Friday, November 9, 2007

Newport beach and beyond

November 6, 2007 Nomad has travelled from Monterey to
San Simeon (with a view of Hearst Castle)around Point
Conception in Southern California. There, we met
another cruising couple, had tea and nibbles. The
most important thing about meeting these guys, Linda
and Steve, is that they solved my problem of getting
sea sick! Stugeron (a non-prescription med sold
anywhere but the US)has made my sailing days more than
just keeping still and keeping my eyes shut. I've
been cooking, cleaning, reading, navigating, studying
charts all while we're moving. Let's just say that
this stuff has worked better than any of the various
things I've tried in the US. I could use that great
segue to rant about the evil of large insurance
companies running the FDA with their lobby groups
but...
We also met up with an old friend Chris and another
friend Deyess who sailed on Chris' boat to the Channel
Islands at the same time we did. It's buddy boating
at its best. Brian has had guys to surf with and we
keep learning little things from each other about
boats.
We have spent the last 2 nights (tonight will be 3) at
anchor on the Channel Islands. For two nights we
heard the grunting of male elephant seals from the
beach. We were anchored right in front of a colony
and walked around them when we took a hike on shore.
My favorite thing was seeing their large tracks in the
sand. It looked like dead bodies had been drug up and
down the sand dunes. Actually it was the large-eyed
baby elephant seals looking for just the right spots
to hang out. Speaking of dead bodies. Chris and
Deyess sawtwo human skulls and leg bones on top of one
of the sand dunes. They also saw an old stone bowl
that had been used for grinding grain, etc. Yup,
these islands used to be inhabited by Indians (don't
remember the name of the tribe). No worries, they
left the items as they found them and just took
pictures.

Tomorrow we leave the south side of Santa Cruz island
and head back to "civilization" in Southern Cal. for a
few days and then onward to Baja California. I'm
already practicing my Spanish in my head!


November 9
We're snugly in Newport Beach on a 5$ per night
mooring ball directly next to Balboa Island where
houses range from 2-3 million each. I find it ironic
that we share the exact same landscape. The only real
difference is they have cute golf carts to drive
around and we have a skateboard and rusty bike when we
get to shore.

We've got Deyess coming down to join us in a few days
so that the trip from here to Mexico will be more
doable and less exhausting.

Our tasks here in Newport are to finalize insurance,
figure out our customs procedure for entering Mexico
by boat, figure out where to do laundry, run the
electrical for our new solar panels and the wind
generator. We're still trying to find places for
things we crammed onto the boat before we left and
oddly enough, just the other day I found two cabinets
that had hardly anything in them! So, the organizing
goes on.
I'm continually amazed at how God has provided for us.
We're on a tight budget; the 5$ mooring balls,
reimbursements from insurance companies!!, hearing
about Minney's a Marine Surplus store close to us,
etc. are all reminders that we are being taken care of
just when we need it.

1 comment:

Colleen Franklin said...

Megan! I love hearing all the inside scoops on life at sea. You two are my very favorite sailors. I wish I could afford to charter you guys for a round the world trip-but unless I get ahold of some of your new meds, it'll be more like a 'round the harbor' trip...the richies have no idea how the neighborhood's gone up in value having the Nomad as a neighbor! The Franklins miss you!love, Colleen (writing, for some reason, under an assumed name.)