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