Southern California

We’ve stayed at several great spots on our way to San Diego. We are fortunate that a number of yacht clubs let us stay on their dock for a night or two as reciprocals from Seattle Yacht Club. It’s fun to see the variety of clubs large and small on the California coast. I have to remind myself that there are millions more people in California than in Washington, and hundreds of miles of coastline, good reasons for the plethora of clubs!

Mylar Balloons are a Scourge

As we were coming down from Santa Barbara, I saw a funny looking item floating in the water. It was pink, which is not a color used by fishermen on floats. We got closer and realized it was a balloon. I wanted to grab it to prevent it from winding up in the gullet of a whale or dolphin.

As we headed in, we retrieved more, but could not get all we saw as winds were picking up and we needed to get in to port. I thought there must have been a party that lost control of its balloons, but the manager of the yacht club told me it is such a scourge they have a monthly contest for who can pick up the most balloons, and the prize is Prime Rib dinner for two! Every month!

Marina Del Rey

We stayed two nights at the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, a gigantic man-made boat basin that holds over 6,000 boats. They assigned us their end-tie guest slip so docking without the use of our bow thruster was not a problem.

After trying unsuccessfully to arrange for a diver to investigate the underwater tunnel of our bow thrusters, I flagged down one of the many divers zooming around the basin and he was very kind to take a look, and verified there was nothing in there.

That afternoon we hopped on our bikes and rode the path to Venice Beach and beyond to the Santa Monica pier. Venice was both seedier than we thought it would be, and much less active, despite it being in the 70s and sunny. It was a weekday though, and I expect even Southern Californians do have to work.

Oceanside

Yesterday we got in pretty early to Oceanside. It’s a much smaller boat basin, for less than 1,000 boats and no super yacht sized boats. The harbor shares the oceanfront with Camp Pendleton, the largest Marine base on the West Coast.

We walked around the circumference of the marina to the beach, never finding the long boardwalk that we had read about. I suspect that our guidebook is becoming out of date since it was published 12 years ago.

The sea lions have become an increasing presence as we make our way down the coast. We have seen them lounging on docks and finger piers. We were serenaded all night by their barking at Oceanside.

Today we will make it San Diego and a week of preparations for our Mexico departure on the 30th!