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.