February 28 2014
The biggest storm of the winter so far is hitting, thankfully. I prepared the boat with what I could, to protect the bikes and water from getting inside. This was proved pointless as I woke up to the wind (uncommonly) blowing strong from the south, behind the boat, so the rain was pushed sideways into the cockpit and through the hatchboard vent, into the boat. In fact, much of the teak oil was washed off and onto the cockpit floor before I even woke up. The photo shows the color of it, bleeding red oil down all over the boat.
The usual storm things are occurring such as sails unfurling and flapping themselves to death, more buckets and kayaks blown off boats and into the water, high tide and waves causing flooding, and the sounds of what I imagine living inside of a wind-chime would be.
My boat is doing great though. The sails are packed tight and lines are fastened down. I’m going out of town tonight for the weekend so hopefully everything stays that way.

February 23 2014
Friday was a laundry day, and using the public laundromats means sometimes accidentally taking home things that aren’t yours. Like a toddler sock. To make room for folding clothes I need the entire dining/bed area for folding and sorting clothes into groups before they get packed away in bins. I will say, I have more clothes now than I need, or have space for.
On Saturday I needed to go to the pump out dock. This was easier said than done because as we motored over to the two docks that have pump equipment, the sailboat was tied up and left at one of them, and about 20 harbor seals were in control of the other dock. I gambled and decided to go in anyways - the pump out needed to happen - luckily they all got scared and dove into the water to bark and stare at me, except for the largest one.
After that we anchored for a couple hours and played cards, snacked, napped, and watched a nice ketch come in and anchor next to us. This boat had enough chain that they just dropped anchor and floated practically right above the anchor, with the chain pointing straight down… Ah the pleasures of having a large sailboat and windless (motor to pull up the heavy chain and anchor).
On Sunday the weather was great and we drove over the bluff cove, the same cove we always anchor at, to check it out from shore. It is a quick hike down to the beach, which is rocky and natural and had marginally rideable surf. It would be fun to anchor out and paddle in to surf this wave, something I may try one day. It really felt like 80 degrees so an iced coffee was warranted, and looked cool.

I was out to lunch the other day and it was a Monday work holiday, and this restaurant was short on staff and the crowds were piling up. Our waiter came back to take out order and before he could speak, a women from another table interrupted the action and cut between our table and the waiter. Her purpose was to complain that her table ordered waters and didn’t get the waters before they got their drinks and appetizers.

I think everyone should have an early job in a service occupation. There would be a lot more mutual respect between employees and patrons.

February 17 2014
Instead of getting Mia flowers I got her a plant. It had to stay in the head (bathroom) of the boat over the weekend when we were gone, the rad thing is that it drips. I read that this is mostly due to the humidity around it…which makes sense because it’s inside of a boat. The weather on Monday, Presidents’ Day, was pretty cruddy for sailing but great for walking on the empty beach. It was cold and windy. We walked from the boat to the Hermosa pier and warmed ourselves up with coffee and gourmet tacos. I saw this box-truck parked and it had crazy pictures on the side.
The water pump fiasco, as it became, required the second trip out to blast off the bolts, then a third trip out on Saturday (while I was out of town) to replace the bolts connecting the water pump to the engine. Also, a water separator was being replaced. I never received a phone call over the weekend so I figured everything went just fine.
I was proven wrong at about 8am Monday morning when I was woken up from a call asking when they can enter the boat today to replace the last bolt, due to one falling into the bilge and failing to find it. At this point, I was pretty frustrated and tired of hiding away all my bedding and storage bins and carpet for them to work, and then reconstructing everything each night. But, it had to get done.
Now that the water pump job is done, a 2 hour quoted job that took 4 days and could paralyze my boat with this supposed lost screw in the bilge, they warned me that the oil pan is corroding and needs to be replaced.

Valentines/Birthday dinner 2014 at the Ojai Valley Inn
(Huge thanks to the McKiernan family)

Saturday February 15 2014
Being officially in my late 20s now, I’m elderly and therefore seek entertainment from museums. Just kidding. That’s a bad stereotype and I’ve sort of always liked museums. Unfortunately, after walking from the Inn to downtown Ojai (about a 20 minute walk on a nice shadowy path) and having breakfast, I discovered that the Ojai valley museum was closed for tenting. My/Mia’s friends/cousins Maddy and Sydney went on a trip to South America and did a lot of exhausting backpacking and traveling led to them posing in this hunched-over, tired stance if something along the trip went wrong. I did my best impersonation. But I was actually still very happy.
Ojai is a funny place. The population was like 8000 and it’s pretty spread out and not updated in many aspects, also I’d declare with confidence that 9/10 businesses begin with the name “Ojai” as if it’s such a small town. Pretty fun to see shops so small, loyal and tight-knit to their town. In some ways it reminded me of things I remember about Danville when I was little.
They also love their trees in Ojai. So much so, that they will not remove an old grown tree for the safety of driving straight down the road.
The bed in the room was supposed to be a king size bed. However my feet hung off and it took about a second to realize it was two twins pushed together with a mattress pad on top. Mia’s complaint and some back and forth phone tag led to them upgrading us to a bigger room and correct bed. The room was so big that I could do handstands and roll around in the middle, something I’ve missed doing since living on a sailboat. While the hotel was remedying the problem we lounged at the pool, which was really nice. I got a book about the Sierra Madre town and my Wilson trail from Betsey, which I was so excited to hike on a month ago.

February 14 2014
valentines day & my birthday. I took the day off of work to make this a 4-day weekend. I woke up and felt like it was my duty to snap a picture as a 28 year old maintaining my hygiene. I went to the mailbox and got some nice cards from family members, went to the gym for a bit, got the second balloon of my two digit age (they didn’t have a 2?), got back and made some big omelets, packed for the weekend and hit the highway smack in congested traffic. Oh well, it was great fun rolling at a runners pace through Los Angeles and Malibu half the way up to Ojai.
My girlfriend and valentine, Mia, booked a very nice room for the weekend and reservations at a restaurant there at the Ojai Valley Inn. Dinner was excellent and when the bill came it didn’t, the waitress told us that Mia’s family covered the dinner as a valentines/birthday gift. It was super nice, I was actually speechless. Above is our view from where we sat outside in a covered and heated patio.

February 13 2014
The watch: I now think of this as a birthday present to myself. My birthday is tomorrow. The real story is that I was doing some collections, there’s a clothing & accessory company that it’s paying on time for ads ran on my employers website. When this happens, usually I’ll check the company out online or see if there’s a more direct contact number on their site. They sold watched, and I love watches, I’ve been looking for a specific type - big face but thin depth, and a light casual band - all of their watches were $99 and up to $400. Except this one, this really subtle design fitting exactly the look I was searching for, “SALE” it sad, $99 slashed down to $19.00. WHAT!? That must be a mistake! So I bought it.
So there, it began with trying to collect money from a company, and ended without collecting money, but in fact giving them money. Oh well, the company is really eco-friendly and the watch case can be a flower pot, pencil holder, drink coaster, loose change holder, all types of things.
The post-it note: I mention above that something I do at work is collections, that’s because I am in the accounting and finance department. Nobody in the company likes us because we always say no, but without us the business wouldn’t run. Fellow employees express their sincere gratitude in many different ways.
The carpet-lacking floor: I removed the carpet last night because the mechanics sort of dirtied it, and I don’t want damage to it from anything else.

February 11 2014
Foggy.

February 12 2014
You’ve seen this image before. It’s the water pump. It sucks in salty sea water from a hole in the bottom of the boat, spins a rubber wheel called an impeller which kicks it (“pumps” it) out the higher left-sided hose and into a ‘heat exchanger’. Then the cold salty sea water exchanges it’s cold temperature against nice clean fresh water which goes from hot (circulating through the engine) to cold (from this sea water), then back into the engine to become hot again. After that the salt water gets spat out the back of the boat back into the ocean.
Salt water ruins everything. You can see from the corrosion around the piece and the bolts behind it. This is why the heat exchanger just steals the coolness for it’s fresh water, so salt water doesn’t ruin more stuff inside the engine.
Anyways, the bolts are so corroded that the mechanics spent a few hours cranking them and only got one off. The other 4 will require more hours of work tomorrow, and a BLOW TORCH.
This was not good news.