From Nov. 19 We had our first real Mexican adventure today. The first part was braving the surf, we both took our dinghies off the boats and paddled in to shore, it was about 1/4 mile to shore. Timing is everything, we got lucky and managed a safe, dry landing. Mungo's crew on the other hand were spectacularly spilled into the surf, oh, I should correct that, only the Captain got dunked, the First Mate, otherwise known as the Admiral rode the dinghy in with aplomb and just got the slightest bit wet, but the Captain was soaked. I have pictures, make sure you check back in a week or so.
The beach was gorgeous, long and curved with sand dunes about 50 meters from the water. There were people driving cars and trucks up and down the beach and there were about 6 in the water digging for clams. They had a pitchfork and they would plunge around in the water and then lean down and pick up the clam once they struck one. One bunch would lean down pick up the clam and then huck it ashore for a buddy to collect and put in a plastic milk crate. Once the catcher wasn't quite quick enough and a gull made off with one of the clams.
We decided that we would explore this church that was on the other side of the barbed wire fence, THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUR FIRST CLUE. We climbed through the fence and then wandered towards the oasis, there was a road up to it and someone had planted palm trees along the road that were being watered. Wow, I thought someone is really looking after the church. We got there and went in and there was someone with a rake in the gardens. We said hello and asked if he spoke English, no, he didn't but he made it clear it was private so we left, then he called us back and asked us to wait a minute. Eventually another fellow came out and Steven in his limited Spanish made it known that we were from Canada and that we were on 2 sailboats and we would like to take pictures. He indicated that we could walk around and take photos, so we did. What a beautiful complex, it had gardens and fountains and fancy gates with big private signs on them, there was a beautiful house as well but we didn't pry so just walked out the gate where there were roosters and horses and a big garden. Then we walked towards the hotel that was at the other end of the beach and asked if we could go through the hotel to the beach, no problem. We stopped in at the hotel bar and had a margarita and discussed fishing and bull fighting with the bartender whose English was much better than our Spanish.
We headed back to the dinghies which were exactly where we had left them and braved the surf once again. We managed without too much of a problem, both of us had wet butts on the row back. Mungo's crew had broken a dinghy oar in the earlier debacle so they had a tough time getting back through the surf and eventually had to paddle back rather than row because of the broken oar. We thought they had gone over again but they persevered and made a clean if not a dry get away. I think it is now surf 3, Steven 3. That was a great way to start the Mexican part of our cruise, may there be many more days like this.

From Nov. 17 - We are in a place called San Quintin, about 110 miles south of Ensenada. We left Ensenada at noon on Thursday and sailed all night and arrived here about 1300 hours on Friday. We are all resting from the night sail. We stand 2 hour watches all night and 3 hour watches during the daylight hours. It takes a bit out of you when your sleep is interrupted all night. We actually sailed all night last night, no motoring, it was great, bright stars and a new moon to light the water, just at dawn a porpoise surfaced very close to the boat and scared me. I just saw the fin and then heard the blow, at first I thought it was a whale but then I saw it and it wasn't nearly big enough. About 1000 hours we saw whales blowing about 1/2 mile from the boat, just to emphasize our differences, I exclaimed "Wowee" and at the same time Barry said "Shit". We put the spinnaker up twice during the passage, at the beginning for about 20 minutes and then the wind picked up and Barry chickened out and took it down and then for about and hour this morning, we took it down because an island was in the way and we wanted to go upwind of it instead of downwind, where we could have flown the spinnaker for longer, but it is getting a workout.
This anchorage is very interesting, there are volcano cones on shore, pointy hills sticking up out of nowhere. The land around the bay is very flat and covered in large sand dunes, there are people playing and swimming in the water. There is quite a surf on the beach so Barry said he won't go ashore, so I will have to row ashore myself if I want to wander up and down the beach. Mungo is anchored about 200 meters away, they dumped their dinghy in the surf in California and their motor has not been the same since. Steven tried to get someone to look at it in San Diego and all the mechanics told him to just chuck it and buy a new one!!! He is hoping there are more enterprising fellows south of the border.
We are at 30 degrees 30 minutes south here so pretty soon we will be south of 30. That is quite a way from north of 60!! We have made an ambitious sail plan in order to get to Zihuatanejo for Christmas, it involves lots of long sails with rest periods in between. We will stay here tonight and tomorrow and then on Sunday we will tackle another overnight sail 130 miles to a place called Cedros Island. Then it will be a short sail to Turtle Bay, one of the major stops down the Baja. Hope all is well, send us a line at ve8bl@winlink.org
Oh, I almost forgot, we caught our first Mexican fish, actually the first FISH that we have caught on Cat's-Paw IV. Barry put out a line with a squibber on it, it is a tuna lure and this lovely looking fish bit it. Barry just attached the line to the winch with a bungy, no rod or reel, so that there was some give to the line and I saw the line jerking so started to pull it in, Barry didn't believe that there was a fish on it, but I saw this mouth gasping for breath. He swallowed the lure pretty good. We think it was a bluefish tuna, weighing about 5 pounds. Once we got it on board we had a heck of a time killing it Barry bonked it about 5 or 6 times and there was blood spattering all over the boat. I had heard that if you put a little alcohol in the gills it stuns them, I had bought some brandy to make Christmas cakes with so poured some of that on it, Barry was appalled. We had lovely tasting fillets for supper, marinated in brandy!! We are going over to have dinner on Mungo
tonight and will take the rest of it with us to share. So far that was a pretty expensive fish, we were charged $215 USD for our Mexican fishing licenses, I am not sure who caught it me, Barry the boat or the dinghy, but if they are all that easy to catch we will be eating plenty. Hasta manana!!

We made it to Mexico, arriba, arriba!!! We sailed all night from San Diego and arrived in the morning. We went to check into customs at 1030 hours and finished about 1430 hours. There were a ton of people getting their Mexican Visa's, the Baja 1000 a vehicular race from Ensenada to La Paz started today and everyone in the race, driving a vehicle, maintaining a vehicle, or just watching was checking in, there were over 400 people that are involved in the race so it was busy to put it mildly. Anyway we signed, made copies and filled out forms for 4 hours. We now have a 6 month Mexican visa and our boat is eligible to stay here until 2016 if we wish. After we finished that ordeal we wandered around town and had some supper then went back to the boat and hit the hay, we were all pretty tired from the overnight sail.
This morning Barry and I went to see some of the racers start. We saw the 4 wheelers and the motorcyclist go flying by, but the trucks, cars and dune buggy start was an hour later so we wandered around and took some pictures of the dune buggies. The area we were watching was packed with spectators, there were taco stands, and they were selling t-shirts and some guy had a wagon with peanuts in the shell that he was wheeling around, it was quite the event. They had a jump set up that the vehicles had to go over, it was interesting the watch, the first bunch of riders would gun it over the jump and get a lot of air and then the riders near the end would slow down and take it pretty slow over the jump. This is the first time I have been in a country where something other than English is spoken, so I was feeling pretty stupid. my attempts at Spanish were received graciously and when I said muy amable (which means you're so kind) to some of the officials in the customs office I got a big smile, not sure if it was the way I said it or it wasn't quite the correct usage of the expression, but what the heck.
Our cell phone does not work anymore and we will be out of internet range for quite awhile so to get in touch with us, use our ham radio e-mail address ve8bl@winlink.org. Just please try and remember to just send a message, don't send back to me what I have written to you and we can not receive attachments through that address, no pictures, no funny jokes, just "the facts".

We have now been in San Diego for 5 days and each day sees up scurrying around trying to get ourselves and our boat ready for the next stage of our trip. Today we took a bus, then a rapid transit train, then another bus to downtown San Diego. Once we had arrived we went to buy our Mexican fishing licences. We had to buy one for the boat, one for the dinghy and one for Barry and I, crazy, $216.50 US later we had all we needed to fish in Mexico for a year. I intend to fish a lot, but that licence does not allow us to catch lobster or collect any kind of shell fish. Such is life. On the way home we stopped and did some Christmas shopping, we probably won't be anywhere long enough between now and then to shop and send stuff away, I managed to hit a JC Penny's and Macy's but missed Sak's 5th Ave. I didn't know it was there.

We had a pot luck progressive dinner last night and another couple shared their knowledge of the Mexican coast and the good places to anchor. They had talked to a character named Sparky who is known up and down Mexico, he has sailed back and forth numerous times. We marked up our charts with such notations as Sparky says this one is good, and Sparky say the bugs are bad here don't stop!! Apparently if we stop at such and such a place and tell Rosa that Sparky sent us we will get a really good meal. What fun. Anyway it was great to get some local knowledge. Now we have to have a close look at the distances involved and decide where we would like to stop. Tomorrow we are going grocery shopping and then on Saturday we have to get our dinghy back from the Dinghy Doctor and then on Monday we have to get our US exit permit and then we are hoping to leave on Monday evening. We are going to do an overnight sail to Ensenada and then check in during the day, weather permitting.

I am going to add some pictures Barry took on the Queen Mary that were stuck on the camera when it broke, we finally stopped somewhere long enough to put them on a disk.

Barry says that he was hunting for arrowheads and was very sad he didn't find one.

We are now in San Diego, yippee!! We are tied up at a very posh marina and we are paying $2.00 a foot, YIKES. The big super yachts are tied up next to us, my mission is to get on board the one called Patriot and see if I can get a tour, hmmmm!!!
Anyways all is well and I have a bunch of pictures that I would like to share and am out of witty things to say, so enjoy.

Just for you Catherine, we discovered how to use out automatic timer on the new camera and Barry's fancy walking stick had a screw on the end of it that is made to use as a tripod.
Steve and Barry in front of this 3 masted schooner that stopped in Little Harbour. It disgorged about 30 kids and teachers so they could go body surfing at this beech.

Can you believe that these beautiful bird of paradise actually grow on the street corners down here, I was so tempted to pick one, but resisted.

This is how the Sheriff''s in Avalon get around. When I took a picture of this guy he actually gave me his card and said that the vehicle was a new product and that department wanted pictures and could I please e-mail him a picture, unbelievable.

Life is good. It is bright and sunny outside, a little breeze but not enough to sail at 5 knots so we are motor sailing. We are headed to San Diego today with Mungo. It is a 50 mile trip and so we need to maintain 5 knots in order to get there during daylight hours. I have the stereo blasting and I just finished cooking some bran muffins and the water maker is humming away making 7 gallons an hour. The VHF radio is busy with all sorts of chatter, some with heavy foreign accents asking where they should anchor, some vessels needing assistance, some friends just blabbing. Life is good.
We have now not been plugged in at a marina for 16 days; our solar panels are keeping up with our energy needs if there is lots of sunshine. A few cloudy days we have had to run the motor for an hour or two. We haven’t bought groceries for 2 weeks so we are basically out of fresh food, we have some moldy cheese left and a couple of carrots and cabbage but that’s about it, thus the need to bake muffins. I haven’t had a major shopping trip since we left Canada so after almost 3 months our can cupboard is almost empty and my staples such as flour, sugar, oatmeal, pasta, etc. are non-existent. It is good to know how long the supplies I bought in Canada will last although I did supplement them with a lot of fresh food so I would have to take that into consideration when planning our Pacific crossing.
At the moment that looks to be at least 2 seasons away, probably happening in March/April 2008. Barry really wants to spend some time learning Spanish so we will probably head up into the Mexican mountains,, where it is cooler, next summer and immerse ourselves in a Spanish school. All these are just vague plans subject to change at the whim of the crew of Cat’s-Paw IV, that is one of the joys of cruising, no deadlines, no one to answer to except the bottom line. We are looking forward to visits from my Mom and her partner Bill, our daughters Trish and Jen with Trish’s significant other Graeme, perhaps Barry’s sister Kim and her husband Brent, as well as our friends Ian and Helen, and Janet and George from Yellowknife. It should be an enjoyable fun-filled winter, Barry says may the visits be short and sweet.

Our buddies, Steven and Sandi on Mungo arrived in Little Harbour right on cue and we spent the next day hiking about and chatting up a storm, catching up on what we have done and who we have seen since San Francisco. Very nice to have some company. Today we sailed to Avalon on the south east side of Catalina Island, we were here about a week and a half ago, we decided it was too far to get to the mainland in one hop so this was a good half way point. We had a lovely spinnaker run on the way over today. Barry was very uncaptain like and allowed me to put it up, I didn't even have to whine. We did our first spinnaker gybe on Cat's-Paw IV but we have a sock so that really doesn't count. We doused the spinnaker, gybed the main and then reopened the spinnaker, it went off without a hitch, YIPPEE, maybe Barry will learn to love the spinnaker. It is a lovely big sail and we had winds about 10 knots on the starboard quarter, just perfect. We went to see a movie in the Casino tonight,
what a gorgeous building. The theater is not a movie house it is a real theater and there was a fellow playing a pipe organ before the movie started. He was really something and the acoustics of the room, it has a 75 foot domed ceiling, were astounding, I enjoyed the surroundings as much as the movie.
I am reading 'The KON-TIKI Expedition' at the moment. It is about a group of Norwegian's that set off from the coast of Peru in a raft made of balsa wood, a replica of an ancient raft to prove that the indigenous peoples of the Polynesian Islands could have descended from the Peruvians. They have just left the coast at this point and are not even sure if the raft will sail or whether or not it will fall to pieces, there are 6 men on the raft and they have provisions for 4 months. I will let you know how it turns out. I just finished Francis Chichester's book 'Gypsy Moth IV Around the World', about an Englishman that circumnavigated single-handed in 1967 stopping only in Sydney, Australia, he was 65 at the time. The book was really interesting because he basically took a boat that had been designed and built especially for the voyage, but the design had not been tested before he left. He wanted a certain kind of boat and the designer figured what Chichester wanted wouldn't work so he made it different. Sir Francis ran into all kinds of problems with the boat and the description of the process he went through to figure out how to sail the boat to overcome the design flaws was quite fascinating. I must have turned into a sailor sometime when I wasn't looking because I understood nearly everything in the book.
We are off to Dana Point tomorrow, a harbour that is half way between Marina Del Ray and San Diego. We should be in San Diego on Sunday. Both boats have some major provisioning to do, we are running out of all sorts of stuff, nearly all our cans from Canada are gone and I have no more white flour or sugar left on board and I think Mungo wants to do some repairs. They had a charter boat sideswipe them going into Monterey. We are hoping to get some of our preliminary Mexican paperwork done there as well so I imagine we will be there about a week. I hope to be able to put some pictures on the blog tomorrow. Hope all is well with all of you.

Nothing new and exciting to report, we are still on the west side of Catalina Island, our friends should arrive today. We have spent the time hiking, snorkeling, sailing and managed a beach campfire one night. We went on a three hour hike way up to the top of the hills you see in the background of the picture on top. There had been a pretty large fire go through the area, so the cacti were all black and shriveled and the trees were all black and the leaves were reddish brown.
The strangest thing was all the snail shells we saw around on the ground. When we asked someone about it he said that the snails were a non-native species and they had made their way up the hills, all be it, very slowly!!!On our way down we decided to go a different way where there was no path and I managed to get fairly prickled a few times, those damn cactus, they are just a hip height so when you go to put your hand down to steady yourself on the steep parts you impale it on a cactus. It only took twice and then I stopped doing it. We are currently at a different anchorage where there is internet access and a few small stores so we are off to have a shower and upload pictures for the blog. We plan to head to San Diego on Friday.

We are on the west side of Catalina Island, nothing between us and Japan except water. We sailed around the bottom of the island yesterday. The winds were pretty light but we did manage to sail for about 3 hours. When we left our anchorage on the east side of the island our destination was only 5 nm from where we were but we had to go around so we ended up traveling about 20 nm to get here.
It is gorgeous here, there are hardly any people and the anchorage we are in has no mooring buoys. There is a campground on the beach just about 400 meters from the boat, they either have planted a bunch of palm trees or it is a natural oasis, because the surrounding hills are all dry and brown, dotted with cactus, but the oasis has some green patches and there are some wonderful trees there. Someone, I think possibly the Wrigley family, of chewing gum fame, has brought bison to the island, and as we walked around the oasis there they were, browsing on the hillside.
We set off on a hour and a half hike over the hills, past a surfing spot, up a graded road to look over another anchorage, the views were astounding. When we got back we paddled back to the boat, had lunch and then went snorkeling for about an hour, man, what a tough life!! We saw some lobsters in a fisherman's trap, do they ever look funny, I would have loved to see one moving around. We hope to catch the fisherman when he is checking his traps to see if he will sell us one.
On the sail over yesterday I decided that we needed some fresh bread so put together some dough. Barry said he would prefer buns, so made a dozen and then got tired of shaping them so made the rest into a loaf. The dough rose beautifully but the oven seemed to be taking a long time to heat up, I got impatient so popped the buns in at too low a temperature hoping the oven would heat up, no luck, I cooked the buns twice as long as I should have and they came out a little doughy and very very pale. Barry played around with the burner and it seemed to fix it so the bread cooked properly, but by the time I got it in it had fallen from rising too long, but it tasted fine in our roast beef sandwiches.
We are going to stay here for awhile, we are waiting for our friends aboard Mungo. I think they are about a week behind us.

We visited the Queen Mary yesterday. It was huge and very opulent in places. I was a tad disappointed that you are unable to see any of the state rooms. It is used as a hotel now, so all the rooms are in use, I guess. Barry took some gorgeous pictures of the promenade deck and we sat down on some teak deck chairs on the Sundays and just imagined the people who had sat in them before us. They had pictures of all the royalty and the movie stars that used to travel back and forth across the Atlantic in bygone years.
The Queen Mary was also used as a troop carrier in WW2, it was painted battleship grey and was called the Grey Ghost because it was so fast that the subs could never catch up to her and sink her. Barry and I decided that if we had ever traveled aboard her we would have been in the 3rd class cabins.
Back to the pictures, they are still on the camera card. The camera decided it wasn't going to work anymore today. stupid thing. We decided we couldn't be without one, so went out and bought a new one. It is supposed to take a clearer image so you will have to tell me if there is a difference.
We called up our buddies on Mungo, Steve and Sandi and asked if they were interested in buddy boating down the Baja with us. They figured that wouldn't be too bad of an idea. They are about a week behind us so we are going to go back out to Catalina Island and wait for them to catch up to us. It will be nice to have another couple to share ideas, fun and danger with as we head to Mexico. The weather is absolutely glorious here so we are in no hurry to charge off to Mexico. Hopefully we will have some pictures tomorrow.

We spent one night in Avalon, a town on Catalina Island and then headed back to the mainland. Avalon was a real touristy place and we enjoyed looking in the shops as we walked by and at night we walked way up the hills to where the fancy houses were. They offered everykind of tour you could think of, the hummer tour of the inland island, the glass bottom boat tour, the evening sunset sail, the sea lion rock tour, you could rent any kind of water vehicle you possibly could think of, we contemplated the diving excursion but decided to pass. The Casino building in Avalon was famous during the big band era, they used to broadcast live from the "Avalon ballroom" The name Casino means a meeting place so they do not gamble in the building anymore but do offer tours. Avalon is also famous for it's tiles, and it was everywhere and yes Lucy they still use golf carts as a mode of transportation on the island. There were houses that were obviously 2 golf cart families, and the dirveways are very small and short!!

We are now at a yacht club mooring in Long Beach harbour, this is just south of Los Angeles. We stopped here to visit with friends we made in Coos Bay, Oregon where we spent three days waiting out a gale. People really are amazing, we arrived and after calling the harbourmaster discovered there were no slips available so we went and dropped anchor. It was going to be about a 2 mile dinghy ride to get to where Peter's boat was. Then the phone rang and Peter had arranged with his yacht club to provide us a slip and we were in like flynn. He came and met us at the boat and drove us to the home of the other gentleman we had met in Coos Bay, Siegmund. 'He and his lovely wife Claire wined and dined us at their home into the wee hours of the night. We dropped by Peter's house and met his much better half Jan. Then Siegmund and Clairs offered us the use of their spare room, what a treat, a lovely big bed our own bathroom with shower and bathtub attached, luxury to enjoy. Unfortunately, I somehow indulged in too much wine, so some of the pleasures of the visit were lost on me the next day as I struggled through that horrid 24 oz. flu. STUPID!!

They were perfect hosts today, taking us to see the wetlands that Claire has worked very hard to establish in thier neighborhood. At a cost of 140 million dollars, they have secured land and reestablished a tidal wetland area for the many migratory birds who nest here. Claire is a self confessed bird nerd and it was wonderful listening to her describe the birds and point out to us how to tell them apart. We saw snowy egrets, all sorts of grebes, protected brown pelicans, sandpipers, terns, and one endangered songbird that likes to live in the a certain type of plant they have re-introduced to the area. The area is huge, and we saw volunteers, building a fence on a path to keep Siegmund and Claire

the public away from the nesting areas. The environmentalist have been fighting for 30 years to keep development from the area and to save it for the birds, it is quite the story.

After this experience, Siegmund and Claire took us shopping and went and found some much needed propane. We returned their hospitality, by taking them out for a sail and then had them aboard Cat's-Paw IV for dinner. I carefully monitored my wine intake and did not embarras myself tonight. We are planning on seeing Peter and Jan tomorrow aboard their boat C'est La Vie, so will be great to visit with them.

The Queen Mary is moored just across the harbour and Barry thinks he may like to take a tour of her. We will stay here at least until Monday and maybe longer.

We are now anchored at Santa Catalina Island. This is the boaters playground for the LA area. There are a ton of little coves and anchorages all around the island. Lots of the anchorages are leased by yacht clubs or other private clubs, so you have to be read about the cove you are in before figuring out if you are allowed to go ashore. The thing is we are here during the week and it is the middle of Oct. so there are very few boats here as compared to a weekend or the middle of summer, NICE. Yesterday after a slow motor over, no wind worth sailing in, we went for a snorkel. It was great. We saw all sorts of fish and different coloured kelp and some rays and then I saw a sea turtle. I was very excited and tried to get Barry's attention. He was too far away and did not see the turtle, too bad and when I took my eyes off of him to try and get Barry's attention I lost sight of him. There were some girls in kayaks that were going by and they worked in a camp that is one bay over. They said it is quite rare to see turtle here so I was even more thrilled. I actually felt like I was almost in the Nemo movie. There were small orange fish skulking around the kelp and then schools of these tiny silver fish swarming around us, what fun. We hope to stay here about a week, weather dependent, so will be moving around to different anchorages and exploring the sea and the shore for the next while. Hasta luego.

We did the totaly tourist thing today and went to Universal Studios. WHAT A BLAST!!! We have never been to a park like this before so were very impressed with the whole experience. We went on a tour off all the studios, which was a lot of looking at big buildings from the outside, but then it got better, we got to see some of the back sets, the set for Desparate Housewifes, where all the westerns were shot, Leave to Beaver's house and all sorts of places. Then we went in special theme buildings, we saw a Terminator 2 vignette which was very impressive, you watched the whole thing with 3D glasses. The other highlight was a very good Waterworld story that they re-enacted. Anyway we had a lot of fun and although it was expensive we would do it again. The best part was that we paid extra for a VIP card that let you go to the front of the line and we never had to wait to get in to anywhere. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

We are in Marina Del Rey at the moment. It is actually south of Los Angeles, so we are close to all sorts of places. The first day here we took a bus to LAX and then into downtown LA. It was quite overwhelming, all the traffic and the hustle and bustle. I was worried that we would become separated and then never see each other again!!! LAX was huge, I bet there is more people working there than live in Yellowknife. We managed to find our way around to catch a bus to Union Station without getting lost which I figure is a major accomplishment.

When we were in LA we toured Chinatown and a Mexican part of town that had an old villa in it as well as an explanation of how LA get it's water. The Chinatown is quite different than San Francisco's not all squashed together but just little shops for about a 6 block radius. We needed a new blanket on board because it is now getting too warm for our down comforter, so I managed to dicker with a shop owner and get $2.00 off the price, well I was so pleased but then further down someone else was selling the blanket for $5.00 less, GEEESSEE!!!

Yesterday we rented bicycles and went for a 30 mile ride down the beach. We went past Venice Beach, past the Santa Monica Pier and out past Wiltshire Blvd. They acutally grade the beaches, they had big tractors that pull along and grader behind and it flattens all the sand and it is smooth and soft for 300 miles. What a treat riding along the bike path, flat, smooth with lots of room. There were all sorts of bicycles on the path, every kind you can imagine as well as in line skaters and skateboards. We still have the bikes so are going to head the other direction down the beach this morning to go under all the planes taking off from LAX.

There are 5 Canadian boats in the same marina as us, so have been enjoying their company as well. I think we are going to stay 2 more night and then head over to Catalina Island.

This picture, off course is off a movie shoot, I don't know if it is TV or a movie but it was just in the parking lot by where we rented the bikes

We are at an anchorage called Smuggler's Cove. It is out of site of the mainland so boats used to come in here and drop anchor and be hidden from the mainland and they could do their nefarious deeds. In one of our cruising books someone describes viewing a drug deal go down when they were anchored here.
Anyways we went ashore yesterday. One of the other couples described how he tripped as he got off the dinghy and got soaked, so when we headed in I decided that I wouldn't wear my life vest that inflates if we gets wet, good thing. We paddled in instead of putting the motor on the dinghy and as we were timing the waves to go ashore Barry said Oh, oh and I looked around to see a big wave headed towards us. The next thing I knew I was on my butt in the water, completely all over wet. Barry says I just tumbled off ass over tea kettle, at least it was warm and it didn't take long to dry off. Barry enjoyed walking along the rocky part of the beach and he found some very nice agate.
We walked up the hills and looked at another anchorage around the corner and when we came back down to where we had left the dinghy we explored around an old house. There were all sorts of fruit trees growing in the yard, lemon, orange, figs, and walnut. There were also eucalyptus trees as well as an olive orchard growing up the side of a hill. We picked a couple of lemons and some very green oranges and smuggled them back to the boat to ripen, it is a National Park after all and you aren't supposed to take anything. The walnuts grow with a green soft outer shell with the nut inside. I brought one back onboard and baked it this morning, it was just yummy when we cracked it open and ate it.
Tonight we are having another Canadian couple over for Thanksgiving dinner. I have some turkey breast on board, but we are running out of fresh fruit and vegetables so will have to see what I can come up with to go with the turkey, also I am not sure how I am going to make gravy out of turkey breast that has no fat???? Wish me luck.
I think we will head to the mainland tomorrow, maybe Marina del Ray or perhaps Ventura, we will have to see where the wind takes us.

P.S. We did go around that island yesterday, we anchored in a rather dicey spot so Barry wouldn't leave the boat, so I went snorkeling by myself. I saw some California butterfly rays, They were just sitting on the bottom blending in with everything, I was extremely excited about seeing them. I am getting over my fear of the ocean a little but yesterday when I was in I ran into a piece of kelp and I just about jumped out of the water. My Oh MY the heart rate did get going!!!

There were four of these that came in and anchored in Smugglers Cove, Barry thinks they may be swordfishing boats, any ideas????

We enjoyed our day yesterday on Santa Cruz Island. We took the dinghy for a ride and went and visited a bunch of sea caves, they line the coast here. They are spooky places, when you go inside you can here the waves whooshing through the back of the cave making these wonderful echoes as the surf surges back and forth. In some spots there are mini blow holes and the water spurts up in a fountain, it only happens at a certain tide height though so you don't see it all the time. I convinced Barry to come in the water with me so we both dawned our wet suits and went snorkeling along the shore line and into one sea cave. You can really feel the tidal surge once you get inside the cave so we didn't go very deep, unsure if we would be able to swim out once we were in too deep. The colour in the water was fantastic, purple and plum coloured sea urchins and then red, purple and green starfish. We saw some kelp and it was neat to watch it wave back and forth under the water. We saw a few fish and some other queer looking sea life, I will have to get out my book to identify some of it.
We also went ashore and went for a hike. The used to be a ranch on this island so there are narrow gravel roads all over the place. We climbed up one road to the top of a hill and wandered along the ridge for awhile. There was supposedly an old oil well about 2.5 miles from where we started but we didn't have any water with us and Barry was starting to limp, he had forgotten his walking stick so we didn't attempt to find it. There were big plants that looked like over grown dill all over the place so I got brave and tasted the seeds, I think they must have been some kind of anisette because it sure tasted like licorice.
Not sure what the plans are for today, but there is another island that is about 12 miles long that I would like to circumnavigate. There aren't many good anchorages there so perhaps we can sail around it and come back here. Hope all you folks in Canada have a Happy Thanksgiving, I am not sure I could even find a turkey in the stores if I wanted to. We did by some turkey breast the other day so we will cook that up tomorrow or Monday.

We made it up to the Santa Barbara Mission. It was established in 1786 by Franciscan monks so it has been there for a long time. They still use the chapel for services. The grounds of the mission were very impressive and the view from the front of the mission was outstanding, it was up on the hillside and you could see the whole waterfront, an amazing spot. I was glad we went to visit and was particularly struck by the graveyard. It was the first time I had seen a mausoleum, where all the bodies are stacked up inside a building, oh Ilie, I probably saw one when we were in England but I have forgotten about it. The art that was done by the aboriginal people's when they were living around the mission was quite striking, all the handmade dies and the very intricate designs. Last night we went to the Santa Barbara Yacht Club and watched the Wednesday night races. What a lovely setting for a club, right on the water and the view of the beach from three sides of the building was spectacular. We watched a catamaran try and right itself for about 1/2 an hour, it was right in the middle of the racers and some had to move off their chosen path to go around it. The way they finally got up was some boat went over and sailed very close to wind ward to the cat and then in the lee of the sailboat the cat popped up and sailed away. Oh, by the way most people I have talked politics with out here with figure ARNIE is doing a pretty good job. One guy told us he does a lot of business in his cigar tent which he put up on the legislature grounds shortly after becoming governor. We headed back to the Channel Islands today. We had a great sail, about 20miles across the Santa Barbara Channel to Santa Cruz Island, and went to our chosen anchorage. It was called Diablo Anchorage and for good reason. The wind howled like the devil through there. There wasn't much swinging room and once the anchor had set we were uncomfortably close to these nasty looking rocks. Sooo, we hauled anchor and got the heck out of there and headed off to another anchorage about 12 miles away. This one is much more to our liking, but it is starting to roll a bit in here. If the anchor decides to let go during the night (which it won't) we have about 20 miles of room before we would hit anything so that is a very comforting thought. There is a lovely full moon out there tonight and it is lighting up the sea and the island, everything is bathed in this luminous glow.

Santa Barbara is beautiful; the Spanish influence is everywhere, the architecture in particular as well as the street names and the people. It was a delight to stroll around town and see the large arches and cool spaces beneath in a lot of the public buildings as well as the adobe structures with the red roofs. There are palm trees everywhere as well as flowering hedges and exotic looking bushes lining the streets. I am hoping to get to the Santa Barbara Mission which was established way back when, when the Spanish monks came north from Mexico to make Christians of the aboriginals in the area. I am sure I will know more about it once I’ve actually been.
I think I have a premonition about the next ailment to strike the people of southern California. It is going to be some elbow problem perhaps lower forearm or could even affect their shoulders. This ailment is going to be caused by people tightly clutching their cell phones as they engage in recreational activities such as jogging, aerobic walking or bicycle riding. I can’t believe that people are so attached to their phones that they have to have them in their hot little hands even when they go for a run. It is truly a sad state of affairs.
We are not sure when we are going to leave, we quite like it here, it has been sunny and warm the last few days. We are doing some boat chores today, I am trying to repair some dings in the gelcoat and Barry is fixing a problem we had with the hole where the anchor enters the boat, Barry says it might be called the hawse hole, now you learned something today!!!

We are now in Santa Barbara, it is sunny and warm and we are going to explore the city today. We figured we would take a city bus and just see where it takes us. It gives you a good idea of what the city is like, showing you the architecture, the neighbourhoods and you can see quite a bit for very little money.
We had two pretty wild nights at anchor in the Channel Islands. The anchorages were protected from the direct wind, but it would funnel over the hills and just scream down over the water. It was hard to get back to sleep once you had been woken listening to the howling, banging and flapping that was going on above you on the deck and wondering if the anchor would hold. The anchor was a brick, did it’s job, no questions asked, we had a lot of chain out but it would still pull off the bottom so was a little dicey.
After the first night we were headed back across the Santa Barbara Channel when the winds dropped and Barry relented and we went back to the islands to a different anchorage to try another night. We went ashore on Santa Rosa Island, some of which is a National Park, which means that some isn’t. The part that isn’t allows hunting on it, I guess they hunt for stocked deer.
We had our first surf landing on Santa Rosa. The surf wasn’t too bad and I just got my pants a little wet. You have to time your arrival with a wave surge and then jump out and pull the dinghy up onto the sand before the next wave arrives, tricky but fun. I imagine it gets trickier the larger the surf. The rock formations along the shore were really fascinating.
The islands are all very dry, it is like stepping onto a part of southwestern Sask. or southern Alberta. There are grasses and thistles and everything is dry and dusty, but it had that wonderful sage smell to it. The smells brought back memories of a ranch we know in southern Sask. There are few trees, the one there are, are all bent over and misshapen due to the prevailing winds. They had all sorts of fencing up for horse or cattle paddocks, the fencing was broken down in parts and all the boards had moss and lichen growing all over them. I went for a walk to see if I could see what the campground was like and a plane dropped in on the island. It was quite unbelievable to see that plane in the middle of nowhere, as I watched it land I could see the pilot battling the winds, his wings were waggling much more than he would have liked I am sure. As I got closer I could see them loading deer horns on the plane, they were huge horns and I imagine the hunters were very pleased.
At our first anchorage we were the only souls around and there was one other boat at the second anchorage. There were about 5 small sailing kayaks, which were rigged as trimarans scooting around the bay, they were really moving and it looked like a whole wack of fun. We had our first rain since we have left Vancouver Island on our sail over to Santa Barbara. By the time we arrived here I was ready for a nice hot shower and to tied up in a nice safe marina.

We had a wonderful sail over to San Miguel Island today. It was about 23 nautical miles and we sailed the whole way, we made it here in just over 3 and 1/2 hours. The wind was on the beam, starting out about 10 knots and building to about 20,(hard to tell for sure without a wind speed indicator). Anyway Cat's Paw just flew across the water, we reefed and then double reefed and took in some foresail and she was still doing over 7 knots, yippee!! San Miguel Island is gorgeous, tall steep craggy hills with long beaches and sand dunes along the waters edges in the harbour we are in. There are huge sea lions frolicking around on the shore and pelicans soaring along in formation before they dive beak first into the water after their supper. There are some sea caves that need exploring as well.
We are unable to go ashore at the moment because it is howling up a good blow out there. There is a stiff west wind and it is sweeping down over the hills into the valley and straight at us. This is probably the most wind we have seen since the west side of Vancouver Island. We have lots of chain out and it seems to be holding just fine. The wind usually drops at night and we hope to get to shore in the morning when it is usually calmer. Not sure what the plans are tomorrow but the skipper is not happy with the anchorage we are in, due to the wind conditions, so I imagine we will move on.