September 18 – October 28, 2007, San Diego

Tuesday- Thursday, September 18 -20, 2007
Wake to a warm sunny mornings with only a slight overcast. Fiddlers Cove Marina … this will be our home for the next six weeks. Fiddlers Cove is a Navy Marina just south of the Coronado Bridge located on the Silver Strand about a mile from the Navy Seal Training Base, Navy Amphibious Base and the city of Coronado itself. Fiddlers Cove is primarily for the benefit of active duty personnel, but the Harbor Master, Curt Snyder keeps a few slips open for transient retired personnel. Moorage for the six weeks was $500 (about $12/night) and all services (showers, laundry, lounge, BBQ’s and a small store) are available and there is a good-sized RV park that is also part of the marina. We are within walking distance to the bases for shopping and the city of Coronado itself. Coronado is a town out of the 50’s with a quiet main street, subtle, low building architecture, very few neon signs and quaint street front restaurants, shops and stores. We went up to the Del Coronado Hotel and rented a car and headed to provision at the marine stores, exchanges and thrift stores that pepper San Diego. We signed up for wi-fi ($50) for 6 weeks.

Friday-Friday, September 21-28, 2007
Left for Phoenix to visit family and pick up supplies that had been shipped to my mothers’ house in AZ. Nice drive through the desert … certainly different than the watery, wet, environment that had been our home for the past two months. We picked up our folding bikes, passive water maker (waterlog) from England, the inflatable dinghy, extra Sunbrella we’ll need to make the bimini and purchased some nifty shoes called Keenes at Cabella’s. They’re a shoe with the sides, top and heel cut out. They wear like a sandal, but provide good protection for your toes and support for the soles of your feet, and they let your dogs’ breath.

Saturday – Sunday, September 29- October 7, 2007
Return from Phoenix with our stash and it’s time to get to serious work outfitting the boat. I think at some point the boat will be completed, but I don’t see that in the near future. We’ve been working on the boat non-stop for the past year, rebuilding the cockpit floor, shower stall and head, enlarging the anchor locker, installing new steering pedestal, mast steps, halyards, running rigging, wind vane steering system, chartplotter and radar. We’ve redone the interior upholstery, revamped the electrical system, painted the decks, bottom, mast, shear and boot stripes; rebuilt the transmission, alternator and starter, installed new motor mounts for the engine, bilge and shower pumps and built a dodger … it seems the list is endless. The more we get done the more we have to do. I don’t remember this overwhelming amount of work with our other boats, but then they weren’t everything in one then, and I could hire people to fix it for me. Make a trip up to Minnies in Newport (the best used chandlery I’ve ever seen); purchase 3 spare sails (a main a two head sails); extra shackles and blocks, and the stainless steel frame to make the bimini. To Sea Chest to pick up another life raft – the aircraft kind. It weighs only 14 lbs and is the size of briefcase. The life raft we had is a Viking 4 person life raft in a soft vinyl valise. We bought it thinking we could store it below (out of the way) with quick access in an emergency. It turned out to very bulky, heavy (68 lbs) and terribly unwieldy to handle. We couldn’t store it on deck, as the vinyl would deteriorate in the ultraviolet rays (hence the sunbrella cover Julie made in Ft. Bragg). I couldn’t see trying to manhandle that life raft over the side in an emergency, especially if a myriad of rigging and spars were lying askew on it. That’ll go on ebay for sale along with the porta-bote. Went up to the Mexican embassy to obtain our Visa’s, and to Conapesca for fishing licenses for our crew and us. Spent evenings with Jake, Cok Cabuk and Marcus Newbry (a local sailor on the same dock). Jake was flitting around from marina to anchorage cashing in on reciprocals and the free anchorages. They saw a lot more of San Diego than we did, but they’ve been living on their boat for 18 years and know it much better than most of the rest of us know ours. Cok Cabuk and Marcus were both just down the dock from us at Fiddlers Cove. All of us, even Jake, were still jumping like jelly beans outfitting our boats. Cok Cabuk had a car he had driven down from Oregon and was very generous letting us use it. We’d have been lost without it, or worse yet, broke from rental car expenses.

Monday – Friday, October 8 – 26, 2007
We sold the porta-bote, liferaft and Julies nursing books on ebay. We’ve given our new little folding bikes a couple of spins into Coronado (had breakfast with Jake at this nifty little 50’s diner that still cook the eggs in lard and isn’t afraid to give you half a dozen pieces of thick meaty bacon, all for like two bucks). Julie created fine meals with elegant presentation for diner guests; we went to Jake for dinner and the Soprano’s either in our own dinghy or Jake would pick us up at the dock in his dinghy (Jake has a bigger and harder dinghy than I do … no real man need suffer that level of humiliation). Some evenings, we’d just saunter down the dock to Cok Cabuk. Always, no matter where we went in the area we could see the Seals in training … mostly swimming and mostly in the evening or after dark. We couldn’t get very close but we could see the trainees heads bobbing up and down in the water with RIB’s standing by, kind of corralling them in. They were all dressed in very dark clothing and barely visible with the evening light. A group would circle up and tread water ... forever, then disappear beneath the water; sometimes they had scuba gear and sometimes they were just in swim gear. The water wasn’t that warm either. They made no noise and we never saw them leave the water for shore. One evening about 2200 we see a group boarding a troop truck. They had just come out of the water and there wasn’t a sound among them. They were all business. On one night trip over to Jake from Fiddlers cove, via dinghy (about a half hour ride with our mighty 3.5 horsepower outboard), Julie was really feeling stealthy. We were in our fleece and foul weather gear; she turned back to me and said “isn’t this cool” then turned forward and hunkered down like we were about to hit the beach on some secret mission. One of Julie’s highlights was going up to the gym at the seal base and working out; slyly she would ogle all the “seal pups” as she called them. At one point, her stealth was almost revealed though; she fell OFF the treadmill while admiring the young, sculpted, hard bodies all about her. She was cool though … she jumped back on the treadmill as if to say “it’s cool, I meant to do that” (would I give a million bucks for a video of that)! After dark was really very social, but during the day it was all work and running between the various stores for supplies of one sort or another. We picked up a new outboard; Single Side Band radio (SSB); wireless VHF microphone for the cockpit; a satellite phone; solar shower and solar lights; new life jackets; more spare engine parts and more sunbrella and sewing supplies; bought the Garmin Bluewater chip charts for North and South America and the Pacific (I need to upload them onto the computer and then download that info onto the chip, for use in the chartplotter); bought new foulies; an iPod, put a new faucet on the galley sink and installed another manual bilge pump that can be operated from inside the boat (I now have four – two manual, one automatic and an electric). We finished caulking the toe rails (no leaks, no more, forever), made curtains for the interior, made storm windows for the ports, built a bimini and Julie sewed the cover for it and another shade for the remainder of the cockpit. We fit the spare headsails, fit the mainsail mast and boom track slides and sheeted/lined (put ropes on) all the sails.

The SSB had been a thorn in our side for the past year. An SSB is like a HAM radio except with fewer frequencies and the HAM license/testing isn’t required. The VHF license covers its use along with the radar. I think the SSB was designed for cruisers to provide and extra means of communication. Most cruisers have either an SSB or a HAM radio on board. The advantage of these radios is they can transmit and receive communication over thousands of miles. There are communication “nets” set up for cruisers to check in on a daily biases and channels that provide weather, time and other important data. They’re like the old phone party lines or the new chat rooms. Information is exchanged and shared. It is, arguably, the ultimate source of communication for a cruising boat; 2500 miles into the Pacific, when your up to your short-hairs in 30,000 feet of saltwater, it’s comforting to know that you can receive help and advice over that vast expanse via the radio. I said earlier it was a pain because I was never able to get a straight story on its installation. The SSB professionals would tell me I needed to buy the latest $6000.00 unit and then they wanted to convert the backstay to an antenna (which involved a rigger cutting the stay) and lay 100 square feet of bronze mesh throughout the boat as the grounding plane. The total bill could easily be $8K. Experienced cruiser would tell me to get the simpler model receiver, there were any number of ways to create a grounding plane and I didn’t need to cut the backstay for the antenna. For the past year, we’ve wrestling with this thing. The pro’s really must not have wanted to sell me SSB radio. However, after talking with the guys in San Diego (Shea Weston of Offshore Outfitting and Alan Kravitz of Dr. Electron) it became probably the simplest thing I’ve ever done on the boat; plug and play, just like a computer. An SSB is composed of a receiver, a tuner, an antenna and a grounding plate. I bought the whole package for a little more than $2K and installed it myself in 30minutes (correctly, the first time … it usually takes me three times to get it right). The Antenna (called a GAM antenna) is secured to the backstay via a vertically sliced piece of PVC that clips over the backstay; it’s then plugged into the Tuner. The Tuner has wire that plugs into the Receiver and the Receiver plugs into a breaker on the electrical panel, for power. For the grounding plate I used a 12” long piece of three inch copper strap and secured it to the rudderpost with several hose clamps and connected the other end to the other side of the Tuner. That’s it … Bob’s your Uncle and I’ve got an operational SSB radio able to communicate around the world.

During this time, at the most inopportune moment (Friday night, a week before we departed), I broke my tooth; one of the upper molars on the right side. Before we left Seattle we paid a visit to the dentist and he told me it was cracked, but neither us had time for him to fix it and he wasn’t really sure it needed to be fixed anyway. I was eating potato chips and I felt it crack off; no pain, but the thought of setting off with half my tooth gone seemed a little foolish. Saturday morning came and instead of working on the boat, we started cruising the Internet for a dentist. After about six or seven attempts we found one in Chula Vista that could see me immediately. Great guy and I had a temporary crown and was back on the job in about three hours. He talked with me about the need for a permanent crown and I told him my time line (a week, really less, is usually not enough time to have a crown made and placed). We kind of decided that I could get the permanent crown in Mexico, which is not a bad option at all. By the time I left his office though, he had me coming back on Thursday for the permanent crown. Thursday afternoon and a thousand bucks later I was a whole man … poorer … but whole none-the-less.

San Diego County began to burn while during our time here. Most of you heard about it on the news (700,000 people evacuated); the marina and RV Park filled up quickly with active duty and retired personnel that had been evacuated. The air was acrid with the smell burning wood. The skies were blanketed with a thick haze that blotted out the sun; everything was covered with the dull gray ash. We were less than a mile from, and unable to see, the Coronado Bay Bridge, a magnificent, lofty, elegantly curved structure that connects San Diego with Coronado. As we looked out over the water of San Diego Bay, there was no shimmer or reflection; only the fine, gritty, charred remains of homes, business’s and vegetation. Prior to the fires we had planned a potluck for all the Baja’ers that were slowly beginning to fill up the San Diego marinas and anchorages, especially Glorietta Bay (between Fiddlers Cove and Coronado) the anchorage the city of San Diego had designated (gratis) for the Baja’ers. It quickly turned into a potluck dinner for the evacuees. About a hundred evacuees showed up. We (the Baja’ers and Fiddlers Cove) provided the food and beverages, and many of the evacuees brought what they could. One fella, who had been burned out and had been living in his pick-up, with his wife, for the past week, offered to contribute to the fund to help pay for the potluck (there was none, of course). What a guy, he’d just lost his house and I’m sure a lifetime of memories and he was trying to help others. Another fella was telling us he had just bought his house and had not yet made the first payment; his house burned to the ground, as well. There were lots of sad stories, but no self-pity. The evacuee’s were upbeat and chomping at the bit to recover, rebuild or move on. The Command Master Chief from Naval Air Station, Coronado came over to pass the word that the base was open 24/7; the barracks and hangers were available for accommodations; the galley was open 24/7; the bowling ally, gym, pool, theater, child care and sick bay were open 24/7 and Navy Relief was standing by to help, until the disaster had passed.

We’d had a potluck before the fires for the Morro Bay Five. That’s the five of us (Jake, Meridian, Cok Cabuk, Pepe and Itchen) who were all Baja’ers and stuck in Morro Bay for a week, waiting to round Pt. Conception. Fiddlers Cove Harbor Master, Curt Snyder, sponsored our last potluck. Curt is a retired Master Chief and there was no shortage of liquor, bawdy language or sea stories. The party started early and went late. One of the live-a-boards was refitting his boat and had contributed his mast for the bon-fire. It was a box mast made of four beautiful spruce planks. The mast was about 40 years old, but to look at the wood, you’d think it was milled yesterday. I was really in a dither about his cutting up and burning the mast. It is such an integral part of the boats’ soul. It was so beautiful and so functional. Anthropomorphic, though it may be, boats have souls. Speedboats have the smallest souls, Sailboats have the bravest souls and wooden boats have the greatest souls. It is probably the stage in my life, but I’ve never felt so much satisfaction as I have outfitting this boat. The learning curve has been vertical, if not ballistic. The largest job never seemed too daunting and the smallest job gave me great satisfaction. I can say it no better than did Kenneth Grahame in “The Wind in the Willows” when Mole, going for his first boat ride, revealed to Rat that he had never seen, or been, on a boat and said to Rat, “Is it so nice as all that?” " Nice? It’s the ONLY thing,” said the water rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING -- absolutely NOTHING -- half so much worth doing as simply messing-about in boats. Simply messing” he went on dreamily … “messing-about-in-boats … messing … about in boats or WITH boats."

Saturday, October 27, 2007
Two days before the Baja Ha-Ha starts. Things need to get pretty much wrapped up today; tightened the nuts on the wind-vane, stowed the dinghy and bikes, donated the $7 sewing machine we picked up in Port Angeles (replaced by Julies good sewing machine, stowed securely), finished fueling and filled a 5 gallon diesel jug (as a spare), topped off the water tanks and emptied the head. Our crew came by and we all ran around doing last minute shopping at the commissary and British store. Stowed the provisions. To a final movie “The Kingdom” with Jake.

Sunday, October 28, 2007
To the skippers meeting and Halloween party hosted by West Marine for the Baja Ha-Ha’ers. Julie went as an oil slick and I went as a environmental clean up guy. Except I never got to clean her up. I took my computer and Garmin Charts along to seek help with downloading them. It turned into a real mess, and took three hours to get the access code from Garmin, upload the CD to the computer and then download the charts onto the chip for use in the chartplotter. Only to find out they were the wrong charts. I have electronic charts as far south as Ensenada, Mexico. So I bought the Garmin Bluewater charts for South America and the Pacific. The map looked like it was covering Mexico, in fact, it does from Puerto Vallarta (PV) South. I needed the chip from Ensenada to PV. Of course, Garmin sells a separate chip (chart) for Southern California (which I have) to PV (which I don’t). So after three hours of very frustrating time with the computer, a couple of guys from West Marine finally broke free and after an hour, they were able to download the charts. I then went and bought the chip I needed. Took the car to Amy’s (the kids’ friend) in San Diego and left the keys and title with her. I mentioned Cok Cabuk had driven his car down from Oregon; we used it so much (and Cok Cabuk was very generous in letting us do so) that we thought the least we could do was buy it from him. It was a bargain and we used it up until the last second. Besides, we thought that one of the kids might want it (Brigid and Tim were just coming back from deployment in Iraq). Julie to bed and I went to Cok Cabuk for one final beer before roll call.