Why Sell?

The disarray in my hotel room in La Paz is a sure sign of how organized and easy it is to sell a sailboat in Mexico. I honestly can’t really figure out what exactly is going on here (in regards to my room or the boat). I know there is now a bunch of money in an account that belongs to one of the crewmembers of the Misty Moonlight. She does not even know its there but these 2 guys who halfway own Misty sure do. Tonight I finally just had to let it go for a while and eat lots of bakery items in bed while watching a movie. As we have often said, it is all happening now and part of that soon to be now is the Captain’s arrival to Cabo tomorrow. I’ll be there to retrieve her and am elated to have a helping hand in enduring the madness of it all. My advice is it’s a great idea to buy a sailboat but you should never sell it. It’s just not worth the effort.

So lets back up. Misty Moonlight got put up on the Craigslist market over a month ago. There was lots of interest but no one really wants a boat with a bum strut with a handmade brace. The decision was to replace it. Sharkfoot and I headed to Baja with different agendas. She was headed to be a kayak guide in the Sea of Cortez (RAD!!) and I was headed to be a land sailor in the Bercovich boatyard (SAD!!) close to La Paz. We ate 18 tacos together, passed 8 checkpoints and said out goodbyes.

I arrived to La Paz and two days was enough time for removing the old strut, arranging for the new strut to be made, showing some potential buyers the boat, hanging flyers, and developing an amazing gastrointestinal problem that is still being fought.

You work fast and hard when you are staying in a boatyard and so clearly see what might happen if you stay just a little too long. You might become the one-eyed sail maker who has had his boat on land for years with hopes of sailing away or the boatless guy who sleeps on a cot under a boat and does bottom painting without any protection at all.

More than anything, being around Misty without the crew was too much. It made my heart ache and if we wanted to sell the boat, I had to bury my longing to go sailing and pretend I didn’t love her so much.

I headed out for some beach time and Thanksgiving with a motorcycle gang. We enjoyed a roasted chicken from Wal-Mart, chorizo pasta and an assortment of pastries. Snorkeling with the Frenchman at the reef of Cabo Pulmo made the previous few days all worth it. By the time I got to Cabo (don’t ask), the guys who saw the boat had emailed, called and texted wanting to make an offer. I was beside myself and headed back to La Paz after a final outing into the nightlife of Cabo with the motorcycle gang.

We negotiated, settled on a price, and over the last few days the finer details of selling a boat in Mexico have surfaced. Apparently, you gotta get the dinero, go to Cabo for notarizing, get the strut put back on and aligned, get pissed at the buyers, deal with the owner of a boatyard who you owe a lot of money and…..Are you ready for the icing on the cake? At the last minute the buyers say they want to hear the engine cranked. Good idea on their part and for us, it means we will be working on the boat after all to get her up and running. All I can do is be thankful that I get to spend a few more days with the Captain on Misty. We’ll be back where we belong and wishing Sharkie was with us and Misty Moonlight was back at sea lulling us to sleep. If they don’t like the way she sounds, I know where I’ll tell them to go and I know where I’m going, I’m going sailing. Selling a boat is too much work.

The second happiest day of a sailor's life...

It wasn’t too long ago, amidst the ever-changing Misty Moonlight crew’s plans, that we spoke to one of our many coaches from last year. How were things? We asked.

“Great! I’m on someone else’s boat drinking someone else’s beer. It’s a great improvement!”

We chuckled knowingly.

When you asked me six months ago if I would be returning to the boat I would have laughed...no way! Now I find myself on the fence. On the one hand is a winter free of burdens and plans. Boat hopping. Surfing. Traveling on a whim and a dime. On the other, an expensive, frustrating, greasy gamble—pull apart the engine completely, fix her, and head out on another expansive and unpredictable adventure.

While my mind (and my bank account) tell me that it’s time to move on from boat-ownership for the time-being, my heart protests. I’ll miss the glorious days of the three of us Windworthy Women, ripping along and heeled over, Sharkie making lunch, Hornsby at the helm (the wind always favored her), and myself, tucked into the leeward side of the cockpit, chatting on the radio.

I’ll miss the quiet nights at an anchorage all to ourselves, laughing over dinner, talking about absolutely nothing, engaging in a bawdy game of cards. Or rallying off in our dinghy, LV II, to adventures untold and sailing back using a shade tarp and a human mast.

But honestly, more than anything, I’ll miss the challenge. The 2 AM victories and the underwater repairs. I signed up for pulling up anchor at dawn, bleary-eyed and cursing, drinking coffee at sunrise, under sail, and headed to a faraway destination. I signed up for the University of the Misty Moonlight, which taught me a new lesson (or ten) every day.

I know I may be alone in this. Maybe that’s why they call me “The Captain.”

I look forward to the day when, carefree, with a guitar in one hand, and someone else’s beer in the other, I can look out from the deck of someone else’s boat and say, yes, this is just fine. But for the mean time, I want my crew, and my pony, and my beer, and my boat. It may be for only a day, before we send Misty onto her next great adventure under the watchful eye of some other windworthy folk, but that’s enough. Enough time to say our hellos, have a good laugh, and say, as it has been said before, “we should do this again sometime!”

Misty Moonlight is now a Mexican national

News flash*******

Misty Moonlight will be remaining in Mexico. That's right folks, she ain't heading north. No way, not happening, and the Misty crew could not be happier with the choice we made. We feel that it is important to share this information with friends and family that obviously think we are crazy enough to bash our way north since no one thought we were crazy when we headed south.

So instead of taking our boat home, we decided to stay and explore this magical place called the Sea of Cortez. We have had some time to relax amongst the pristine islands and fill our days with snorkeling, kayaking, lobster and urchin hunting, hiking the cliffs of insanity, frolicking with sea lions, getting surrounded by fin whales and enjoying the company of many good friends with lots of warm beer.
We are all sad to see it end and would do a number of ridiculous things if granted just another month or two. Don't ask. There are moments when we look at each other and we know, time is short, the voyage is not without end.
As hard as it is to think of life not aboard Misty, we know that all we can do is be thankful and take each moment we have had as the fuel that fills the soul.
We are proud to be where we are now, proud to have arrived in time for the adventure of a lifetime.
I asked the Misty crew to tell me some of the things they are proud of that involve the 4Th crew member--Misty Moonlight, either directly or indirectly. The Captain is proud of "that strut" (said with a finger pointed nearly in my eye), other repairs she has orchestrated (salt water impeller, injector pump, autopilot) and of course, the British Seagull.
Sharkfoot is proud of her map (words can't describe the amazingness of it), the Mirado black tipped warrior pencils, the massive hairballs she finds, the black mold she cleaned from within the boat, the plastic spoon she put in the dry milk jar, and the toothbrush holder (a sippy cup found floating in the ocean. As for me, I am proud of the fruit basket, the seal on the water tank, the curtains, and the way I check to see how much diesel we are leaking (it's really minimal or non-existent if we don't fill the tank too high).
Recently, one my proudest moments was knowing that we can now sleep through 39.3 knots of wind(according to another boats anemometer) like a boat full of babies.
There are a couple of things we have on board that we are all truly proud of. One being, our family of ponies that includes Pony, Pinkie and their son. They have shared the night watch, held shade tarps, and listened when the other girls would not. We thank them for their continued love and support. The other is our collapsible bucket for being the best collapsible bucket for the world. He is our friend no matter the circumstance and possibly the most useful item on board. He has transformed himself into a bathroom, mop bucket, dead fish holder, delivery bag for injector pump and a water scooper at all speeds. For this, we salute you.
Just remember, we live on a 30 foot boat and have not slept off the boat in nearly 3 months. If you shared 30 feet with 2 of your most absurd friends, one toilet, one fridge, one stove and 3 crazy ponies, you might find yourself wondering sometimes, what the hell is going on?

reason to celebrate

So we got this free calendar. It came with our new radio antenna. Its a real nice calendar, every month of the year is a photo of a different VHF or a different hand held radio. It is just beautiful. Unfortunately that calendar just had no holidays on it, nothing to celebrate. Thus, the first annual Cactus Day celebration was born. We started Cactus Day with a pancake breakfast aboard Matilda and one of the first hair washings in far too many days. Then to the beach for cactus salsa a bit of tequila, and we closed the night with a lobster hunt. Next holiday...the first annual Muy Bueno Day. (Our lives just keep getting more and more absurd the more the sun and saltwater find their way to our brains.) Thats right w were celebrating all things that are muy bueno. Egg mcmuffins for breakie, The Princess Bride story time, tostada lunch with friends, the first annual "great muy bueno dinghy race," dinner and jam sessions. Que Bueno!! Onto more important things, "who won the great muy bueno dinghy race?" you may be asking. Well friends, LVII (our dinghy) had a great sail made of a blue tarp, boat hook, boat brush and human mast. The misty crew took first place(out of 3). Was there any doubt? So friends, we will be looking forward to celebrating Cactus Day (March 1st) and Muy Bueno Day (March 12th) in the years to come.

On to other Logistics. Misty had her best days of sail in the recent past on our way up to Puerto Escondito. Misty doing 6.5 to 7 knots heeled over on a west wind. Couldn't have asked for better weather to scoot our final push north. That's right, this is as far north as we go (this time). It's time to start making our way south to La Paz. Apologies for not writing more but time is short and the wind is calling. We are headed out for at least a week but will try to post some more home videos in the near future.

Luigi, Hornsby and I would like to leave you with a little something from the story "Danny the Champion of the World". (Its good for the soul so we recommend reading to yourself or to little ones in your lives.)

"Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death."
-R. Dahl
from Ch. 2 "The Baby Austin"

Voyage...

On a typical Thursday night I expressed some of my concern for leaving. We had just reinstalled our newly re-sealed injector pump and while there was a certain amount of rejoicing when the engine successfully ran for an more than ten minutes without dumping a gallon of diesel into our oil reservoir, our celebrations were somewhat subdued. Experience has taught us that too much revelry at small (and large) repairs only leads to a harder fall when the next thing breaks. That, and the fact that in 12 hours I was getting on a plane to leave for two weeks.

The lessons of the journey so far were so fresh I was afraid they would break under the load of an all-too familiar life: New York City. Would I be able to assimilate back to NYC? I knew the answer was yes. Could I return to the boat in two weeks time and pick up where I left off? Could I take this new shape, this new version of myself, and stay solid enough to not melt back into an old and familiar mold. Hornsby assured me that my trip away was part of the journey. It was what needed to happen. Everything that has happened has had a reason, and so to with this. I wouldn’t be picking up exactly where I left off, it would be 150 nm to the north west, but the Misty Moonlight crew would be reunited, despite thousands of days apart, to continue the Voyage.

That Friday started like any other. I woke up to the spinning wheels of my mind, “…must re-time the engine…is there’s enough play on those bolts on the injector pump?…I haven’t even packed yet!” Coffee in hand, I thought nothing about the inevitability of the next stage of my journey, of Our Voyage. Instead I focused my attention to the subtleties of that Volvo Penta MD6A and with the help and expertise of Blake, we got that honey singin’ again as Lady Hornsby called the local hotels trying to get me a shuttle to the airport.

Without a minute to spare, I loaded the last of my warm clothes into my duffel and called for our rowing captain, Sharkfoot, to take me to shore, thankful for the sunglasses to shield my watery eyes. A quick goodbye on the beach and I was hoofing it alone, heading up the beach towards a shuttle. After twenty minutes of running I still came up two minutes late and caught a cab instead for a price that was practically our weekly food budget. We whizzed along the coast and I saw from the land, in a matter of minutes, what my girls would see over the next few days. At the airport I ducked into the bathroom to change out of my board shorts and sandals into jeans and shoes, checked in, and sat down to eat a lunch that Hornsby and Sharkie had packed me, complete with a napkin note that almost got me misty all over again. Before I knew it I was in New York City, where the wind-chill dropped the temperature into the 20’s and you can’t see the stars for the lights. It was all too familiar.

But my soul and my spirit drifted in a perfect bell curve. I was still very much on the boat, lying awake at night in that fourth floor walk up and waiting for the boat to rock me to sleep. Mistaking the streetlights outside for the anchor lights of other boats. Telling anyone who would listen about life on Misty, and realizing I was coming up quite short when trying to put it to words. But I was in NYC for one reason: money, and after a day of getting my bearings again, a day when I felt all the shifts in wind as if I were at the helm, I was at work, unloading a semi and a 24’ truck’s worth of gear onto 40th street.

Mercedes Benz Fashion Week may be glamorous for some, but for the non-union stage technicians of New York City it is a grueling two weeks of work with the opportunity to rake in the overtime hours and stock up some cash. Dressed in black, bearing hand-staplers, matt-knives, and the ubiquitous knee-pads, our bleeding knuckles and drowsy drooping eyelids tell the story of the effort demanded of a crew tasked with doing three fashion shows a day in one venue. No longer the captain of the crew, and compared to the fatigue of sailing, it felt more like the long awaited vacation than work.

By the following weekend, amidst a 21-hour day, I couldn’t be farther from the boat. I couldn’t even conceive of it anymore. All I saw were scrim-covered panels, and painted carpet runways. I rode the subway in a daze with deli coffee in one hand and a bacon-egg-and-chedder sandwich in the other. As the week progressed the end came into view. Just get through Tommy Hilfiger (a 22’X90’ planked walnut runway!) and I’ll be on my way back to the boat. A few trips to the local West Marine, and out to Queens in an effort to replace the stainless steel used in the Epic Repair of 2010 and I could almost taste the salt air.

Sniffling and coughing, I flew back across the country to a reunion I had long awaited. Two wonderful friends jumped from behind a van and we embraced in the way I had envisioned, full of joy an excitement. Hopping into the rental car we made our way back to La Paz chatting about all our various adventures. Upon arrival at the boat we were together again, ready to continue the adventure.

Since the moment I left I’ve been trying to make sense of this part of the journey. If there is anything I have learned so far from the Voyage of the Misty Moonlight it is that the challenges, the abnormalities, are the spice of life. If I only see the most superficially positive moments, then I would have lost my mind many months ago. Nothing on this Journey has gone according to plan except that we threw the plan out the window a long time ago and replaced it with the whims of the wind. We have invested our faith in knowing that everything that happened, every little piece of the journey from moment to moment happened and continues to happen for a reason. You just have to have your eyes and heart open enough to find the meaning.

I can not speak for Las Capitanas, but I suspect that without The Captain, they gained some confidence in what we have all learned together. I know that had to learn to let go and found myself in the shoes of our friends and family—out of touch and constantly worried. As I sit here on the boat, the girls are in town running errands. I am nursing a cold and I admit I feel out of the loop. Having stepped out of this life and into an entirely different one, I feel like a foreigner, a bit of a stranger in my own home. But I put my faith again in the idea that everything happens for a reason, and even more so in the bonds of friendship that no trip to New York could ever break.

Voyage on Misty!

The vacation begins…but this still ain’t no holiday!

So we finally made the long journey down the coast of Baja to Cabo San Lucas. We were in time not only for the Captains flight to NYC (to earn some dough for the Misty funds setting up runways for J-Lo’s latest fashion trends), but we were also there in just enough time to have the Captains help taking out a fuel pump with some blown seals and reinstalling a freshly overhauled one. That Volvo Penta MD6A was now running better than ever, the skies were blue, the winds fair and the beaches white. What a time to have to say farewell to the Captain. With no choice, the misty eyed Misty Crew rowed the good Captain to shore and left her to walk the beach, luggage in hand, to find the airport shuttle. Suerte Capitaina! We’ll miss you, a few tears, and then the Misty Co-Capitanas step up. Mom’s gone!! So what did we do??? Fuel up and buy some cold beers.
We had 2 weeks to make it from Los Cabos around the East Cape to La Paz, 123 nautical miles. That motor was runnin’ real nice and Hornsby and I were sharing the co-captainship as well as you could hope for. We stopped along the way to La Paz at one of the most beautiful little coves along the Baja Coast, Los Frailes. Just North of Frailes about 3 NM is Cabo Pulmo Reef which is home to one of 3 living hard-coral reef systems in North America, and the only one in the Sea of Cortez. So of course, Hornsby and I jumped in for an epic snorkel around the cove to the point and back. We found, by day, our first Crown of Thorns Sea Stars (that change colors), crazy sea cucumbers, eels, urchins of all sizes shapes and colors and tropical fish of all kinds. By night, and this is where it gets good, we suited up with wetsuits gloves and flashlights and headed out on our first non-Catalina night snorkel. We weren’t really sure if we would see any lobster at all, and if we did see them if we would even know how to catch those quick little bastards. But 45 minutes later we had 5 good-for-the-eatin’ spiny lobsters. Turns out you just gotta’ grab them as quick as you can, and when they squeal just hold on tight and head straight for that bucket with a real tight lid.
This was the trip we had dreamt of and it only took us a broken propeller strut, broken salt water impeller, overhauled fuel system and about 1000 nautical miles to get here.
So you may be reading thinking all the trials were over and Hornsby and Sharkie were getting fat off fresh seafood and cold beers. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There were a few minor bumps and hiccups, not even worth mentioning, but what I will say is that this was when the famous quote was born…”I love being scared to death every day of my life!”.
All was swell enough for the first week, anchoring and sailing smooth as butter until we were in sight of La Paz. We had left anchorage at Bahia de los Muertos at 1:00 am, as the tides through the narrow Cerralvo Channel can be tricky with an opposing wind. But that meant we were coming into La Paz on an outgoing tide with the wind in our face. So with only 12 nm to go we crept along at anywhere between 0-2 nm an hour. Perfect, we should be in La Paz by the next day. To give you a better idea of our speed…It took us what seemed like hours to pass Isla Lobos, which is a rock outcropping 10 feet wide by 30 feet long. We sure do know that little island well. The tide mellowed out and 3 knots never felt so fast! We got into the Bay and finally after getting up at 1 am Lady Hornsby and I were looking for a nice marina, cheap and maybe close to town, (as Carnival was starting the next day). There she was, shining like a beacon in or guidebook. Close to town, the cheapest in the bay, Jacuzzi tub. Lets just for privacy sake call them “Salchichas” Marina (Sausage Marina). So they sent a pilot boat out to get us, which was a red flag because if we were already in town and the pilot boat would take 10 min to get to us, that would make the marina a ways from town. We waited the 10 min, doing laps around La Paz Bay. They finally arrived and let us know that the marina was actually 2 miles from town, but there were taxis. Ok, it was still cheap and there was still that Jacuzzi. So we followed them through the shallow bay…plotting our way on the GPS, just in case. And of course, about 5 min into the journey the depth sounder fell from 10 feet to 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, and then that familiar tug on the bottom of the boat that says you have run aground. AAAAHHHHHH!!!! Every day a thousand freaking days in this country!! The guys in the panga seemed oblivious to the fact that we had hit the bottom but lucky for us we knew the drill to get the boat floatin’ again. (Knowing how to get your boat off the sandy bottom is not something you are proud to admit, but lets be honest, if you haven’t run aground yet, you haven’t spent enough time on your boat.) They promised us that they took boats with a much larger draft than ours through the channel and then explained that the channel was actually about 200 yards to the south. You can imagine the frustration as we had understood that the pilot boat is supposed to guide you through a tricky channel. So after a few minutes of explaining how the whole un-grounding process worked, their 80 horses pulled us out of the sand and onto the next sand bar. WOW! Really?? Ok, lets try that again. We were finally free of the sand, common sense told us to follow those old GPS points right back out the way we came. You can imagine their surprise when we informed them we were not following them any further and were going to find a different marina for the night. The next lucky spot was “Don Juans” (again for his privacy). We called him on the radio and although he was more expensive and without Jacuzzi we were willing to settle for just about anything now. We had docked and decompressed for about 30 seconds and good old “Don Juan” came down to the dock to greet us and let us know that someone else was coming into the very slip he had just promised to us. Ok…on the verge of a breakdown we turned on the tunes and had a dance party as we motored back out of the bay we had come to know so well for Marina Palmira 2 miles back. One thousand days were almost over.
Is this starting to sound less like easy-living vacation and more like Real World Misty Moonlight? We stayed in La Paz for a few days to see what Carnival was really all about, to stock up on provisions and clean up the boat. After a few days in the harbor we were ready to get back out on the water and get back to this vacation stuff. We had heard that Balandra was one of the most beautiful beaches around La Paz and we were curious to check it out. We anchored in the early afternoon and relaxed on the boat for a while, enjoying this vacation we were on. After a while we decided to snorkel in to the beach and around the point and we saw some round rays, spotted rays, crazy nudibranchs, and some scorpion fish. What a day this had turned out to be. You are waiting for something to happen, aren’t you? The vacation was over as night fell and the swell from the north kicked in and hit us abeam and the boat started rocking and rolling. This was going to be a long night. Sleep was close to non-existent between getting up to check the anchor and attempting to sleep in the recovery position. (You know the one where you put someone on their side, so they don’t choke on their own vomit and put one knee up to stabilize them so they don’t roll over.) So Balandra wasn’t as nice of a place for us as it is for some folks traveling the Sea of Cortez and we pulled anchor as soon as the morning hit and were off to find someplace a bit mellower for the next few nights.
We headed out to Isla Espiritu Santos a few hours sail from Balandra and found a nice little cove to spend the next few days. The vacation was back and we spent the next day mostly at the beach reading, napping, snorkeling the cove and hanging by the bonfire at night. Things seemed almost too good to be true; cue the end of the vacation. To sum things up, as night fell things started to go a little wrong. I started to feel a little ill and those tacos from Carnival caught up with me and we’ll just say the shooting pains in my stomach, cold sweats, ringing ears and numbness in my face were only some of the symptoms of Montezuma’s revenge. Just as this was happening in the charmin of the Misty Moonlight, a Brown Booby made his roost for the night at the top of our mast. Lady Hornsby tried to shoo him away a little unsuccessfully by throwing avacado seeds at him and shooting him with the boats high-powered squirt gun. (Generally when shooting water straight up in the air the one who is going to get wet is not the Booby at the top of the mast, but the booby behind the barrel of the gun.) Lady Hornsby was finally successful shooing him off the mast with the main halyard, but not before he dumped the largest, fishiest pile of poop I have ever seen merely inches away from our open hatch. Tomorrows project: clean the boat.
Next day, vacation again. Montezuema had cleared his way out of my stomach and we had a nice relaxing vacation day until the sun went down. Here in the Sea of Cortez, they have these night time winds, the coromuels, which can come out of nowhere from the south and pick up pretty quickly. So right as I was settling in the v-berth for a good nights rest the winds started picking up. In no time the winds were up to 15 knots, the waves at 3 feet and building and it seemed LVII, our dinghy, tied to the stern was going to be swamped for sure. So Hornsby calls me out of bed and I crawled into LVII to get the British Seagull (our outboard) off the back of the boat and mounted onto Misty. Next, get the dinghy onto the boat in 15 knots of wind and lashed down, pay out 50 more feet of rode on our anchor line and attempt to sleep, again in recovery position between anchor watches and waves smashing the hull.
I laugh to myself at times like these and wonder who the crazed sailor is that ever said that sailing is 90% boredom. We’re not bored yet. Every stretch of this “vacation” brings new challenges and always new adventures and even at 3am in the recovery position rocking and rolling I can honestly say that there is nowhere in the world I would rather be than on this boat.
The next morning we had to pull anchor and head in to La Paz to pick up the Captain from the airport, its time for her to come home to the Misty Crew. We wouldn’t want her to miss any more of this wonderful “vacation”.

Epic Repair of 2010

If you are going to survive on the ocean you have to be able “to make chicken soup out of chicken shit”. That is exactly what we did in Turtle Bay. We have come many miles since then and been dealt a plethora of other challenges but the story of our time spent there is worthy of recollection. I can only hope to pass on some of the emotion that surrounded that epic repair.
It all started around 3 am when a loud clunking noise startled the Captain and Sharkfoot as the night watch was being passed over. I crawled out of the V- berth to find a confused Misty Crew. “Maybe it’s a large air bladder from kelp banging on the hull that’s stuck in the prop”. We killed the engine and hove to (this uses the jib to keep you from moving- essentially an E brake). We rationally discussed what to do and what the potential problems might be. I offered my services to do an underwater assessment of the prop and started to gear up into my wetsuit. I descended into the water via the swim step while attached on a harness to take a peek. Some kelp did come out and all appeared clear in the prop. We cranked her up and yep, the most horrifying noise you can imagine your boat making at 4 am still remained. We were worried the prop might eat through the hull so again we hove to. The decision was made to foul the prop since that would eliminate the noise and prevent further complications. We knew we wanted to keep the propeller from spinning and also keep all parts attached.
The moon was nowhere to be found and even heaved to we were doing 2-3 knots. To be blunt, it’s a terrible time to get in the water and work on your boat. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Fear and rational aside, I descended into the water while a scared crew (only later confessed) watched from on deck. My only goal was to get the rope wrapped around the blades of the prop so it would not turn. The swell combined with the speed over ground was intense and I found myself being pushed and pulled around in the water as I worked tirelessly to do what had to be done. After 15 minutes below, Sharkfoot demanded that I get out and I did because I was satisfied with the rig. Exhausted and cold, I climbed on deck and mumbled the specifications of the fix. It was now possible to cover some ground without the clunking. Silence never sounded so promising.
We had planned to continue on to Magdalena Bay (235 miles away) but decided it best to sail back north 10 miles to Turtle Bay. We made great time until early morning when we hit the “doldrums” and progess was almost non- existent. We were 5 miles out and hoped to arrive by day’s end. Moral low and totally exhausted, we heard “misty moonlight” being hailed on the radio and all 3 of us got a little choked up. Our friends had waited for us all night and within a couple hours arrived to give us a tow. We dropped anchor under tow and started the “epic repair of 2010”. We took some underwater photos of the propeller to determine the problem and through assessment realized that the previous diagnosis was incorrect. Actually good news!! Diagnosis: The new strut on the propeller shaft was nearly corroded all the way due to electrolysis.
Plan:
1st Remove propeller shaft from under boat while avoiding sinking the boat
How? Send 2 divers under boat to pound out 4 screws and quickly insert homemade plugs (time : 6 hours)
Note: it is a bad idea to drop the cutlass bearing to the bottom of the ocean during this process. It is a good idea to
get GPS coordinates for where you dropped it since your tank is out of air and the search will take place tomorrow.
Sleep.
2nd Drink coffee and get geared up and ready for the great bearing search
How? Find some air to dive with and some nice Mexican folks that want to help you.
Note: The only air available was from a air compressor and you had to remained connected to a 30 ft. hose at all
times. There were 2 mouth pieces and down we went ( Manuel and I). Visibilty was around 4 inches and the bottom
was black mud that loved to turn into a black cloud.
Result: Manuel, the guapo, blue eyed diver found the cutlass bearing. It was no short of miraculous.
3rd Take the cutlass bearing to the “shop” where Dad and Sharkfoot have been manufacturing a stainless steel brace.
Note: The captain and I arrived to Alberto’s (the local mechanic) to reunite the bearing with the strut which was a
joyous occasion. We ate chicharrones in celebration.
4th Tow misty to the local fishing boat with giant winch to get ass end out of water for reassembly.
5th Lift boat
Note: it is a good a idea to ask if the winch is operating. If not, no worries, man power will suffice.
6th Send misty divers to pound out plugs and reattach newly braced strut with gobs of 5200 (the nastiest waterproof glue
on the market that is now everywhere we look)
7th Lower boat, put 6 strong hands on the steering wheel, put her in gear and crank her up!

Note: this all came together in less than 36 hours, thanks to:
Manuel, the diver
Dad, the designer and overall hope
Alberto, the mechanic shop owner
Enrique, the shuttler
Ernesto, the smile that helped coordinate
Mom, the spicy soup provider
Pedro, the guy with the fishing boat

And it was time to head south the following day with a rebuilt strut and the belief that anything
you want bad enough is possible with a little hard work and a lot of support. Those days in
Turtle Bay are why we are here now. I honestly think we could still be there if not for the
kindness of strangers and friends. Sharkfoot and Captain Luigi, we made it.

Do you believe in angels?

Some people believe angels wear halos and wings. Others may think they live in the clouds and watch over you as you sleep. Others, think angels are a calming breeze in your sails… they are hope…and dreams maybe, and quite possibly a little of all of the above. As we have continued on this journey down the coast of Baja powered by dreams, sails and that trusty Volvo Penta MD6A, we have seen angels manifest themselves in all of the above. Most incredibly, angels have manifested themselves in the people who have willingly or unwillingly involved themselves in this journey.
They manifest themselves in a Captain who is mechanic, electrician, plumber and friend who makes you want to be the best version of yourself. Or they manifest themselves in the good Lady Hornsby who makes you laugh until your sides hurt and make you realize all of the reasons you love to be alive. However, the best of all of these angels have been manifested for us, the Misty Crew, in the Nordic V; a dream that floats along side of us on 48 feet of fiberglass (or in front of us with a big tow rope tied to the front of our boat). Two angels with hearts the size of all of Baja California, and fill us with a soft breeze even as our sails are luffing. Lets meet them.
The good doctor (aka Dad) who seems to know the Misty like he knows his own daughter. Knowledge in his left hand, and patience and caring in his right, he holds us and helps out when needed. Where would we be with out him? Quite literally adrift at sea. Did we forget to mention his crass sense of humor, and playfulness that lifts moral when it seems it’s at its lowest. He takes us fishing for cookies and chips when under tow and always keeps us on our toes. He found us on the docks in San Diego with an engine in pieces (again quite literally) and hasn’t left our side since.
Next, the better half, Cathy (aka mom). If this ocean were a room, she would light it up like a full moon with her playful song, beach cartwheels and deep care and concern. We celebrated her birthday with her and are convinced that with every passing year she is one year younger than the last. She greets adventure with a huge smile and eagerly awaits the next epic. Lets not overlook the wisdom, insight and grace that are always present. Making sure we are well fed with fresh lobster, homemade peanut sauce and chicken noodle soup on a stormy day, you have never seen a more beautiful woman on the bow of a boat.

These people are what angels are made of. They find you floating in the ocean at 7am after the longest night of your life. You thought the longest night of your life was 5 nights ago in gale force winds, sorry sweetie. The longest night so far was actually 150 miles south of San Quintin when we heard a knocking under the boat that says ” woah baby somethings really wrong here, throw me in neutral and heave to.” We applied a small band-aid and started tacking up north to Turtle Bay. After 4 hours we heard the familiar call of the Nordic V, our angels, over the radio and with exhausted teary eyes relayed our coordinates to Dad for a good ol’ fashioned AAA tow.
So if you have ever doubted that angels actually exist, we can say that the Misty Moonlight crew has found many angels along the way, but no angels quite like the soft souls of the Nordic V. So with our eternal thanks, and nothing but gratitude, gratitude, gratitude we continue south with our sister ship, the mother ship, the Nordic V.

1000 days...

As we like to say on Misty, "every day is a thousand days," and truer words were never spoken! So please excuse the cursury list of events that I lay down here. We simply haven´t had time to record the vast number of experiences we have had.

Since leaving San Diego, we made a quick stop in Ensenada to check into the country and buy a tortilla press, sleeping tied up to a rickety dock across from a very loud Sea Lion Colony. We headed out with our sister ship, the Nordic V, and Hornsby caught and bluggened our first fish, a black tuna, at the same moment when our Chartplotter died. We followed the lights of our friends over night and pulled into San Quintin the following day and ran aground as a mocking grey whale calf breached not 40 yards from our boat, but were quickly saved by a passing panga who pulled us off the sand and back into the narrow shifting channel. Safely anchored, we spent some time with our new friends that evening, only to find ourselves under the power of our row-boat captain, Sharkfoot, in a 3 knot tidal current and 20 knots of head wind for the most epic 200 meter paddle of 2010!

We rode out a series of storms in San Quintin, the worst they´d had in a long while and ventured into town as we waited for the swell to die down on the open ocean, only to find ourselves marching back toward our dingy well after dark because the roads had all been washed out.

We left the bay in a convoy of friends, headed for Mag Bay, and had two days of glorious sailing before the wind died and our brand new propeller strut failed! Thanks to our sister ship, we ended up in Turtle bay where we have spent the last two days making the repair which has involved everything from diving with lobster fisherman to find an essential piece that was dropped into 20 feet of water with zero visibility, to hauling the aft end of our boat out on a fishing boat using a block and tackle and a whole lot of people. Needless to say, the three girls on the sailboat who do underwater repairs on their boat which would normally call for a full haul-out have become quite the attraction. We find ourselves being circled by fisherman and locals everyday who swing by for a glimpse of what´s going on.

The stories and experiences, the highs and lows, and the incredible overwhelming feeling we have of blessing and gratitude pale in comparison to these short paragraphs. It will take us several days (or several thousand) to give the adventure the credit due, but the tide waits for no man and we are headed out this afternoon for Mag Bay.

Until then, several thousand days of new adventure await!

Arrival Soup

You may wonder, “When it is time to eat arrival soup? Is it when you leave to cross the border into Mexico? No, were not quite there yet. Is it when you sail through fog with 50-foot visibility only to round Point Loma and have the fog vanish as quickly as it came? No, that was crackers, cheese and carrots. Is it when you get surprised at 3 am with border patrol pulling up to the side of your boat out of the middle of ocean darkness to ask where you are going, where you came from and if you have any stowaways on board? No, no one was eating anything just then. No friends, it is much simpler than that. It is eaten upon arriving somewhere, anywhere.

Arrival Soup first came into our lives after an 18-hour chug up the coast of North America from San Pedro, CA to Channel Islands Harbor, Slip G-48, Oxnard, CA. It was our first venture on the high seas, with our intake silencer conveniently in the port side lazarette and not on the engine. Funny thing is that intake silencer actually does 2 things. 1) It silences the engine (important), and 2) intakes the diesel smoke and runs it out the exhaust and not in your cabin (also important). Needless to say, the boat ride was loud beyond belief (which lead us to start sign language lessons) and was full of diesel exhaust, which takes your stomach on rides beyond your wildest nightmares as the waves rock you back and forth. It proved to be one of the longest nights in history and we were all pretty green upon arrival. So what did we want? That’s right people, some soup. Arrival soup has since become a favorite of the Good Captain, Hornsby, and I must admit, its one of my favorites as well. It is eaten just about anytime we have an arrival, wherever spot we may arrive at.

The following recipe serves 3 and can be made in just 2 easy steps.

Stovetop directions:
Step 1.) Bring 1 pot of water to a boil.
Step 1-a.) Chop up ginger, garlic, onion, carrot, and just about any other veggies you got layin’ around.
Step 1-b.) Add veggies to boiling water and cook 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Step 1-c.) Add 2 packets Top Ramen noodles and let cook 3 minutes**see note
Step 1-d.) Remove from heat
Step 1-e.) Add 2 Tablespoons Red miso soup mix (If miso is not available you may substitute 1 packet Ramen powder)
Step 2.) Garnish with fresh cracked pepper and enjoy with friends



**Note: Lets just get one thing straight, no one likes to admit that they love to eat Ramen. You know, that stuff that’s filled with MSG and will stain your plastic spoon yellow for 7 wash cycles. That stuff that has absolutely nothing in it that is even almost fresh or even close to good for you. That stuff that you can kinda feel burning away at your insides as it goes down. But, lets face it; Ramen tastes good and has a special place in our hearts. It was the first thing Mom would let me cook on the stove, it cooks in 3 minutes, you can buy 10 packets for $1 and the noodles are slurp-able. Amazing! So even though we may have a hard time admitting that we sometimes enjoy a bowl, it does have its time and place. I also find it important to note and pay tribute to Mr. Ramen himself, Momofuku Ando. That's right, the man who invented Ramen passed away in 2007 at the ripe old age of 96 and he lived a long and healthy life that involved 1 packet of Ramen daily from the time he invented it to the day before he passed. Stay healthy…eat Ramen.

Post Script: Arrival soup can also be good for curing hangovers but the name hangover soup didn’t quite sound as appetizing.

Wind...

If the Goddess that we pray to is the wind, and the temple in which we worship is this 30’ vessel of fiberglass, wood, and canvass, then the pews we sit on, the thing that carries the bulk of our faith on a daily basis is that old Volvo Penta MD6A. Our world is full of pet names for things from the plethora of nicknames we have for each other, to the various, rather un-nautical, names we have for nearly everything else in the boat. But as a sign of respect and dignity, our Volvo Penta MD6A remains just that.

Because we have invested all of our money, energy, laughter and, yes, tears on this “real nice powerboat.” Er…I mean sailboat. At the top of the list of reasons why the reality of this dream is considerably less glamorous than any of us had envisioned is the fact that the Wind, that divine force, seems so often to have forsaken us and we chug along at three hours per gallon of diesel, ears ringing and spirits tuned to the drone of living essentially inside of a tractor.

Yesterday, after motoring all day from Catalina Island and picking up a whopping 29 balloons out of the ocean (Happy Birthday Ocean, indeed) and lapping through the Dana Point Marina, we felt the wind at our face and decided to push on South to Mission Bay. Sails up and motor off, we spent two blissful hours racing downwind at six knots while Sharkfoot made dinner.

When she graces us with her presence our hearts raise up to that Wind as Misty neatly cuts through the water and I, for one, always find myself compelled to sing. We watched the stars come out over the lights of Southern California and, stomachs full, began our night watch rotation. As I crawled into the V-berth I heard the scurrying above deck as Wind, once again, left us out to sea and the sails were doused and the engine cranked.

It’s worth noting the details of this particular incidence for several reasons. First, it was the first time that the Captain here was able to walk away from a change of sail. It’s a sign of our advancement as a team on the water and bodes well for our overall sustainability. But perhaps more importantly, it proves that we are getting our sea legs. Gone are the days of fending off nausea by sleeping all night on the narrow cockpit benches. Instead, we now dive into our berths and, even under motor (admittedly on a glassy night), quickly fall into a deep sleep.

Not so deep enough, however, for me to miss the distinct sound of the engine turning off.

“Are you guys alright?”

“The engine isn’t spitting out any water.” Sharkfoot had expertly detected something wrong with the engine—one of those subtle little sounds you hear only when you know an engine intimately.

“Roll out the Jib and get some steerage” I said as I grabbed some layers. We were at the mercy of Wind again, safely offshore, but unable to run our engine until we solved the problem.

“What a dumb bleeping idea. Buy a bleeping sailboat, and sail it to bleeping Mexico. It’s probably the dumbest idea I’ve ever had in my life!” I cursed as Sharkfoot and I pulled all the gear stowed in the hatch leading to the engine compartment. After looking at the sea strainer and exhaust hoses I sat down in dismay. “I have no idea what’s wrong with this thing.”

Pause…two…three…

“The salt water impeller!” The wonderful thing about an old diesel engine is that they are surprisingly simple machines. Fifteen minutes later the cap was off the salt water pump and sure enough that little piece of neoprene was shredded. The mood changed as we pulled out our spare, and as Hornsby handled the helm, Sharkfoot and I chattered away in a variety of accents as we worked to put the new impeller in.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of being at sea and spooning a diesel engine with two people in the hot, oily, compartment with the lid down. Sharkfoot was crouched in the hatch passing me tools and parts and reading off instructions as I laid on my side across the propeller shaft, head resting on the exhaust hose, butt generously being scratched for me by the ever-moving gears of the steering column, feet halfway up the hull, and working with my one free hand—conveniently my non-dominant Left. And all the while Wind blew at our backs as we made a steady four knots directly on our bearing.

“Evacuate! Evacuate! The Captain has broken wind!” The hatch popped open in a flash and we backed out of our little nook. Thankfully, the job was done and we fired that engine up watching with eager anticipation to see if our fix had worked. With a great whoop we celebrated the first spits of water and found ourselves (well, mostly me) strutting up and down the cockpit, fists in the air, proclaiming our victory in loud voices. But Wind was still with us and we shut the engine right back off and let our hearts settle back into that easy rhythm. Quiet. Smooth. Blissful. And then she was gone. Once again it was time to roll up the Jib and turn on our Volvo Penta MD6A.

The fortunes of our trip so far are too many to name, from finding the right boat, to meeting the one guy at West Marine who was willing to take us under his wing, to finding $50 on the street. But our faith is in Wind, who appears with a gentle breeze at our backs at the moment when we most need her and lifts us from the pews of our church to that airy, light place of this amazing dream.

owed to the night watch

Here we sit, 2010 has come into our lives in flying colors: the deep blues of the Pacific, the oranges of the setting sun and the reds of 3 matching sets of West Marine Foulies. This New Years was rung in complete with home made paper hats, booty shakin' dance parties, fake eyelashes paired with rubber boots (sexy) and a midnight balloon drop at the only bar in Two Harbors. What a night!! Lucky for the Captain, the New Years Eve eve proved much better than our New Years Eve day. The first tragedy of the trip came early the am of Dec 31st and so we have begun a rule list for the crew of the Misty Moonlight to follow: Rule #1) always close the lid of the charmin while flushing (the head on our boat is lovingly referred to as the charmin). Unfortunately the good Captain found out the hard way...but those foul weather bibs will bead up just about anything that comes in contact with them. But enough about that @#$%. 2009 seems like only days ago (wait a minute!) We left the comforts of the Channel Islands Harbor, and our home for the past month-ish, to the warm rolling embraces of the Pacific Ocean under the oh so appropriate light of a very misty moon. Sails up and we were on our way!! Well the wind was a little short lived and after about an hour the wind had died a quick, and very painful death and we found ourselves in the doldrums. So, sails down...and we fired up that Volvo Penta MD6A. I will be the first to admit it is not quite as peaceful as sailing ol’ misty, but those dolphins sure love the purr of that Volvo Penta MD6A (we really like saying Volvo Penta MD6A …you can try too…5 times really fast) and they quickly found us and rode the bow through the evening. So the night watch rotation had begun...we brought out the cushions and 2 sleeping bags and they were set up on the benches on the sides of the cockpit. Captain Luigi started the evening’s watch and Lady Hornsby and I let the hum of that Diesel engine lull us to sleep. About 4 and 1/2 hours later I felt that familiar squeeze of the ankle that says..."rise and shine baby, your turn to watch." By that time the Blue moon was overhead and lighting the way. Lady Hornsby gave me the update, we were crossing the shipping lanes, no tankers sighted but keep a good eye out and we would be across in an hour or so and would change course about 30 degrees to the south. She crawled into the still warm bag I had just vacated and handed me a banana for a snack and was off to dream land. So it was Misty, myself and the big blue ocean alone for the next few hours. This is about the time that your mind starts that choo-choo train of thought that when you get a ways down the tracks you stop and go…wait how did I get here?? I think I started somewhere thinking of the moonlight beams on the water, like lovers dancing on the waves, then all of a sudden… BOOM… I was at that scene in the beginning of Cliffhanger… you know the one where Sylvester lets her slip from his hand and she fall thousands of feet to her death. WOAH! How did I get here? I had to change course so I went back in time to that one day Luigi and I were on the floor of Ace Hardware doing the Pythagorean theorem trying to figure out how much aircraft cable we needed just in case, then I was imagining Lady Hornsby, the day before our departure, running around Ventura in search of used carpet. And then when she found the dream piece, 12x7 nautical blue, and learned it was 27$ she told the man it was out of our price range, offered him 15$ and left empty handed. This is America, can’t barter here. Mexico here we come! Tonight we stay the night at a familiar beach, Whites Landing on Catalina Isle, and plan to head south towards San Diego in the ‘morrow. The adventures continue...until next time friends...
All the best, Sharkfoot