Over the weekend I drove up to the Bay Area to see my family up there and attend my twin brother and his wife Nicole's baby shower at their Oakland apartment rooftop.  As if that isn't cool enough, the weather was typical fall all Bay Area perfection - almost 80 degrees by the water and clear enough to see past San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. Plus, if those two things weren't enough, it was also the annual fleet week on the bay and a blue angels air show. I think this is the not time I've seen them perform twice in the same year. The guests who also attended the baby shower party and the view that went along with being in a rooftop couldn't be beat. Really the only downside is the short amount of time to see my family and the hours of driving. It's all worth it though. 

Roof top cornhole

Missing from the family photo is Julia's parents (who were there) and Mia (who was celebrating her grandmas 90th birthday in San Diego) 

Mias sister and fellow equestrian Maeve came and visited us on the boat and we all went to a Grand Prix horse show in Long Beach. It was excited to watch these horses jump so high and fast. Many of the horses and riders were just in the Rio Olympics. 

How such a large and strong animal trusts their rider to just go and leap 6 feet in the air at full speed is mind boggling.  

For the USA team

The weekend brought a heat wave, calm winds and some fun summer swell for bodysurfing. I fortunately was able bodysurf Saturday morning with my neighbor Connor and then again Sunday afternoon when Mia and I met up with her dad in Laguna Beach. As a surfer of about 12 years, there is something special about the feeling of dry Santa Ana winds, thinner crowds, and crisp, clean waves. Day time this weekend was great, the major bummer what when the hotel they're still building opened up their doors to a private party on Saturday night. 

This is taken from the cockpit. It looked like a police helicopter was shining a spotlight on the boats. I needed to lay towels over the port lights to try to darken the cabin.  "It's only going to get worse" everyone keeps saying. 

I have not yet gotten over how awful the marina just got, due to the Redondo Beach Shade Hotel. I think I lost my last sliver of hope that it could be good for the area...But I don't think my blog is any appropriate place to complain about my first impressions. They aren't even finished with construction but they're desperate for money so they hosted a very loud, very bright, party on Saturday night. The community in the marina is furious about this monster nuisance, but the fact is that liveaboards complaints are not even a drop in the bucket full of money the city will collect from the hotel when it becomes gainfully operating. Unfortunately after four years in this current marina, the only thing we can do to regain peace and quiet is look to move to an open slip in other marinas. 

The Shade Hotel running a constant flow flow of fresh, precious, valuable, scarce California water out of a hose across a pathway straight into the ocean. All day, all night. 

To celebrate our friend Kait's birthday there was a big dinner at her and Kevin's Silver Lake apartment - yes, the same place I recently cracked my chin open. I pledge not to ever stand on their balance board again.  

This time Kevin went to a restaurant and picked up pounds and pounds of food: potatoes, shrimp, corn, crab, and more. Dump it all over the table and everyone just gathers around and eats with their hands.  

The group that was up at the cabin the previous weekend (and post) plus some more close friends and Kaits parents and aunt were all in attendance to celebrate. After drinks and dinner and drinks and some coffee everyone was wired and we went to place nearby called Funky Soul. As is obvious from the name, you dance to funky soul music spun on turn tables. 

The feast  

Kait and Mia not letting messy hands get between them and some wine  

We're really lucky that Leif has a skill for taking photos  

A night at Funky Soul

The weekend included a trip up to running Springs - a community between lake arrowhead and big bear up in the San bernardino mountains. We drove up to lake arrowhead Friday afternoon and arrived as the sun was going down at a waterfront shopping center and promptly put on winter layers of clothes while all of the people around were still in shorts and t shirts. It was about 60 degrees before the sun went down and felt great in the crisp mountain air. 

A live concert, bar food, and a view of lake arrowhead. 

Puzzles at the cabin - I focused on the sailboats as Mia did the rest  

1. We met up with the Kevin (who's family cabin it is) and Kait, Sydney, Molly, and later on Tim. It was an awesome get away. Saturday we went on a hike to a summit and to a small lake and jumped off its dam. 

Fireplace heat was necessary as the temps went into the 50s at night  

The view from Running Springs down on the LA basin  

The locals secret spot "hole in the fence" 

bringing this frisbee everywhere has become a bit of a running joke, but this day it served as a speaker amplifier for the phone music. 

Me sharing a couch with Kevin's dog, Cayman

Can't ignore the photogenic quality of Cayman 

I was just out of the frame, doing that puzzle  

After a couple days at the cabin we came back to normal life with a day to spare to relax. The trip up to the mountains perfect and we all plan to go back in November.  

With an extra day off of work following the holiday I surfed, but it was typically bad.  

A quick trip to the Bay Area to see my family. We hiked above Berkeley on Saturday morning, there was a petting zoo, we went wine tasting, and Sunday was Julia's baby shower in Larkspur. It was a short but sweet trip and I can't wait to get back up there as the family grows. 

The family with two on the way

Scoot and Alec hiking ahead of the group

I just kept saying I wish there were trails like this in LA  

Scott or Sasquatch? 

The petting zoo was really kid friendly, you could feed the animals celery and lettuce  

Rusty wouldn't stay still for a picture  

Mia and my mom

Me and my mom  

Missed my catamaran when this came flying past  

Our friendly neighbors Mike and Jo taking their boat out - a 1970s Uniflite

I was the official hammock pusher

We took friends out sailing on a nice calm day. A couple people were feeling slightly sick so after about an hour we began to head in. All the girls liked the idea of being towed behind the boat so we did that until we got close to the beach and ready to turn into the harbor and start the motor. Of course, I had a suspicion that the motor wouldn't start for reasons x y and z, and it did not start. Not to worry, Mia was able to sail us slowly around while I got into the engine compartment and plugged a loose wire back in - fired right up. Everyone cheered for the fact that I got a seemingly dead engine to work again. Dang corrosion.  The next weekend I replaced the terminal and refreshed some of the wiring. I bought a lot of terminal spares of all sizes and hear shrink wrap and would like to overall replace as much of the 31 year old wiring with correctly color coded and cut to length new stuff. 

Heading to pick up a mooring and get immediately kicked off because of newly enforced harbor rules  

Mia and I heading to dinner with the group

The last few weekends I've had to do small projects like build Mia a sliding-out platform for her clothes bins, check the fuel gauge wiring, replace the rigging tape to cover cotter pins and rings around the deck, replied the mid flaps on my truck, and on and on. 

Replaced the rigging tape for black - blends in with the windows, won't show dirt from hotel construction 

I also took breaks to sail the dinghy a bunch and got a bit confident out in the open ocean a couple miles from shore and capsized 3 times in a matter of minutes. Lost a hat, sunglasses and a water bottle, earned some bruises, but also learned a few valuable things about the dinghy's limits as well. I'm thankful the water I so warm right now and that nobody else was out there with me to endure the experience. 

We set off for Catalina at 7am and the plan was that my neighbor Connor and another dock neighbor Grant were taking their boats over as well and we'd all meet at two harbors. We left first, and around the R10 buoy the look towards shore was eerie, thanks to a fire that was burning inland.  

Palos Verdes sunrise through fire clouds  

Fast approaching fog  

As soon as we rounded R10 to cross the channel and could see south towards San Pedro, we saw a huge fog bank. NOAA satellite imagery showed it blanketing Orange County and not above LA, however as we looked away and back at the fog we could tell it was getting closer, and fast. A few minutes later and we were surrounded. The weather changed from hot, calm and sunny, to cold, gusty and misty fog, visibility was around 100 feet. I kept my eyes on the compass to keep us steered toward Catalina and blew the handheld fog horn every few minutes. Mia kept her eyes open for any craft behind us or to our port, I looked for anything in front of us and starboard. She periodically looked at our Marine Traffic app for clues to other boats whereabouts if they had AIS, oh yeah and container ships. My dad used to say that the trip to Catalina is a piece of cake except for one thing - fog banks in the channel. We saw one powerboat, he was heading right at us, we saw each other and each corrected course and passed each other within 60 feet. Who knows if we came close to other boats out there. This lasted for about an hour and a half and we reached a pocket of lighter fog and wind, then eventually it parted and we could see our target again. 

This was our best form of vision in the fog. Unfortunately some of those boats locations weren't updated so we really had no idea. I took the screenshot to record our gps coordinates...some of the worst thoughts go through my mind in risky situations like this, and knowing our last known location seemed like a good idea.  

Seeing our destination was a relief  

Dolphins joined us and we soon forgot about the terrifying fog  

This family right next to us all Moore their Catalina 36 up all summer and rotate family members who share the boat. The island looked like Mars  

So we did what you do when you get to the island, made lunch, went to shore, swam, and hung out. It was about 85 degrees in the middle of the day and then a strong breeze kicked up, I began to wonder where the rest of my boat friends were. Turns out Connor arrived about an hour after us, and there were no more available moorings... In fact we were put on a 40' mooring and the harbor patrol made it sound like we got the last one. Connor then called in for news that there were two available moorings at Avalon and he would try there. In this gusty weather it sounded rough, furthermore Grant was still hours away back in the channel. There were no more moorings, and Connor and grant genre forced to turn around. Such a bummer, they sailed for about 12 hours straight, almost 60 miles and ended up back at the dock. 

Sunday morning the weather was already scorching and we enjoyed the warm water by diving in and swimming to the beach. We waited for the fog between the island and coast to clear and the wind to pick up before setting off home. About 20 minutes after leaving we were hit by 17+ winds with full sail up and buried the rail, fought not to round up, so we reefed the jib and continued at a more comfortable pace. Eventually the wind calmed and became too calm so we only were moving around 3 knots... Fired up the motor and got back safely. 

departure was decided by how far away we could see other boats that were heading home. The farther away we could still see them the better because it meant the fog was burning off.  

Mia moments before the stronger wind  

Went up to SLO for a quick weekend trip to help celebrate James's birthday. We went to the horses and to the Pismo dunes to try out the touaregs 4 wheel drive and with a slight hope to need to use James's new MaxTrax (they're long rigid plastic that can help unstick a car off road) 

Journey sporting his new hat  

The MaxTrax can be seen on the back of the jeep. and a new shovel, just in case. 

The trusty Toureg did get stuck when I drove it through deeper sand. Fortunately a group of guys who witnessed the whole thing ran over and helped push the car out. you can see the dunes were crowded so we left shortly after that. 

There's a picture on my blog somewhere that Milly was small enough to hold with one arm. Not the story anymore.  

The welcoming crew at the Marshall farm