Two days ago, we obtained a 1 month permit for the San Diego “cruisers’ anchorage” A-9. The permits are precious in that only three (3) can be obtained per 360 day period. We’ve put off getting one of these just in case we were “stuck” in San Diego for longer than expected. Well, we’re “stuck” for longer than expected for sure! But, we’ve decided that no matter what, we’re heading out of here to Newport Beach Harbor for a couple months starting in January and then we’ll go north to the Pacific Northwest to spend the summer months.

In the meanwhile, we get to be jostled around a bit each time a big ship–or a fast powerboat–goes bythe anchorage. It is a good place to work on the boat with no real distractions. Since it is about a half mile row to the nearest dingy dock and then we have to take a bus to get anywhere or take a bike in the dingy so David can pick up one of our cars (parked a few miles away)…we have little incentive to go places. Rather, every incentive to work on the boat.

Today, David took the canoe over to the dingy dock (with his folding bike) and, in theory, has made it to the Navy woodshop to do several projects. When he returns, we should have another set of pinrails for the main shrouds. He also is supposed to use the lathe there to turn a flagstaff for the transom. We have a nice 3’x5′ US flag that we have not flown since we don’t have a proper flagstaff to fly it on the stern. Many folks do fly them at anchor on their backstay, but the proper place for the flag when not underway is on a flagstaff, not the backstay. I am looking forward to flying the flag, though.

I’ll be done with my online work in a few minutes and then back to sanding and varnishing things. You’d think I’d eventually get done with that, huh? No, it seems never ending. Sort of like mowing the lawn or sweeping floors or doing dishes–at least we don’t have a lawn to mow here!

More later.

Things have sort of taken a routine around the boat. In the morning, I get up around 4:30 am and do email and admin tasks between 4:30 and 8:00 am. David sometimes rises around 7:00 am but usually it’s more like 8:00 when I’m done with my stuff and I start bugging him to get up and enjoy the day. We’re truly out of sink by that point–I’m bouncing off the walls and he’s just getting his morning coffee.

However, by later on in the day the situation has reversed and I’m winding down wanting to sit down and read a book or something while David is picking up momentum and getting more projects going. By sunset we both try to be on the same clock–we turn on the little Honda 2000eu, his computer, my computer, and the icemaker…we have dinner and we record whatever happens to be on the broadcast HDTV that we can get that night and we surf the web (using my EVDO celphone tethered to my computer for phone-as-a-modem) or watch a previously-recorded HDTV movie.

Projects vary depending on weather, where we’re anchored (or at a dock), and sea state. Bumpy means not alot gets done. Calm, warm, and dry–we’re really in the groove then.

Routine maintenance is actually quite a chore–varnish, touch-up paint, bottom cleaning, changing zincs, engine fluids, cleaning the bilge, maintaining all the little things that decide they’re not going to work quite right–like bilge pump switches and the like…

We volunteer one day a week to keep the wood hobby shop open at the nearby Navy base. That usually means that we have to coordinate having tools, car, project materials, etc all available for that day. This week, we decided that we needed to take the boom for the foresail with us to the shop to do a birds-mouth-repair to the end of it where it had rotted and the previous owner had repaired it with a slug of epoxy. There was also rot midway along the boom where a bronze block had been attached to the boom with four rusty steel screws. Seeing that the foresail boom is about 16 ft long and our dingy is 12 ft long, we decided that we’d spend Monday at the San Diego public dock to make it easy to get the boom off the boat and onto the car roofracks. Unfortunately, the Port Authority employee working that day decided that he wanted to make everyone wait to get slips. So though we were the first boat on the dock at 7:30 am–and they open at 8:00 am, we waited–along with four other boats until he was good and ready to check us in–11:00 am. Many of the other boaters were like us, needing a place to work on the boat for a day or so rather than pitching around at anchor. One boat was circling in the channel from 8:00 am until 11:00 am waiting since there was no room at the little waiting-dock for them. And, poor things, they didn’t get a slip! and had to go away.

Once we got into the slip, David dashed off on his bicycle to pick up the car that we had parked a bit over a mile away. We were lucky it was so close by. We keep two cars right now and park them in obscure locations that we might find ourselves anchored near. It works. When all was said and done, we made it to open the hobby shop only 30 minutes late at 12:30 rather than 12:00 noon. Of course, we were supposed to have gone to pick up supplies on the way to the shop, so David ran errands while I watched the shop for a couple hours and then I ran errands while he watched the shop for a couple hours! We did manage to get the repairs to the foreboom in place and glued up. Now, David must re-shape the end of the boom (planing and sanding); he will likely go into the hobby shop to do that tomorrow.

That’s all for now, folks 🙂