Long Beach to San Diego, Sunday 9/17/2006 8:00PM (Ginger)

We’ve had a week of travel and exploration on our way from Long Beach to San Diego. We sailed off the anchor at Long Beach and only started the engine to anchor in Dana Point Monday evening. We got up at sunrise while we were there as the baby swallows were on our lifelines and they perked up every time their parents came by with breakfast. The Mission at San Juan Capistrano is only 4 miles from Dana Point so we weren’t surprised to see swallows! We took the pixies ashore and explored Dana Point by bike on Tuesday. Got groceries and got some air for our tires as we rode down the PCH in town. The beach south of the marina is a big surfer beach and there were about 30 people out there at 7AM catching some small waves. Wednesday morning was time to leave…but Marcy had different plans. There were a couple of wiring issues that needed our attention. After a couple of hours we were under way and it was OK to get a later start because by then the wind had come up and we were able to sail south on a close reach. There was a lot of radio traffic heading down the coast but the most exciting call was a “man overboard” call from a warship heading out of San Diego. From what we could tell they were traveling at 16 knots when the guy fell off the port side. A civilian dive/fishing boat quickly called in to say they had a diver in the water and the race was on. The coast guard, police and all the civilian boats in the area were looking for him and the private boat found him. For the next couple of hours there were still calls from the commander asking for the status etc. The radio is our CNN news and it made for entertaining radio traffic all day. We made great time and arrived in Mission Bay at 5:30. Our neighbors from Dana Point arrived shortly after we anchored and Jay joined us for dinner. Turns out they had the exact same wiring issue that morning trying to leave Dana Point. It must have been all that salt in the air from the waves spraying over the jetty. Thursday Red Dogfish gave us a workout as we kayaked around the marina and to the beach for a walk along the boardwalk at Mission Beach. Thursday was our arrival at San Diego. We had to clear Loma Point by about a mile because of a huge healthy kelp bed. It was great to see so much kelp so close to the city. We hung back while an aircraft carrier entered the bay ahead of us and then we headed straight for the Police dock. There was room at the dock and as advertised it’s $10.50/night for the first 5 nights so we stayed at the dock. Then we set off on foot exploring. We found a restaurant for lunch (not cheap, but very good) and headed back to the boat. It’s over a mile to get off Shelter Island so the walks here are long. It got close to dinnertime and we thought we’d go to a bar for appetizers but the bars were busy so we ended up walking in to a sushi place. All that walking we were ready for bed early. The next morning we wanted to check out the cruisers anchorage so we got the pixies out and biked over to see the anchorage and of course the tall ship the Star of India. While we were out the police called me back (impressive – even on a Saturday!) to do the inspection on our boat so we will be allowed to anchor in the bay. We passed the inspection and the officer was really helpful with local San Diego information too. Another ride off the island, we found Downwind Marine and even had 2 pieces of mail (Thanks Fran!) Headed over to the grocery store so we could stop eating at expensive restaurants and early to bed. We did finally meet someone who knew of an internet place it was on our list but food and getting some clean clothes were high priorities!

Sunday morning was laundry morning. We loaded up the laundry and rode to the Laundromat. Checked out the internet place, but no computer with us on this trip. We’re planning to head out to the anchorage soon and there are some dock jobs that have to be done before we go! Had to locate a store for oil and one of our dock neighbors offered to drive us to Shucks California style. They drove the oil back for us and we rode the bikes through strip mall land in search of a cable to lock up the dinghy. Finally after a long visit to Home Depot Peter emerged with a perfect dinghy cable and we headed back to the boat for lunch. It’s actually hot here now and we spent the afternoon working on boat projects and moving things like installing fans up “the list.” We’ve both been exhausted and it’s got to be a combination of weather, exploring new cities and all the exercise we’re not quite used to now. It’s nice to be in San Diego and have a plan forming for where the boat will be for the next month.

Tomorrow morning we’re going to talk with a friend of Uncle Buck’s about our mast step project.