Yesterday we left Catalina with a long motor in front of us. The seas have been in their usual calm and glassy state so the motor back was taken up with mainly rigging and re-rigging of our standup fishing poles, reading, and looking for balloons floating in the open ocean. Unfortunately no fish were caught that day but we did end up catching 5 balloons disguised as jellyfish. The Newport Beach harbor is an immense expanse of the nicest and most expensive vessels I have ever seen. Every mourning ball, anchorage, and dock is met with a boat that is worth an inconceivable amount of money. It took us about forty five minutes to get to the entrance of the harbor to where our boat is anchored right now. Today all we did was shopping and repairs. We went grocery shopping off a list supplied by Amelia. Gabe took us to a shop to get the outboard motor repaired, but actually just left the boat to pick it up after being repaired! The newest toy in our fish catching arsenal is a speargun, which we are all excited about. As soon as Gabe gets back from his motor run we are headed to the famous beach break The Wedge. We hope this heavy beach break will satiate our growing need to get involved in the ocean and it’s beautiful beat downs. The surf is small today but hopefully we can get thrown around enough to get some sand in our ears.

I’m sitting in the cabin right now. Tucker is laying on the ground making his signature pterodactyl noises, annoying everyone onboard. Gabe is cooking a bowl of cheesy tuna fish. Tor is sitting up top, repeatedly getting excited when the wind picks up and sad when it dies, over and over again for the last 2 hours. We’ve been sailing for 11 and a half hours today and have 3 hours left. Tucker and Tor took the first shift at 3 this morning, and Gabe and I took over at 6. Since then, it’s been continuous snacking, reading, and looking out at the grey water and sky. Tucker gets hungry about every 45 minutes, and asks, “Who’s hungry!?” When no one offers to cook food, he eats a granola bar. The cycle repeats endlessly. A few times the fishing lines started whirring, and each time we pulled up seaweed. There are about one billion dolphins out here. My favorite was a tiny baby who swam next to its mother the whole time they rode the bow.

The past week we’ve been surfing in Santa Barbara with Tucker and Gabe’s friend, Vincent. Tucker got a cool video of one of the many leopard sharks at the surf spot there. But no great white attacks yet.

The last two nights we spent in Smuggler’s Cove again, on Santa Cruz Island. Mostly, we played a new world-building strategy game Gabe found. It’s called Polytopia, and it’s consuming all our lives. When I close my eyes for bed, all I can think about is whether I should train swordsman with catapults or just knights.

Gabe, Tucker, and I ripped ourselves away from our kingdoms yesterday to dingy around the cove and look for a good snorkeling spot. Unfortunately, Tucker put the anchor out and let go, forgetting that it was not attached to the boat. After that, in order to snorkel, one of us had to stay in the dingy with the oars and keep it away from the rocky shore. We did not retrieve the anchor. But it was hilarious.

Although it’s cloudy today, it’s calm and sparkly, so I’m going to go back outside and watch the island come into view. Hopefully, Tucker will drop less items in the ocean today than he has been.

Tucker is having to much fun to stop and post, so this is Tor…..hopefully he’ll settle in and take over as he’s much better than I.

We’ve been here in Santa Barbara for awhile, losing track of days, I think that’s a good thing. We made an overnight to Santa Cruz Island with The Admiral and caught two tunas on the way back, beam reach sailing in the mid 7’s and calm seas! Admiral has gone on to land based things and we’ll miss him on the boat. Hopefully more fish is in our future. Did a Costco run and Trader Joes here in Santa Barbara, West Marine a few times, we need to leave soon so I stop spending money. When I go ashore I get land sickness, OMG I hate it! The 20 somethings surfed the past two days and loved it. Today we head back out to Santa Cruz Island for two days of fishing and snorkeling than an overnight to Catalia Island.

Boats been running well. After changing the fuel filters on the engine that the stupid heads in Moss Landing didn’t know about, the engine is starting like it’s supposed to. Fixed the freon leak and now the fridge is working great. Solar is keeping up with daily demands nicely. AIS on anchor watch overnight helps me sleep soundly and is highly recommended to anyone anchored out.

“Weather is here, wish you were fine”

Tor