Day One in Mexico

This is the captain speaking. The first mate is only half way through a cup of coffee and doesn't have any pants on.
We're anchored off Coronado del Sur, officially in Mexico, barely. It seems we have again displeased the wind god. Winds have been out of the south since we left yesterday and are forecasted to stay there till tomorrow morning. Even though it can be a royal pain sometimes, I'm starting to really enjoy the connection to the weather out here. Not that the rest of the world lives in a box where it doesn't matter, but if the sun doesn't shine enough I don't take a hot shower.
Another wild fact... this is the first time in about 6 years that I've been out of the country. I think I'll have a cookie.

Stay Classy, San Diego

We're off to Mexico - tomorrow! Pretty exciting, right?

Somehow it seems like we're just beginning, or beginning again. We sailed today for only about an hour or so (from Mission Bay back to Shelter Island), but it felt good and rejuvenating. So we'll be off tomorrow, another short sail to the Coronado Islands that are about 15 miles away from here. There should be some good diving there, and we are hoping to catch a fish, finally! We've trailed a line behind the boat almost the entire time we have been sailing, and not yet caught a thing. Boo. But the water is warming up, so yellowtail and tuna could be in our future. Wish us luck!

San Diego has been lovely, lots of food, fun, friends and family. Thanks to the LaClairs for coming to visit us and being so generous and to Fred Davis for shuttling us around all the time to run all sorts of errands.

Leisure time in San Diego..

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Dolphins!

When I was young, I was never a dolphin lover. Didn't say I wanted to be a marine biologist when I grew up, thinking it was the way to be able to play and swim with dolphins all day (What tedious research?). Many kids do, probably influenced by some movie or show or quite possibly, a first hand experience. Not me. I was firmly attached to the ground. Literally, I liked rocks. I'd pick them up everywhere.

Looking forward to this trip, I've been really excited about all the life in the ocean to see. Whether from the surface or below it, it's great fun to look at animals that live in a completely different world - one of fluid grace and mystery. And so far we've been rewarded with a lot of amazing sightings; whales, tiny psychedelic-looking nudibranchs, eels, sharks and lots of fish. But the ones that have most inspired a whacked-out giddiness and utter awe are the dolphins.

We can spot them from pretty far off, by the white wakes and soft plumes of their exhalations. Often they look like advancing armies, lined up to take our flank. And when we're lucky, they do surround us, swimming around our boat like moths around a porchlight. They'll align themselves just off the bow, swerving and diving and jumping in front of Liberte as she cuts through the water. It's awesome, in the true sense of the word. They squeak a little. They are so fast, one giant propulsive muscle. They play for a while, and then dart off to find what else is interesting in the water. It is nearly impossible not to anthropomorphize them. I look forward to seeing them every time, and am a little sad when they go.

So much to relay, where do I begin?

I am like a little kid coming home from the first day of school, breathless to tell of the many wonders that have been encountered. Cubbies! Giant pink erasers! My name printed on my desk before I even got there!

Only mine would go a little like this - Moonlight sailing! Dolphin armies! Little island foxes! Friends so amazing and generous that I can't believe they are actually mine! And so forth.

But, as is starting to seem like the usual, we are on the way to do more! I need to start writing when we're underway, and I actually have time. So that's a new goal.

Quick update, though: we are in San Diego, after a two-week Catalina Island hop. We have many errands to do before they will let us into Mexico. It's like taking off all over again, except nobody here will be sad when we leave. Chris's parents will be here tomorrow for a visit and we shall all be tourists (an important distinction from cruiser, I'm sure. Somehow.) for a week. I'm definitely gonna get a trashy novel and park myself on the beach for at least a couple of hours. Maybe with a coozie and a beer.

Chris writing here - A little note about Robert Ray LaClair, who is a caring, kind and somewhat stoic father, when we last spoke about this trip he commented "I never really have much fun on vacation." Hmmmmm...well, what shall we do then? I guess riding the mechanical bull is out of the question. A funnel cake and some putt-putt, no way. On my parents first trip out west to visit, while brainstorming things to do in San Francisco I mentioned a comedy club, my father's response..."I don't really like to laugh." We all laughed so hard there was no need for a night with Carrot Top.

My only question: is there ever a need for night with Carrot Top? I say no. Forgive us the meandering post, will be back to clear, concise and readable prose asap.

In the meantime, here's some photos of the last few weeks...

10 Things We've Learned About Cruising in a Month

1. I need to put more sunscreen on my nose, like four times a day.

2. Videotaping whales from a rocking boat is difficult. You need to find a steady spot and lay off the zoom.

3. Smaller scallops taste better than bigger ones.

4. There's always room onboard for another can of black beans. Prior to this trip we never had enough groceries for a week onboard. The only hard part now is remembering where we stowed everything.

5. Waking up, having coffee and then riding the dinghy to a deserted point break for a surf is really, really good.

6. Don't hold a fish over the rail so DFG can measure it.

7. Kelp flies are indestructible and one of the only insect nuisances we've found in California.

8. Our water tanks taste a little bit like carrots.

9. We're only using a third of a gallon of diesel an hour.

10. "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Living on Island Time

The Channel Islands lie about 20 miles off the coast from Santa Barbara. They are rugged, uninhabited, and visited by a lot of divers, hikers and kayakers from the mainland. Including us! We sailed out of Santa Barbara with two good friends, a lot of food, beer, margarita fixins and dive gear out the wazoo. It was sunny and warm. For the first time, we felt like we were on vacation. At least for me. Up until that point, it felt like adventure - fun, but striving for the next port, the next leg of the trip.

For five days, we had no agenda other than to dive, eat, repeat. Chris and Eric acted as the noble hunters leaving the boat daily to fish by gun and gather scallops. Chris G. and I acted as the grateful women and she bravely filleted the fish as I stood by with a slightly wrinkled nose. Eric almost lost a finger to a scallop, as it was fighting to stay closed. We stuffed ourselves with fish tacos and bacon-y, garlicky scallops. We played cards by lamplight and told at least two ghost stories. It was great.

The diving was excellent as well. For me, it was a trip of firsts. I saw my first seal underwater! My first nudibranch! My first garibaldi! And, the pinnacle of neat-o, my first wreck.

The Peacock is a WWII minesweeper that was sunk in the 1970s after a long and murky history (the most interesting thing about it is that it may have once served as a floating brothel, as there were many mirrors and scraps of red fabric found aboard after the wreck - hee). It lies about 50 yards off of Scorpion Rock, near where we were anchored. We all had tried to find it on our first dive, to no avail. Chris G and I went back the next day to try again after getting some additional advice from a helpful Park Ranger (go National Park Service!)

After struggling mightily to get into my SCUBA gear in the slightly choppy water (imagine putting on a floating backpack while wearing a giant rubber onesie and being pulled underwater sideways...actually this is a terrible analogy...for those of you who dive, you understand, and for those of you who don't, it suffices to say that it is awkward, and I am not graceful), Chris and I descended through the water and touched down at about 65 feet. We swam in the direction we thought it might be, but after a minute or two, still saw nothing but sand. Thinking we'd missed it again, we turned to go back. We kicked through the water, and suddenly something large began to take shape though the gloom. We looked at each other in excitement as we could start to make out that it was the hull of a ship. We had stumbled on it after all! Or, we had used our superior skills of underwater navigation to locate the find. Either way.

Duuuuuuudes, it was so cool. A wreck creates a kind of artificial reef, so there were tons of fish (big ones), hydrocorals, anemones, and two more curious seals to see. Plus there's the the bonus of seeing the architecture of the vessel itself. There looked to be parts of the rudder, a mast, and a big structure that was kind of a ring supported by several diagonal posts. Dunno what that was. I can see why divers geek out over wrecks. We explored the wreck for a while, swooping down and around all the various structures, and then surfaced with triumphant smiles.

All I can say is I feel lucky.

"In the Shit."

Steep, breaking waves behind us. Wind howling. Chris, looking positively gleeful, eyes glued to the land in front of us and the seas behind, ever watchful. My heart pounding, mouth dry. Yep. We were in the shit.

Point Conception had loomed large for me for a long time. It's the area where Northern meets Southern California for a custody exchange, taking a vessel from the turbulent northwesterlies to the balmy breezes of Santa Barbara. It's known to get a little hairy. It's described, in our cruising guide, as the "Cape Horn of the Pacific." Warnings follow, with words like formidable, caution, risky and notorious. It was time to see what we had in store for us.

We'd started off from Avila Beach in fog, and motored for a few hours in the calm of the morning. Then it cleared a bit and by early afternoon we were coasting along at a good clip. As we neared the Point, I shared my apprehension with Chris, and he said, "Oh, I think we're good. If it was going to get crazy, it would have already."

And so I put my fears aside and enjoyed the ride. And then the wind picked up. And the the seas kicked up. And my fears came back in a hurry!

We took down almost all of our sails. First a reef in the main, then two. We dropped the jib. With just a little tiny main sail, we were still getting over eight knots. For Liberte, that is fast. We were almost dead downwind, which is great for speed, but with the waves coming steep off our stern, it took some pretty heads-up steering to keep us from rolling off to one side or the other. Luckily, the captain has some experience driving boats. That meant it was me running around taking down sail. With the boat rocking like a Southern juke joint on a Saturday night. I was swift! I was efficient! I was freaked out. Not so much about the conditions, but the future. In sailing, I feel like it can go from, "Oooh fun!" to "Oh shit!" with a quickness. I wanted to keep it the former way. Chris's favorite moment, in contrast, was when we turned into the wind a little so he could pull in one of the reefing lines and took a wave to our side, with spray going all over the boat, which would have drenched him, had he not been waterproof head to boot. He thrives in those situations of stress, with wind howling and waves breaking and the sails straining.

So we made it. We went fast around the Point, and she gave us a good ride. And as we coasted into the next anchorage, the evening sun came out from the fog, we could feel the heat radiating from the land and the gentle waves lapped against the hull. Welcome to Southern California.