Up at 2:30 in the morning…. Ugh! Off the mooring at 3:06… Away we go to San Diego. It was clear, with a full moon and a flat Pacific Ocean. Very very comfortable, but of course that means no wind. It would appear that the overheating problem is not completely gone. It didn’t overheat while we were running the engine to charge the batteries only, but when you put the load on the engine to push the boat through the water, it causes it to overheat. As long as we keep it at 1200 RPMs or less, it is okay, but not over that. 1200 gets us 5-6 knots in these conditions, so that’s fine for now. Not so good if there is a current and wind against us. Obviously we will have to deal with that in San Diego. We had the main sail up for stability and to catch any wind that may come up.
The sunrise was fabulous! The water turned yellow to the west before the globe actually came up and the moon was still high in the sky to the east shining on the water too. The water was pinkish in that direction. It was really spectacular in the calm waters.
Well we certainly knew we were approaching civilization when the day got rolling. The military was performing live weapon & amphibious exercises on the water. There was an aircraft carrier and several warships in a certain sector of the waters between Avalon, San Clemente Island and San Diego. We managed to be on a course that ran us along the edge of one of the sectors. We could see the ships and hear all the guns firing, helicopters and jets flying overhead, etc. Not exactly peaceful. We did get to see more dolphin though.
The trip took 14 hours from mooring to slip. The San Diego Bay is lovely, but all the military stuff going on around it takes from the possible serenity they could have. Not to mention the public airport is also right by the harbor and its marinas adding to the noise. The marina put us in a slip directly in the backyard of the huge Sheraton Hotel. All the balconies are right above us, the walkway runs across in front of our bow and the fancy dining room massive picture window is directly in front of our bow. The top four floors can look right into our forward windows into our salon. Can anyone say “fishbowl”? We both slept like the dead though anyway.
This upcoming week will be busy as we prepare for the “Ha Ha” and take on our crew for the voyage. We have friends coming to visit, meetings to attend, boat issues to deal with, shopping & laundry to do, gotta get a fishing license, gotta socialize and attend festivities too.
We’ll journal it and probably won’t post it until the end of the week just before we take off for Mexico.
Let the good times roll...on!
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