Thursday, February 23, 2017

San Diego: David's Birthday

By David

Just a quick update on my birthday yesterday.

After spending much of the day replicating the electronic charts and a zillion other files onto the new tablet, we went out to a Mexican restaurant for a celebration dinner.  Afterward, the proprietress came out with a birthday carrot cake replete with candles and everyone there, including two policemen, sang happy birthday.

Pearl had made the arrangements earlier in the day.  Well, not with the cops.  As you can see from the photo, I was quite pleased. 
 
Then our new friend Jim took us to a most unusual music venue.  It was the San Diego Jazz Band playing in a boathouse near the marina.  They meet to play there every couple weeks. A wonderful cap to my birthday.
 
A very happy birthday.  Thanks Pearl!
Jim and Pearl.  Jim had invited us over to dinner
shortly after we arrived at the marina a couple weeks ago.  A peach of a guy. 

And the band played on...

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

San Diego: Back on Track

By David

Today is my 62nd birthday and I'm happy to report that it's going well.

Yesterday we worked on resolving the previous day's broken tablet drama.  What follows here is a bit technical, but for our sailor friends who may be interested, here goes:

First, we learned that replacement glass for the broken Samsung tablet was out of stock, apparently  everywhere on earth.  So, we took a bus to the nearest department store, a Target just a short bus ride away.  There we found a 10" RCA Viking II Android tablet.  When we got back to the marina, we were surprised to see that at about half the price of our broken Samsung Galaxy Tab A, it actually does a much better job of picking up wi-fi.  

The acid test though was whether it would function as a navigation tool.  On Google Play we downloaded Open CPN for Android (the legit Dave Register version), then downloaded a chart of San Diego harbor from NOAA.  We were happy to see that when we brought up the chart on Open CPN, it showed our location via GPS.  We were even happier when we plugged the RCA tablet into our AIS receiver and it immediately began showing the location of targets (other boats and ships with AIS transmitters).  

We've now transferred our electronic charts from the computer to the tablet and have downloaded Navionics charts as well.  That will give us an exact replacement for the chart plotters and charts we had on the broken Samsung.

This evening we plan to celebrate my birthday by going to a free concert with friends we've met at the marina.

As for a departure date, we've become a bit shy about predicting.  Needless to say though, we're both anxious to set sail.  Just watch for the boat icon on the map to move.  


Tuesday, February 21, 2017

San Diego: Did We Say We Were Leaving?

By Pearl

Yesterday was a day of last minute preparations. I walked to the grocery store twice, once returning with a bulging pack and once with the 2 additional jars of peanut butter that I forgot the first time, along with a last pint of ice cream to share. In the evening we enjoyed hot showers and gathered up all our clothes for a last look at the inside of a wash machine. While they were being washed we used the wi-fi in the building to download some last-minute back-up charts and apps.

I was finished a little ahead of David and brought the clean laundry back to the boat. As I was putting it away in the forepeak, I felt him step on the boat and heard him say in a deathly voice, "Pearl, sit down. Something terrible has happened." 

With that preparation I was almost relieved when he opened the computer bag and showed me the shattered screen of our tablet. Apparently the zipper on the bag wasn't closed completely and the tablet fell out while he was walking back. He was devastated and overflowing with self-recrimination.

And it is a blow, as the tablet was our central navigation device. We do have back-ups in the form of charts on phones, and on our laptop, but our main chart program for the Pacific Islands isn't available for the laptop. We also have some paper charts, but they're not detailed enough in areas where there are multitudes of islands. Neither of us slept well and our conclusion this morning is that we don't feel comfortable leaving relying from the beginning on the back-ups.

So today will be spent navigating the San Diego bus system instead of the San Diego harbor channel. It's frustrating, but as with David's kidney stone, better now than later.

Hopefully we'll have this resolved in a day or so, but for the moment we no longer have a probable date of departure. I guess this is February and we're starting to feel like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day.

Arghhh!!!!!

Sunday, February 19, 2017

San Diego: Will We Ever Leave?

by David

Happily, the answer finally appears to be yes.  For several days running, the forecast for Tuesday and the week beyond looks good, so we're anticipating a Tuesday AM departure.  We've been whittling down the to-do list for the past week and Minimus has never been so ready.

Major on that list has been the self steering.  We discovered that one of the control lines was twisted in a way that caused it to malfunction, so we're cautiously optimistic that between fixing that and building more adjustability into the system, it might just work this time.   If so, that would be huge.  We'll be reporting on it via text enroute.

Speaking of texting, we realize that some folks haven't been able to reach us via text.  We spent some time yesterday learning the ins and outs of our satellite texting system.  We posted a new set of directions on the "Contact Us" page, which can be accessed in the menu at the top of this page.

By the way, all the boats in the outer anchorage survived Friday's storm.  It peaked not long after dark, then quickly dissipated during the night.

We'll post once more before leaving, probably on Monday.

Friday, February 17, 2017

San Diego: Health and Weather Woes

By David

First the weather.  It's howling outside right now, with gusts to over 50 mph.  The national weather service says it will "probably be the strongest storm of the winter."  Walking requires focus to keep balance and sand stings the cheeks as clouds of it blow across the road above the breakwater.  Watching boats on moorings outside the breakwater as they twist and turn in the waves makes us more than grateful to be in a marina.  Several boats are losing sails and moving ever closer to the rocks.  Even here in the marina though, the deafening cacophony of halyards slapping against aluminum masts and wind shreiking in the rigging is unnerving.   The worst is due in tonight.

Wave by wave, 200K worth of sailboat inches closer to the rocks
Tomorrow it's forecast to abate and Sunday or Monday is still looking good for a departure.  Winds may fall light on Monday, but good sailing winds should pick up again by Tuesday through the remainder of the week.  Hopefully by then we'll be far enough south to avoid the next storm.

A roller furling headsail self-destructs in the wind.
As if the weather isn't enough, last evening while I was posting the blog page I began feeling lower abdominal pain.  By the time I got back to the boat a few minutes later I needed to lie down.  Four ibuprofen didn't help much, with the pain steadily increasing as I groaned and writhed on the bunk.  A passerby on the dock would have thought someone was dying.  A couple hours later Pearl gave me a couple stronger pain killers.  After another hour the pain began to recede but then I began to feel hot and close to passing out.  I then vomited and finally fell asleep.

Given my history of passing kidney stones, I mentioned our plans to my doctor last fall and he ordered an x-ray that showed two stones.  I passed one about two weeks later and hopefully last night's episode was the second and final one for now.  I've probably passed half a dozen in my life, one of which had me hospitalized for 3 days when it became stuck and the doctors became concerned about kidney infection.  There's no doubt that being far from medical help involves risks.  Hopefully this one is behind us for now.  

The power just went off, so I'd better close.  Needless to say, I'm feeling much better today and we're still on track for a departure in the next few days.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

San Diego

By David

To paraphrase Mark Twain's comment on rumors of his death being premature, the rumors of our bon voyage were clearly premature.  The weather didn't cooperate for our planned February 12 departure, but the party occurred anyway.  We had a great time with 17 guests over the weekend.  They descended on San Diego from Denver, Dallas, Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Cascabel.  It was a reminder of how blessed we are with both family and friends.

Friends wave during our faux bon voyage sendoff

(L-R)  My niece Cameron, me, my mother Ruth, my nephew Zachary, my brother-in-law Scott and my sister Karen
Many thanks again to my brother-in-law Scott for his generous donation of a marina slip during our stay here.

Also to Pearl's brother Jim and his wife Linda for ferrying us around San Diego on errands.  And last, but certainly not least, to Joe and Kate, our dear friends from Cascabel for their unending support in bringing our provisions here and for helping us to locate a long list of items around town.

Our dear friends Joe and Kate (above) and the bon voyage card they gave us (below).


One of Joe's many missions in life is to promote the game of bocce, hence the inside of the card (below).  


This is classic Joe and Kate.  Gotta love it.  Included with the card was a container of marbles for playing bed bocce.



A few of Joe's suggested uses for playing bed bocce while sailing.  


Since the send off, we've been in high gear getting job after job checked off our list.  Mostly these have been boat tasks, all relatively minor, but all important to making the boat easier and more efficient to handle, working out better storage strategies, and always the hassles of trying to get various electronic devices to play nice together, or in some cases, to play at all.

We've also put more adjustability into the self steering gear, so hopefully will have better luck with it when we head out.

Speaking of heading out, Sunday is finally looking the weather window we've been waiting for.  I've spoken with two old timers from here and both say they've never seen a winter like this one for storm after storm hitting California.  It looks like we'll have at least 5 days to a week of more settled weather after tomorrow's storm passes through.

If the raucous parrots squawking from the palm trees beside the marina are any indication though, we've clearly make progress toward warmer climes.  They're descendants from escapees no doubt, but a sign of a warmer clime nonetheless.


We'll try to send one more post before leaving San Diego.  Meanwhile, good night.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Shakedown, Santa Barbara to San Diego

By David

We arrived in San Diego on Wednesday afternoon, thanks in no small part to our friend Jimmy McPherson, who had towed his 20' Ranger Tug to San Diego from Arizona.  He came out to meet us a few miles offshore from the ship channel.   We weren't too proud to accept a tow, and in fact, given the pea soup fog and amount of marine traffic showing up on our chart plotter, were glad he was there.  He took us under tow and a wild ride it was.

San Diego Harbor is a zoo, unlike any other harbor I've seen, with military vessels coming and going, commandos in high speed inflatables zipping all over the place, commercial vessels vying for their place in the channel,  sailboats by the dozens going back and forth across the channel, military jets and helicopters roaring overhead, and much of this happening in the fog with only a few hundred feet of visibility.  Oh, and our chart plotter going nuts with chimes telling us that collision was imminent with unseen vessels.

The navy vessels travel in stealth mode, so don't show up on the chart plotter.  It was startling, to say the least, when suddenly a navy landing craft showed up out of the fog, crossing Jimmy's bow.  He handled it with aplomb though, nailing the whole approach, as I watched on our chart plotter, unable to do much else.  Finally, after what seemed like hours, he delivered us perfectly to the dock.

As if that wasn't enough, he took us out to dinner and has loaned us his truck.  We owe him a huge debt of gratitude.  Thanks Jimmy!!!

My brother-in-law Scott generously covered the cost of a slip here in the marina, so another shout out of gratitude there.  We hadn't had our many layers of clothing off in over 5 days, so the hot shower here in the marina was among the 2 or 3 best we've ever had.

He and my sister Karen, their two kids and my mother all arrived yesterday evening and are in a boat  B&B just down the dock from us. My 13 year old nephew Zachary's first comment was "you should have named it the U.S.S. Suicide".  OK, so his confidence level in our venture is a bit low...

And, in the thanks dept., another one to our friends Mark and Emily for weather updates.  They were invaluable to our decision making process on the way down here
.
Lessons learned from the shakedown trip:

--The weather is atypical.  As anyone watching the news knows, California has been hit by one storm after another this winter, so instead of the predominately northwesterly winds and sunny skies, what we found was mostly a mix of contrary wind, calm, fog, rain, drizzle and, above all, cold.  We were dressed in long underwear, pants, shirt, double pile jackets, rain gear, plastic bags over our feet and were still too often becoming concerned with the possibility  of hypothermia.

Many folks from here are talking about the strange weather.  The sun comes out, it's calm and while a bit cool, is quite pleasant.  Awhile later, the fog moves back in, the wind picks up and it's winter again.

We're not sure how we'll handle the next leg, the major concern being how to get far enough south quickly enough to escape the cold.  We're watching the weather forecast closely and don't expect to leave without clear weather and sun, which may be a week or two or ? in coming.

--Minimus did great, but the real accolades go to Pearl, who was the real standout.  She put on a scapolomene patch the night before we left Santa Barbara and while she was queasy the first couple days (as I was too), didn't ever get sick.  Bit by bit we got our sea legs though.  Her spirit was great throughout, even when mine was full of frustration with the weather.

--Our self steering system hasn't worked so far.  This is a major disappointment, as without it we're forced to steer day and night adding to our fatigue and sleep deprivation.  Today we'll be focused on trying to get it working.

--The electronics have been wonderful when they work.  Unfortunately, they sometimes don't.  The little wi-fi unit that was supposed to broadcast the AIS signal (so we can see what ships are in the vicinity) hasn't worked and finally died totally.  The satellite messenger is having trouble pairing with our phone or tablet, which makes sending texts a ridiculously difficult proposition on it's tiny screen. Another issue we'll be working on here in San Diego.

Meanwhile, we have many more friends and family arriving today and tomorrow.  In addition to my family, we have Pearl's brother and sister-in-law coming out from Texas and friends from Arizona arriving tonight, about 15 people in all.  We greatly look forward to seeing them all.

Great to have so many of you vicariously aboard.
Leaving Santa Barbara Harbor
Farewell to Santa Barbara and sunshine
Pearl steering through the cold fog

A few miles offshore from the San Diego ship channel, the fog lifts briefly and our friend  Jimmy arrives to take us in tow.

The schooner America shows up out of the fog.  

 Amazingly, our friend Kevin Oliver just happened to see our approach on the San Diego Harbor webcam.
Thanks for sending this Kevin!







Saturday, February 4, 2017

Santa Barbara

By David

It was after dark as we departed the train in Santa Barbara. A six block walk had us back at the harbor and, after all we'd put aboard Minimus before leaving, it was a relief to see her still afloat. The cabin was packed so full of provisions and gear that we couldn't possibly get in, so spent the next half hour pulling enough of it out into the cockpit so we could sleep. And sleep we did, like the dead.

The next 3 days we spent re-packing nearly everything, tensioning the standing rigging (cables that hold the mast up), bending on sails, setting up running rigging (ropes for adjusting sails), attaching solar panels, setting up the self steering system and too many other tasks to mention. Despite the long days, I (David) felt more relaxed than I had in a long time.

We've found Santa Barbara to be a place of surprising contrasts. It has a nearly ideal climate, with flowers in abundance despite this being mid-winter. And, despite it also being a place of much wealth, there are a surprising number of homeless living here. Perhaps that's not so surprising when we think of some bitterly cold places where we've seen homeless in winter.

Despite some rain over the past couple days, Minimus is now rigged and ready. The winds look favorable for a morning departure. By Monday morning they're forecast to become contrary and stronger, so we may anchor at Catalina Island Sunday night, assuming we get that far by then. By Tuesday morning wind is forecast to become fair again, so we'll proceed to San Diego.

By the way, if any of you are interested in seeing what the wind is doing, our go-to website is


It shows what the wind is doing everywhere on earth and also shows the wind forecast up to 7 days in advance. It's easy to zoom in on areas of interest and many other weather variables like cloud cover, rain, etc. can also be seen.


Our next report will likely be from San Diego.   



The usual pre-trip mayhem as we try to load it all aboard

3 days later, Minimus is finally ready

We come across this amazing fig tree right behind the train station 

It's a Moreton Bay fig, producing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of figs 


Here's the story behind the tree