Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Mother Culture Under Sail

This week marks the beginning of another semester: another 4 months to hone whatever skills we are working on at the moment. I've been slow about blogging for a couple reasons: 1) I've been trying to balance work and school and blogging has fallen by the wayside, and 2) I've had mixed feelings about sharing insight into our last sailing expedition. Originally, I had all these emotions I thought I wanted to share but ultimately, I think the experience of sailing is something that can't necessarily be described in words. Or maybe it's like being part of a small, semi-private club. Anyone is welcome to join but only those willing to put their life on the line actually will. It makes you appreciate life more and realize how tiny you really are in the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure most people really understand that about themselves.

So I've decided to keep my emotions to myself. But I'll give some stats for the sake of having them in writing and being able to reflect on this trip and laugh years from now... after we've made a *real* ocean-crossing. It took us about 5 hours to sail to the Coronados and about 5 hours to sail back. We used our motor sometimes because we were on a *schedule* (something that we don't intend to do often.... the fate of a sailor can be murky when s/he holds himself to a schedule). We didn't get seasick. This was something I hadn't given much thought to until I woke up the first morning and it really hit me that there would be no going to land.
We spent more than 48 hours straight on the boat (except for the time we spent swimming in the water). Lola went on potty-strike, peeing only once each 24 hours in her potty-box. This is a little concerning to me, but I'm sure she'll get more accustomed to sailing and learn to potty more often as we spend more and more time on the hook (that's sailor-speak for "on the anchor").

The thing I wanted to see most while sailing on the ocean was a pod of dolphins, and I got my wish soon after I voiced it aloud: A pod of dolphins swam alongside our port side and then later another pod came up on our starboard and swam beneath the boat. Pretty exciting stuff.
Just outside the bay, we spotted our friend and neighbor, Justin on "What, Me Worry?" That was our first time spotting someone we know while we were our sailing. Our speed reached a maximum of about 7 knots on the trip- sailing back towards San Diego from the Coronodos. And inside the bay, heading back to the ball we were teeter-tottering around 2 or 3 knots. It's always pretty slow heading home.

I guess that's about it for now. I'll leave you with a couple more pics of Mother Culture under sail:

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

More Pictures

For those of you who are always online and already saw the Picasa picture from my last blog, (or those of you who haven't even seen the first "volume") click the following link and scroll to the end of the album to see new pictures:
Las Islas Los Coronados
I've added some underwater pictures from our snorkel/scuba adventure!!

Pictures from the Coronados

Instead of posting all the pics individually on this unbelievably slow blogger, here is a link to my Picasa album:
Las Islas Los Coronados
We have some underwater pics that I'll post later on...
Enjoy!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Firsts



We arrived back at the mooring ball yesterday afternoon around 5:30PM. (Or should I say 1730 hours? ;) I have plenty of pictures to post but those of you who have been following my blog for a while now know how long that might take me. Actually, I'm uploading them to Picasa as I type this. I thought I'd take this opportunity to list the "Firsts" of this trip.

This was the first time:
* we sailed Mo-C into the ocean.
* we anchored off an island.
* we sailed Mo-C to another country. (HA!)
* I swam in a wetsuit.
* we didn't have access to land for more than 8 or 10 hours. (much more, in fact!)
* Lola didn't get a walk for 55 hours straight. (poor buddy!)
* we saw dolphins while sailing.

Those are the ones that stand out in my mind currently. If I think of more later on, I'll be sure to post them.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Float Plan

Today is a HUGE day for us. We will be doing our first ocean crossing. I'm not sure that's the right phrase, since we'll be sailing less than 20 miles across the ocean, but it sounds cool so that's what I'm going to call it. We're heading southwest to the Mexican Islas los Coronados for the weekend. (Sorry, Mom!) Fortunately, we won't be sailing alone. We'll be making the trip with some friends: Brad and Niki (and baby Dawn) on Big Tuna & Joe and Julie. Joe is sailing down with us in our boat to make sure we arrive safely.

The trip should take somewhere around 6 hours and we'll be anchoring off South Coronado until Sunday and then sailing home. So if you don't hear from me by Tuesday or so, maybe you should contact the Coast Guard! Hopefully I'll have some cool pics to post next week. Stay Tuned...

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Saturday, August 1, 2009

The Galley


Since Ben installed the oven, we lost some storage space in our galley. Yesterday, I took a much-dreaded trip to Ikea for some space-saving storage ideas. I was actually pleased with what they had to offer. Outfitting a sailboat is trickier than a house because of the constant slant while we're sailing. If things aren't battened down, they go flying around the cabin while underway. Since I don't like to bother with the "battening" part each time we go for a sail, I was adamant about finding organizers that would stay put and not waste precious countertop space. (Sidenote: the only real countertop space we have is actually the top of our icebox so it also needs to be accessible.) I think our new fixtures should work well. I plan on taking another trip to Ikea (gasp!) in the near future to get a couple more items to complete the redesign.