Left Catalina at 1600 and made it to San Diego at 0745 this morning, completing Part One of the trip. We stop here for a few days before leaving for Baja on Monday.  The most challenging part of this leg was getting a slip in San Diego. The whole of San Diego is booked and it looked like we were going to have to anchor out.   Fun to do when we’re in Baja and actually want to be “off the grid”, but a real pain when we need to provision the boat for the trip, recharge the batteries, get water, fuel, do laundry, etc, etc to get ready for being in Mexico for over a month.

So after getting turned away from the harbormaster who claimed “no slips”, I charged down the waterfront stopping at each Marina, rather aggressively requesting a space for a few days (I think I scared a few Marina Managers. After thunderstorms, lightning, rain and not much sleep I’m guessing as I think about it, I might have appeared, well…a little scary. The beard, wet clothes, sea boots and crazed, stressed look might have contributed to this clear misunderstanding). One place I called said yes, they had some space. After racing over there to get it before it got taken by some of the other boats that I saw pulling in, I was told, well, they actually made a mistake and had no vacancies for at least a month.

I. Was. Not. Happy!!

As noted I think I scared someone, because the manager at that marina personally drove me in his own car to the next Marina on my list.  Chain smoking the whole way and making nervous chit chat.  I think I detected a distinct facial tick as well.

As luck would have it though I scored the last spot in a great marina right in the middle of Shelter Island, which is where all the stuff I need is available and at a discount no less (possible serial killer discount?). It also comes with access to the hotel amenities behind the marina; hot tub, pool, gym, laundry, etc.

Sometimes the adventure of cruising isn’t out at sea at all.

Definitely the case on this leg. Left Catalina to a pretty sunset and other than some more rain on the way, the on-water part of this leg was pretty uneventful.  There wasn’t even much wind, so we motored most of the way.  I even slowed the boat down a bit halfway in, to make sure we wouldn’t arrive to an unfamiliar area in the dark.

So, hopefully the next few days will be boring and I won’t have much to write about.

Stay tuned though as we leave Monday morning and will no doubt have more adventure to share.

In the mean time all you folks in the Bay Area will be enjoying the wet weather we’ve had the last couple days as I see it’s heading North.  Have fun!  We’re going South.