March 7, 2020
Looking back at our last entries we have not kept up very
well but there is a reason so with a bit of foreshadowing I will just say that
our travel plans were significantly interrupted for almost a month by a
critical illness and needing to make plans for cancer treatment. More about that whole mess later.
Our last notes got us north as far as Ensenada Mexico where
we hung out waiting for the crazy California tax day to pass. California marinas are required to send a
list of anyone moored in the marina or to a mooring ball on January 1st
of every year to the local tax assessor who then takes a wild guess at the
value of all of the boats and then collects a year of property tax. It doesn’t matter that you have already paid
taxes and registration in another state and the sticker on your bow attests to
this fact – California does it their way.
Folks have written about challenging these bills and noted that it took
up to a couple of years and the assistance of a lawyer (not free we are sure)
to clear up the mess. Our approach was
to wait until January 3rd to officially enter the USA via
California.
We tried out the new phone application offered by
Immigration and Border Patrol as we approached San Diego Harbor.
It was a bit of a challenge as the Border
Patrol folks have some training issues at their end (they couldn’t figure out
how to aim their camera and the agent was based at the airport and didn’t know
much about boat entry requirements) but they were polite and we got our
clearance just as we were entering the very busy and somewhat narrow channel
into the harbor proper.
We tied up in
the municipal visitors marina about 4 PM and tried to reprogram our minds to
speak English and that now a dollar was a dollar and to quit automatically
dividing by 20 before we broke our bank account. We provisioned with fresh food
that we weren’t sure would be allowed across the border when we entered the
country.
I also managed to get a blood
test done to see in my prostate cancer marker (PSA) had gone up again (it had).
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This is only the second time we have tried the CBP (Customs and
Border Patrol) ROAM application and it worked well after
not working at all when we tried it coming from Canada to Washington. |
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San Diego is the ONLY place we have seen that dinghies need to be
cable locked (not uncommon) AND the oars locked for security. |
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San Diego river on the left of the jetty (with a spillway over the top for flooding)
and the entrance to Mission Bay on the right. "Dog Beach" to the left of the river. |
We harbor hopped up the coast first stopping in Dana Point
for a night where Nordhavn lent us a slip for the night and then on to Long
Beach early the next morning.
One of the
highlights of our visit was a bus ride across the channel to tour the Queen
Mary.
It was eye opening to appreciate
the days of opulent travel by sea.
She
was built for speed and luxury with no expense spared.
She first served the rich and famous and then
during WWII became a troop ship and still holds the record for carrying the
most passengers on a single ship (even the swimming pool was converted to a
bunk room).
Luckily no German gunner
ever collected the bounty on her hull by sinking her (it was said that she had
enough speed to outrun the fastest torpedoes of the era had one ever been
targeted at her stern).
From Long Beach
we made a 12 hour run to Santa Barbara. We could see some foul weather headed
our way but the Santa Barbara Yacht Club kindly made sure we had a secure place
to tie up and felt comfortable using their very nice facilities.
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| Queen Mary |
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| Queen Mary 1st class hallway |
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| Queen Mary 1st class lounge |
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| Queen Mary 1st class lounge |
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| Queen Mary life boats |
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A Ham operators dream - the local ham club uses the Queen Mary's
original radio room to broadcast from |
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| Santa Barbara Harbor |
After several days of watching for a good weather window to
move from Santa Barbara around notoriously nasty Point Conception we finally
accepted a forecast of up to 20 knot winds off our bow
and headed out. Here are our InReach posts for the transit:
Jan 13, 202011:13:15 AM
Passing Point Conception. 20 kn winds. Short steep waves
Jan 13, 20205:21:00 PM
20+ kn winds continue. Sea state awful. Occasionally bury bow in
waves paravanes help with motion but concerned about arrival time
We were concerned enough about getting into Moss Landing before
dusk that we contacted Monterey Harbor and confirmed we could put in there if
we needed to. We had also learned before
we left Santa Barbara that Moss Landing Marina was not yet ready to accept new
boats as their dredging project had run past the expected completion date. We frantically called the Elkhorn Yacht Club
who assured us that they could make room on their guest dock until the dredge
was out of the way. Brian, the yacht
club dockmaster was in frequent contact with us while we approached Monterey
Bay and helping us make contingency plans as he watched our AIS signal and
realized that slowing to 4-5 knots meant we were in foul water and behind
schedule. Finally we rounded the corner
into Monterey Bay and were able to make up time as we crossed the bay to Moss
Landing (we burned a lot of fuel on that run!).
We arrived just before dusk ad Brian met us in his launch to lead us
past the dredge (after he confirmed their floating pipe was sunk to the bottom)
and up the poorly marked channel and into our side tie (up wind and up current)
berth.
Planning to stay in Moss Landing for several months we set about
learning the local bus system and finding our way around the local small
towns. We kept waiting for the dredge to
move to allow us access to the larger south municipal marina where there was
LOTS of human activity and LOTS of sea lion activity and NOISE as they occupied
(and nearly sank) their favorite docks.
In the end we learned that a first come first serve spot in the South
marina near the yacht club was available to us and we decided it was in the end
very serendipitous that the dredge had kept us from moving. Salish Aire is now tied up in the middle of a
marine bird and otter sanctuary and the local pinnipeds are relatively quiet
and polite harbor seals that stay on their sand bar and leave the docks to boat
dwellers. We can walk several hundred
yards to the Elkhorn Yacht Club whenever we want to socialize or get a good
internet connection and the folks at the yacht club have treated us like
honored guest.
With the boat safely stored we flew out of San Jose on January 21st
to Portland Oregon where we picked up the Prius we had previously arranged to
purchase from our grandson’s mother and then headed north for planned visits to
family and a speaking engagement on the opening day of the Seattle Boat Show
about cruising in the Sea of Cortez.
Everything went according to plan and our presentation was very well
received (we have already been invited to speak next year). We then moved into
Clarice’s father’s house (he currently resides in an assisted living facility
so the house was empty) and took care of a number of things like routine doctor
visits and visits to Puget Sound friends.
The only thing that seemed amiss was Jarvis was drinking lots and lots
of water and peeing lots and lots of urine.
Our plans were that I would have a biopsy of my prostate on
February 7th then meet with the urologist the next week to discuss
the results and head back to the boat.
On February 8th life took a huge turn when I developed life
threatening sepsis (it seems that my personal crop of e-coli in my gut were
completely resistant to the antibiotic I took in preparation for the
biopsy). I went to ED twice within a few
hours and ended up being admitted for 4 days when it became apparent that my
body was very rapidly decompensating.
And to make the day even more interesting we learned the same morning
that Jarvis is diabetic and will need two insulin shots every day for the rest
of his life.
I was sent home on IV antibiotics that Clarice has administered
every morning with the final dose finally planned for tomorrow (March 8th). Along the way I have gotten a diagnosis of
prostate cancer, had a false positive bone scan (it looked like I might have
advanced cancer rather than early disease – a CT scan put that scare to rest
after a very long weekend), and lost count of my doctor visits.
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| Yes, I really looked that crappy when I entered the hospital. |
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Morning routine was coffee, check the news, get my daily
antibiotic dose, and give Jarvis his insulin
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Tomorrow we will pull the IV catheter I have had since I left the
hospital and then we will head to my mother’s 93rd birthday party in
Tacoma before heading to Portland to visit with our newest granddaughter (born February
15th in the midst of all of our chaos) one more time before heading
back to Salish Aire on Monday.
March 10, 2020 (Tuesday)
Just to finish the post by saying we made the 738 miles from
Portland to Moss Landing in one day and were able to sleep in our own bed last
night. I started the today walking along
the road that provides access to the estuary, sand dunes and beach with Jarvis
and we were greeted with a split in the light cloud cover that allowed the
rising sun to shine on the low breaking waves and it was good.
