Weather Helmed

an adventure in renewing the spirit and living the dream…on a sailboat

Weather Helmed

Our first (and hopefully only) Tsunami experience (Shelter Island, San Diego)

February 28th, 2010 · Famous Firsts, Oh Crap.

Note:  The video is very unimpressive, but it was extremely disconcerting to come on deck and see our dock lines straining, and the water flooding in, knowing that if we experienced anything worse we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because Matt had all the belts off the engine! One thing Matt and I have talked about is how we would like to keep the boat ready for anything, and in this case…. well, we certainly wouldn’t have been ready to move the boat anywhere!!

And, please forgive the horrid horrid narrating done by yours truly – I’m not out of breath because it was so exciting or anything, but because up to that point, I hadn’t done anything more strenuous than drink a glass of orange juice  🙂  and I’m not actually posting this because there is anything to SEE but only because a few people wanted to see what we were seeing…

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100% totally random things I’ve learned about myself and the boat so far

February 28th, 2010 · Funny, Life on the Boat, The beginning

– I think the smell of even slightly over-cooked eggs has got to be one of the most repulsive odors ever.  (And please don’t make me clean out the leftover dried-up egginess that remains in the pan.)

– There are some socks in the world that apparently are just not compatible with my feet and end up smelling really really really really bad after being stuffed into rubber boots for 6 hours (daresay I, they may smell more bad than the forementioned eggs) aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, to Matt’s dismay, I currently own three pairs of said socks.

– Thanks to Kristen and Ray, I’ve discovered that I really like brussell sprouts.  Who knew!?!?

– The worst part of sailing so far is not the cold wind, the constant dampness, the lack of sleep… no, it’s the ENDLESS supply of dirty dishes we seem to generate that I have to spend entire days cleaning (I actually came to tears last night after laughing with Matt about this issue, finally sobbing on his shoulder, “I just don’t want to do them…”)

–  The most efficient way to broil anything in our oven is to do it one item at a time, placed almost as far to the left as you can get it, rotated 90 degrees every minute

– Just because you’re in San Diego, it won’t necessarily be 80 degrees and sunny.  It actually does rain and can be fairly crappy, wet and cold… or maybe that’s just when we’re here.

– It’s surprisingly not as hard as you’d think to use the head (i.e. toilet) when the boat is pitching violently back and forth

– Glass dishes don’t do well in gimbaled ovens (and, similarly, brownies aren’t nearly as appetizing when they have glass shards in them)

– The silly boat really likes to sail, so much so that she will strive to do more than 5 knots even with just a double-reefed mainsail!  (the desire to sail is good, but, seriously – when you decrease the sail area that much, you generally expect the boat to slow down)

– Even when you think you have everything stowed pretty well, there is always something you’ve forgotten (like the drawers in the icebox that will slide heavily back and forth, making horrible bashing and crashing sounds and making you dread opening the lid for fear that it will smell like sauerkraut and pickle juice and mustard and white wine, perhaps with some mayo on the side) or the cabinet with the cups in it that hurls a mug at you every time you open it while underway

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Cut Off

February 27th, 2010 · Introspection, Life Lessons, On Fear, Thoughts on Family

For the last six months, I have said that I would be giving up my cell phone when we finally left California. I figured that it would be nice to have as we went down the coast, where I was sure I’d have good cell service the whole time (thank you Verizon!) Now, we are here in San Diego, our last stop before Mexico and the D-Day for my little LG is fast approaching.
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And the thought of tossing my cell overboard makes my stomach twist up in fearful knots.
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As my friends and family know, I am horrible at keeping in touch. Sure, I check my facebook page religiously, but I am slow to return phone calls and can never be relied upon to actually take a call (unless it is from my mother, in which case I’m incessantly worried about whether she is ok, or from my brother, who I’m always convinced is calling me to tell me something has happened to my mom). Most everyone has figured out that I would much prefer exchanging 20 text messages over an hour to actually having a five minute conversation. Similarly, I would rather send you a ten-paragraph email than pick up the phone, although I don’t really even communicate via email that often anymore. In fact, I rarely communicate with friends and family at all, unless you count blogging and facebook comments as “communicating.”

Part of me says that this distancing from my community is naturally part of growing up and focusing on my own life and heading off on crazy adventures with my husband. The other part of me says that I’m just making excuses for my selfishness and laziness. The thing is that I genuinely LOVE my friends and desperately care about what happens in their lives. When I think about things they are struggling with, I empathize to the point that I sometimes go to bed, tearfully wondering how they are doing. Yet, do I pick up the phone to call them and ask? Maybe, but not usually. Do I send them a card or an email to let them know I’m thinking of them? Not often enough. A huge fear of mine, though, now and even before we started this trip, is that I will return to “normal life” in a year or two and no one will be waiting for me. My friends will have moved on to those friends who were around when they needed someone, who were there with them to endure the ups and downs of life. I know that I can support and encourage friends from a distance, but I know that when they are sad and need a hug or when they are celebrating a wonderful event, an email or a phone call just can’t replace the fact that I am not THERE.

That said, for so many friends, I have not been THERE in person for a long time: I have a tendency to leave whatever community I have built up. I stayed in my hometown for college and established several great friendships, then I left all that behind and moved to a town where I didn’t know anyone. Over the two years I was there, I made a few new friends and had begun to make a way for myself, and then I moved – again – to a city where I knew no one. I spent the next two years attempting to create a community, finding great roommates, getting involved with a church, making friends at work, and then I decided to go to law school – 3,000 miles away – and uprooted myself a third time. My law school experience, when it comes to friendships, was beyond amazing. I could not have asked for a more spectacular group of people to spend three years with. When our time was up, the vast majority of my class, including most of my girlfriends, all stayed on the east coast, within a 500 mile or so range of each other. I moved back to California. One thing I always had a lot of trouble with, in all these moves, was maintaining the friendships with those I left behind.

The ebb and flow of friendships is something you encounter all throughout life. There are times when you clearly “need” each other for a short period and then each moves on, a mutual understanding that the love is still there, but you no longer depend on one another to the same extent. And, of course, some friendships are not meant to go beyond a certain event or a certain time, and then other friendships become more or less significant according to what is happening in the peoples’ lives. Some friendships, for whatever reason, fall apart, and others simply grow apart. Fortunately, I have been blessed to have unbelievably good friends. Not just close friends, but people who are really good at showing me that they care, who are really good at BEING a friend. I am not so good at being a friend, or maybe it’s that I’m not so good at reciprocating the same type of behavior that those great friends show to me.

Anyway, I don’t want to make this an entirely selfish post about how I’m a bad friend. It’s just that I already feel incredibly disconnected from my friends and family because my life has become so different from theirs, and the thought of giving up my cell phone (even when I don’t really use it to maintain those connections) feels sort of like falling off the edge of the earth.

Of course, we don’t HAVE to give up our cell phones, but it makes no sense to keep them. We’re throwing at least $150 a month at them and once we head into foreign waters, service will be rare and, if we have it, the costs will just increase. And, even then, giving up the cell phone isn’t the REAL issue, it just symbolizes the lack of connection I feel, the lack of community around me, and, primarily, my insecurities and fears about the choices I’ve made to distance myself, once again, from the people I love and who love me (not including Matt of course!!)

I feel confident that my true friends will not abandon me and I hope some will even spend their vacations with us! But, I still feel strangely guilty about leaving, and not having a way for people to instantly contact me or me them… I think that my guilt over all those years of leaving friends behind and not keeping in better touch with them has finally caught up with me. I think, before, I didn’t realize or appreciate the value of a community and the value of maintaining that community. Of course, selfishly, now that *I* feel very removed from the “norm” and feel, in some ways, that *I’m* the one being left behind (even though I’m the one “leaving”), I fear that any community I may have left will not be there when I return.

I know I’m being completely overdramatic about the whole thing – it’s not as though Skype, the internet, calling cards, and stamps don’t exist! It’s not as though I couldn’t, at just about any moment, get some sort of access and communicate with someone. It’s not as though I really am falling off the edge of the earth.  But, today is one of those days when I regret that I won’t be THERE when my friend welcomes her second son, or when another friend hears her baby’s heartbeat for the first time, or when a friend needs help moving to a new apartment…  Today is one of those days when I regret that I won’t be there, and when I take a good hard look at myself and wonder if I would have been there anyway.

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Life as we know it… in San Diego

February 25th, 2010 · Adventures in the Dinghy, First Mates, Funny

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Shelter Island, San Diego – The Friendliest Place on Earth… well, within walking distance)

February 25th, 2010 · Life on the Boat, Our Route, The beginning

We arrived in San Diego too early on Monday morning for us to appreciate its beauty or anything else in life. After spending the pre-daylight hours on a quarantine buoy, we were able to move to the “Cop Dock,” a municipal dock facility offered to transients for a mere $10.50/night.  After checking in, we walked too far to get a breakfast sandwich, then walked too far back and went straight to bed, even putting off showers until we’d gotten a nap. Since then, we’ve slept a lot (though still not enough for me!) and have wandered around a bit in our dinghy and on foot. Today, we shoe-cruised up and down Shelter Island Drive which, if Fiddler’s Green ever fails to satisfy, is easily a cruiser/sailor’s alternative paradise.

I have never seen so many sailing stores in one place. I had thought that SF was a good sailing community, but compared to THIS, SF barely tolerates the sport. For those of you who drool over trigger shackles and sparkling stainless fittings, and become giddy over floor to ceiling barrels of clean, fresh line, torture yourself a little and type “marine supply san diego” into google maps and click on the area around Shelter Island and you’ll get a tiny glimpse of what we’re experiencing. Literally every other store on that street and within a two-block radius is a store revolving around sailing. Even though it’s somewhat of a main drag, we had to go about 3 blocks off of it just to find a coffee shop! 🙂

Aside from the endless sail-related storefronts, the other thing we’ve encountered here is FRIENDLY PEOPLE. Having lived in the bay area for the last few years, I’ve grown accustomed to people keeping their heads down and their headphones in, rarely saying hi or acknowledging you at all. But here, wow. Every person we’ve passed on the street has smiled and said hello. Every person we’ve asked for help has offered it kindly and graciously, with a smile. We popped into a store last night to see when they closed and what they had, then returned today to have the woman behind the counter remember us! When we randomly asked about bus schedules, she said she didn’t have one currently, but would run out to the bus and get one if she saw it drive by. Who does that?!?!?!?!!? I’m now really glad we’ve made our way relatively slowly down the coast and had encounters with such nice people because it almost is a culture shock and I’m sure we’ll only find more hospitable people the more we travel.  My brother claims it has to do with the fact that it’s generally warm and sunny here, and SD residents are thus likewise imbued with similar dispositions.  I think he may be onto something.  (Sidenote: I knew my city-attitude had become really bad when I sat in my hometown church with my mom earlier this month and every 5 minutes, I glanced at my purse next to me just to be reassured that someone hadn’t stolen it!)

We plan to be here in SD through the weekend and may stay a bit longer. I’m hoping we’ll get some of that SD sunshine soon because so far it’s been chilly and a bit overcast.  Seriously, who sleeps with a down comforter in San Diego?!?!!?!

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The Honeymoon Begins!

February 23rd, 2010 · Famous Firsts, First Mates, Introspection, Life on the Boat, Our Route, The beginning

Matt and I were married in October and even though we had a fun road-trip from CA to NJ and then had a nice relaxing three days at a beach spa/resort (thanks again Aunt Arlene & Tom!), we didn’t have a “real” honeymoon.  Those other get-aways were somewhat negated by the stress and craziness of preparing for and hosting the wedding.  So, when Pete & Ray departed last Saturday, Matt’s mom appropriately commented, “so, now the honeymoon begins,” and she’s right!  At least, I hope this part of the trip feels like a honeymoon and not like constant work and fighting for sleep.

Even though we had considered hanging out in Catalina for a while, the weather was good on Sunday so we chose to haul up our anchor(s) – yes we eventually put down two to prevent us from another midnight mooring ball incident – and departed the island.  We had a beautiful sail out of Catalina, 15-20 knots of northwest wind with about 2-3 foot swells.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about sailing out here is watching the various “moods” of the sea.  I’ve heard cliches about it before, but it’s a totally different thing when you actually SEE it.  The other morning, as we were heading into Catalina, the ocean was unbelievably flat, one of those mornings when I understood how the Pacific got its name.  As I looked across the water, oddly smooth and black as obsidian, I tried to think of how best to describe it (because black as obsidian just doesn’t capture it).  So many cliches came to mind (“liquid glass,” etc) but none of those seemed right…   Finally, I realized what the scene reminded me of:  the sea was calm and soft, with smooth rolling waves, like a down comforter that had been fluffed and gently laid upon the earth.  It was the sense of softness that my mind struggled to convey…  Later, when we were sailing down to San Diego, the water was much more lively.  Waves ran up to the boat, some jumping up at the last minute, slapping together as though they were giving each other high-5’s.  At night, the water is spooky, inky black, waves creating shadows over the rails, their troughs flashing with phosphorescence.  Even though I’ve spent a decent amount of time sitting on beaches and staring out at the water, I’ve never spent any real time on the sea like this, getting to “know” it.

The one thing that never changes, and how cliche it is!,  is how the ocean makes one feel so small and insignificant.  Even in the calmest waters, I’m overwhelmed with how inconsequential my little life seems.  One of my hopes for this trip is that I can reconnect to the deeper part of myself, the part that is self-reflective and willing to answer (or at least investigate) the larger questions of meaning.  What I’ve learned, though, is that I need complete silence – both figurative and literal – for me to do any real introspection.  When we’ve gone camping in the Sierras, in our very much off-road style, I’ve loved that life becomes so elemental.  The biggest issues one faces are do I eat now or later? do I make a fire or not? The utter isolation from “real life” refreshes my spirit in a way few other things can and in those moments I can handle, and even invite, more serious soul-searching.  I’ve had a harder time, so far, finding that same peace on the boat.  I think it’s possible, but there’s been so much activity and so many people around that I haven’t been able to feel that necessary sense of distance from the drama and problems and headaches of the everyday.  What is funny to me, and really annoying, is that despite the grandiosity of the sea and how it thus makes me feel so tiny, I still need absolute stillness and solitude around me to fully appreciate this opportunity to reflect on my world.

When Pete and Ray were here, I was impressed with Ray’s ability to journal her thoughts while sitting in the cockpit, me taking video, Pete and Matt talking boats.  She was able to focus on herself and her thoughts, analyze her situation (or whatever she was writing about) and feel as though that time and her journaling was meaningful, and she was somehow not distracted by us.  Now, I can easily record a lame diary in the presence of others, but those entries are pretty much like my blog – “Today we went to Santa Barbara.  I ate a taco.”   I mean, it’s nearly impossible for me to do any real digging when anyone else is around, even Matt.  I don’t know why that is.  It’s as though I have some bizarre fear that people will see me and, “*gasp!* she’s journaling…”  I know it’s slightly arrogant to think that people around me would give me a second thought, but then again, I do have a tendency to cry when I’m writing about certain things I’m dealing with and a woman in tears generally elicits at least some attention. It’s even stranger that I would actually care what other people think about what I’m doing, especially when it’s something as tame and common as journaling, but I’ve never claimed to be sane or rational or mature, so FYI, you’re all reading this blog at your own risk.

Anyway, even though I know it will mean less sleep for us because of shorter watch rotations, I’m looking forward to it just being me and Matt sailing down to Mexico.  Not only will we be honeymooning :), but I’ll be on watch by myself and will get the alone time I need to do the soul-searching I want.  At least, I hope that’s what my future holds outside of sail changes, weatherfaxes, and quickie naps!

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Hey Kids! This is better than TV!!!

February 23rd, 2010 · Famous Firsts, Funny, Learning to Sail, Life on the Boat, The beginning

Ok, so not quite, but this sailing stuff is at least more interesting than Jersey Shore, right?!?!?!?
Anyway:  I thought I’d share a few of our “firsts” for those who love us and so I can remember them next month when, I hope, we’ll already be old hats at all this stuff 🙂 (HAHAHA)
– First hailing: Matt to a container ship that was about 3 miles in front of us and ended up passing us within less than 1/2 a mile!
– First being hailed: An AIRCRAFT CARRIER to us just north of San Diego, informing us that they were “20,000 yards” away and suggesting we keep a “5,000 yards” distance.  I really hope they didn’t hear me when I yelled to Matt, “Can you ask them to convert that to nautical miles?!”
– First SSB contact: With Randy of SV Mystic as we were heading out of Santa Barbara.  Randy and his girlfriend are fellow cruisers who left SF a few days before us and are also on their way to Mexico.  We’ve been trying to physically meet up with them but haven’t yet managed to be in the same place at the same time!

– First Rescue Assist: In Catalina, Matt was hanging out at the little cafe and a woman nearby was trying to help a seagull with fishing line entangled around his neck.  Matt asked if he could help and he held the little guy while the woman and another man managed to unwind the line and cut it off.  When free, the seagull took a huge gulp of air and then frantically ate a handful of french fries tossed to him by a little girl.  He then just stood there and slowly looked around as though he couldn’t believe he had a new lease on life, until an enormous raven swooped in and ran him off the patio, angry that he’d missed out on the fries.


– First Anchoring Experience: After 3 days of sailing, we arrived in Santa Barbara at 2AM, unable to really see anything because of the lights of the city confusing the lights of the marina and anchorages.  We saw a pier and a nice anchoring area next to it and dropped the hook (inadvertently breaking our windlass in the process, but that’s a boring tale, Matt mentions it briefly on his blog).  We woke up the next morning to the Harbor Patrol saying, “Um, did you know you’re not allowed to park here?” and a hoard of tourists and other folk ogling us as we hauled up anchor about 200 feet away from the infamous Stearn’s Wharf. Oops.


– First Glass Breakage: This past weekend, I decided to make brownies while we were at anchor in Catalina.  Our stove/oven is “gimbaled” meaning it can be situated so that it swings back and forth with the motion of the boat, keeping the stovetop surprisingly level in all conditions.  For some reason, I thought it better to have the oven gimbaled so that, regardless of the boat rolling from the wakes of passing boats, our brownies would be level and the mix wouldn’t slosh all over.  At one point, I opened the stove to check on the brownies, at that exact moment, the boat rocked violently, Matt yelled, “OH NO!”, I looked up to see a coffee pot precariously balanced right above my head, took my eyes off the stove, and the brownies in their glass pyrex dish came sliding right out of the tilted oven.  I jumped up, straddling the galley floor, the dish flew out the oven, BOUNCED between my legs, and then came to a crashing halt near our nav table, breaking into three large pieces, brownies amazingly mostly intact.  Both of us shocked, Matt looks down and says calmly, “Well, I guess that’s one way to find out if they’re done.”
– First Request for Advice from another Cruiser: We had just pulled into the “cop dock” at Shelter Island, San Diego when another boat passed by and asked if we knew where the “long dock” was.  We pointed it out to them, noting that the only reason we knew where it was is because we came in at 4:30AM and were told to moor along a quarantine buoy across from the long dock.  Apparently, the cops are a lot nicer and more accommodating to those who come in at 4 in the afternoon.
– First Crew: Pete Dow & Ray Conner.  Thanks so much for braving the first few days with us!!


– First Offshore/Coastal Passage by Ourselves: Feb. 21, 2010  Two Harbors, Catalina to Shelter Island, San Diego!!!!!    (80 miles)

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An undesirable encounter (or Balls to the Walls)

February 20th, 2010 · Funny, Life on the Boat, Oh Crap., Our Route, The beginning

At 3:37AM (I know because we have a clock velcroed to the ceiling of the quarterberth) I awoke to an awful sound.  A dull, heavy, rolling thudthudthudthudthud echoing through the water.  “Matt!” I whispered.  “Did you hear that?” and then the dread of every cruiser – “I think our anchor might be dragging.”  Seconds later, I heard it again.  A slow thudthudthudthud. “Matt! What IS that?” I sat up, ready to jump over Matt and go check outside.  There it was again. “That is not cool.”   Matt, groggy from sleep started to slowly slide his body out of bed.

Then, “Hey,” Ray shouts from the v-berth, right under the windlass and just behind the chain locker where our anchor is ultimately secured to the boat.  “Matt! I think you’re letting out rode!”  Rode is fancy sailor lingo for the chain or rope that is attached to the anchor.

We all throw on clothes and scramble up on deck.  The cove could not be calmer, with light wind and ripply little waves.  We’re slightly confused and then we hear a new noise, a crude, but gentle thumping, and we see it – our dinghy, which was secured by a short line to the stern of the boat, was unabashedly hooking up with a mooring stick while the mooring ball jealously bumped against us.

We had intentionally anchored close to a mooring field.  A mooring field is basically a parking lot for boats.  There are pre-set anchored floaties that you can tie your boat to (using the mooring stick) instead of throwing down an anchor yourself.  Just like a parking lot, mooring fields help maximize the number of boats you can get into an area and prevent boats from taking too much swinging room. When we set our anchor the other day, we considered our tiny cove and Matt sensibly rationalized that if we dragged anchor or the wind shifted, etc., it was better to roll up on a mooring buoy than on the rocks.  So, when we saw our dinghy in its amorous embrace with a mooring stick, we were appropriately surprised, but not entirely shocked.

While our dinghy lovingly caressed the slender figure, its sulky mooring ball lingered close by clinging to our hull, the petulant wingman.  We yanked the dinghy alongside the boat like a naughty child and untangled ourselves from the mooring lines.  Matt pulled up some of our anchor rode to put distance between us and the temptress and we all went back to sleep…

Until ten minutes later when we hear an insistent banging against the hull.  Apparently the mooring ball was upset that our dinghy abandoned its friend without so much as a kiss goodnight.  Matt and I go up on deck to see the ball beating the boat, the mooring stick bobbing shyly in the background.  Matt hauls in some more rode, we stare down the mooring ball, and we return down below.

A half hour passes, and I hear a subtle, then not-so-subtle metal tapping.  I am debating whether it’s something outside or simply our pots and pans shifting around in the cabinets when the sound goes away.  I hear it again about 20 minutes later.  This time, I realize that it’s the mooring stick wondering if maybe our dinghy can come back out to play, perhaps they can watch the sunrise together?  I wake Matt up and we go up top again to see the unrelenting stick hiding behind our wind steering device.  Seagulls perched on nearby mooring balls laugh mercilessly as we stand in the early light figuring out what to do.

We decide to set a second anchor to prevent us from drifting back into the mooring field.  Winds are expected to shift mid-morning and there’s no need to disturb our nicely set primary anchor.  Matt revs up the dinghy and heads out to drop the second anchor, only to realize after he’s dropped it and let out all 300+ feet of the rode, that he’s short of the boat by about 20 feet. He looks back at me from the dinghy, smiling sheepishly, holding the last bit of line in his hand.  Reluctantly, he starts pulling up all that line and then resets the anchor.

Exhausted when he returns, he hands me the line and tells me to winch it in so our stern is turned into the wind, putting us bow-on to the mooring field.  Almost 40 minutes later, Matt is sprawled out in the cockpit asleep, I’ve seen a lovely sunrise and my arms are aching from winding in all that rode.  BUT –  we are free from the mooring lines and shouldn’t have to worry about any flirtatious sticks or our anchors if this coming storm turns out to be anything interesting.

Needless to say, we learned several lessons this morning and I feel fairly lucky that this is the most excitement we’ve seen so far  🙂

*not a picture of our mooring pair, but it looks just like it!!! borrowed the photo from another cruising couple SV-Sagittaire

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Hanging out in Catalina

February 19th, 2010 · Our Route, The beginning, The Crew

After another day or so of motoring and floating around the (currently) aptly named Pacific, we motored into Two Harbors at Santa Catalina Island.  We initially tried to anchor outside of Cherry Cove, which brought back fun memories of a college Intervarsity Retreat, but ended up in Little Fisherman’s Cove, a short dinghy ride away from the pier/facilites at the harbor.  There is a storm headed our way, so we’ll be getting a good lesson in trusting our anchor.

Pete and Ray are leaving us tomorrow, so it will just be Matt and I.  Yes, this makes me a little nervous, but it will be nice to have the boat all to ourselves too.  🙂

Our plan is to wait out the storm here and then maybe do some day trips around Catalina, then head to San Diego to pick up some stuff before heading into Mexico.    Hope to write more interesting stuff and post some pictures soon! 🙂

K

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Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz to Catalina

February 18th, 2010 · First Mates, Life on the Boat, Our Route, The beginning, The Crew

Because Pete and Ray didn’t have much time left with us and the wind wasn’t cooperating for a fast trip to, well, anywhere we wanted to go, we decided to head from Santa Barbara over to Santa Cruz island just across the channel.  We ended up motoring most of the way, but it was a gorgeous day and the dress onboard went from fleece and beanies to flipflops and bikinis, which was quite welcome.  We anchored at Scorpion Cove on the southeast end of the island.  It was pretty, but didn’t look particularly exciting.  Plus, all I really wanted to do was sleep and be significantly lazy in the sun.  On our way into the anchorage we were joined by frolicking sea lions and even saw the tip of a whale’s tail as it dove into the horizon.  Pete and Ray ventured over to the island and went for a quick hike only to discover that there was a national park visitor’s center just out of sight of the boat, with a full fledged museum honoring the history of sheep and pig farming on the island.  Needless to say, I was glad I didn’t feign the energy to join them for that excursion 🙂

We left Scorpion the next day to head to Catalina and literally bobbed around less than 3 miles from where we had left for most of the day, as in H.O.U.R.S.   Matt wandered around in his shorts and visor, smiling and saying, “I’m in no rush! Are you?”  A few dolphins came flashing up beside our boat but soon realized that we weren’t moving at all and dashed off.  Is it funny that I felt a little embarrassed about that?

That evening, the wind picked up and we had Jon’s drifter flying yet again and the boat was pulling 5-6knots and it was a BEAUTIFUL night and Matt and I were enjoying our evening watch.  As we approached Long Beach harbor, a major shipping channel, I looked up from my book and we were enveloped in dense fog.  It had been patchy for a while, and we were being careful to monitor the AIS and radar when needed, but I was still a little surprised.  It was EERIE.  But, thanks to AIS, we knew where we were and where all the other big mean boats were the entire time.  That AIS is incredible.  I know it doesn’t show everyone, but the fact that it shows the enormous, fast cargo boats that could munch up our Syzygy in seconds… that’s really really nice (that we can see them, not that we can be a quick snack!)

At 2am, Matt and I were exhausted and eager to wake Pete and Ray up to take the helm.  Of course, the wind died at the same time and we all spent what were probably the most miserable 6 hours of the whole trip rolling uncomfortably side to side, not sleeping, and not moving more than 500 feet.  At 6am, the boat still groaning and shifting erratically, I shouted at Matt, “CAN WE PLEASE JUST TURN THE ENGINE ON FOR AN HOUR?”  It’s not that I like the engine being on or that I like the smell of exhaust or the awful sound it makes in our bedroom, but for the love of all that is holy, the engine could straighten the boat out and at least make the rolling bearable so I could get some sleep.

Matt either honestly didn’t hear me or ignored me completely and I fumed for the next two hours.

When we got up at 8am, I could barely speak to him when Pete and Ray, also grumpy, went to bed, and Matt turned the engine on and we motored our entire watch. Oh sure, for them, he would turn the engine on, I thought.  But not for me, his gentle, loving wife, who makes him coffee in the mornings and spoons him when he’s cold and makes him laugh in rough times.  No, I had to SUFFER for six hours.  It took me an embarrassingly long time to start acting like an adult again and not like a 2yr old who missed her nap.

We made it to Catalina in one piece and are anchored and it’s lovely out, and there are showers, and a laundromat, thank goodness, and french fries at a little cafe on shore, and internet access, and I’m going to bake brownies, and we’re going to have mimosas, and did I mention the laundromat?  because my socks smell really really bad.

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