From killer waves to floating bodies…

Anchored in Mariner's Basin in Mission Bay

Today is Christmas and we thought we’d be in Mexico by now.  But we are here in San Diego waiting for a good weather window. It’s looking like Sunday will be the day we take off for Ensenada.

I have about two weeks to get you up to speed on first…

On December 16^th around 9:30 in the morning, we were able to leave Oceanside safely! Prayers were answered! There were no breaking waves or high winds at the entrance. The water was almost flat…what a difference from the day we had entered. As we headed out further from shore, we found enough wind to sail. We had both the jib and the mainsail up, but not for long. The winds died and we motored the rest of the way to our destination, Mission Bay in San Diego. We dropped an anchor at Mariner’s Basin just inside Mission Bay. This was the best anchorage yet! It was well protected from wind and swell. The only problem with the anchorage was that the Mission Bay Yacht Club was a long dinghy ride away. We were going to stay at the Mission Bay Yacht Club originally until the Harbormaster mentioned that there was a bridge we needed to go under to get there. Which meant that we needed to tabernacle our mast (which our mast is incapable of doing). So, the best the Harbormaster could offer was the use of their yacht club facilities: bathrooms, showers and dock to tie our dinghy up to. 

Mariner's Basin Anchorage at Mission Bay

Taking the Dinghy to the Mission Bay Yacht Club

Mission Bay Yacht Club (street view)

Mission Bay Yacht Club (bay view) 

The next day after our arrival, we dinghy’d over to the yacht club and took a walk into Pacific Beach where we eventually met up with my long time friend from high school, Nicolette and her husband, Mark. It was so awesome to see her and to meet her husband! I had not seen Nicolette for thirty something years! We were best buddies while we attended Sacramento Country Day School.  Besides being able to visit Nicolette and Mark, they lent us a spare vehicle of theirs to use while we are in San Diego. This vehicle has been a blessing! And to reconnect with Nicolette has been incredible. In fact, later today we are invited to her home for Christmas to join in the festivities with her family.  She has been so gracious, accommodating and a great friend!

Me and Nicolette reuniting after thirty something years.

We were only in Mission Bay for a few days and then we moved the boat to The Police Dock at Shelter Island in San Diego. The Police Dock is conveniently located and in a lovely area, but the bathrooms are a little rugged to say the least. They fail by comparison to all of the places we have stayed along the way. And here, we have to pay a $1.00 per foot per day. Not too terribly awful, but we have been used to staying most places for free!

Our slip at the Police Dock, Shelter Island

The yacht across from our slip in Kona Kai Marina

The women's shower at the Police Harbor.
(A huge switch from the one's at
Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club in Newport Beach!!)

This shower head still  precariously hung since last year.

The day we tied up to the dock and got all settled in, a man from a boat nearby passed by our boat saying that there was a dead body floating “out there”. Rick first looked at the guy and sort of blew off what he was saying. He thought he was just some weird guy making nonsense and he went back to what he was doing. But the guy walked by and again mentioned the floating body. He was looking a bit frantic at this point and pacing the dock. Rick stopped what he was doing and so did I so that we could to take a look for ourselves….to see if there was any truth to what this guy was saying. I was a little nervous to see a dead body floating. I wasn’t sure how I’d react, but on the other hand curiosity got the best of me.  So we both got off the boat and scoured the water near our dock. Sure enough there was a body floating!!! A dead body!  Rick and the guy, Jim, who has now turned out to be a very good friend to us, were trying to figure out a way to get to the body and to get him out of the water. Jim also made a call from his cell phone to 911, after trying to get through on the VHF, which he got no response.

 

Floating body….

A police officer arrived shortly after the call, just as the body had drifted over to the Customs Dock across from us and proceeded to remove his belt and jump into the cold water next to the body! In the meantime, Rick, Jim and a couple of other police officers ran over to the dock to assist in removing “the dead guy”.  It took four people to lift this guy out of the water. He was a big guy and severely bloated, so he was pretty heavy! After he was dragged up onto the dock, Rick helped the police officer get out of the water. Looking back on the turn of events, we can’t figure out why the police officer jumped in the water. Why didn’t he use a boat hook or something to pull the man to the side of the dock? I can see if the man was still alive you would jump in after him, but this man was definitely dead and had been floating for a while. Once everyone was out of the water, the police officers and paramedics started administering CPR. I was watching all of this from a dock across the way and I was surprised to see that they were trying to revive him.  They worked on him for quite a while and then eventually gave up. The deceased man was then covered up with a yellow tarp and left there for quite a while, hours even. 

Police Officers and Paramedics working on the man. Rick and Jim standing in background answering questions.

Later there were a few police officers asking questions to other boaters on the dock if we knew the man who had drown or if anyone saw him fall in. None of us knew or saw anything other than him floating near our dock. 

  

Days later there was a small article written up in the 

San Diego Union Tribune News.

So that was our first impression of the Police Dock. Pretty creepy! 

During our stay here in San Diego we have done a lot of driving around getting things that we need to get and do before we leave for Mexico.  We’ve made trips to West Marine, Marine Exchange, Home Depot, Costco, Trader Joe’s, the Laundromat, Von’s, CVS, a trip to the Hair Salon, the Barber Shop, and Fuel Dock (to fill the propane tanks) just to name a few. Like I said before…this vehicle has been such a blessing! Thank you Nicci and Mark!!

Stocking up on the snacks at TJ's

Rick at the Barber Shop

Me at Headline's Beauty Salon

So you’re probably wondering why we have been here in San Diego for so long and not in Mexico by now. Well, the weather has not been too cooperative! There are these little storms that keep coming and the best weather window we have is the 27^th. 

It has been cold and rainy on and off since we’ve been here. It’s not the weather we were hoping for! This time last year when we came down here on our friend Jeff’s boat, Rick was wearing shorts and I was wearing sundresses. Now we are wearing long pants, long sleeves and jackets! We trade off between using our diesel heater our little propane heater (Mr. Heater) to keep warm while we are on the boat. And…we’ve put the comforter back on our bed! We had taken it off a month ago, figuring it would just be warmer weather ahead and we would only need a sheet and a blanket. Ha!

We have met so many cool people here at the Police Dock! Everyone is SO nice! Jim, who is two boats down from us on our dock…the one who we have the dead guy connection with, is from Canada. He sails on a 39’ Steel Boat. It’s very cool, spacious and charming. He’s made it very comfortable and custom fit just for him. He is a Kayak White Water Raft Guide and Mountaineer and has been doing this for over 20 years all over the world. Currently he is on his way to Mulege Mexico for a month long hiking excursion there, which he will be guiding.

Jim

Across from us, traveling in a Trimaran that he built himself is a man from Sacramento who is returning from a 3-year stay in Puerto Vallarta. He and his dog Hannah. Along with being super friendly, he has been a wealth of information!

Further down the dock is a guy on what appears to be a racing boat, Mark and his dog, Buzzy. Buzzy is a big dog that looks like a mix between a Mastiff and a Pitbull. He’s big and slow moving and sweet as a can be. He wanders the docks but never too far from view. Unlike most of us, Mark is not on his way to Mexico. He lives here. He usually has his boat in an anchorage nearby but comes to the Police Dock to fill up on water and to do projects that he needs to be on land for.

Next boat down from him is Chris and Shawna from Texas and Maddy, a 19-year-old girl from Canada who joined them here in San Diego as crew. They are on a beautiful 55’ Tayana sailboat.  They have a very interesting story on how they got to this point.

Chris and Shawna

Mattie

The next boat over is another very nice man, Jeff and his wife and two daughters. The girls are so sweet that they made us cinnamon rolls and brought them over to our boat yesterday. They are headed to Mexico around the same time as we are.

Last but not least are a wonderful crew, Rijnard, his wife Lisa and their sailing companion, Jay (from Canada). They recently arrived from Point Richmond with two other crewmembers that got off the boat once they got to San Diego. That couple we have seen before in Point Richmond. They live on the “Spit” in one of those fancy homes on the water with a nice sailboat attached to the dock in front overlooking our old Marina.  We have never seen or met Rijnard or Lisa before, but we have seen their gorgeous 55’ sailboat, Enchanter parked on a dock in front of those same nice homes on the “Spit” as we pass by on our way out of the Marina. We have always noticed and admired their boat! It’s so funny to see them wind up here in San Diego. Rijnard and Lisa are originally from Australia. They are headed to Mexico and beyond! They have some great adventures planned.

Jay, Lisa and Rijnard

Last night we were able to get together with all of the suspects I mentioned on Chris and Shawna’s boat for hors d’oeuvres. It was fun being amongst all of them!

Chris, Shawna, Mark, Jay, Lisa, Mattie & Rijnard

Chris and me

Jay, Lisa, Mattie, me, Rick and Rijnard

It’s interesting the bonds we have formed along our travels the past two months. It seems like you instantly connect like old friends with fellow boaters then when it’s time to move on there is a little wave of sadness that comes but soon passes because you know you are on the same journey and that your paths will surely cross again.

Speaking of paths crossing, we finally met up with our friends Kirk and Heidi again whom we first met in Santa Cruz, thanks to our friends Jack and Brenda from BYC Marina back home who put us in touch with one another. We bumped into them again in Monterey where we got to know them a little better. We have stayed in touch ever since. Finally they made it here to San Diego and we were able to spend a little time with them! Our schedules are a little more in sync than they were but still not exactly the same. We are leaving Sunday to Ensenada and they won’t be leaving until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. But our time frames in Ensenada may overlap and we will be able to see them again…maybe sail with them on the coast of Baja Mexico for a bit.

Heidi, Harley(who jumped in the picture unexpected) & Kirk

A few nights ago, Rick and I lucked out and were able to see the Lighted Christmas Boat Parade.  There were hundreds of boats out in the San Diego Bay all lit up with Christmas Lighted Decorations.

San Diego Christmas Boat Parade

Speaking of Christmas decorations…. we heard that our friends Michael and Barbara from Newport Beach won first place in their Christmas Boat Parade they had couple weeks ago! 

Our friend Michael and Barbara's boat

I don’t know if any of you might have followed along last year on my blog on our one month trip to Cabo where I wrote a post about my adventures in the laundry mat and the time I had there figuring out which machine did what. I ended up washing the clothes 3 separate times before figuring out which one was the dryer. Pretty comical! Anyway, this year I went to the same laundromat and I’m happy to report, I did not have a problem! I figured it out first try. Well….I did ask a fellow boater who was doing her laundry as well, which machine was the dryer.  That saved me a lot of time and money!

Some of the projects Rick has completed on the boat while we’ve been in San Diego were re-wiring & reconfiguring the wiring for the solar panels, installing a second fuel filter, had our fuel polished, took the propane off the decks and filled them, and put up a 2x6 piece of wood just above our bulwarks to attach our water and fuel jerry cans to.

We bought a Flopper Stopper from West Marine, which will be great from here on out because we will be at anchor for most of the next four months. This item should help the boat from rocking and rolling so much which will be more relaxing and make for a better night sleep.

For Christmas this year, Rick and I decided not to give each other gifts, because this trip is our gift basically. But we broke that pact and bought each other beginner surfboards. We have both been discussing learning how to surf ever since we were in Santa Cruz. So when we got here to San Diego and checked out a few surf shops and talked to a few people, we came up with a soft-top surfboard, which is apparently great for beginners. It is also the surfboard all of the surf rental shops use. We had a hard time finding this board. But one of the guys at our last surf shop we visited told us that we could find the boards we wanted at Costco for only 100.00! What a deal! Surfboards usually start in the 3-500 dollar range and go into the thousand-dollar range. So we endured a trip to Costco to get the boards. I managed ok in Costco…I’m used to it. But Rick could hardly wait to get out of the store! It was not only the usual busy Costco crowd we encountered, it was the Christmas shoppers Costco crowd! We decided while we were there to pick up a few other things we needed anyway, but we did that as fast as possible!

Did I mention how lucky we are to have the use of a vehicle?! It would have been a long walk or bus ride to Costco carrying surfboards and STUFF!

One interesting thing I just learned while being here is that there are these little tiny shrimp called Snapping Shrimp that feed on the algae on the bottom of your boat.  What’s crazy about this is that you can actually hear them at work! I have been hearing the strangest continual popping/crackling noises coming from our hull since we were in Santa Barbara. It was the first time I really noticed this sound. I had mentioned to Rick for quite some time what I was hearing, but he could never hear it. I started to think I was going nuts. But finally I overheard someone talking about the noises I was hearing and what it was from. I was so happy to hear that it actually was something real and not something made up in my head! The sound you hear sounds very similar to when you first pour milk over a bowl of Rice Krispie’s Cereal! Snap! Crackle! Pop! It also sounds like the morning after a rain when you hear water dripping off of your roof onto your lawn….very subtle…very random… VERY WEIRD! 

It’s kind of eerie to think there are millions of little critters feeding off the bottom of your boat!