In San Diego…12.29.07

We arrived in San Diego Saturday at approx 1:45pm. We had a nice motor down the coast from Oceanside and we are currently tied up at Southwestern Yacht Club . We have a wonderful view of the channel and can see lots of boats coming and going. It’s been nice and sunny here, but still cold – in the low 60’s. As long as you stay out of the breeze and in the sunshine, you’re OK. We are somewhat removed from most everything and have nice big walks to go anywhere. When we arrived, we took a dark, unlit, jagged path over to dinner and back to the yacht club to watch the football game.

Sunday Michael & I walked around town to see what’s around here and the days & times the key places were open. We hit West Marine, Seabreeze Books, checked out Downwind Marine, the location of the Laundromat, San Diego Marine Exchange, searched for a newspaper, had brunch at Red Sails Restaurant, and came back to the boat. Chad had met a friend for breakfast and his Mom drove down for a visit in the late morning. Michael & I returned from our walk to visit with his Mom and then we got cleaned up & headed to a movie!

Going to a movie is sooo easy when you know the area and have transportation! We have learned very quickly that getting around on public transportation takes about 3 times as long. We left here around 4:45 and took a bus, then the trolley, then another bus to the mall, had dinner, caught the 6:30 movie “National Treasure – book of secrets”, then caught another trolley back to a bus and finally back to the boat by about 10:00pm.

We’ve been amazed at how friendly everyone has been in San Diego. We’ve experienced some cool ‘acts of kindness’ and everyone here has been so helpful in terms of getting us safely to our destination. We explained to the bus driver when we boarded that we were ‘newbies’ and he gave us a ton of information, pointed key things out to us, and generally made our lives a lot easier for the next couple days. Then when we finished at the movie, we were having a tough time finding the next trolley station when we stopped and asked for directions from a security guard in a golf cart. Not only did he tell us where we needed to go, but gave us a lift in his golf cart, on the other side of the mall, to where we needed to start from. And when we did make it to the trolley, we were running towards it as it was getting ready to leave and some guy who saw us pushed the magic ‘doors open’ button for us so we could make the trolley! I can go on and on really, it’s been a nice experience.

Today Michael & I took off again on our busses, trolleys, & trains (oh my!) to get to downtown to the Officina de Pesca to purchase our Mexican fishing licenses. We have to have a license for the boat, dinghy, & everyone on board, regardless of who will be fishing. So a quick trip into town, a money order for $292, and a couple pieces of paper later…we’re all set! Then we set off to the mall to find a new digital camera. We found a Best Buy but I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I’ll do some research and then we’ll head out again later in the week. We made our way back on the bus & trolley and after a quick stop at West Marine and a looonnnggg walk back to the boat, we arrived at about 4pm. I think in the last 3 days we’ve put a million miles on our feet walking around this city!

There are two weather fronts coming our way in the next 3-5days or so – a cold front is coming down first and then a southern storm is coming up, bringing rain. So we will more than likely stay in San Diego until those pass, which looks like it’ll be Sunday or so. We still have some minor work to do on the boat and the days are flying by! We’ve been taking advantage of our reciprocal privileges most of the way down the coast and each yacht club has rules of how long you can stay free of charge. Most of the time you can stay at a yacht club for 3-4 days free of charge. We’ll need to move the boat as our days will come to an end here at Southwestern on Wednesday. We chose to stay here first as a previous owner of our boat, Nick Olson, has been a member here for a number of years and lived aboard this boat, in this harbor, in the 70’s. So she has some history here. Wednesday we’ll move the boat over to San Diego Yacht Club for the next 3 days. They have a pool & Jacuzzi – yeah!!

Of course tonight is New Year’s Eve so Michael & I are going to head out soon and enjoy some local entertainment – they even have fireworks down on the harbor. Tomorrow we’ll catch up a little bit and possibly hit a museum or two – although we’ve been so busy enjoying the town we haven’t had time to sit & relax! Chad found a fun little game we’ve been playing with – you should check it out. It’s a docking game where you try to dock a boat with differing levels of wind & current. It’s pretty fun! http://www.madmariner.com/docking_game

Best wishes to everyone for a happy, healthy New Year – may it be the best one yet!
Love,
Rene & Michael

Oceanside Yacht Club….12.28.07

{GMST}33|12.59|N|117|23.76|W|Oceanside Yacht Club|On I dock{GEND}
We pulled into Oceanside Harbor yesterday approx 2:30 and were welcomed by Rick, the dockmaster at Oceanside Yacht Club. We tied up, cleaned up, and went for a walk around the harbor. We decided to have dinner at Monterrey Bay Canners and then went to the Yacht Club to socialize with the members, have a cocktail, & sit by the nice warm fireplace! It’s still cold out here – temperatures haven’t been above 60 (it’s 55 right now and overcast skies)….we’re ready to hit Mexico and get into some warm weather!

We’re coasting down the coast now headed to San Diego. It’s an incredibly calm day – the water is glassy & the clouds are reflecting off the water. We should be in by 2pm or so. We’re going to stay at Southwestern Yacht Club for the next 3 days. Here's a picture of how calm it is!

In San Diego, we have plans to replenish some provisions, pick up some parts (head service kits, waterproof bags, a new camera, gloves, etc) and a couple tools that we can’t seem to find. Michael & I want to hit some of the museums & touristy stuff and we’ll report on what we found! We also have to purchase our Mexican fishing licenses & prepare for our departure to Ensenada. And of course, laundry, cleaning, & organizing the boat again! We've also decided it's time to change the music selection - we've been listening to the same stuff since we left and are pretty sure we've listened to each song about 50 times!!

I forgot to mention in my last post that the dockmasters of Balboa Yacht Club in Newport - Matt & Ray - were fantastic – and took care of us with a nice slip with fresh water, keys, and directions for what ever we wanted! When we were motoring down the coast yesterday, the clouds were rolling over the mountains and left a pretty cool picture - it looked like a mountain range was in the background....but it was just an optical illusion of the clouds. Check it out!



More to follow….
Rene

An evening in Avalon....12.27.07

{GMST}33|36.329|N|117|53.108|W|Balboa Yacht Club|Slip 25{GEND}
Well, Avalon wasn't very nice to us...again! In fact, we've decided we've had enough of Avalon and took off this morning. Last night, the winds started to blow and piped up to about 22-28 with gusts to 40, but the swells were brutal - there were the constant swells coming in and then the bounceback from hitting the walls and bouncing back out. We had attached a bridle to our bow mooring line, which keeps the noise down and reduces chafing, but with the amazing amount of surging & flopping we had, the line chafed through and at the stroke of midnight, we came free from our bow mooring line. We were all in bed, listening to the noises, when BAM! and then all of a sudden there was quiet....not a good sign in a blow. We all hopped out of bed and the boat had already turned 90 degrees. Thank goodness there were no boats around us to hit and the stern line held just fine. We were within inches of hitting the mooring ball behind us but luckily it was only starting to hit the bowsprit. We started the engine & hailed Harbor Patrol on the radio who were out there in seconds and had a line on us within about a minute. They pulled the bow of our boat back around and Michael & Chad secured the bow on the mooring line, then they had us toss them another longer line which they secured to a second mooring line. The whole thing took approx 15 minutes, amazingly. I have a video, but again, it's pretty bad. It's dark & you can only see the Harbor Patrol boat and only a couple times can you see Michael & Chad on the bow of the boat. Also, because of the size of the video, I had to change it into a different format to get it small enough to be able to upload to the site. I'm not a good photo or video editor....so I hope it's OK.

We had planned to leave Avalon about 3:30 this morning but instead decided to turn off all alarms and get up when we woke up after all the excitement. We were up around 8:45 and after checking the weather and winds, decided to just head over to the mainland to Newport Harbor. We arrived in Newport around 2pm and were given a nice comfy slip to stay the night. We walked over to BJ's for dinner and are back on the boat now, looking forward to a nice evening without the rocking & rolling & hideous noises of the last two nights. The boat was given a nice fresh-water washdown when we arrived. The motor-sail over was beautiful - temperature in the 60's and sunshiny. The wind piped up to about 20 knots, but was perfect. Tomorrow, we're going to head over to Oceanside Harbor, which is about half way to San Diego, or approx 35 miles. We'll stay the evening in Oceanside, then head to San Diego on Saturday. We're in no hurry so we decided to take our time & enjoy the trip down.

More to follow... Cheers!

Rene & Michael

Adventure awaits you….12.27.07

That’s what the fortune cookie said – Adventure awaits you. We thought it was a nice touch since we we’re getting ready to take off on our grand adventure so it came aboard with us. But after our last couple adventures, we figured it may just be bringing us all of these adventures and we just didn’t need any help! So in a most ceremonial way, the fortune cookie paper was torn up and thrown into Davy Jones locker….we didn’t need any more adventures like we’ve had the last week! Maybe that’ll help our luck….we’ll see!!

More to follow… Cheers!Michael & Rene

Dolphins! 12.27.07

It’s always exciting & considered a good sign when you see dolphins and on our crossing from Avalon to Newport, we had a pod of them joins us and race the bow of our boat for about 10 minutes. It was extremely cool. It started with just 3 of them, then more and more joined in the fun. They were jumping out of the water & racing along with us for several minutes, and chatting away! Again, the video is very jumpy…but I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did! I’ll never tire of seeing dolphins as you can tell from my shrieks of joy & woohoo's! So just ignore those...and enjoy the rest!

In Avalon…12.26.07

{GMST}33|20.727|N|118|19.448|W|Avalon|Mooring 208{GEND}
We headed out of Cat Harbor and around to Avalon today. The winds were really light and we motored the entire way. We didn’t see more than 10 knots the whole trip. It was a beautiful sunshiny day, in the 60’s again. We still didn’t see any dolphins or whales but we watched a couple of bald eagles soaring around the island. Our original plan was to spend Christmas in Avalon, but since the Santa Ana winds kicked up we decided to stay in Cat Harbor. The only real reason we wanted to come over to Avalon was to get a Cheese Crisp pizza from Antonio’s….that and cut a couple hours off of our next passage, which we’ll head out for tomorrow morning at o-dark-thirty (3:30am…it should take us approx 12 hours to make it to San Diego). The pizza was just as fantastic as we remember. It’s a simple pizza – garlic, cheese & peppercini’s.…yummy!

It should be another rock & roll night - the red flag is already up indicating a small craft advisory, which means winds are expected to be between 22 and 33 knots of wind in the next 12 hours. We told harbor patrol we were planning to leave early so he placed us very near the main channel of the harbor so it should be a quick exit tomorrow. Think of us at 3:30!! :-) And if you're up and want to watch.... check out the webcam link... ;-)

This picture was from the pier – it has the Casino on the very left hand side and AheaKali is the sailboat on the very right side of the picture.



We decided since we were only going to be here for a few hours to take the shoreboat into town instead of getting our dinghy out – wow! $4.75/per person/each way! It was $32 for one day on a mooring here in Avalon. In Cat Harbor, we paid $68 for the week! And remember those quarter showers? Here in Avalon, it’s $2 for 5 minutes of hot water. We had plenty of hot water from our motor over here so we all showered on the boat before going ashore.

The below is a video from our camcorder. I know, it’s not very good….in fact I should warn you….it’s not for anyone who gets motion sickness easily! But I’m learning so hang with me. This was shot from our boat once we were moored up. Starting at the beginning is the Casino building, which there is no gambling, then the city of Avalon and around to the docks & ending up at the Cruise Ship! There were two cruise ships in port today, which gave us lots of people to watch!

Speaking of videos, there was another one that I posted on the “Cat Harbor” posting – it’s the crazy bad picture of Michael at the end of the post – if you haven’t checked it out, please do! Just press the arrow button at the bottom of the picture for it to play. Like I said, I hope to get much better taking these videos….but hope you enjoy them.

OK, it’ll be a couple days until my next post. Happy hump day! More to follow…
Rene

Merry Christmas! 12.25.07

Just a quick post to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! We hope you're all spending time with the ones who matter most. We're having a wonderful time out here and enjoy getting your e-mails and notes of encouragement!

The Santa Ana winds piped up last night and we rocked & rolled most of the evening. We woke up this morning and I made some homemade cinnamon rolls...yum! We're being lazy this morning, running the generator, making ice (Michael fixed the icemaker this morning), making some iced tea & making the Christmas phone calls. We're having our lobster for dinner, some rice, & asparagus. We plan to enjoy the sunshine this afternoon.

At this point, we're still planning to head over to Avalon tomorrow as long as the weather report is clear. I'll write more later!

Love & happiness to you all....
Rene & Michael

Finally…a relaxing day! 12.24.07

It was an amazing day – nothing broke, no grand adventures, wow – this must be what cruising is all about! :-) Today we had a truly relaxing day. We piddled around the boat in the morning, then headed up to the restaurant for lunch. Michael and I took off on a hike and Chad did some grocery shopping for dinner stuffs & headed to the boat for a relaxing day. Michael and I hiked for about 2-3 hours – took off on the Banning Trail and then headed over to Ballast Point. We estimate it was about 8-9 miles. If you follow this link…. the click on the link that says "Side 1 Zoom 1" you can see Catalina Harbor where we’re moored. I can't seem to link to that one, sorry. The on the right hand side of the map, you can see the Banning House Road which stops at the bottom of the picture. We hiked that whole road, then you can see Ballast Point, which we basically went from Banning House Road to Ballast Point and back again. There were some awesome views – check out our pictures (thanks to Chad for letting me borrow his camera!) Also, there’s a cool webcam of the Isthmus (the other side of Two Harbors, where we’re located) here…

Once we finished our hike, I took a shower at the showers on the island – 25¢ for about 5 minutes of hot water. It felt wonderful. I met Michael & Chad at the bar and we headed back to the boat for a home-cooked dinner of tri-tip, potatoes, salad, & bread courtesy of Chad. We’re planning to play a couple games of Rummikub and possibly enjoy a movie – I’m hoping to see Elf…since it is Christmas Eve!

Yesterday afternoon was also nice and relaxing. After Chad fixed the dinghy engine (Michael was very busy bilge diving for parts, tools, & stuff that Chad needed to fix it!) we headed into town with 2 bags of clothes and headed to the Laundromat. We laughed as we realized we had only been gone for 3 days and already we had 3 loads of laundry! We must be doing something wrong… oh wait, what I forgot to mention from yesterday’s fun was all 3 of us were freshly showered, in fresh clean clothes….before flipping the dinghy. So we had towels & dirty clothes in those backpacks too – and fresh clean clothes on….which now had to be laundered. Once laundry was finished, we visited with some other boaters at the bar & then headed home to the boat for dinner & a movie. We haven’t met any other ‘cruisers’ yet, but lots of other boaters hanging out for Christmas. In fact, lots of other boaters with young kids!

Michael took apart the digital camera and its toast. So we’re on the market for a waterproof digital camera while we’re in San Diego. Our ice maker isn’t working too, which Michael will take apart tomorrow. Hopefully he can get it up and running or we will have to resort to purchasing ice…. Haha…

We’ll update tomorrow, but wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!! We’re thinking of you all and love hearing from you all! We miss you lots…

More to follow – Cheers!!
Michael, Rene, & Chad

Michael rowed the boat ashore, hallelujah!.....12.23.07

They say there are those that have…..and those that will. Well, we’ve finally graduated into the ‘those that have’ category. We flipped the dinghy on a beach landing. Looking back on it, we learned a ton of things. Let me set the scene for you.

We had just come from a leisurely lunch on land and were dinghy’ing back to the boat when I had the wild idea that we check out the coastline since it was such a beautiful day – the sun was shining, I was dressed nice and warm, and the temp was probably 65 or so. Now when I say I was dressed warm, I was wearing my heaviest black sweater, a heavy water resistant jacket, jeans, & ugg boots. Michael & Chad were both in shorts, t-shirts, & flip flops. I was snapping away pictures and we cruised for about a mile and a half to two miles. We were commenting on how nice the beaches looked, and decided to go in to check one of them out. The surf wasn’t breaking, it looked nice and mellow. Chad put his money & phone into his pocket, I put the camera in my jacket pocket, and the movie camera was in my other pocket. Michael’s backpack was in the forward V of the dinghy, Chad’s was beside me. I had taken off my ugg boots to prepare to run the dinghy up the shore and we started coming in for a landing…. suddenly there were a string of 3 breakers…..and the 2nd one tossed us. People say things like this happen in slow motion…..this wasn’t the case for us. The dinghy tossed upside down – everyone and everything went flying and it happened so quickly that all 3 of us think that time actually sped up during those 20 seconds or so. Michael & Chad cleared the dinghy when it flipped, I ended up underneath it. When I finally surfaced I could only hear “flip the dinghy over” and “grab the stuff”. I went scrambling for everything – I managed to get the backpacks, the camera bag, one ugg boot, one flip flop and a life preserver. Meanwhile Michael & Chad were dragging the boat up onto the beach. Once the dinghy was safely up the shore, and drained a bit, we decided to get the heck back out of there as the tide was rising and there seemed to be more and more breakers hitting the beach. The dinghy engine was soaked and wouldn’t start so we’d be rowing it out of there. We timed it perfectly, everyone got on the boat, the dinghy wheels were raised and we rowed out of there. We found my other ugg boot, but decided against looking for Michael’s other flip flop.

We traded off rowing & paddling back to the boat, Chad & I paddled while Michael tried to revive the engine and then we would switch and Michael would row while we rested. I had changed my soaking wet sweater for a spare t-shirt before we headed out which was smart since everything I wore weighed a ton wet!! We decided the theme song for the day would be “Michael rowed the boat ashore, hallelujah!” We also decided that I could survive underwater a lot longer than the dinghy engine….a redeeming quality if I’ve ever heard one! hahaha. Oh, c’mon, you have to have a sense of humor during these things!! We got about half way back when a nice man & his son on a commercial fishing vessel came over and asked us if we needed a tow back in. Of course, we GLADLY accepted!

Back at the boat we were all completely FROZEN!! And wouldn’t you know it….one of the items that was lost was the KEY to the boat! Doh!! Haha…. So Michael figured out a way to get inside without destroying something while Chad unloaded the stuff from the dinghy and rinsed the stuff out.

So what did we learn?
Never, ever, think a dinghy landing is a breeze.
Always, no matter what, secure everything before attempting a dinghy landing.
Take a VHF radio with you, no matter where you go! (Not as if we’d use it, we were in no danger, but it reminded us to have one with us at all times anyway).
Secure all of the ‘important’ stuff in waterproof bags & secure it to the boat.
Swimming suits are required for any dinghy ride!

Long story short, we got lazy, did something stupid, and forgot for a moment that Mother Nature & the power of the sea are in control, not us. That won’t happen again!!

No one was hurt – sure, there were a couple of bumps & bruises & some stiff & sore backs & necks, we lost a set of keys, some change, Michael’s hat (how many will we have to bring with us to last the 6 months!), his ‘favorite’ pair of sunglasses, & his flip flop. And of course, some bruised egos. Luckily, no one was there to see us! A bonus!! The only thing that didn’t make it was the camera – apparently it isn’t waterproof and I haven’t been able to revive it. When we purchased the camcorder, we looked long and hard at a non-waterproof one but the thing we kept worrying about was that it might get wet. That was a good decision. It works perfectly fine even after it’s dunking. So when we’re in San Diego, we’ll be camera shopping. It’s a bummer because this little camera has been so good to us! Until then, Chad has lent me his camera to use.

After a warm shower, a good dinner, & a movie, we all crashed & even slept in a bit this morning. Michael & Chad worked on the dinghy engine and was able to get it working by noon. This afternoon we plan to dinghy into town so we can do a load or two of laundry (all of the salt soaked items) and try to relax. We owe a drink to the nice fisherman who towed us in and we have a friend of a friend on the island that we were supposed to meet up with yesterday that we have to find & apologize for standing up!

The weather looks like Santa Ana’s are going to hit so for now we’re planning to hang out here for a while. We’re paid up through the week so we’ll see how it goes.

It’s been an action packed couple of days…hahaha….I’ve enjoyed it and find it pretty exciting. Michael’s ready to have nothing happen. Hey, isn’t that the cruising life? Fixing the boat in exotic places! Poor Michael…..the first day out it rained, the second day we got our butts kicked on the crossing, the third day he had to fix the head in the morning (a frustrating task!) and then rolled the dinghy during a landing, had to row the boat back, lost his stuff….he just needs a nice calm day! He keeps questioning this cruising life! Hahaha….

So that’s the cruising life so far – I hope you’re enjoying hearing about it all. I look forward to the comments that everyone is posting! Thanks!!

More to follow….Cheers!
Michael, Rene, & Chad

Hello from Cat Harbor, Catalina!...12.22.07

{GMST}33|25.928|N|118|30.310|W|Cat Harbor Catalina|Mooring E9{GEND}
We've made it over to Cat Harbor, Catalina - woohoo! We left Channel Islands on Thursday, the 20th around 10:20 to a Small Craft Advisory. We made a quick stop on our way out to visit with Michelle & Andy Volaski, the owners of Andy's Seafood and the Scarlett Belle paddlewheel boat in the harbor for some fresh caught lobsters - our Christmas dinner! Be sure to check out the Scarlett Belle when in Channel Islands Harbor - it's a beauty!! (http://www.scarlettbelle.com/) We motored across to Smuggler's
it was about 60 degrees, overcast, and slightly bumpy. We ran with the Autopilot to make sure it was still calibrated. We arrived approx 1:30pm and anchored in 35' water. We knew there was supposed to be a little wind, so we let out approx 200' of chain. We arrived just as it started to rain - not a hard rain, just enough to get Michael & Chad a bit wet while they were anchoring. I stayed dry at the wheel...haha. :-) Once we arrived, we popped a bottle of Champagne, Chad cleaned the lobster,
and we relaxed! We had a nice lasagna dinner & watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3. The wind switched up around 2:30am as the Santa Ana's started up. We upped anchor around 5:00 (o-dark-thirty) and headed out in the dark. I'm still getting used to navigating in the dark, but luckily Chad is a great teacher and there were no problems.

The passage over to Cat Harbor was a little lumpy. The weather reports predicted 10-15 mph winds, no problem!! However, we experienced a different trip...the wind & seas started as only 17mph from the NW but continued to build on our passage over - it was over 25mph for about 3-4 hours and was over 40mph for over an hour, all on the beam. The seas were only 4-6ft, but the swells were short & steep which means we were bounced around a lot and kept getting splashed. It was cold & wet on the majority
of the sail over and everything not tied down came loose and bounced all over the boat! We now have a clear understanding of what also needs to be more secured! There wasn't that much, but it sure made a mess!

We motor sailed for about an hour, then put up all of the sails and sailed for the majority of the way. When it started to get lumpy, we reefed the genoa, reefed it again, rolled it up, reefed the main, pulled out about 15' of the genoa to stabilize us out, and then the wind really started to pipe up so we left it alone! Finally the wind & seas settled about an hour before we hit land and by the time we arrived at Cat Harbor, it was only blowing about 10mph. We picked up a mooring in Cat Harbor
and are sitting on E-9 right now. The plan is to stay here until the 24th and then head over to Avalon, but that will depend on what happens with the weather. They're calling for Santa Ana winds on Sunday so we'll see what we do. If it's heavy wind, we'll stay here cause it's much more safe than Avalon - which is where were last time! Once we arrived we cleaned up, showered, & checked with Harbor Patrol, hit the mini-mart for bloody mary mix ($12 a bottle!) and headed to the restaurant & bar
for dinner and the famous local 'Buffalo Milk' mixed drinks. They would have been so much better if they weren't FROZEN! It's been freezing fricking cold since we left - the air temp was 60 degrees & on the way over never was over 54 degrees. Right now its 59 degrees but we're seeing sun and it's starting to get nice. We have chores planned for this morning - Michael is working on the rear head that decided to foul just as we left Channel Islands Harbor, he's working on that right now and getting
incredibly frustrated! Chad has been adjusting the mooring lines since Santa Ana's are planned & is working on installing the jack lines. I'm, well, I'm updating the website! We are having a good time so far although that's just me talking! Since Michael's back in the head cursing and complaining....he might have another word to call it. hahaha... We're running the generator right now, running the refrigerator & freezer, making some iced tea, running the watermaker, & possibly some ice pretty
soon. We still have to rinse off the boat & do some general chores which should take us to lunch time. Time flies when you're having fun! :-) I'll try to get some pictures on the website...but am trying to send this over our SSB to ensure it works.

Thanks for checking in! Feel free to drop us an e-mail!
More to follow... Cheers!
Rene, Michael & Chad...

So....are you ready? 12.20.07

That's the question we've heard the most lately. And truthfully, the answer is that we're as ready as we can be. The boat's ready, Michael's ready, and I was born ready! haha. Seriously, last time we were so no ready compared to this time. We're looking forwarding to 'starting' the journey. And the time is finally here!

So yes, we're soooo ready! Now don't get me wrong....there's still plenty of items to do, but nothing major that must be done before we leave.

More to follow... :-)

It's that time! Woohoo! 12.19.07

OK, so are you tired of hearing how busy we've been lately?!? Well, here's another installment of it....haha. OK, so yesterday we did a whole bunch of work during the morning (Michael has lists....that detail out the morning, noon, & night tasks that we follow to the tee...) and around 1pm, we headed out to Palm Springs to meet with Michael's family. We drove both cars - and left the Lexus there for Jennifer & Walter to sell for us. It's been raining the last 3 days and we drove the entire drive (3 1/2 hours) in the rain. We arrived and met with Michael's Dad, Doug, then went to see Michael's Mom & Pete, then over to Jennifer & Walter's for dinner. We left the car there and drove the Jeep back - again - in the rain. We got home around 11pm and crashed.

Today was another busy, busy day....everyone got up, showered, & headed out to Vons (the local grocery store) for final provisioning. Then we came home and I was given the task to put it all away while Michael & Chad went for the afternoon tasks - Mail, meeting with the landlord, dealing with the Electric Boats, & some minor errands. Then they came back to the boat and Michael took me to the Laundramat and headed to Storage to clean up everything and get it ready for the Jeep for tomorrow. A quick trip for me to the Dr and dinner at Jimi's for Sushi.

Tomorrow we're headed out! It's finally that time! Woohoo!! There's still some errands to do in the morning - Michael's made the list-o-things to do and it's alreay 9 deep! Luckily for me....my list was all crossed off today so I'll only have to stay at the boat to ready it for sailing. We're heading over to Santa Cruz island tomorrow at an anchorage named Smuggler's. It'll take approx 3 hours to get there, no problem! Once we get there we'll pop a bottle of champagne - and celebrate getting out of the harbor! We'll stay the night there and then will head over to Catalina Island the following morning to an anchorage called Two Harbors. It'll take approx 10 hours to get there. The weather has been rainy the last 3 days and temperature in the 6o's. We're hoping for nice weather tomorrow - right now there's a 30% chance for more rain and temperatures in the 50's. Brrr! But from tomorrow on, it is supposed to be beautiful sunny days for the next 10 days! Woohoo! We'll spend a couple days in at Two Harbors, then will head over to Avalon. So we won't be able to send many updates in the next couple days.

We have had some wonderful friends come by & visit and call this week and it's been fabulous to visit with them all. We're so blessed to have such wonderful friends & family supporting us. Much love to you all for following us and reading our logs!

More to follow.... :-)

Getting closer... 12.17.07

We're only 3 days away until departure and the days sure seem to be flying by! Friday was Rene's last day at Livingston. There was a very nice luncheon given and Michael even attended! As much as I hate to admit, I'll miss everyone there very much. Saturday was bookwork - finishing up all of the business taxes for year-end so the accountant can file all of the final taxes for us. We laughed as we looked around and there were 3 computers up and running to accomplish this task!

Sunday was our 'normal' routine - get up, read the paper with some coffee, get ourselves organized and do laundry! Fun. fun! We had an 'open boat' party and invited some of the people who have neve seen the boat to come by.

Monday started our whirlwind week. It was shopping day! We started out the day at Fry's, then to Best Buy, then back to Fry's (we purchased a camcorder), then to the Guitar Center for a new guitar case, then Lunchtime, then to Ulta, Trader Joe's, Vons, Target, the Tax Accountant, and back home. We met Jeanne & George, & Sue & Dennis for a nice dinner at Westside Cellars. Yum!!!

Today we're off to Palm Springs to drop off Michael's car with Jennifer & Walter who will sell it for us. We'll meet the family for a dinner and make a quick turnaround back home. Wednesday is putting everything away and Thursday we're shoving off!

More to follow....
Rene

7 Days and counting.... 12.13.07

It seems like all I'm writing about is more and more work we're doing! Well, it's true...we've both been working hard to prepare for departure day. Michael has been doing everything - odds & ends around the boat and just as he clears off one item on the list, two others seem to appear. He's done a ton this last week - he replaced the hatch glass, added a new battery switch to the engine battery bank, has been reorganizing, added new shivs in the dinghy davit system, check steering fluid, ran the watermaker, strapped & secured the water & fuel tanks, affixed 'AheaKali' stickers to most of the stuff that will sit on the deck of the boat, etc.

Rene has been busy training her replacement at work and performing a server/laptop upgrade over the weekend. Her last day at work is tomorrow, the 14th. Then the fun begins! Michael has a whole list of things for me to do. We have some bookwork for the end of the year from our businesses, lots of shopping to do - provisioning, clothes shopping, etc. Then we're running the car to Palm Springs and one last visit with with Michael's family. It's starting to get exciting!!

I'll write more later....

Countdown...17 days 12.3.07

Hi there!



We've been busy, busy preparing for setting sail. It's going to be an extremely busy couple of weeks! It seems every evening we have something going on; going-away parties with friends, we have the Channel Island's annual "Parade of Lights" celebration on the 8th that we have a front row seat for and will have a group of friends on the boat, Rene has a server/laptop upgrade at work on the weekend of the 7th, Chad moves on the boat on the 15th - whew! Where is the time going!?!



Michael has been doing so much, it's impossible to list everything. He has been completing those nagging smaller projects that never seem to go away. Each day he crosses several items off of the list, and more seem to make their way on. It's like building or remodeling a house - it will never be completely finished, you just seem to get to a spot where it's acceptable to stop. We've had some weird weather out here - rain, wind, etc that seems to trip us up. Saturday we were supposed to hang the main sail and tune the mizzen mast and it was just too windy so that was delayed. Instead, we both got onto a cleaning mode - I wish I could say 'everything' was scrubbed, but no such luck. But, some key parts of the boat, walls, cabinets, ceilings, etc. were scrubbed clean. Also, both Michael & I pulled out all of the items in the heads (bathrooms) and made sure 1. the item would be used, 2. there was enough of it, 3. nothing was missing. We laughed as we found about 4 bottles of hair gel, hair spray, etc. Those were quickly tossed in the trash.



We also cleaned out a couple drawers & a hanging locker up forward for Chad to use. He should feel very special - those were precious storage spots and we ended up moving items to other cupboards or getting rid of other items to find more spots for the misplaced items! You might have had to be there when we were holding the items from the hanging locker and said "where is this going to go?"....."Just put it in the other hanging locker"....."where is THIS going to go then?" Finally, we called Chad and told him he would be using our bedding because that was the item that was displaced in the move. haha. :-)

I'll write more later...