy with Saltspring.
We were welcomed at the cruising club where we were given a key and could shower at no cost and attended their Friday evenings where dinner is $8 to $12 and they have live music and all cruisers in the area are welcome.
Managed to be here when the annual chili cook off took place where for $5 you could taste all the chili you wanted and vote with the 5 beans you had been issued. Much bribery from the cooks went on, usually in the form of tequila or beer so was hard not to enjoy. It is a laid back friendly community which is a 30 minute bus or ferry ride to downtown San Fran.
Had couple of trips downtown where of course we experienced Fisherman’s Wharf with its buskers and bustling tacky tourist trade, a lot of fun. Pier 39 is a focal point with the colony of resident sea lions entertaining all. Another day we went into Haight Ashbury which is really “out there”. The centre of the drug and gay lifestyles but also touristy and non threatening. Lunched at Cha Cha Cha’s, the tapas bar Kristen and I had gone to on our previous visit. We did walk by a “vapor parlor”?? Anyway the smell coming from there made us think that Ross Regliati (sp?) was justified in saying he just hung around the marihuana guys and must have inhaled their 2nd hand smoke. The rest of the day I dragged Ken all day for miles exploring across the city ending up in China Town where the fruit and veg prices are super cheap.
We had a couple of great bike rides on our new “Bike Friday” bikes which are working out very well. We biked to Tiberon one day which is a nearby, perhaps even more expensive area than Sausalito and on another over the steep hills to Point Bonita lighthouse which we had sailed past on our way from Bodega Bay so was very cool to see it from the land side.
We had met Julia and Jim on Papillion, a 50 foot fancy cat in Canada and enjoyed meeting up with them here. They were moored in Vallejo and came over to Sausalito with their rental car a couple of times here joining us at the chili cook off and driving us up to the redwood forest area. We sailed up to Vallejo which is at the bottom of the Napa Valley and had a day driving up the beautiful valley and tasted many wines—felt like the actors in “Sideways” with the pinot noirs!!! We forsook buying any of the wines at the winery’s as our budget is feeling a little strained and instead went to the amazing discount markets where all wines are cheaper than anywhere else I have ever seen. Julia and I had a great “shopping day” where we hit Costco and various other eclectic markets. She being a gourmet cook was fun to shop with and also of course eat the great dinner she made for us.
We then came back to Angel Island, which is a state park and had a great walk to the top of hills to a panoramic view of the whole of the bay area.
Then back to Sausalito where we are now readying to leave. We will take one more day in San Fran to purchase a new camera. Ours is frustrating us with its lack of a decent telephoto capacity, anyone who has been following our blog site and saw the orca pictures; I have to confess these were taken by Kristen with her awesome camera. We found a great price on the same one and now have decided to “suck it up” and get one too. Can’t be outdone by a daughter!!!
We also have to sample some of the burritos which are apparently famous and a local reporter did a best 10 of the 100 or so he tasted so will seek some out.
Our next stop is Halfmoon Bay which is 20miles down the coast where apparently the tuna are running and Ken hopes to try his luck!! Oh boy more fish!! We will then go on to Monterey for a couple of days, then Morro Bay and down to Santa Barbara and the islands in that area.

Pics from our San Francisco sector

Off To san Francisco

We left Seattle after exploring a little and going to Pitt Street Market for 2 days. Were given a huge batch of crabs from someone on the dock so am learning to make crab cakes, crab and corn soup, crab sandwiches etc etc!!!

We then sailed to Port Angeles overnight then to Neah Bay where we spent a day readying the boat with life lines and the sea anchor and all other worst case scenario options. The weather forecast looked ok so with nervous trepidation we headed off into the Pacific. We kept waiting for the “big stuff” to hit but it wasn’t there. We had been warned to go 100 miles offshore to avoid the fog and bad weather closer in and be ready to freeze our buts off. Oh well our biggest problem was finding anything!!! We had various light winds and motor sailed for the first two days to keep our speed to 5knots. Finally on the 3^rd day we hoisted to spinnaker as the wind was right behind us and it worked well getting up to 7.2 knots. We also headed closer to shore as it didn’t seem necessary to so far out.

We definitely have personality issues with the “bobbing thing”, neither of us bob well!! I think we have both spent our lives doing, rather than watching, which has to translate to sailing too if we are to spend the next 3 years doing this. We have decided to buy more jerry cans for diesel before tackling the larger crossings!!

This one will be our longest voyage until we cross to the South Seas in May as between now and then each voyage is only a day or two.

Ken caught a great coho salmon on our first day out which became dinner for 4 nights-“fish again!!” He then hooked a LARGE tuna the next day but much to his chagrin and my relief, lost it.

We found the BIG SEAS at the end of the third day and headed back out to100 miles. We skidded along the waves which was a little disconcerting until we got used to it. The winds were gusting up to 34 knots but mostly 20 to 22. We are still getting confidence in ourselves and the boat and were probably reefed a little too much but we are learning. The watch schedule thing worked out as whoever was awake stayed up and we seemed to have our body clocks working together quite well. Ken is becoming a master at sail balance on a broad reach which seems to be our usual direction so far.

Our boat handled it all with ease and sleeping in the back cabin is so comfortable and smooth that it is easy to forget the waves. We had set up our chair inside so were able to do all of our “watches” inside very comfortably—almost felt like cheating—but I will take it!! Fortunately (although it hadn’t seemed so at the time) we had just replaced the autohelm so we had a brand new one and it performed admirably

We spent the time reading, doing sudoko and learning about all of the stuff on our fancy electronics which we hadn’t had time before and fine tuning them. I also did yoga and sewed some of the curtains I am making for the boat.

The weather forecast was deteriorating on the 5^th day and as we would have needed one more night at sea decided to go into Bodega Bay—50 miles north of San Francisco.

We arrived at dusk in a thick fog so had a little bit of a nerve racking experience anchoring among dozens of fishing boats using our radar—we are also thankful we had that as we already had 50 miles of fog before we got there.

We came alongside today for 2 nights to treat ourselves (US marinas are cheap compared with Canadian $20 a night) and cleaned up the boat. Were given enough fish for three more meals by a local fisherman—I feel fish is my future!!!

The next day the weather looked good so we then headed to San Francisco for the last day of our first voyage. We had a good sail with winds 15 to 20 knots (our boat’s favorite wind speed, a broad reach again) and it was exciting to glimpse the Golden Gate Bridge as it got closer. It was quite a thrill to sail under it in beautiful clear weather. We are now anchored in Richardson Bay, Sausalito where we have magnificent views of the city and will stay here for 2 weeks exploring before we venture further south.

All in all we didn’t have any major issues and I think we feel more able to meet whatever challenges await us.

Pictures to follow