Day...?? Departure from the Void...

We managed to escape the desperate clutches of Moss Landing, barely escaping with our hopes and dreams still intact. We arrived in Monterey by night and, with a few of our newly learned pirating skills, courtesy of Moss Landing Mike, found an empty slip on the sly and avoided detection. Arrgh! Next morning, chef Brady whipped up some Krusteaz white bread pancakes which we made palatable with the addition of Mama Howe's local organic Apricot Jam. Mmmmm.
In keeping with our newfound Pirate lifestyle, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and talked our way in for free: "Um, it's free for residents, right? Proof? Yeah, well, we live in the harbor, on a boat, so we don't have PG & E bills or anything, but I've got this harbor key..." Beautiful. For those who have never been, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is world class, with an admission fee to prove it. We spent a good part of our time in the aquarium in the theatre, watching 15 min. short movies for a good hour or so. Ah, the spoils of civilization. We went to the jelly fish exhibit and saw the same jelly fish that we had seen the day before, which were also prolific in our harbor.


Jelly fish are amazing creatures. Actually, they're just called Jellies. They're really not fish, if you didn't notice. We learned that the longest animal in the world actually isn't the Blue Whale, it's a sort of symbiotic community much like a Portuguese Man of War. A stomach gets together with a tentacle that gets together with some stingers, and they all get along and share food, and they can form chains more than 150ft. long. Crazy.

Monterey has been treating us well. We're spoiling ourselves a bit by staying in the harbor rather than anchoring. The Harbormaster told us that, with the recent big storms, anchoring conditions wouldn't be safe. My inexperience led me to take his advice, but looking out over the free anchorage, it looks fine to me. Ah well. It's nice to have shore power for our heater and outlets. And it's nice to be able to step off the boat and wander around town. Otherwise, we'd be using our dinghy, the most sketchy, unseaworthy craft I've ever set foot in.


That's about 4 inches of water in the bottom, and yes, one side is significantly deflated. Still, she floats, and the motor pushes her, and we can get around. I really love that dinghy. Brady irreverently named her the "SS Shitbucket," which I really have no defense against, and has stuck. She is a shit bucket. We've patched her up 4 times now, and every time we're done, some other hole shows up. Sigh. For $50, I really can't complain.

So, we're stuck here in Monterey for now, due to inclement weather outside the bay. First strong weather came down from the north, then up from the south, and now down from the north again. Morale was low for a while, as it seemed like we'd never get to Mexico, but it looks like a window of good weather it opening up beginning late Sunday or early Monday, so we're going to push on down to Santa Barbara around that time. You can check up on the weather yourself if you're interested:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/zone/west/mtrmz.htm
Monterey has been treating us well. We've spent most of our time lazing around the boat--reading books, playing dominos, doing a little bit of work here and there, playing some more dominos, eating...not a bad life. There's not much going on in Monterey in the winter time, which is both really nice and sometimes a bit slow. But it's a beautiful town, and we've been spending our time well. Tonight I think we're going to go see "The Golden Compass," a new movie made out of the popular children's series of the same name. I recently read the series and loved it, so I've got to go see the movie. The previews look good, but the reviews say otherwise. Maybe we'll be able to pirate ourselves in somehow.

I hope you're all enjoying this blog! It's the first time I've ever taken the time to write one, and I must say it's a lot of work, but it's the first step for me in getting better at keeping in touch with those I love. Most of you probably know how bad I am at that. Sorry. I love you all very much, whether I take the time to write or not. It's true. Don't be afraid to send an email or call anytime. I'll update again when we get to Santa Barbara or, at the latest, L.A. May the wind fill your sails and the seas be merciful!

Captain Howe

P.S. Here are a few more pictures, just for fun.


Here's Krystal and I on my first sail on Kalakas.


One of the joys of sailing is that you can make all kinds of new friends. Nelson, the handsome man sporting the blue life jacket, was a huge help to me in learning how to sail my boat.


Mama Howe in all her glory. She loves the boat. Thanks for the jam, mom.


"No guys, really, I think we can figure this out. Has anyone done this before?"


Life's not worth living if I can't be beautiful.