I can't believe a week has passed already. We 'touched down' in San Diego on Monday, Oct. 24th and landed at the Silvergate Yacht Club. But it wasn't the quiet entry you might have imagined. We planned, and executed, an arrival at the entrance to San Diego harbour - to coincide with the departure of the 177 sailboats heading off on the Baja Haha rally down the coast to Cabo San Lucas. One hundred and seventy-seven masts... all shapes and sizes... and all heading out of San Diego at the same time. It was an amazing sight. We just coasted down the side of the channel as they all passed us; and, we were able to pick out the Canadian boats... most of whom we now know... It's great how loud those little air horns are :-)... and, of course, we hoisted the biggest Canadian ensign we have (which is pretty big) so it was great fun to cheer for Canada as the "eh's" (that's what they call us down here) passed. Once they'd all turned left and headed down the coast there was this, almost audible, sigh of relief from the San Diego harbour chandleries, restaurants, and other service providers. And, thankfully, it seems they did leave a bit of merchandise in the stores for us to wander through. This area of San Diego is literally filled with every kind of boating store and service you can imagine. Within a very few blocks you can find at least one of everything... it's marvelous!
The folks and facilities at Silvergate were very nice. Their bar & lounge were open most nights. The food was delicious and the big-screen TV allowed us to watch the last 3 innings (the best part of) the 5th baseball game in the world series... which of course hooked us and kept us watching the ball games until the series was over. Shortly after we arrived at SYC, we received a call from friends Susan and George, who had taken a jaunt down to San Diego to say 'hi' and to give us a hand with our provisioning. We spent an enjoyable two days with them, visiting various spots in San Diego (at least in this portion of it which really is focused on boaters and boating... and we did some shopping and running around... and we visited the Birch Aquarium, an amazing place Kathy had wanted to see for years. Their displays and aquariums were second to none and the sea horse tanks (and baby sea horses) were really neat... They even had a floor to ceiling, huge, aquarium display of a kelp bed, complete with sharks, huge groupers, and other local fish.... and, I'm happy to say, the displays were pristine.
After a few days (2 as reciprocal guests, and 1 as paying customers) we left SYC and moved over to the Southwestern Yacht Club. They didn't recognize us as 'reciprocal' so no free nights, but they did allow us their 'daily rate' of $1/foot. (NB: imagine our surprise to see them flying our Burgie in their wall collection). Here we met up with our friends Tom and Jean on SV Eagle and continued with our preparations and projects on Shannon. The SWYC has the best Club restaurant we've seen yet. Food and service are excellent and their Crab Louie salad ($7.50) was so good.. I had it twice. They say the food at SWYC is so good that the members from the neighbouring San Diego YC come to SW to eat :-). We stayed at SWYC until Monday (yesterday) when we had to move off the guest dock anyway, so we took ourselves over to the San Diego YC (again no reciprocal, but at least the $1/foot)... because we could. We won't be by this way again.. and besides, they have a pool and hot tub :-).
We're now in the last couple of days here. Today, Sophie gets her 'Mexican cut' and a visit with the Vet for her International Health Certificate (required for entry to Mexico). While she's at the 'spa' Kath and I will head downtown to the Customs office to acquire our 'permission to leave the US' papers... and we have a few more parts (technical and mechanical) to pick up on our way back. We'll spend this afternoon and tomorrow morning tidying the boat and getting our papers in order. Our plan is to head out of here at mid-night Wednesday/Thursday and travel through the rest of the darkness in US waters. That will give us daylight to find our way through the myriads of Mexican crab and lobsters pots as we approach Ensenada - our first port of entry.
We'll be checking into Mexico at Ensenada and staying at the Marina Naval. They're very helpful there and the manager, Rogelio, speaks English well. We'll then provision with fresh food and hire a diver to sponge off the bottom of Shannon's hull. Hopefully we'll be on our way south within a couple of days.
It's definately time to get into some warmer weather. The dew is so heavy now that it pools on our little cockpit cover just as if it had rained all night. We've collected the charts and books we need (and there aren't that many available anyway) for Mexico so, off we'll go into the second phase of this fantastic journey.
PS: We'll be getting a new cell phone in Ensenada so our US cell will be 'retired'.
Take good care everyone... talk to you later... Carolyn
