The Journey to Mexico

About to cross the US border to Mexico 

Officially in Mexico

We're in Mexico so I whipped up a south of the border stylie breakfast

Baby Raphael Louis Alfred Moreton is born and we receive the news via the Satellite  phone!

Hooray! well done Louise.

Uh Oh, some traffic. Hope they're not moving.

Surrounded by dolphins that escorted us for 20 minutes. 

I tried to convince them to stay

Captain Sparky

Lee puts shaving foam on his ball bearings...

We were told that fixing the sail would cost about 3000 dollers. Lee realigned the boom and replaced the bearings in the main furling unit and then retuned the rig so that it had less rake (bend in the mast) and now it is working fine. We're off out for a sail in the Todos Santos bay on Saturday.

6.30am and we're off to the fuel dock and then to Ensenada, Mexico. We should arrive at around 5pm PST. Our Spot locator is on if you would like to track our progress.

On our first night in San Diego, I am busy drying my hair when I hear a noise. Living on a boat you become desensitized to the everyday boat noises but extremely sensitive to any other noises that you do not recognize and so I got worried when I heard a strange crackling noise. It was loud enough to hear over the hair dryer. I switched the hair dryer off and opened the door to see if it was Lee. He was on the phone and wasn't responsible for the noise. I went back to drying my hair but i kept switching the hairdryer off to listen. It sounded like burning paper - very worrying on a boat. I informed Lee and we spent the next hour trying to find the source. We were laying on the floor listening, walked around the boat with a torch, pulled up the floors, disconnected the shore power etc but no luck. Lee decided to look online and found lots of stories from concerned boaters that had experienced the same thing. It turns out that the noise comes from some giant clawed boat slapping shrimps! We've been here for over a week now and the things don't stop.

You have to watch this...

Here's another boater's story

San Diego

Cooking sausages for the captain

San Diego, our last stop before we head out of the US and into Mexico! We will be in San Diego for a few weeks while we finish getting the boat ready. We have been lucky with the weather here which has been in the late 70's which is great for winter!

Avalon, Catalina

We headed off toward Catalina Island just before sunset for an all night trip. We kept a good look out for crab pots until the light faded and then had to rely on lady luck. Our first waypoint had us negotiating our way through 8 oil platforms which were well lit and like Christmas Trees on the water. Once clear of the platforms we turned towards Catalina and ran in parallel to the shipping lane. This is normally busy as we are in the vicinity of Los Angeles, but we only had to negotiate 3 large freighters before crossing the shipping lane when no traffic was around. We also had to cross the Pacific Missile Test Area, but fortunately there was no activity.  The sun rose just as we were approaching Avalon and the view was outstanding.

Penny Lane with a Liverpool football club flag moored in Avalon alongside Solent

There are no real cars in Avalon, just golf carts

spot Solent

Christmas in Santa Barbara

We haven't had a good wi fi connection so have been unable to blog for a while so here's an update of what we have been up to.

Xmas Kayaks 

A Californian girl

Merry Christmas from the cockpit

 A proper northern tea...Vimto and a pint of Boddigtons at Macs Fish n chip Shop. We had fish n chips with mushy peas and pickled onions (not on Christmas day).
On Christmas day I cooked for 12 hours and we ate our roast at 10pm.  I think that Solent's oven needs some care and attention as it isn't performing.

Xmas day dinghy ride

Really good baked clams at Brophys

Another neighbour

Ready to leave for our first night sail from Santa Barbara to Avalon Catalina