Sunday morning was moving day for us. On Saturday, we had decided against spending the $30 on a guest slip and spent it instead at the Dana Point Farmer's market. Now provisioned with fresh veggies and bread we were ready to head to Catalina Island.

Low winds in the morning gave us an opportunity to try out the spinnaker… can anyone say 1980s?

Dave was like a little kid with a new toy and very pleased we were able to raise and lower this sail with little trouble thanks to the new running rig.

This is the first port we've sailed to that we had not previously been (in our boat), and it was an offshore sail. We are however very familiar with Avalon harbor as almost 5 years ago Dave and I were married on this very island.

We arrived with a little daylight to spare around 8 pm and assigned mooring ball #6, front and center to the view of Avalon. 10 days, 100 nautical miles! We passed (thank goodness) the dye test harbor patrol flushed through our head to ensure Avalon Harbor stays clear and clean and are set to stay through Wednesday.

This morning we took the dinghy in and spent what I consider the best $3 on this trip to date.

Its been a gorgeous blue sky and sunny day spent in Avalon!

After a great happy hour sendoff at Monterey Bay Canners in Oceanside Harbor with our friends Terry and Jeff, Dave and I set sail for Dana Point. Looking at the course, it is 22 miles to the Northwest. The forcast was for 5kt to 15kt winds from the Northwest. Unfortunately that made for a close hauled bash up the coast. We expected much of our journey this summer to be like this, but we didn't expect it to be quite as slow and wet as it was.

Dave and I pulled out of Oceanside just after 9am in less than 10kts of breeze from the Northwest. We slowly made our way up the coast with one turnaround to rescue a fender that went overboard. This gives me confidence that should I go overboard, Dave might be able to pull me out of the water. By 6pm we still had 8 miles to go and the waves seemed to be getting bigger. We decided to furl the jib and motor the rest of the way to Dana Point. Four hours later (10pm), in the dark we pulled into Dana Point Harbor. Dave discovered that our VHF actually transmits as well as receives and cleared our anchorage with the harbormaster. After this bash up the coast, we have a few items that need our attention on the boat, so we will spend a few extra days here before heading to Avalon. For now, it is a day of rest.

The forecast for today was South 10kt with gusts to 15kt in the afternoon and the forecast was right. We weren't just broad reaching, we were glorious, glorious broad reaching. I just invented a new point of sail but I think it is warranted. It was an amazing day's sail and a regular sailing term just doesn't describe it appropriately. I should probably explain.

Oceanside is 22 (or so) miles North of Mission Bay. The "regular" wind in Southern California blows from the Northwest starting at about noon and dies soon after sunset. A NW wind would have made today's trip much longer and much, much more tiring because we would have been beating into the wind and waves. The actual winds today were blowing from the South by 8am and stayed until long after we arrived in Oceanside. Carolyn and I managed to sail out of the anchorage in Mission Bay at 9:20am in skies so overcast we were expecting rain. The rain never came and though the skies over the mainland were cloudy, we had perfect blue skies by 11am. We broad reached at 5+ knots (very fast for us!) until we pulled into Oceanside Harbor at 3:20pm. Carolyn even napped while I sat at the tiller - don't feel sorry for me, I was in heaven.

We docked at the "Visitor's Check In" slip and Carolyn went to pay our slip fees while I pumped out the holding tank. By the time we moved to our assigned slip, secured the boat, and cleaned up all the lines it was beer o'clock. We went for a walk to find some brew, but the liquor store/deli at the harbor had only pedestrian beer. Yelp told us that Pappy's Market had the good beer and was only a half mile walk. Sweet!

An hour later we were back at the boat with a six pack of Avery Ellie's Brown Ale, a 22oz pale ale from Mother Earth, and a 5lb bag of ice. For dinner I made pasta with mushrooms and TVP in tomato sauce. Good food, good beer, and great sailing makes for a better than most sort of Monday.

Carolyn and I will be in Oceanside until at least Wednesday, then we will move on to Dana Point for a few days until we head to Avalon.

After a final trip to the grocery store with my sister Amy (Thank you Amy!) and a few last minute maintenance and organizing items, we are underway. Carolyn and I have given up our slip and turned in our keys at Harbor Island West Marina. That officially makes us nomads.

Here's what it took for us to get here in quasi-chronological order:

January

• Carolyn quit her job

January through April

• Carolyn, her sisters and Mom get our condo ready to rent

April

• I quit my job in hopes of getting the boat ready
• Take the mast off the boat for rig and lighting work

Late April

• Movers take a few pieces of furniture and a few boxes to be stuffed in a 5x7x7 storage unit
• We meet our property manager
• The property manager takes a grand total of 3 hours to rent our apartment
• Carolyn and I have 30 hours to get the rest of our stuff from the condo into our cars
• We move onto the boat, with all our remaining things packed in the car

May

• Haul the boat out
• Sell Carolyn's car
• Sell Dave's car
• Finish provisioning and organizing

That's a long list of the big things we did and it doesn't cover the dozens of little jobs we did to enable the big things. Anyways...the preparation is done and we are underway. Woohoo!

We pulled out of our slip at 1:20pm and arrived in Mission Bay at about 8:30pm. The trip was uneventful - that's a good thing - except for passing this Japanese Navy ship as we exited San Diego Bay.

We sailed in shifty, but light, southwest winds for the 16 mile ride from Harbor Island to Mission Bay. We plan to spend the weekend anchored in Mission Bay and head to Oceanside on Monday if weather permits.

We're back from a long weekend in Mission Bay. Except for a little craziness - that totally wasn't our fault - on the first morning at anchor, the trip was great.

After breakfast on Sunday morning, I noticed a power boat leaving a big wake as they motored around the anchorage. Usually a big wake means the boat is moving fast, but this one was moving slowly. I was puzzled until I noticed their anchor line in the water. When they came close, I yelled at the driver "Your anchor line is in the water!" He slowed the boat, but it was too late. His anchor had caught our anchor rode. As a result, Crazy Love was being pulled into this much larger power boat. Ugh!

I ran to the bow and prepared to fend off. I only had to give a little shove to prevent the first collision. Of course, when I pushed our bow off, our stern went straight for the power boat so I ran aft and pushed off again. At this point the fellow driving the power boat was pulling his anchor in with the electric windlass. I worried that when he pulled his anchor up he would drag our anchor with it, but that didn't happen. Luckily, the power boat's anchor came out of the water clean (or at least without anything belonging to me). After getting the anchor up, the guy just drove away. I can imagine only a Grade A hangover would cause someone to motor around Mission Bay with the anchor still deployed.

We're still planning to give up our slip at Harbor Island West and get underway on Friday the 31st. A lot of provisioning, organizing, and planning still needs to be done. Its going to be a busy week.

Some of our friends have asked how we cook on the baot. Here's a photo of our stove. It burns denatured alcohol. We do most of our cooking in the pressure cooker. In this photo, we've got onions, bell peppers, thai chilis and beans cooking in a cajun seasoning mix. In the vacuum flask above the stove, we're cooking white rice. It turned out to be a lovely, and spicy, meal.