|
|
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
From: Mike Batchelor (no email)
Date: Tue Jan 18 2005 - 19:12:10 EST
I posted a gleeful message a month ago about the boat I had found and
fallen in love with. Well, I completed the purchase formalities last
week, and this weekend I sailed her down from Sausalito to Marina del
Rey (almost!) with my delivery skipper and his friend as an extra
hand. Well, I say sailed only because it's a sailboat. We had
hardly any wind, and motor-sailed about 80% of the time. Even around
Point Conception, which is usually one of the windiest areas in So.
California, we had only about 10 knots of warm wind coming off the
land, and had to motor in to Santa Barbara on water like glass. I had
to disembark at that point because of work the next morning, and drove
a rental car home to Los Angeles. The delivery skipper is bringing
her in today the rest of the way after a night's rest in a guest berth
in Santa Barbara harbor. She should arrive at her new berth at about
8:00pm this evening.
It was a great experience, and I am more enthusiastic than ever about
embarking on a extended cruise sometime in the next 3 or 4 years. As
we passed offshore of the Hearst Castle near San Simeon, we motored
through a pod, or several pods, of grey whales. They were all around
us, we could see the spouts near and far in every direction, and some
were surfacing just a hundred feet from the boat. There must have
been three dozen whales in our vicinity. Some whales about a mile
ahead of us were breaching, but they had finished with the big
splashes by the time we reached that area. Unfortunately, I had
forgotten to bring my camera with me. <big frown>
I named the boat "Valinor", after the land to the west of Middle Earth
across the Great Sea which is where Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf and the
elves were sailing to at the end of Lord of the Rings.
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Give the gift of life to a sick child.
Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.'
http://us.click.yahoo.com/5iY7fA/6WnJAA/Y3ZIAA/A1TolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/world-cruising/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|