Wednesday,
Sept. 17th – It was a workday around
the boat in the morning, little projects, filling water tanks, cleaning, etc.
In the afternoon, Annie, Rosie and I headed into town to look around and see
what cool things we could find. It was pretty much your typical town/city main
street (except called Park St.) with shops of all sorts and a grocery store, a
few bars and the BEST ice cream place, called Tuckers. They made all of their
ice, cones, chocolate sauce, etc on site there and the smell of the place was
wonderful, like a real old fashioned ice cream shop. Their flavor selection was
awesome and the banana split even better.
A
friend of Holly’s who lives in Alameda invited us over to dinner with her
husband and kids. We had a delicious meal and the yummiest salad I have had in
a long time and then a play put on by Mary and their three kids. We even got a
special visit from a hedgehog (Peter with a hairbrush on his back J) and
yummy apple pie.
Thursday,
Sept. 18th – Hogin Sails allowed us the
use of their loft and machine to sew up the new water bottle holders, which was
amazing! It is impressive for someone to allow us to use their own machines.
Usually people will do the work for you but then you end of paying them. Annie
and I had everything stapled and just sewed and sewed and we got everything
done! A big thank you to Hogin Sails! We finished up lots of other projects and
hung around the boat for the day!
Friday,
Sept. 19th – Another work day in the
morning and then relaxing in the afternoon. We found a very cool nautical
consignment shop and found a couple things that we needed for the boat and a
hank for my knife lanyard! Annie and I did a quick run into town and then
relaxed on deck reading and eating chips while watching all the rowers go by,
which is more entertaining than it seems! After an early dinner, we walked into
town to go get ice cream from Tuckers, and I found my favorite flavor, mocha
almond fudge.
Saturday,
Sept. 20th – We pushed off the dock
early in the morning to head back to the San Francisco Yacht Club for the
Leukemia Cup tomorrow. We took the Commodore and his mom/friends out for a day
sail around the bay. His mom was an avid sailor back in her day and still
extremely nimble around the boat. She was climbing in and out of the cockpit
and navigating the boat at 82 better than I can sometimes at 20. We sailed
under the Golden Gate and around the bay. It was foggy and misty all day but
the sun came back out as we came into the club. We were put on the inside dock
with a spotlight on us for the evening of events. $1,000/plate dinner and
auction for the Leukemia Cup, Wowzers. Falling asleep listening to them call
out auction and how much they were going for was mindboggling. However they came
in with over $500,000 raised for the cause.
Sunday,
Sept. 21st – Race day! After a breakfast
on biscuits with honey butter (a favorite from my childhood J) we
pushed off the dock and headed out into the bay. We had the commodore and his
wife, Robert’s buddy, Craig our trusty navigator for Transpac, Pat Vineyard our
trusty handy and fix anything man, and then inherited two Norwegian guys for
the race. The wind was much lighter than previous days and we played around the
start line as we were the first to start. There were four classic yachts racing
and powered through the first leg and beat our way up wind and then had a blast
setting the spinnaker and golly for a couple of our down wind legs. The
second time around we tried setting our larger spinnaker(the one we already
blew up) and it went up with a twist and when it popped out, the spinnaker went
pop too. Except instead of one seam ripping, the whole thing shredded, it was
like spinnaker spaghetti on deck! But our hard work paid off and we placed first
(look at the really cool trophy we got). There was lots of free beer and an
awesome barbeque that involved ice cream with LOTS of chocolate sauce and
whipped cream J.
Monday,
Sept. 22nd – We headed over to the St.
Francis Yacht Club/San Francisco Marina for the day/night and hooked up with
Robert’s buddy, Steve. He hooked us up with a car and laundry, lunch and then
proceeded to take us all out to dinner, yummy, yummy sushi. Steve used to run a
surf shop right on the bay for all the wind surfers and kite boarders and then
moved onto working at REI so he has a whole bunch of gear and we got to rummage
through and I ended up with a great puff ball jacket (bright orange too) and he
got me a fix-kit for the hip straps on my backpack. Annie, Mary, Rosie and Holly
got some great gear too. THANK YOU STEVE!! A million times over.
Tuesday,
Sept. 23rd – Today we push off to head
further down the coast, finally! We have a couple people boarding this morning
and we eventually headed to Oxnard with a few stops in between. First is
Monterey Bay, I will update when we arrive there safely J
Next mailing address, I love to get letters!
Meryl Friets
c/o Holly Kays
614 Corte Campanero
Camarillo, CA 93010
Hanging out on the bowsprit.
At the helm.
Old photo from when we toured Balclutha, that helm is taller than me!
The new water bottle holders!
The trophy :)
Get to pass under this beauty today!
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