How the Other Half Lives II

And by the title, I mean those who live in nice weather, where the garage door doesn't freeze shut because the snow that fell four weeks ago, still there, is now ice. My wife and I took our mileage run to San Diego last weekend. (A mileage run is earning those last few miles necessary to hit an elite status on an airline.)

So we figured out what we needed, found a good fare, and hopped on a plane to San Diego. For me, that makes three consecutive weekends on a plane: Orlando, Las Vegas, and San Diego. One of our running jokes is that we live here to leave here. I like to think we've lived up to that so far.

Back in the summer, both of us earned our ASA 101 certification as we work our way up the ASA and experience ladder with the idea to charter a boat for our friend's wedding in the USVI in October. San Diego has a lot of charter companies. Most of them require a "membership fee" which ranges from $295 to $400. That allows you to charter a boat from $20 a day to $250 a day with a wild variation in the type of boat. I didn't want to be in an open boat in the Pacific. Similarly, I didn't want to splurge for something I'd be on for six hours. Maybe if I were heading to the Coronados, but we weren't, so we didn't

I was getting depressed: The boats we were looking at were in the range of $150 - $350, on top of the membership fee. Way too much for a day sail. Finally, I found an outfit that did not require a membership and had reasonable boats for charter at a reasonable rate. They also accepted our ASA 101's plus a little experience as proof we wouldn't totally muck things up. We settled on a Catalina 27 from the San Diego Sailing Academy. If you're in the area, ask for Nick, and say hi for us. So, we headed down to the marina at the appointed hour, did our checkout, and were suddenly on the way out to the Pacific. Amazingly, no one changed their minds and came after us as we motored this beautiful boat out of the marina, down the channel, and out to sea.

Follow the yellow brick road.

I followed a small regatta of sailing students being towed at low throttle. But once Point Loma cleared, a brisk wind cut across the bow that threatened a knockdown if we weren't trimmed right. Our briefing warned us of that which is why we didn't raise the main in the channel as some other boats did. But now that we were clear: head to wind and raise the mains'il!  Aarrgh!

We were told before shoving off that the winds would kick up to 15kn around 11am and stay there until about 4, with gusts to 25kn. Nick said the weather would stay clear otherwise. The Catalina didn't have jiffy reefing and we were eager to set sail. So if we got a good puff, we'd furl the genoa as the first reef. If we got nice southerlies, we'd head north and run the coast to Mission Bay. If we got northerlies, we'd head south along the harbor, keeping the city on our port side. Our wind was decidedly northerly, which put us on a reach while heading west and on a run towards Mexico. Really couldn't have drawn up a better wind as it was a steady 10kn most of the day once clear of the peninsula.

Winds kicked up just as we exited the channel.

Turning away from Point Loma towards Mexico.

Anita at the helm, about 6 miles offshore.

After a couple hours, I got a note from our friends at Verizon that somehow we crossed into Mexican waters (or is it air space?) Either way, made for a cool notch on the sailing belt: sailed in Mexico.

Bienvenidos a Mexico!

 

Coronado islands in distance, about 8 miles from us.

Afternoon sun on the water. Genoa was furled a bit.

Skipper with a refreshment, steering with feet.

New friends.

What a great day. We did about 15 miles total, not counting the wide circles we took while heading in, nor the small circles around the buoys for closeups of the seals. I started my GPS tracker but it stopped recording pretty early on the trip. A nice reference point was the last (or first) buoy in San Diego harbor, the safe water channel marker. Nick the SDSA guy said this channel marker was six miles from Shelter Island. We were either really moving or it wasn't six miles out as we hit the marker in about 30 minutes once the sails were up, not counting the motoring down the channel.

Safe water buoy, the last (or first?) buoy in San Diego Bay.

It wasn't far from here that we saw a pod of dolphins chasing a school of fish. We followed them for awhile but they were moving really fast into the wind. That may have been on porpoise. A couple days later, we saw another group along Mission Bay playing with the surfers, though I suppose it could've easily been the same group.

Saw dolphins catching fish.

But soon the sun started its trek past its halfway point on its way to setting around 4:45pm. We had to be back in the dock by 4:30 or else they'd charge us for another day. In the channel on the way back, we ran into the last of the racers. I have to admit I was annoyed at these guys. Since the wind was coming straight down the channel, along the harbor, the only way they could make headway was to tack hard across the channel. So as we were motoring back, casually taking in the last vestiges of the day, we had to avoid these guys zipping back and forth in front of us. At one point, one was coming up so fast and so cluelessly we had to get out of the way, though by all rights, we were the stand on vessel as we were being overtaken in the channel, even though we were motoring. He thanked us as he went by but soon dropped his sails and started rowing.

I don't mean to sound like that cranky old guy, but hardly anyone followed the old "red, right, returning" rule. There were more boats outside the buoys than inside and those inside were bumping up against the green. In other words, driving on the wrong side of the road. Maybe they were all Italians? I mentioned this to Nick and he said we should see it July 4. Given that we saw, easily, 500 boats docked and moored in the marina, and most of them would've been out on a holiday weekend, no thanks.

Two racers head back to the marina. Still racing.

This is the boat that almost hit us. Nice boat - strip plank racer.

Sunset at the marina walking back to car.

Safely back at harbor and declining the $50 to overnight on the boat, we drove the three blocks back to the hotel and made arrangements for the evening. As luck would have it, we were treated to yet another lighted boat show. This stuff is probably old hat to marinas around the world, but I'd never seen one before, and two parades in three weeks was enough to send me giddy with delight.

Parade of lights just off Shelter Island.

A couple days later, on our final day with time to kill, we headed down to the Embarcadero, which is to be the refurbished docking area for cruise ships and tall ships and other assorted ships. The Star of India is docked here. This is one incredible boat with such a rich history. Plus, it was really cool to see in person.

Star of India. The boat, not me.

We then headed for the airport and settled in for the 3+ hour flight home. Outside my window passed the Coronado Islands, a couple nipples on the sea that rise just a couple hundred feet tall and 12 miles off shore. With a little time and energy, this is easily reached from the marina. But that will have to wait another for another day, and perhaps then I'll splurge the extra $50 to overnight.

Coronado Islands from the air. Will step foot on these some day.