Waycation

Instead of a staycation, we decided to go far away this year.  By the time you read this post, we'll be on our way to Costa Rica.  We look forward to meeting my namesake, Toucan Sam, as well as many monkeys and whatever else the Ticos can throw our way.  We'll be gone for a few days, so don't wait up... and if this blog is not updated again by the end of the month, you'll know where the find us!  And if you're curious about Lola's whereabouts, you'll have to ask Adam at Camp Rita.  Hasta luego, amigos!

Summer Swing

Blogging has been on my mind but it seems I can't come up with a coherent thought lately. I think that is due in part to the summertime swing of things. School is out, which means more time to hang out with friends. I uploaded some photos over a week ago but it's taken me this long to post them. So here goes:

Usually Ben's bicycle is the victim of foul play but it appears someone raged on my bicycled basket one night a few weeks back. Wish I could have seen this as it was happening. I'm sure it would have been a good show.

Last week, our friend Andrea came by to experience the liveaboard lifestyle.  We went for a cruise around the bay on the Livingston and she got to meet some of the neighbors. 

We stopped by Joe & Julie's boat.  Julie was out of town and I didn't get a picture of Joe, but this picture of Andrea and Lola is priceless.  Those of you who know Lola know that she doesn't take kindly to strangers.  It can take her a year to get used to new people.  This was the very first time she met Andrea and Lola took an immediate liking to her.

This is another priceless picture... I row myself around all the time but I rarely row other people.  Although I do recall a time, perhaps the first summer we were on the boat, when I was rowing Ben to the dock and a man up on the wall yelled down to Ben, "You are my HERO!"

Currently, Ben and Lola are about an hour up north.  On Tuesday, they took the ferry to Catalina Island to meet Adam & Jasmine.  They originally intended to sail to Santa Barbara, but due to time constraints they had to change plans and, as far as I know, they are headed to Newport instead.  I'm hoping to hear from them sometime today.  I think the most difficult part of sailing is not worrying about your own safety while underway, but rather worrying about your loved ones while they are underway without you. 

"May the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face."

~Irish Blessing

Another Day on the Mooring Field

Yesterday, Ben met Joe & Brad out in the bay to help bring Pharaoh back to the ball.  Pharaoh and crew spent the last ten days at the cop dock, working to get her engine running.  Unfortunately, the cops shooed them away before they got the parts back from the machine shop, so she needed a tow back to the ball.  (Photo, right)

I spent last night at the hotel while Ben was working, so I was able to upload some of my HD videos onto YouTube.  Here are links to some of the Livingston videos that I didn't get to post the other day:

Livingston 1
Livingston 2
Livingston 3
Rollers
Home Stretch

SeeFood Dinner

(Here's the direct link in case your internet has trouble loading, like mine does!)

Livingston

This post has been a long time coming.  Back in January, Ben bought a 10-foot Livingston boat from one of our neighbors.  The boat had been damaged during one of our winter storms so he had to re-fiberglass the bottom.  While Ben had plans to fix it up and get it back into the water ASAP, the rain had other plans so it took a few days and a few headaches before it was floating again.  Once the boat was back in the water, Ben spent the next few months tinkering with a Honda 10 hp engine that had also been swamped during a storm.  Working on engines over the water can be tricky because if you drop a part, it will most likely fall into the water... and you can pretty much forget about getting it back.  After a few lost parts and a few more headaches, Ben decided to get an already-working engine instead.  So he got a sweet deal on a Suzuki 9.9 hp engine and put it in place.  The Livingston was finally mobile!  A day or two later, the starter broke and Ben was up to his limit with headaches so he dropped the starter off at the shop to be fixed on solid ground.  Luckily, the engine can be started manually while the starter is at the shop.

Last week, Ben used the Livingston to tow Joe & Julie's 51 foot concrete sloop from the mooring field to the cop docks at Shelter Island.  Unfortunately, I was at school (actually, that was pretty fortunate for me because I'm pretty sure I would have had a panic attack if I had to be present for that maneuver!) so I didn't get any pictures or videos. 

Ben took the Livingston out to the ocean today, and I got a beautiful HD video of him taking off... I'd love to share it but unfortunately my new Verizon internet card sucks just about as bad as AT&T did (no, wait... it sucks MORE) so naturally it cut out about three quarters of the way through the upload to YouTube (and of course it took a good two hours for it to upload to that point) so I won't be able to share it today.  If I'm ever near a real internet connection, maybe I can get the video loaded and share it with everyone.  For now, we'll have to settle for still life.

Sunset Row: May 6, 2010

Two Perspectives

Last night we went for a sunset row.  This morning when I opened my email, our neighbor Ray (Duke's human) had emailed me some pictures he'd taken of us from his boat.  So we bring you last night's sunset row from two perspectives.  Thanks Ray!

Glorietta Bay

On Thursday, we got a permit to anchor in Glorietta Bay. We decided to motor over rather than pulling out a smaller sail.  The wind was howling and there was a small craft advisory in effect. Here is a view of the skyline heading toward South Bay... it's a lot different from the view we see everyday from our mooring. 

Adam was already anchored in Glorietta, so he rowed his dinghy over and met us just before we entered the anchorage. This was our first time anchoring in Glorietta and since Adam lives on the hump, he knows the ins and outs of all the anchorages from here to Catalina. We took a spin around and found our spot and dropped anchor.  We actually dropped two anchors- Bruce on the bow and Danforth off the stern.  This is a view from our anchored boat.

Lola and Jasmine relaxing in the cockpit

There is a little beach running along one side of the Glorietta.  We took the dogs over to run around and check out the area.

Mother Culture at anchor

Our own *almost-private* beach on Coronado

The girls sniffing for buried treasures

Lola running on the beach

Coronado Bridge

The view out our window

Mother Culture

Rita (Adam's boat)

Mo-C & Dinghy

We grilled some food, had some drinks, walked to downtown Coronado and had another drink at a local bar and on Friday morning we pulled up our anchors and headed back home.  Friday was another windy day. On our trip back to the ball, we passed some people flying kites alongside the bay.  

This one was a quick trip but we're looking forward to summer, when school's out and we have more time off to take overnight trips.