Santa Cruise/Half Moon Bay Rally Pic

From a fellow rallier about 40 yards off the starboard beam:


We may have found this year's Christmas card...

I'm Almost Official!

So, the other day, Kim and I ran over to the local TSA office that is under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security to pick up my TWIC card (Transportation Workers Identification Card). It's basically $130 card that says I'm who I say I am and that I'm not a terrorist. The office in question looks like a fake office setup for a sting. They took an unbelievable amount of time while I'm sitting in a folding chair to process me and to pick it up. For an office that processes mostly men, I found the array of Oprah magazines disenchanting. They had a survey asking how my experience was. I filled out very unsatisfactory for everything. I'll probably get picked up for subversion. Don't you feel safer now?

Santa Cruz'in

So, Lisa Chapin signed up to do the Santa Cruz Rally with Club Nautique (who I'll be teaching for in a few weeks). She asked us to join her on the Hunter 380 in Sausalito to sail the 75 miles down the coast. We were really excited, and I did a ton of research for the trip and I brushed up on my coastal navigation. We got to the boat Thursday evening, did some work in the boat and shoved off at 3am to catch the ebb tide under the Golden Gate Bridge by 4am. I didn't sleep much due to excitement. We were the first ones out the Gate because we didn't want to dilly-dally in the commercial traffic lanes. Lisa reported all the commercial traffic we did see to the rally organizers and she reported the thirty five sailboats doing the really to Vessel Traffic Service, which was the captainly thing to do.



Kim's brother Jon immediately got seasick, even though he had a scapalomine patch on from the night before. That made Kim sick, so they ended up going down below for most of the day. Lisa and I were doing OK, even though the ebb tide was fighting the south westerly breeze. We had eight foot waves for most of the day. Since the wind was from the wrong direction, due to a low pressure system out in the Pacific, we ended up tacking way out to the traffic lanes, then back to within a mile of the coast. On each roll-call, we found that most of the boats were making considerably more southerly progress than we were. We decided they must be motor sailing.



We noticed that our reefed sails had cut our tacks from 90 to about 50 degrees, making our southerly progess even slower. I had been carefully logging the latitude, longitude, and time of all of our tacks, so I was able to plot our course on the chart. Over the VHF, we heard that a lot of boats were giving up on Santa Cruz and were ducking into Half Moon Bay for the night. We decided this was a good plan for us too. We finally started motoring when the headland of Half Moon Bay came into view because of the shoals and rocks on the approach. We called into the harbormaster for a guest slip and backed her right in. There were several ralliers there on the dock to help us. Once we got the boat put away, we had our congratulatory cocktail and headed into town to give the folks with seasickness a little stationary footing for a change. We headed into Ketch Joanne's for a drink before heading back to the boat.

I plotted our course and reheated the mostaccoli I made last week while everyone took a nap. We then crashed pretty hard after dinner.

Saturday morning, we checked out Half Moon Bay after deciding that Sant Cruz was too far for a SSW wind. We knew that the ralliers that had motored down there were coming back to Half Moon Bay for the north leg of their trip, so we'd just wait for them to come in. Half Moon Bay is a lovely little working port, so we got to see a bunch of fisherman working on their boats. I grilled sausage and marinated chicken for dinner in the cockpit.

Sunday, after a great breakfast at Ketch Joanne's, in true cruiser fashion, we bummed a ride down to Half Moon Bay proper and checked out all of the shops and caught the bus back to the marina. Very relaxing. I messed up reheating our dinner, so we ran back to Ketch Joanne's for dinner. We knew we would be getting up early to leave, so we all crashed.

Monday, the seas were about six feet, but the wind was light and of course to the north, directly in our path, so we motor sailed at 7 knots NNW. I had overdosed on the seasickness medication accidentally, so I spent most of the day down below. We got back to Sausalito pretty early, fueled and pumped the boat out, gave her a good cleaning inside and out so she'll be ready for the next SailTime member, and had a beer in the cockpit. Kim and I headed home to shower and pickup the dog. Teri, our faithful dog-sitter came over for dinner, sparing us having to make a run out to Fremont. I cooked the dinner we were supposed to have on the boat Sunday night, curry chicken and stir-fried rice, and crashed early.

Kim and I slept in a bit and then have been playing catch-up all day. My hopefully last hand surgery is tomorrow at 6am, so wish me luck. I've also been horribly remiss in wishing my best bud Mike Maloney and his twin sister Mindy in St. Louis Happy 40th! Miss you guys! I'll post some pics of the last few weeks ASAP...



I forgot to mention that it was about 55F the entire trip.

37.45°N 122.41°W

Austin City Visits

So, Kim and I spent 10 days in A-town. We had a blast, even though it was a whirlwind tour. We flew in on Thursday night. We were supposed to hook up with a good friend, Jeff Barger, but our plane was late getting into DFW, so we missed our connecting flight. They practically shut the door in our face. We chilled with a drink and got into Austin an hour later. This caused our reunion with the Dreher's and meeting Lyla to be postponed because it was too late on a school night. We took a cab over and borrowed Eric's Jeep. We crashed with Robin Millings and realized we had left some luggage in the Dreher's front yard. The next morning, we drove back down to Circle C and met Lyla, reacquainted ourselves with Miles, and got our luggage. Back to Robin's for a shower to get ready for our big business meeting.

Kim had a meeting with her big client with a presentation. That went very well. The meeting was followed by a cocktail party for all of the people involved with the startup. We hit it off really well with all of the folks, and I helped tend bar. We will definitely be heading back to A-town for more face time with them.

After the cocktail party, we ran over to one of Kim's band friends to see their new house. It was very large and lovely. They recently were married and it looks like they're off to a great start on their new lives together. Best of luck to Brenagh and Jodi.

The next day, we met Ben, our circumnavigator friend, to hang out with him on his Tayana 42 Vancouver. Mostly we wanted to hang out with Ben, but part of us wanted to test-drive the boat. It was very large and comfortable, and after a lot of discussion, Kim and I have decided that it will be on our short-list when we're ready to buy a boat in a year or two. Thanks Ben! Oh, we brought him a BB gun to dissuade the grackles from spackling Gypsy Soul.

After we said our goodbye's Sunday morning, we headed down to Wimberly to hook up with Kim's folks down there. It was very relaxing as usual. I love just wandering around their home, looking at all of the Stickley stuff they have either bought or Joe has made. Joe's been a huge help with me in my woodworking career. I brought a table saw insert pattern, and we made a bunch out in the shop, since we both have the same table saw. He also showed me his blade guard system he purchased after I cut my finger off. It works pretty well and is of course pretty expensive (but not as much as emergency medical care). Monday, we tooled around Texas, visited Luckenbach, etc.

Tuesday night, we gave our presentation to the Austin Sailing Society meeting held at Darin's brother's restaurant Planks at Parmer and 35. Excellent pizza! The presentation went pretty well. We got a lot of comments. There were a ton of people there. Kim worked the projector while I worked off of my outline. It was great seeing everybody.

Wednesday, we hung out with our good friends, the Dooley's. We met their new daughter and Adam showed me all of the cool stuff he's building in his shop. He does special effects for movies, so he had a bunch of creepy sculptures laying around.

Thursday night, it was parrothead time. After a short stop at C Hunts for a beer with Lynn and Meaghan, we headed over to Sam's Boat to hang out with all of the folks we haven't seen in a year. It was cool, there was a good turn out, and several people sounded interested in our new business venture, skippered catamaran charters in the British Virgin Islands. We stayed up late partying with Kevin and Stella who were nice enough to let us crash at their new home.

Friday, it was the standard Vino 100 stop, and catching up with Diemos, a very cool dude. We ran over to Gino's, the best Italian food in Austin.

Saturday morning, it was the ASS Hunt, our annual scavenger hunt. We sat on the boat while waiting for the rain to let up. It was supposed to start at Starnes, which was five minutes away, but they moved the start to Anderson Mill, which instantly made us an hour late. We got over there ASAP, and huddled under a pavillion, waiting for the rain to let up. Luckily, there was a keg donated by BB Rovers (where we normally have our monthly meetings), and a ton of brisket being smoked by one of our newer members. Awesome TX BBQ! The rain finally subsided enough to launch the Hunt. We had to take a bunch of pics of stuff around Lake Travis, so we got a good bit of sailing in. One of the items on the list was a pic of a tornado, so we zipped back over to Dodd Street Marina and got Kim's laptop out of the Jeep. We took a pic of the tornado we saw when we moved to California a year ago. HA! Anyhoo, we came in second because Meaghan did a pole dance on the forestay, so I can't complain about that. All in all, an excellent day on Lake Travis.

Sunday night, we hung out with the Dreher's all day. Eric and I got our shop time in, Eric smoked some yummy ribs, and we headed over to Mel and Loren's, more woodworking friends. They had made a huge batch of chicken enchilada, so we got caught up while stuffing ourselves again.

Monday morning, drop off the Jeep and head to the airport. I can't tell you how nice it was to see everyone again. It was almost a year to the day when we left. Everybody was so generous with letting us crash with them. Can't wait to see all y'all again soon.

Back on that Horse...

So, today I did my first woodworking in the shop since 10:45am on September 19th last year. I installed the splitter (device that keeps the wood you're cutting on the table saw from kicking back, which is how I cut my finger off). It only took five minutes. As my fellow woodworkers know, it's a huge pain. It's in the way when you try to measure the width of every cut (so I'm resorting to using the tape on the saw), and it can only be used for cuts greater than 1-1/2" wide (otherwise the push stick won't fit through. I've yet to see how it works with the dado blade (table saw blade that cuts from 1/8" to 3/4" wide groove).

Anyhoo, the project I'm working on is a small, removeable mantle for our fireplace. I'm using an aluminum bracket to mount it to the wall (french cleat). It's 5' wide, and an L-shape that's 8"x8". I'm going to use a box joint to glue the two pieces at right angles (think interlocking fingers) all the way down. There will be a bracket on each end to lend strength and support. The panel against the wall will be a panel in the true Arts & Crafts style. Here's my drawing:


To give you an idea of what it's going to look like, here's my buddy Schroeder's from LumberJocks.com mantle. Mine will be sort of an upside down version of it.