Easter 2012 (The day we were supposed to leave)

We are still here in San Diego, Southwestern Yacht Club to be exact.  We made a plan that involved leaving today to sail directly to Ensenada, Mexico long enough for me to call my sister and my sister call my mom.  That was approximately six hours.  We were ready to spend Easter Day sailing 9 hours to a foreign country on a sailboat that had broken down two days before.  Not to mention without a list of parts we need to have replacements of.  What the hell were we thinking?  I am reading Deepak Chopra’s Book, The Happiness Prescription.  Deepak says, If an action you are about to take makes you feel calm and peaceful, then you should follow through with that action.  But if an action makes your body uneasy then you should not make that action.    So today, instead of sailing to Mexico we slept until 10am and then lazily spent the day on our sailboat docked in a slip that has a lounge with a fireplace, a restaurant and bar, Internet, nice bathrooms with private showers, and a clothing store.   Whew, am I glad we came to our senses. 

The bathroom on our boat is fowl.  I can’t stand to be in there.   I don’t know what I am going to do!

Tina

First Leg

It's official...Lucky aka- Jason aka- the Captain and I have moved on to our 34 ft. Catalina with our two dogs, Winston and Wolfgang. We have started our journey.  Maybe that is an exaggeration,  knowing that we have only traveled about 30 minutes to a temporary slip in Point Loma.  But I do feel the journey has begun, seeing as how neither of us are working, the boat's engine is already having issues, and the dogs refuse to use the green mat as a toilet.  We left our slip yesterday and ten minutes in to the trip the engine alarm started buzzing.  We had to cut the motor and drift while the Captain opened up the engine compartment to investigate.  I was directed to monitor the engine temp. gauge and the flow of water leaving the boat.  I got in trouble when I was looking at my phone instead of staring at the gauges like I was ordered by the Captain.  We never found out why the alarm went off, but it continued the entire trip to our current location. I can't help but think, "Is this the beginning or the end of our journey?"   I have heard the saying that sailing is just boat maintenance in exotic places.  I just hope that Lucky has the powers to fix the engine so we can sail on to Catalina Island for our shake down cruise.  We are hoping to leave tomorrow.  But from the color of the engine oil today (milky grey), we may be here a few more days.

Both the dogs seem to be getting along well on the boat.  Even thought they won't use our fake grass mat as a bathroom.  Wolfgang whines down to us from the cockpit of the boat but then when I take him to the grass mat he sits down on it and looks up at me.  I am hoping that they will get desperate and use it once we are not a short walk to the grassy bathroom that they are used to.  They both want to come down into the cabin of the boat every night.   We initially said that both dogs with sleep up top, but we have gone soft already.  Little Winston's ears are like ice sickles up there.  I can't let him freeze in our San Diego night air.