Owww. $#!& that hurts!

It is 6am, and I am trying to raise my arms over my head to pull on a t-shirt so I can get back to work. But my arms don’t want to go there, and they are complaining. Loudly. We just got to bed at 2am after the previous day’s work, so I should be good to go.

It is a week and a half into our estimated week-long haulout, and there is no end in sight. In hindsight (it is now ten months later, but my elbows still hurt a bit), my original estimate was a pipe dream. But there was no way to know how long it would take to do things that we had never done before. We also added some work to the list as we came across more things that needed attention.

So here is, long after the fact, a summary of the work we did in the full month we were hauled out, and some pictures to prove it! BTW, we did every bit of the work ourselves, so we have nobody to blame if anything was not done right. That’s the way I prefer it.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Fish

An unseasonably heavy mist accompanied me on my way to shore this morning.  It reminded me of the June weather I encountered along the California coast just north of San Francisco a couple of years ago.  Certainly not San Diego in mid-July! When I reached the shore with my rowboat, I noticed five or six cardboard signs placed at regular intervals along the beach.  These signs are very familiar to me.  "Aviso!  Warning!" The signs proclaim that bacterial levels in the bay are high enough that they could be harmful to a swimmer's health.  I am glad that I am wearing my rubber boots as I step out of my dinghy and into the shallows near the beach.

A misty morning in the mooring area

Happy 4th... "Tsunami" Alert!

No, there's no danger of a real tsunami, just the giant wake of the party-going power boats cruising into Glorietta Bay for the fireworks on the 4th.  Glorietta Bay is a nice little 72-hour anchorage just on the other side of the Coronado Bridge from our mooring area.  Normally, you'd need a permit to anchor there, and they limit the number of boats to 20 per day.  This weekend is different.

The view of Glorietta Bay from Columbine 7-4-2010. The boats are anchoring almost right next to the bridge because there's no more room!

... But San Diego is a great place to live, right?

Wrong. It's a fine place to visit. We have lived in our lovely saiboat "Columbine" (more on the name later) in San Diego Bay since 2002. On the whole, I am entirely unimpressed with "America's Finest City." Honestly, how full of yourself can you get? Desert-clime San Diego leaches its water from... well, anywhere that will give it water for cheap. The plants are almost entirely non-native and require enormous amounts of the also non-native water resource. I really have thought "I'll die on the freeway today" from all the truly insane San Diego drivers on the freeways. I hate to admit that I may have become one of them. San Diego and its culture of self-absorbed materialism has a way of permeating your very soul.