2010 was an amazing year. Among the many significant milestones were our first family cruise, the purchase of our dreamboat, the jettisoning of most of our worldly possessions to move on to said dreamboat, lost teeth, first bike rides and first ocean passage. Our transition to boat life, despite it’s smells, minimalism, and tight quarters has created a stronger, happier, more cooperative family than we had on land. 2010 looked like a very hard act to follow. ...
We are back home now and the verdict is in. This vacation was a resounding success. Its likely that this was our best and favorite family vacation ever. We had some logistical issues, and some moments of frayed nerves, but that is to be expected. What really impresses me is how we all worked together to make sure that everyone could enjoy the trip. Ruby was a total champ. When Vick and I were busy, she would entertain her sister down below. She devised a multitude of games, and when we finally bought a couple containers of Play-dough she would spend hours with her making pretend food and serving it up. ...
Yesterday we went out for a pleasure sail. We sailed out of Catalina Harbor in the morning and puttered around the Outer Santa Barbara Channel. The wind was promising when we left the harbor. It had been assaulting our transom all night, smacking the harbor against the hull loudly enough that we almost turned the boat on our mooring. By the time we got under sail the wind died. This has been the great frustration of sailing here. We can see wind on the ocean all around but wherever we are seems to be becalmed. Since we didn’t have any destination I wasn’t inclined to turn on the engine. We just wallowed, boom creaking in the light puffs of wind that would occasionally grace us. Our speed over water was 0 knots for at least an hour. ...
My face and belly are radiating that kind of inside out warmth that comes from a day of doing all ones favorite things. I don’t mean to lead my readers to believe that today was easy. The children were on again off again unmanageable and Victoria was regularly overwrought by her prognostication that, due to said children, and an unfortunately poor choice of words on my part the night before, she didn’t know if “this was going to work.” (She was of course referring to the Big Trip.) Normally when my family is assaulted by this severe a maelstrom I am emotionally and pragmatically debilitated for the duration. The whole of my attention is consumed trying to determine what I am going to do about it. ...
When we left off our family had just arrived in Isthmus Harbor (one of the Two Harbors). As soon as the sun set we were treated to the oddly festive spectacle of an entire harbor lit up with Christmas lights. All of the waterfront buildings and many of the boats were sporting multicolored lights. It reminded me (for whatever reason) of Jimmy Buffet’s song “Christmas in the Caribbean,” thereby putting a huge smile on my face. We ate a mediocre yet unbelievably expensive dinner at the only restaurant in Two Harbors—from which I had to hastily extricate my kids when they simultaneously decided to be the loudest kids in the harbor(s). We enjoyed a brief moonlit motor back to the boat and everyone fell asleep quickly. ...
We arrived in Two Harbors last night, just after the sun went down. We left Marina Del Rey around noon and motored out of the immense harbor. When we got to Santa Monica Bay, I briefly doused the engine to get a sense of the wind. We headed up and set the main. The wind sustained us for all of 15 minutes (at a measly 4 knots) before it died out completely. I reluctantly conceded that there was no chance of making it to Catalina on wind power alone and powered up the diesel. ...
Its Christmas Eve and as exciting as tomorrow promises to be the thing that Ruby and Olive claim to be most excited about is the sailing trip. That’s right, when given the choice between presents or sailing Ruby said she was more excited about sailing. In preparation, Victoria and I are frantically working down the todo list. Here’s what the next few days look like Our good friends Sarah and Ricky are stopping by for a lightning visit this afternoon. Tonight we make our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. This year we’re adding Peppermint Molten Chocolate Cakes to the feast. After dinner we’ll do a video chat with Papa Verne and Gramora where Papa V. will read “The Night Before Christmas” (another family tradition.) After the kids fall asleep we’ll pack everything up for the trip, put out the presents, and hopefully get to bed early. In addition to the expected Christmas morning hullabaloo we will be preparing to leave (at noon? really?), and video chatting with the Logans. We’ll drive down to LA and spend the night there. Early on the 26th we will drive over to the marina where Vick will drop me off to do the check-in. She’ll head over to WF in Santa Monica to provision and we’ll hopefully be on the water by 11am. I’ve been told that the sail is ~7hrs to Two Harbors so we’ll be racing against the clock to get to the mooring before dark. ...