Santa Cruz Island, USA - San Diego, USA

Susan

Well, we left you at Santa Cruz Island in the last chapter. We enjoyed that place to no end. We continued our adventure there with some hiking inland to see natural waterfalls and some snorkeling. The snorkeling was a real treat! There were tons of multi-colored fish and sea urchins and a ray. Hopefully it was only a taste of what is to come in Mexico.

Our next stop was Santa Barbara. We didn’t stay long as the anchorage was a wee bit on the rolly side (that is an understatement to say the least). Here we once again ran into our friends from “White Squall” and spent a bit of social time with them and another boat. Can you believe how sociable we’ve become?

From Santa Barbara it was a quick trip back to Santa Cruz Island and then on to Santa Barbara Island. We only stopped for a few hours at as it wasn’t a very hospitable looking place. We continued from there to Newport Harbor. On the way there we had some middle of the night dolphin experiences. The phosphorescent trails that they leave behind are unbelievable.

Newport was an interesting place. There is more money floating around in that harbour than in some small countries. The enormous yachts and water front properties were astounding. We spent 6 days there buying everything in sight. We’ve done so much shopping in California that we think we should be allowed to vote there. We bought an 8.5 foot inflatable dinghy and a 9.9 hp engine to drive it. It is a lot more convenient than putting along in our hard dinghy with the 2 hp engine if we have a long way to go. The engine is an antique I’m sure. It looks like a space alien and is about the same age as me. We call it E.T. It’s an Evinrude Sportwin (circa 1964) for all you outboard buffs. We also acquired a new anchor here but we didn’t buy it. We also didn’t steal it. We actually “caught” it with the first “cast” of our anchor when we arrived. We thought it was extremely kind of Newport Harbour to provide us with a new spare anchor.

Next we headed for Dana Point. We weren’t planning to stop here but some boating friends in Newport invited us to do a little Costco provisioning in Dana Point. We couldn’t pass this up as they had friends there with a car. We now say “with a car” with awe and longing. We only stayed there a couple of days but we must have added a couple of years worth of supplies. The sail from Newport to Dana Point was fantastic, especially after the last few trips with little or no wind to speak of.

There is a store here called Downwind Marine that is stupendous! I can’t say enough good things about these guys. They have a great marine supply store and the most helpful staff. They allow you to use them as a mailing address for gear that you’ve ordered and general mail. They even have an “express” service to the Baja for anything you might need for your boat. They also have a truck that you can reserve for half a day to do your last minute provisioning. They’ll even lend you their Costco card if you don’t have one. We jumped at the chance to buy yet more stuff and proceeded to fill the back of the pickup with enormous quantities of food from Costco and over 40 pounds of cat food. We were absolutely certain, after making two very full dinghy trips to the boat, that it wouldn’t all fit. We thought we’d have to have a sale or something, but after a long day of pulling things out and putting them away again we finally did it. But that’s it! We simply cannot buy another thing. I say that but today we picked up our Super Snorkel that had been shipped to Downwind Marine. It is a floating air compressor with two 40 foot hoses and regulators that will allow us to dive to 35 feet or so for an hour at a time. We are really, really excited about this new toy. It’s not really a toy because we can clean the bottom of the boat with it, honest! We’ve studied the PADI Open Water Diving Manual as some of the principles are the same. One advantage, however, is that we don’t need all of the bulky expensive equipment and we don’t need to go get air tanks filled after every dive. Wayne bought an ancient, second hand spear gun at a swap meet and will be expected to bring home dinner every night.

Downwind Marine runs a cruiser net every weekday morning on the VHF radio. Each morning they sign on and ask  who’s arrived and who’s leaving and then the rest of the 40 or 50 boats check in. This way you can contact other boats that may not be near you because San Diego Harbour is a big place. The net also has a buy, sell and trade segment. We sold our 2 hp outboard this way as we didn’t really need two of them. This cruiser's net can get rather tiresome (we’re not that social) but it has allowed us to meet up again with our friends from “White Squall” and “JAD”. We also met another young couple here from San Francisco who are headed for the Grenadines in the Caribbean. Their average age of 30 (they are both 30) makes them the youngest couple we’ve met so far. We rank second with an average age of 30.5 and “White Squall” is a close third with 33. Anyway this new couple (boat’s name is “Ave Peregrina”) is a lot of fun and I hope we meet up with them again. They have just left for Mexico and we should be right behind them.

We think we will be leaving here either Saturday or Sunday. That will be November 19 or 20th. We certainly are ready to get out of Dodge before we go broke. We’re also a little tired of the noise, the crowds, the rules and the yucky weather. It’s been 45-50 degrees at night which is mighty chilly when you’re sleeping on a boat. Supposedly this weather is quite a bit cooler than San Diego is used to at this time of year. However, we’ve been hearing that story since we left home and we're beginning to think it’s all a big cover up.