Posts from — August 2006

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat, studied, cared. It’s good to be back. It’s good to see people who are excited to do well, to interact with people who are intelectual, to ride my bike to campus with purpose instead of just because that’s all I know.

Day 10 – 5:30 AM Long Beach – 11:00 PM Tucson

Early off the dock and out of the harbor. We were at Long Beach’s pier just two hours after leaving, which meant we would be in New Port in no time at all, and we were.

Before I knew it the boat was empty, the car was loaded, and we were saying good bye to our home of ten days.

After lunch in Laguna we drove straight to Tucson where I met Paul, my new roommate, took a shower, and fell soundly asleep.

But the count goes on and I’m still rocking. Good times… I’m ready to sail .. let’s do this!

Day 9 – Crew of Four

From Malibu we trucked down the Santa Monica Bay and landed anchor 100 yards off the beach at Redondo, then 300 yards off the beach at Redondo after a visit from the lifeguards. It was our final surf session with Tripp and Andrew about as we kicked them off the boat so they could catch flights and drive back early. I paddled in with my pirate hat and mustache on and caught some waves too, it served me well.

We pulled up anchor and sailed south out of the bay with our sights set on Long Beach’s harbor police dock. Just outside of the harbor enterance we came off a wing on wing run (it’s a sailing thing) and I got the Genoa furled around it’s self creating a mess of a sail up front. Unable to do anything about it, we brought down the Main and peered at the Genoa, perplexed. Erica noted that if it got wraped because we turned one way, why don’t we just turn the other way to unwrap it. Following the KISS thought pattern I wasn’t going to argue so we proceeded to do a series of 5 doughnuts in the bay, in front of returning 35-45 foot racing boats that simply scoffed at our amateur antics, BUT the sail unfurled it’s self because of them and we were able to motor between the red and green and into the harbor.

Arriving at about 7:45 PM we motored about the harbor waiting for the dock to look sufficiently closed and for Pat and Erica to finish cooking dinner. At 9:15 PM we tied off and I walked up to see if anyone was about. A fellow turned off the lights and was locking the door to the office when I got up the ramp ‘on my way to the drinking fountains.’ A subtle greeting and little victory dance as it was clear we were off Scott free for the Night! We slept like angel puppies in a really comfy bed.

Day 8 – Return to the Main Land

We went right past the surf on our way out. As we move away we saw the other boats starting their morning off right and moving in, we knew what the day would look like for them today and everyone on board was a little jealous that we had a timeline that they didn’t. We cut north between Santa Cruz Island and Anacapa Island and were quickly outside 3 miles of them. Another holding tank dump into the ocean and a visit from some dolphins got us to Snipers.

With little surf and a police officer standing at the shore line watching us we sailed right by and made anchor back at Malibu in the dark. We could all feel the approaching end to our adventure and it kind of took some of the adventure away from our remaining days.

Day 7 – Sudden Stop

Up early and makin’ pace for the break. Who would be in the water when we got there? We pulled into the cove, the surf was just starting to work. I put Will at the wheel and moved up to the bow with Tripp to look for a better anchorage than yesterday, something a little closer to the break. Again, we got distracted and should have been watching the charts, looking at depths, being smart about surf breaks and where they occur. Off the bow I watched kelp beneath the boat move in the surge, then we passed by some that had less vigor than the rest and my mind raced through possible reasons arriving at ROCK! About a quarter of a second before the boat came to a grinding halt with the horrid kathunk! Of keel on reef. We’d successfully done it again and this time was no different when presented to my heart and capillary responses. Tripp and I raced back to the cockpit where will was saying the depth was reading 60 feet atop the rock. Tripp took the helm and cranked the engine levers to full reverse, but the boat didn’t respond, to neutral to perhaps move off with the swell. Kicking me into the dinghy I started it’s 8 hp motor and swung it about to try and pull with it. Between swell, surge, and two different props, the boat eased off the reef and swung around and away from known danger. Stress was high and we put ourselves back to yesterday’s anchorage and before anchor was down, Will was heartily harassed by Andrew and then Pat, Tripp, Erica, quite the turn around from my reef incident.

Soon after anchor touched down we had folks in the water all over. Will and Andrew paddled out, Erica and Pat went spear fishing, I (after Pat) checked out the keel and then paddled over for some surf with Tripp. It was a rough start, but was on it’s way up and the rest of the day all we did was play. Andrew and Will had some good stories about being ashore, while the rest of us just enjoyed no movement. Night came and Pat, Will, and Erica got in a evening glass off and we didn’t have the time to make it farther east to the next anchorage so we just drove back to the previous night’s still water.