Halee & Siri in Catalina

March 28-30, 2014

Kind of a spur of the moment trip to Catalina with our granddaughter Halee and Siri, a foreign exchange student from Norway.   Two seventeen year old girls and a grandpa!
We got to the boat on Thursday evening and packed some groceries and figured out the sleeping arrangements.   I got to try out the table that makes into a bed.   It worked great and Halee and Siri got the V-births.

 Friday- We left around 8:30 AM for Avalon, Catalina.   What a neat morning of sailing, seeing dolphin, resting and we arrived just before 3:00 PM, a 6.5 hour crossing.   Wind was light and kept us on a perfect heading for Twin Harbors.   With two newbies to sailing and Catalina, I had planned on Avalon so at around 2:00 PM I began motoring.   We checked in and got a mooring for two nights.   The girls practiced rowing the inflatable and I got a lot of laughs from watching them.   Halee cooked dinner with the help of Siri.    What a beautiful day.
  Saturday- What a beautiful day of relaxing, watching the girls snorkeling and the girls even went para-sailing.    We walked the town of Avalon and the girls finished up their sunburn as they wanted to do.   That evening I pulled out the guitar with harmonica and played the girls a few songs.   Halee and Siri were great at singing along.

Ralph- On Saturday, I was relaxing in the cabin and I heard someone hailing "Spirit" from a dinghy alongside my sailboat.   It was a great young man named Ralph.  Believe it or not, Ralph had another 34' Islander like mine.   I invited him aboard and he enthusiastically looked all over my boat.    His is a few years older than mine but when only 12-14 of these boats were made, this was a neat experience.  I later rowed over to his boat and did the same.   He is a welder and has his boat in Los Alimitos Marina which is very close to where I keep my boat.   We exchanged information and I believe we will become great sailing buddies.

Sunday, we awoke early and left Avalon at around 7:30AM.    We motored out into the channel (25 nm across) and soon found enough wind to sail.   The wind started at about 10-15 knots and increased to gusts over 20 knots.   I soon taught Halee how to measure the swells ("Oh swell") and by the time the morning was over, we had some swells to nine or ten feet.   We were flying and I saw speeds for Spirit of Adventure hit 7.7 knots.   We made a 4.5 hour crossing and arrived around 12:00 in Long Beach.   My other sailing buddy, Fred, who I have written about many times, had wanted to meet us in mid channel but we arrived so quickly, he could only welcome us back home.   Thanks Fred!  

Halee wrote in my ship's log- "The boat was so much fun after initially falling into the floor of the boat (ha, ha) it got a lot better and I had a great time.  Love my grandpa.  I got a nice tan also."
Siri wrote- "I am super grateful for getting the opportunity to go sailing in California!  I had a lot of fun and I will remember the trip for the rest of my  life."
I agree and this grandpa/captain is very blessed to have had two great girls aboard!   If you wish to watch a 14 minute video of our trip, just click on the following link...

http://youtu.be/AxjHL4khVbo