Moored in Long Beach

Well…Rick’s birthday was not an adventurous day as I had hoped. We ended up working on the boat most of the day. It is what Rick wanted to do for his birthday. So, first project of the day was Rick climbing up the mast to get SSB antennae attached. 

After that he put another solar panel we had stowed on the back of the boat. He also worked on a few other odds and ends that needed to get done.  And I, on the suggestion of Rick, cleaned the bottom of the boat at the waterline. We had some straggly strings of green grass growing. I did this fun project while lying on my back on my SUP board….legs  sprawled, feet hanging onto the dock lines to hold me while I scrubbed the boat at the same time. Rick came by to offer advice of an easier method, but gave up because I just wasn’t grasping what he was telling me. Instead he told me I looked so pathetic that he needed to take a picture. 

The next chore I accomplished was polishing the Wind Vane. The salt had really dulled the stainless!  And…the fun chore I elected to do was to put up and decorate our little Christmas tree!

We worked pretty much all day until it was time to take showers and get ready for dinner out.  We ended up walking not even a mile to the restaurant, Killer Shrimp. This place had delicious food and we sat out on a balcony over looking the Marina. Rick had Shrimp Pasta and I had Blackened Salmon. Both meals were spicy hot, but good.

The next day was fun day! We started out walking, heading to Venice Beach, but noticed a Farmer’s Market not far from our Marina. So, we stopped and shopped then walked back to the boat to drop off the fresh veggies. We soon got back in walking mode and headed for Venice Beach again.  Once we got to Venice Beach, we walked out on the pier and watched some of the surfers surfing just at the edge of the pier. Then we walked out even further to the end of the pier to watch some fisherman. One fisherman in particular we stopped to talk to said that he had caught 10 fish that day and said that he accidently caught a bird…one of those birds that swim down deep then surface and float on top of the water. Unfortunately he couldn’t get the hook or part of the line back, so he just cut it and the bird was left entangled with the hook and line. Rick and I both said how that sucked for the bird. Then the guy replied, “ oh he won’t suffer long, a dolphin should come along and eat him.” I said under my breath looking puzzled, “Dolphins eat birds??” 

Next Rick and I checked out Muscle Beach and the Boardwalk. Fun people watching! We also stopped to watch a group of guys performing some amazing acrobatics and break dancing. They also involved some people from the crowd into their act. They were supper entertaining!

After a long day walking and sightseeing, we got back to the boat, made a big salad with smoked salmon for dinner and watched movies afterwards.  We were invited to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party at the Yacht Club but we didn’t go. Not really my cup of tea.  Besides “ugly” sweaters weren’t on our list of things to bring while cruising.

About 9 this morning we left Marina Del Rey and headed to Long Beach. It was a warm sunny day with just a few light feathery clouds in the sky. We stopped on the way out of the channel for fuel, and then we were on our way. We experienced a few big swells on our way out of the channel for a while which was not expected while checking the wind and wave report this morning. But not a big deal….they were so far apart and there was no wind.

 

Santa Catalina Island 

A couple of hours later, we decided to try out our Spinnaker Sail. So, we did and we had success! The only thing that could have been better was to have a little more wind. We had enough wind to fill the Shute but not enough to give us enough speed to get us to where we wanted to be before dark. So after a couple more hours, we put the sail away and motored to Long Beach.

As we got into the Long Beach area, directly on our route was this convergence of the commercial shipping lanes for all traffic headed to either Los Angeles or Long Beach. Apparently Long Beach is one of the busiest port areas in the world.  There were dozens of ships lined up waiting in the distance to enter the port.  It was a little unnerving making our way through this cluster. We had to dodge two ships as we passed the port entrance, one coming in and one leaving.  We actually had one of the ships blast his horn at us.  Yikes!

Around 4:30p.m we made it to our destination…..Island White, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THUMS_Islands, where we picked up a mooring ball.  We are here for the night then plan to leave in the morning for Newport Beach.