California is burning

In the past month there have been over 2000 fires in my state of California! One of the worst is in Butte County where many of my relatives live.

Last weekend sis and I travelled to Butte County to go to my cousin's wedding celebration. We almost didn't go but we feared the wrath of my aunt Rosemary more than the idea of burning up or dying of smoke inhalation. We didn't burn, couldn't even see a fire (it was too smoky) but we definitely nearly died of smoke inhlation.

This is what lake Oroville looked like:

It is supposed to look like this:

Even though it looks like fog it's actually smoke. We could hardly sleep because it was difficult to breathe. The next morning it was smoky all the way down the mountain:

As we ventured down the mountain we saw the fire crews driving up to do their work for the day:

They had to truck water up the mountain in big tank trucks:

The town of Oroville was where people got evacuated and was a staging ground for the out-of-town fire crews who arrived to help:

I heard on the radio that the cost for the Butte County fire is currently at about 46 million dollars! About 80 homes have been lost. Luckily my cousins, aunt and uncle still have their houses...so far. Thank you fire crews for saving their homes!

Stanley the Rooster

The place where I have been working since August was founded by an unusual couple. They are vegans, which isn't so weird here in California, but once I accidently showed a picture of a prime rib to the founders wife and she started crying. Note to self...

There is a company cat named Squeakers and once there was a company rooster named Stanley.

Stanley wandered into the warehouse one day when he was still a chick. They hoped it would be a Stella, but the chick grew into a Stanley which meant constant crowing and ocassionally aggresive behavior. Stanley was tolerated, nay revered, and he lived in an old cargo container in the warehouse. Stanley had a tendency to try to peck people on the legs. Some people used the broom to try to swoosh him away; they also kept a spray bottle handy that emitted a strong stream of water that Stanley didn't care for. One guy always wore chaps (he worked with a long upright saw) and he just let Stanley peck away, basically ignoring him. Last summer the warehouse caught fire and Stanley got roasted. In memory we have a Stanley award for the person who demonstrates the qualities of goal-oriented perseverence and tenacity that Stanley embodied. Have I mentioned we are insane in California?

Sailing from Santa Barbara to San Francisco

It turned out that the weekend following our trip from Ensenada to Santa Barbara would be another good weather window for leg two of our journey, SB to San Francisco. The weather gods told us Saturday would be lovely and Sunday would be less so. We figured if we could at least get around Point Conception that would be a good thing, so we rendezvoused at our house Friday after work, drove the rental car down to Santa Barbara, and loaded ourselves onto the boat. The only SNAFU this night was that Nick dropped the bottle of rum and broke it. Gah! We would have to rough it with vodka and tequila only.

Doogie checks weather and navigation.

We left beautiful SB harbor around 1:00 a.m. on a calm and clear night and rounded Pt. Conception before sunrise. Pt. Conception is notoriously nasty and difficult to round but we were blessed with perfect conditions.

Dan-O enjoys the sunrise:

Later on as we were off San Simeon the wind picked up a little and Nick and Tom hoisted the mainsail...

...while Dan-O enjoyed watching:

Dan-O enjoys a beer after the exhausting job of watching the others work.

Saturday was calm and flat as we motor-sailed up the coast.

Dan-O enjoys doing something other than just enjoying himself:

Tom and Doogie on watch just after sunset Saturday night:

We knew the weather was going to start getting rough that night but we hoped to be able to make it at least to Monterey by Sunday morning. We rounded Point Sur about 2:00 a.m. and sailed by Monterey around 6:00 a.m.

We felt we were on our home turf and barring any surprisingly nasty weather could probably make it all the way to SF.

Nick suits up with PFD and tether for the winds and waves to come:

This is what Saturday looked like from our galley window:

This is what Sunday looked like:

The view inside, heeled over, but not too bad:

After a day of bashing upwind we entered the San Francisco shipping channel and sighted the Golden Gate Bridge:

The channel is notorious for its big swells and we weren't disappointed that day:

Yee haw!! Let's surf home:

Things calmed down just outside the Golden Gate and we calmly sailed under just before sunset.

We made it! We're inside the bay and pass Alcatraz on our way to South Beach Harbor. Home sweet home...

Sailing from Ensenada to Santa Barbara - We meet a few obstacles but finally overcome.

The Red Boat syndicate (Tom, Rich and I) decided to bring our beloved Schumacher back to the SF bay area from Ensenada. We'll take her back down to Mexico when we have more time to vacation there. We didn't want to take time off from work so we decided to try to bring her up in 2-3 weekends. It worked out pretty well. First step, Ensenada to Santa Barbara or somewhere in-between depending upon our speed and the weather. The first weekend in January had nasty weather all along the coast. We checked with Commander's Weather for the following weekend and it looked like it would be worth a try...

Our plan: Tom, Rich, Synthia and Sylvia would fly to San Diego Friday night and rendezvous with Nick (flying down from SF) at 7:30 p.m. Our driver Sergio would pick us up and take us to Ensenada, arriving there by 10:30 p.m. We would unpickle the boat and leave the harbor by 12:30 a.m.

Rich's dad was our ride to the airport. We're all there except Tom:

Mati and Terry join us and we're still waiting for Tom:

Tom finally arrived and we caught our plane for San Diego. We arrived and waited for Nick, we waited, we waited some more. Nick finally called and said his flight was cancelled. What a bummer! This meant that if we were one person down our watches for the trip up the coast would be longer. Yuck!

Luckily Nick managed to catch a later flight, (the last one from SF to San Diego) so we treated Sergio and his buddy to dinner while we waited. Nick finally arrived at 9:30 p.m. and we waited for his luggage, and waited, and waited, but it never arrived. Nick was a sport about it, and we decided the rest of us could part out our extra polypro, fleece and foul weather gear so he could be fully dressed for the voyage.

We finally arrived in Ensenada at 12:30 a.m. and it was completely socked in by pea soup fog!! We had a crew meeting, should we leave or wait until morning? We felt we could delay no longer so we decided we could drive with our instruments, i.e. radar, and decided to leave ASAP. Call us crazy but we left the dock at 3:30 a.m:

We drove out of the harbor using our radar and our ears. I stood on the bow and listened for ominous noises such as waves hitting breakwaters (yes, and we had to alter course) and seals barking on half-sunken wrecks.

It was thick fog all night and all the next day. Thank goodness for radar or we wouldn't have been able to avoid that ship, yikes!! A big empty ocean and we were on a direct heading to hit it!

By the way, the fog was freezing ass cold:


Finally at around 4:00 the next afternoon we motored toward San Diego harbor (to go through customs) and the fog cleared:

It was great after a night and day of sailing alone in the dismal fog to see activity once again:


We pulled into the customs dock and waited for the agents. Nick took a taxi to the airport and retrieved his luggage, hoorah!

After going through customs we left San Diego to continue our journey up the coast. We hated to leave the warmth of San Diego but as we left the fog was already rolling over the hills. We had another foggy night to look forward to:








Sometime in the early morning we broke through the fog and were treated by sunrise and a clear sky:






The weather warmed up enough for t-shirts and lunch al fresco. Kippers anyone?











Why yes, I believe I'll have a beer with that!












We made great time up the coast and in the afternoon began to see the oil rigs that signified Santa Barbara was not too far away:











As we approached Santa Barbara harbor we spied the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier:










We finally sailed into Santa Barbara and got a slip.



Nick couldn't wait to get some coffee but ewwww, did they put his coffee in the tip cup?? Gross!!






The Red Boat was happily tied up until our next leg up the coast.




We had a bite to eat, rented a car, and drove back up to San Jose, arriving around midnight. Next step: Leg two from Santa Barbara hopefully all the way to San Francisco.