We arrived in San Diego about a month and a half after departing Seattle with 1550 nautical miles behind us.  We got a taste of heavy weather sailing off Cape Blanco and between Points Arguello and Conception, had some nice sails south of Santa Barbara, and did a fair amount of motoring between LA and San Diego.

This completes the US West Coast chapter of our year-long voyage, and after 4 weeks in San Diego, begins the next chapter–5 months cruising in Mexico!

In San Diego, we found a marina with a pool next to the Point Loma Yacht Club.  Jacintha enjoyed swimming and Dad and I mostly relaxed.

We reprovisioned, did some boat chores, and had some fantastic fish sandwiches at Point Loma Seafood, which was recommended by a cruiser we met in Santa Barbara.  After a few days, we moved to Southwestern Yacht Club for 3 days, where my dad took off to fly back to Pennsylvania.  It’s been a blessing to spend a month cruising with him.  We harbor-hopped between Santa Barbara and San Diego, visiting 6 ports and 1 island, and covered 250 miles together.  Life on a sailboat can be physically challenging, much more so than on a motor yacht–climbing into cave-like bunks, getting on/off the boat into the dinghy (especially when my lifeline gates are blocked by solar panels), and maintaining balance while underway with the ocean swell.  To be doing that at 80 years of age is a great accomplishment!  It was also nice to see Jacintha get to spend so much time with him.  I think he really enjoyed cruising and meeting people along the way.  We hope to see dad and mom in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a visit early next year.

Varnishing–I brought some varnish along that was left over from last summer and since we  have 3 weeks before the Baja Ha Ha rally starts, I decided to use some of it.  I started with the outer cap rail and top cockpit combing since they are always in full sun.  And with all the work being done preparing the boat for the trip, most of the varnish around the cockpit was looking bad.  As usual, I’m applying 2 coats of Pettit Flagship varnish to get a mirror-like result…  Will see how it holds up in the tropics!

Jacintha’s Blog—Snap, Click, Splash, Ouch.  We were sailing and I was down in the cabin.  Poppy and daddy were up in the cockpit.  Then I saw something that looked like a giant spider in the cabin.  So I ran up to the cockpit to get daddy.  At first he did not believe me so I made him come down to see, then he saw it too.  It was not a giant spider, it was a cute crab!  Daddy brought it up with a glove and showed poppy!  Then daddy took off the glove and dropped the crab, it did not hurt him, but it surprised him.  Then we saw him breath bubbles.  At last we threw him out the boat and saw dolphins.  The end…