Just Waiting

For those of you that are wondering what's going on-----not much. We spent the first 10 days making phone calls, and moving around while trying to find a months moorage, no luck while Baja Ha Ha boats were still here. We did find 10 days at the city dock but I'm still on the phone looking for moorage for the last 10 days.
The Baja Ha Ha boats (192 boats) left Mon. the 26th for Mexico and Tues. at 4 P.M. 200 miles south of San Diego one of the boats hit a whale and sank in 5 to 7 minutes, all aboard were rescued. Yesterday a Marine helicopter and a Coast Guard C-130 collided off of San Diego, so far no survivors found.
Weather is a little cool for San Diego, daytime has been hi 60's to low 70's and nights are mid 40's to low 50's but it's suppose to warm up 6 to 8 degrees next week.
I replaced the chock that we had torn off in the Delta, had to fix a diesel leak at the starboard fuel pump and clean up the diesel in the bilge, did some sanding and varnish, on the phone trying to get the last of our paper work done.
Our phones will be shut off Nov. 13th so contact will only be by e-mail or on the blog, so it may be sporadic, only when we get to an internet cafe or a marina with wireless internet.
We did see two BIG sailboats come in and watched a yacht pull out of it's slip into the bay so it's helicopter could take off (FAA wont allow them to take off while the boat is in the slip) pic's to come later.

On to San Diego

While we were home we got to spend some time with family and friends.

Passing the Queen Mary at Long Beach.

Met with a long time friend From High School at Newport Beach and had a wonderful visit.

Dana Point is a beautiful Harbor to come into.

Rock Art done by a local, all of the rocks are balanced and when the wind blows them down he comes back and re does them, no glue, no support.

This is why we were stuck an additional 3 days in Dana Point. High swell warnings until Friday so we left for San Diego Saturday. Decided to skip Oceanside due to local knowledge telling us that it is not a good harbor to enter.

The latest craze in California is paddling surfboards around the harbor and out into the ocean.

And the scenery is not too bad either! Eat your heart out guys.

Square Rigger at the Oceanography Institute.

The owner takes this out occasionally on nice weekends. Roomer is that for a 1 million dollar donation he is allowed to park the boat at the Oceanography Institute. Name of the boat is "Fighting Irish" . Notra Dame grad ya think?

Welcome to SUNNY SAN DIEGO! On the trip down from Dana Point we ran into fog about an hour out and had 1/4 to 1/2 mile visibility all the way into San Diego, thank heavens for chart plotters, GPS and radar.

Last leg to San Diego

The day before we left San Pedro LaVon had an abscess and we had to bicycle to a dentist and they had to pull a tooth, fun fun fun. We moved on to Alamitos bay to Long Beach Y.C. for two days and to Seal Beach Y.C. for one day, LaVon still had some pain so the wonderful friends we met in San Pedro came down and got us and took her back to the dentist, he said that was normal so we spent the rest of the day at our friends house, I helped him trouble shoot a problem with his new (used) diesel Pickup and stayed for pizza and, spaghetti for LaVon (she's on soft food for now.)
Alamitos Bay has shopping close by so we peddled around, called a friend in Newport Beach that I went to Hi School with and made arrangements to met with them.
Moved on to Newport Beach, stayed at Balboa Y.C. had a wonderful visit with our friends, they had us up to their home for dinner, ran us around looking for my missing chock, still no luck, they took us out to dinner the next night, had a great visit but never long enough!
Our friends are going to try to get to San Diego while we are there so Brian and I can celebrate our birthday together (same day).
After two days we moved on to Dana Point, beautiful harbor very friendly people at the Dana West Y.C. had a great dinner at the club, gleaned all the local knowledge I could and met several people that have made the trip to Mexico before.
Can't get into Oceanside until the 14th so Dana West Y.C. let us stay another day, hope the weather is OK on Thurs. There is a front moving in and we heard that there will be 10' surf at San Diego this weekend. We did have some rain last night (Mon.) here at Dana Point. Hope to get into San Diego on Fri. although we could pull into Mission Bay if it gets bad, either way it will be a 6 or 7 hr. day after a 4 hr. run on Thurs.
We saw on the weather last night that Baja is going to get hit with a tropical storm 60+ mile an hour winds and 3 to 4 inches of rain, hope theweather clears up before Nov.
That's it until we hit San Diego.
Irv

A few pics

I finally got this to download some pictures, although it downloads from bottom to top so these are in reverse order of our trip. Top is a restored "Red Car" one of L.A'.s original street cars, it runs up and down the waterfront in San Pedro.


The San Pedro Maritime Museum is in the background and the 16" gun and projectile 6' in front of the gun are from one of the Iowa Class Battleships from WWII.

When we were heading to LA we had Dolphins running under our bow just one or two feet from the boat.

Exchanging burgees with Channel Islands Yacht Club. For the non boaters a burgee is the small flag we fly on our bow showing which club we belong to and exchanging with another club signifies friendship between the two clubs.

We have been warned to watch where we anchor if we go out to one of the Islands because they have a lot of kelp beds and it not only can get wrapped up on your anchor but it can get wrapped up in your propellers and get sucked up into your cooling water intakes.

At Avila Bay we saw 50 or 60 sea lions thrashing in the water all around the bay and at one time all around our boat. We finally figured out that they were feeding on bait fish that came into the bay and the group of them moved around the bay as the fish moved, it was quite a sight to watch this huge area of churning water move around the bay.

We will be heading to Newport Beach tomorrow, weather has been low to mid 70's during the day and mid to hi 50's at night, cooler than normal. Oh well it beats 50's and 30's.

WE"RE BACK!!

Well We've been home to visit friends and family, check on my son, his cancer has returned and that means more chemo, so most of our trip home was good but not all of it was good news.
When we arrived back at the boat it was filthy from all of the fires around L.A. we spent 5 hrs cleaning. internet
We met with friends from Cabrillo Beach Y.C. and had dinner with them then moved over to L.A.Y.C. LaVon got up at 1AM Sat. morning with her jaw swollen and Mon. I had to get her into a dentist and he had to pull a tooth.
Tomarrow Tue. we will be moving to Alimitos Bay for a couple days at Long Beach Y.C. and one day at Seal Beach Y.C. From there I still have to make arrangements for moorage at Newport Beach, Oceanside, Dana Point,and then on to San Diego. We are planning to spend about a month in San Diego, this moving every 2 to 3 days is getting old but I can see why the Yacht Clubs have to limit how long someone stays on their guest dock.
I just got an e-mail from San Diego Y.C. about more paperwork, the port of San Diego wants info on all boats coming into port for the FUBAR trip and Homeland Security requires a decal for us to re-enter the US, thats two more forms and fees to send in----I need a secretary and a filing cabinet! It's a whole lot easier to go up to the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound!
I'll try to download some pictures when we have faster internet, I tried to download a picture and after 5 min. I gave up, this ATT air card is too slow.
I'll write more next time we move.
Irv