Breaking the Silence

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Perhaps we have crossed a border in our blogging mission. Certainly we have gone south of the…border. Here I sit in our cozy cabin after the first day out on the water in TWO WEEKS!! It’s extra nice because our crew, Tom Keffer and Lee Christie, are doing the dishes. Okay, so we’re in Ensenada with great internet, crew, gung-ho and vastly experienced, and free of all the preparations we lashed ourselves to in San Diego.

Blogging obviously wasn’t one. Here’s the cold headwind of truth that I’ve come to face. Charlie will NOT write blogs. He will occasionally chip in or kibbitz. He’ll remind me to get going on it. He’ll click away for an hour blabbing with his cruising sailor bulletin board group, but he will not pick up the proverbial pencil even after two weeks of the silent treatment of our reader.

Backing up a little, actually to Charlie’s Birthday, Oct 24, when he had a wonderful present from the sea, I will now quote from the CSBB.

I didn't have a camera on deck when this leviathan passed by about 150 yards away. I mistook it for a nuclear missile sub at first, and thought of the Bahahaha boat sunk by a whale near here last year. Based on the dorsal fin way aft (circled), we're quite sure this was a blue whale. I did my best to get this picture at extreme range. Keep in mind that the dorsal fin is well forward of the tail. What an incredible sight to see. This was yesterday between Oceanside and San Diego. The birds provided a bit of scale. I'm sure this is the biggest living thing I've ever seen.

(You see, the boy can communicate! Just not on Blogger.)

Okay, this doesn’t really answer the question of what we did in San Diego. To be brief, big projects. Paul’s brother Brendan came to the boat, visited a bit, removed the smashed locker door and returned with it all glued back together. He reinforced the locker with an oak strip and pumped in some glue. It looks good and is much stronger.

Charlie found and installed a stern anchor, changed the oil and some filters, cleaned the fuel gauge so that it works again, attached new fat dinghy wheels and visited West Marine every day.

I made a dinghy cover to protect it from sunstroke. One day to pedal to the Sunbrella store and work up a pattern, one day measuring and cutting, three days of sewing in the cockpit.

Our most recreational trips were to a dive store for generic prescription goggles (good idea, Edie!), fins and a body suit for Charlie, should he have to spend a lot of time solving some in cold water, (hope not!) biking along the waterfront with CSBB friend Jerry who lives on his boat nearby, and a terrific day off in a $15 a day rental car to the Safari Park part of the Zoo.
Shopping at the Sunday market on Canyon Street two blocks up from the club in the pouring rain yesterday was also a highlight with good prices and extras the shivering farmers wanted to reward me with at closing time.

SDYC was the perfect place to do the work. We were out at the very end of E dock with lots of space and no traffic. Every day we watched the high school race teams drilling in small boats, FJ's, out on the water as we slaved away. How I wished to be out sailing like them. The best was Halloween when they all sailed by in costume struggling to see through a mask and or roll tack wearing a sombrero or tight black suit. The whole place went crazy with Halloween decorations and parties. A black pirate ship with bow thrusters! came to the guest dock that night and everyone dressed up in costumes for the Monday night hamburger dinner at the bar.

Back to today. We were up at 5:30 to get a good start on our crossing to Ensenada. Still a little out of kilter from “falling back,” no one had slept well, but we were all in good spirits especially as the weather looked great. It was calm all the way requiring us to power the 67 miles. We saw another half dozen boats on the way down with us, a veritable migration.

We all took naps during the day. Got to Marina Coral at about 3:45 having been informed by phone that the port captain was no longer at work at 2:30. Thus ended my thoughts of clearing in today. The office at the marina helped us with our paperwork and made us copies of all the forms we’ll be required to have for the official customs clearance with the port captain tomorrow. It seemed awfully chilly on the return to the boat so we sat down to drink some wine and enjoyed the quiet time. Tomorrow we'll get aboard the Marina's van along with the Fubar powerboat Baja cruisers and be taken straight to the Capitán del Puerto, but not at 8 am when he opens. From 8 to 9 he's working overtime so the price is doubled. "Don't you just love Mexico!" -TK

I do.