Month: March 2021

And now it’s time to leave

This week we finally got to sail on a different boat. Our little community of liveaboards has been wanting to see how other boats sail and also as an excuse for a fun day out on the water. 

Trey, Taylor’s friend’s-college-friend’s-roommate’s-boyfriend lives on Space Cowboy, a beautiful Catalina 34. He is a much more experienced sailor than the rest of us and it was great. We learned a LOT about sailing and were enthralled with sailing on a traditionally rigged boat. Their 34-foot boat carries about the same sail area as Scooter, but theirs is evenly divided between the headsail and mainsail

Their mainsail also makes a much better hammock than ours. 

Scooter is 80% mainsail (see last photo) so we don’t worry much about our headsail trim. The night started instructively with a few photo ops but ended up with games and revelry and pizza back at the docks.

This week we also celebrated Saint Paddy’s day at a dive bar (sailing themed of course) with our small Sailing community. Grant and Claire, our dock neighbors, and Trey and Soleil, Space Coyboy’s crew. This was our first night out at a bar, feeling like old times in a while. I’m not entirely sure it was up to California’s Covid precautions. Oh well, it was a blast.

In other big news, we are officially cleared to enter Mexico. The red tape has plagued us for 4 months now and despite having months to prepare, we still have a long list of things to do on the boat to be ready for Baja. We got to work cleaning, organizing, fixing things, and all the other things we won’t be able to do next month…like paying taxes and downloading our playlists. The essentials. 

We took a break to explore the desert with Dave, and hiked around in the Anzo Borrego Desert. I LOVE cactuses. Montana doesn’t have many and I’ve yet to have a miserable experience like falling into one, so I remain enthralled with them. It was a needed relief from the frantic planning and prep. A big thanks to Dave for taking us!

We return to prep work. Next week I’ll share our plan, and our list of tasks we’re chipping away at before leaving, but as of now, we expect to leave US water on the 31st. 

We need it, it’s been a while.

A small poem update:

We’re nearly ready to go

Getting our ducks in a row for Mexico, 

non-existent rigging inspections and so

but lo, we’re delayed by Geico.

The inspection came back all good. Lots of ‘not applicable’ notes on the review as 90% of the rigging is irrelevant on Scooter’s wacky design. 

Hopefully, the insurance underwriters are moved by the rigger’s words to grant us Mexico coverage.

We got an up-close-and-personal show from the navy-trained-dolphins

My dad and our friend Dave Meldahl visited San Diego for a weeklong golf trip and squeezed in a day for sailing. Scooter tore through the wind on an ideal day. We saw the great pacific, saw militarized dolphins, and returned to tour the bay. To add to the fun, they employed us as their Uber and took us to dinner. Our truck is essentially a 2 seater, so shuttling 4 people around gets cozy. 

Taylor’s high school friends paid us a visit and we got two sailing days in a row! Hopefully were knocking the rust off for our Baja voyage soon. The day sailing was another great wind day, and Scooter performed admirably (in case any underwriters are reading this). They’re also aspiring sailors and I’m pretty sure Parker knew more about boats than I ever will.

Eunice took quickly to Madeline and Parker. 

We tapped into our old book and broke out the dinghy rides and homemade Sushi nights to entertain. 

Last week we were given an offcut of a very high-tech carbon sail. Taylor’s seamstress skills had proceeded her and Marsha, the former owner, knew we could put it to good use. So we’ve experimented with applications that require very high strength material and put our craft skills to use…

So far I’ve made a pouch. 

Pouches! Now for ‘sail’ only $100. jk they’re not good enough to sell.

Thanks again for following along. It’s been a long stretch of non-adventure, so if it feels like these emails are coming from a couple of unemployed liveaboards instead of a cool trip don’t worry, we feel it too. 

But hopefully nearing the end of the roll

This week’s email is late and a little broken up. For that I’m sorry, but this week was also broken up. Enjoy many lines of separation but it was another fun week on the boat. 

I used to secretly enjoy red tape. I lived in FAA documents and nit-picky forms. However, now, it’s a thorn in my side in ‘retirement’. We got our coast guard documentation (delayed cause Tay’s name changed and we needed to send a marriage certificate) and started the process to enter Mexico. They need proof of Mexico insurance. Our insurance needed a survey of our rigging. Welp, our boat doesn’t have rigging. We have a wonderful free-standing mast. Instead of a toothpick, suspended with tight steel cables aka standing rigging (like every other sailboat) we have a telephone pole. Literally. They actually source the masts from industrial telephone pole manufacturers. But still, we need to prove our ‘rigging’ is safe.

Most rigging inspectors either refused to inspect our lack of rigging or were booked weeks out. 

We found one only booked a week out, got the inspection and now get to wait another two days to get the report, update our insurance and wait 48 hours to get our new policy, then wait 11 days to get our clearance (hopefully) to enter Mexico.

In the meantime, we drove all over San Diego County. We skated (see above), drove as close to the Mexico border as we could for tacos, and wandered through some tide pools. 

We knocked the dust off the sails and got out on the water with Lindsey and Winnie. Lovely San Diego weather complimented Eunice making friends with her first dog (ish).

Chuck and Kitsy hosted us for a Cacio e Pepe dinner party which, amazingly, turned into me experimenting with the methods. I love cooking in a big wonderful kitchen, and I have not found a significant drawback to boat life aside from this. 

Toasts to Great Uncle Selwyn!

Likely the eye of the storm, but hopefully the storm is equally chill.

This week the driving was substantially reduced. We got back to life on the boat. Not much happened, But thanks for following along. 

We started by fighting red tape, the navy seals invaded our marina, and we got back to polishing our dinghy adventure game. 

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We started the week making a few international calls to Mexico and got a guy, rather the guy, to help with all of our border-crossing-paperwork. Another stack of bureaucratic barriers arrived, but we’re chipping away. 

We got a text from our neighbor boat one night that the SEALs were using our marina for some training. We saw a few divers trying to find their ‘mark’ in the field of boats. It was like watching a submarine race, watching their floating glow stick indicators drift around the marina, and the occasional all-black zodiac planting ‘targets’.

We met our dock neighbors for a picnic on the beach via dinghy, enjoyed a sunset, and great conversation. We learned that if Taylor helms, and we put big ole Hank in the front, we can plane Scootie and go fast! So starting now, Taylor is the dinghy Queen. She vowed to take on maintenance responsibility for Grego (the dinghy motor), and for practicing her dinghy-docking skills. I’m pumped! As for our neighbors in the marina, Grant and Claire have been awesome. They’re fun and interesting and it’s fun having friends in the marina living the same lifestyle. They have less sailing experience but they’re far more prepared to do it long-term…remote jobs and whatnot. Check out their Youtube, insta, and hot sauce selling business. Peri-Peri is the king of hot sauces, and as a native South African, Grant has a killer recipe, which we polished off in 2 days.

We had a wonderful dinner with Captain Eunice’s sitters. Dave & Linda made the Wild West Winifred Trip possible and we can’t thank them enough! 

Taylor lured me on a hike, but lessons learned, I knew to ask about elevation change so we limited the climbing. We got a beautiful hike in the mountains overlooking a several thousand-foot drop over the central desert. AND we got to see the first few miles of the PCT and crossed paths with a few hikers venturing northbound up the spine of the continent. 

This week was tame, but we’re ramping up to venture South so the respite is welcome. Maybe I’ll whip out some old stories for all of the wonderful subscribers.