December 15, 2005: After more than a
1,000 miles Summerwings' crew is enjoying Cabo San Lucas. Following overnight stops in Bahia San Quintin, Bahia
Tortugas, and Bahia Magdelena, we arrived on the morning of December 13th. San Quintin is a deserted bay where
we took the dogs ashore and let them frolic on the beach for several hours. At Bahia Tortugas we refueled and entertained
the local kids with "perros americanos".
In Bahia Magdelena we anchored off a deserted whaling station
off (we love this name) Punta Belcher. Whale bones littered the beach but, being a pretty wild place, had to watch the
doggies as they discovered a dead dolphin up on the beach. While leaving Bahia Mag. we dropped our line in the water
and came up with the Mackeral you see on the home page within 10 minutes. After determining it was not a small tuna
we elected to release it back into the sea to appease Neptune and insure future good luck fishing. Of course, we then
did not get another bite the rest of the day.
In Cabo we got the boat secured and promptly met Wolfgang and Helga who are here on their daughter 85'
Sunseeker yacht. Last night we spent several hours aboard drinking martini's and champagne followed by and great dinner
ashore. Wolfgang was a cop in Berlin during the 60's and it was great fun talking with him. Today Kim cut his
hair aboard Summerwings in exchange for us doing some laundry aboard their yacht.
More to follow later as we are currently having breakfast in a cafe with wireless access and our meal
has arrived.
Best to all!
December 5, 2005: Summerwings arrived
safely in Ensenada at 3:45 AM on Dec. 3rd after a 13 hour overnight from San Diego. Kim did not experience any major
mal-de-mer and stood the 9 PM to 12 midnight shift. The doggies did great although peed massively when we
arrived.
We've met a very nice couple travelling south on Ken's dream
boat, a Nordhavn 43. Check out www.nordhavn.com. We are going to buddy boat down the coast of Baja starting today. We should arrive in La Paz a few days before
Christmas and will provide further updates upon our arrival.
November 29, 2005: We've spent the past
two weeks finishing last minute boat tasks and enjoying the cities of Oceanside and San Diego. Quite a military
presence in this area between the Marines at Camp Pendleton and the Navy in San Diego. We've secured our Mexican visas
and fishing licenses and plan to leave SD for Ensenada and points south early in the evening of this Friday, Dec. 2nd.
After checking in with Customs and Immigration in Ensenada, we'll take a couple of weeks to get to Cabo and hope to be in
La Paz by Christmas. We may not get to update the website until La Paz and, in response to several complaints, promise
to post more recent photos.
November 15, 2005: Summerwings is currently
residing in Dana Point after visiting Marina Del Rey and Long Beach.
The passage to Marina Del Rey from Oxnard was a little exciting in that, no sooner had we left the Oxnard
harbor, we were contacted by the Navy and it were informed that we could not proceed south due to a live missle firing exercise.
Well, we never saw the missle but were overflown by several military jets at low level. After waiting approximately
1 and a half hours we were cleard through the area and, after 10 hours, arrived in Marina Del Rey shortly after sunset.
We had an excellent dinner at the self proclaimed "World Famous" Warehouse restaurant and hit the hay.
The next day an elder member member of the California Yacht Club invited us to lunch after mistaking
Kim for someone she knew. Marilyn was a very interesting lady whose father worked with Zeigfeld Follies in New York,
then came to Hollywood and did choreography on numerous films including the Thin Man films with William Powell and Myrna Loy.
That night Ken's college buddy Jonny, his wife Michele, and their kids, Austin and Maya treated us to another great dinner
at the Cheesecake Factory.
The passage from Marina Del Rey to Long Beach was uneventful and we visited with
Kim's friend Lola and the Brad and Daniele W.. If you read the SoCal Passage story you'll know Brad was the kind gentleman
who joined us on the trip down from San Francisco.
Ken & Ben took the boat from Long Beach to Dana Point while Kim & Dale took the truck.
Ken experienced sunny skies followed by dense fog before arriving in Dana Point in the mid afternoon. At one point,
while in the fog, Ken heard and aircraft carrier talking to an escort indicating that they were in the fog and would be INCREASING
speed. Although nothing showed on the radar, Ken donned his personal emergency locator beacon (life vest was already
in place) in case a large grey bow appeared suddenly out of the mist. The ships were probably off San Diego somewhere
and when the fog burned off, nothing was seen.
We plan to leave Dana Point on Nov. 16th for Oceanside follwed by a planned arrival in San Diego around
Nov. 19. We plan to hang in San Diego for about 10 days and will jump off into Mexico once we sell our pickup.
October 29, 2005: Today we replaced
our steaming light located halfway up our mast. The Admiral did an great job hanging 30 feet in the air while Ken waited
below. Photos of this exercise are on the home page. The weather finally is meeting expectations for sunny SoCal
and spirits aboard have lifted accordingly. After 10 days of murky grey skies, the color blue is a welcome change.
October 28, 2005: The Admiral dejectedly
went up to the desk at the PCYC to check out after our 3 day stay. Lamenting that we would love to stay longer, Brenda
informed us that for a small fee (cheaper than staying at the public dock) we could stay the entire time we planned to be
in Oxnard. We, of course, immediately accepted and will now be at the PCYC until November 8th when we plan to depart
for Marina Del Rey and Long Beach. Following stays in those two locations, we plan to head to San Diego, sell our pickup,
and head into Mexican waters around the middle of the month. More to follow as we enjoy the fantastic facilities at
the PCYC.
October 25, 2005: Today Summerwings
relocated to the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club for a few days of R&R. While the public facilities at Oxnard are
adequate, they do not compare to the PCYC pictured on our homepage. Pool, spa, and (to Admiral Kimmy's extreme delight)
fancy showers and restrooms. We plan to stay here a few days and then plan to check out a few other clubs in the area.
None seem as nice as the PCYC, which is looks and is maintained much like a 5 Star hotel, but we can't
beat the price. As members of the Loch Lomond Yacht Club, we get to stay for FREE for three days and have full use of
the facilities. IN the word's of the Admiral, "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
October 12: At around 5 PM Kimmy went to walk the dogs while Ken chilled the
bottle of champagne our friend Sam C. had given us to celebrate our passage. As Ken puttered around the saloon he noticed
a dinghy approaching that carried our ex-nieghbors from Loch Lomond. They are also on their way to Mexico and had just
arrived in the harbor and decided to explore when they noticed Summerwings. We had a great visit and it was good to
see friends in a not so far away place.
October 13th: We went to a Thai restuarant (sic) for dinner tonight and noted that the 4 folks
at the table next to us were discussing Thai places in the Bay Area. To make a long story short we introduced ourselves
and Kimmy thought one of the guys looked familiar. Turns out it was Lance who was our instructor for one of the ASA
courses we took at Tradewinds in Richmond. Again, it's a small world.
We went to the Bay Area to visit friends and family the weekend of the 15th and 16th and then came
back to the boat to meet with the engine mechanic. Turns out we had correctly diagnosed the problem and done everything
correctly to bleed the system. Unfortunatly, the engine manual made no mention of one bleed point that allowed
the injector pump to be bled. Within 10 minutes he had the engine running again. If you find yourself
in the Ventura/Oxnard area and need a diesel mechanic, call Ernie Moquin at 805.452.5982. he is fabulous.
The rest of this week is going to be spent on boat chores and next week we'll be visitng several nice
yacht clubs in the area. Some look like 5 star resorts so more to follow.
