Living & Working in Dana Point

Dana Point is between LA and San Diego, so about 8 hours drive from Berkeley. We saw the boat on a Saturday, Sunday we did a sea trial, and on Wednesday Charles drove down to supervise an out of the water survey (where we pay an expert to look at the boat out of the water and tell us all the problems with it). It was great, so on Thursday we made the deal, and Friday afternoon I flew down after work. From there on in, it was work work work!

Since we had the boat out of the water, and it was time to do a bottom job (where you clean and re-paint the bottom of the boat to get rid of the life algae etc that grows on there), we started with that. Charles cleaned and sanded, so Saturday morning we started painting. We did two coats on Saturday – and you can imagine how much work it is to evenly paid a 40 foot boat, with 8-10 feet under the water line!

Tthat night we pulled ourselves together energy-wise and went up to LA for a party my friend was throwing. We got there at like midnight, and got home at 4, but it was totally worth it.

Overall, we managed to catch a few sunsets, a few walks on the beach, a few visits from friends, and a few memorable experiences – despite all the hard work.

We also tried to fix a leaky engine flange, but just did not have the time or skills. We would have needed to go to a fabricator, and couldn’t even get the part off.

By Monday, we were back in the water! Terry came over to help us move the boat back to the slip. Since Terry was getting out of sustained boat life, he let us keep the bulk of the equipment and tools, which was incredibly generous. Our first full day back in the water, we spent hours cleaning and sorting, and trying to find places for our tools.

From there, it was all about electronics. We spent literally $10k on the electronics, so we wanted to install them ourselves to save money. It was a hard week… it feels so short writing about it, but we were waking up at 6 a.m. and working straight though until at least 8 p.m. Hard physical work, as well as lots of complex and confusing electrical issues. I literally did not think we would be able to make it work. But we wired everything, did all the grounding, ran cables and a new radar dome up the mast, got everything installed and in place… and eventually it worked! We got the equipment on Thursday morning, and by the following Tuesday we had everything installed and functional. We even re-bedded some windows because they were leaking!

On Sunday we worked our butts off again, and got the final coat completed. We also got a new (and OMG SO EXPENSIVE) electronics system – navigation, GPS, chart plotter, radar, autohelm, etc. And that requires speed and depth transducers, so we removed the old ones, leaving two big holes in the bottom of the boat. But then we widened the holes, and popped the new ones in. Which, amazingly, are still totally sealed and not leaking – so we did it right! I was ecstatic.

Terry and Lisa took us out for a final dinner, and we said a tearful goodbye. Over the course of our short time there, we got very close to them, and can’t wait to keep in touch.

We were about a day behind our timeline (which is great for sail planning), and ready to get going up the coast.