Sail Agora

We just officially heard our first Spanish radio chatter! I am sitting in the cockpit watching a supringlingly green Mexican coastline go by. There are high-rise hotels right along side little neighborhoods on the bluffs and beaches, intersected by rolling hills. We are on a perfect beam reach with following seas, making around 6.5 knots, ~40NM to go before we reached Ensenada.

We spent about a week in San Diego with my Dad, catching up on some much needed projects, seeing some sights and hanging with some friends. 

In terms of projects, the list is long. We patched our dinghy and bought an outboard; finally installed the last of our deck hardware; made a rope ladder; put some nonskid patches over our repaired soft spots on the deck; got hardware for our whisker pole and a new valve for our holding tank. I also spent about 4 hrs at the top of the mast reinstalling a new anchor light and tri-color with LEDs. The old one crumbled in my hands when I attempted to switch the bulbs out.

Most importantly, we purged the unholy detritus from our living space, sending unneeded gear, clothing, and knickknacks home with my very generous father. We also accomplished less exciting tasks such as laundry and provisioning, route planning and hammering out the details for checking into Mexico.

There was plenty of play to counteract the work. Our first Sunday we embraced the tourist role and ate tacos at Hotel Del Coronado before stopping at the Midway, a retired aircraft carrier. On our drive home, we gawked at the Star of India, the oldest sailing ship in the US, and made it our first stop on a sunset dinghy ride to break in Rosalita, our new outboard motor.

We also managed to squeeze in a couple hangs with my childhood friend Nolan and his wife Marilyn who, despite not being on a sailboat, have undertaken their own jounrey into parenthood and are quite even-keeled. Their child is due in April, and I don’t think I’m being especially biased in saying that April is an excellent month in which to be born. I’ll still be in Mexico, but I’ll be celebrating.

We also had dinner onboard Pendragon, the trimaran owned by my other childhood friends who will be following us down the coast later this month. They are sailing away for the third time in a lifetime with no destination and no pressure to leave that isn’t barometric in nature. They tend to do it right, and I often refer to them as a leading inspiration for raising kids while cruising.

Jay and Cecilia fell in love with each other and with sailing simultaneously. Their journey began when Jay was captaining a large wooden Schooner and met Cecilia in Santa Barbara Harbor. From there, they set sail and eventually landed in New York, where the Schooner stayed, and has now been converted to a restaurant. Its sailing days might be over, but the Johnson’s sailing days had only paused. They eventually purchased Pendragon in Florida and took off for Central and South America with their three boys Alan, Wessly, and Oscar, finally landing years later back in Santa Barbara. I grew up hanging out with Alan and Wessly from then on. We shared a best friend, Silvio, (who incidentally might be joining Steph and I in a month or so, once his time in the Navy has ended). I always marveled at the mysterious afterglow Alan and Wessly carried with them from their sailing years. Through high school, college, and even today, that same glow has never seemed to fade. Turns out it has an infinite shelf life, and we can’t wait have it too.

Captain Thatch