4th of July 2015
Mia and I tried to sail a dock friends hunter 15. I knew it didn’t tack well, the daggerboard is too small for the wide and light round structure of the boat, because I sailed it the other weekend. It became even more apparent when we set off from the dock and were blown backwards tack after tack until I was blown down about 6 slips and just sailed into an open one. Gave up. Had to dive in the dirty harbor water to retrieve a line and pull it back for the owner. He and his friends all said they have the same problem so I didn’t feel so bad.

Then Mia and I went to anchor for the fireworks show in the channel. We pulled up equally between our favorite sailboat in the marina - “silver fog” a 50-some foot ketch to our port, and to our starboard a 2007 Marquis 59 powerboat - one of two in the world with windows on the side that open, and somewhere between 1-1.5 million dollars. Mia and I set the bow and stern anchor fine just like both boats on either side. We thought it odd that the only person on the powerboat was a young hillbilly kid nervously walking about. Harbor patrol came and told him the boat is too deep into the channel and he needs to move it forward, to which he replied that the owner (his dad) and the hired captain were both gone for the night and not returning and he can’t move the boat. Ok, well, at least he’s hooked in and about 50-70 feet away from us. So we thought… The wind was strong and about an hour later it switched more from the north which revealed that the stern anchor on this powerboat was not set, the boat swung widely to A Cenoura and I had to hop over my rail, onto the swim platform of the powerboat and push it away from mine, fighting the wind and the momentum of a swinging 60 foot yacht, the swim platform lightly brushed my hull, thankfully not enough to do damage. My push bought us about a minute and I jumped back to my boat then called the kid over to pick me up on his dinghy. The dinghy stalls and stops when you put it in gear.. Anyways I inspected his anchor rode, it was very inadequate line, knotted between the stern of the boat and the swim platform, and cleared just dangling the anchor down below. At this point I figure I’ll reset my stern anchor so I’m pointed away from him. I do that whole process, and the boat swings completely perpendicular and almost into me again. Fortunately at that moment the owner of silver fog came out on his dinghy and sort of bossed the powerboat around and attempted to set the stern anchor from his dinghy- we all see that the anchor is kinked and wouldn’t open up and dig in anyways. So silver fog guy tells me that he wouldn’t trust the powerboat and that I could side tie to him for the show or I should at least reset both my anchors closer to his sailboat. Alright, fine. We do everything all over again, at least it was good practice in side-wind between two very nice boats, I chose that we won’t be staying the night for fear of where that powerboat would go. We watched the firework from the redondo barge and the subsequent show that a family fires off from their property near Palia verdes, then we pulled up and went back to the dock. If that wasn’t enough, some drunk person knocked my bicycles over, and the pump fell over into the water. Luckily they were locked/tied to each other or o think the heavy old schwinn would have sunk.
With enough boating excitement for the weekend, on Sunday we went to a 3d theater and watch Jurrassic World.