Easing into Reality

Location and Moorage: Mariner’s Basin, Mission Bay; three nights at anchor

We made it back to our home waters. It felt very strange to be in MB and still goofing around — seems like we should have been jumping back into a productive work life — well, Randy has been working the whole time and Jody has been blogging, but the list of things to do got very long while at sea. Shouldn’t we be getting on it? Yes. Yes, we should. Tomorrow — or maybe in a couple of days.

The sail from Dana to MB was lovely. We did have to motor a bit at the end, but even in light air, we mostly opted to sail. We altered course to put enough sun on the solar panels, which allowed us to make water en route and added a few more miles, but it was so nice. We may be slow, but we’re quiet and content. (But we’re getting a bow sprit and drifter, dammit! – so much for content.)

When we settled into Mariner’s Basin in south Mission, Rand made a salad, and we watched Finding Nemo. It was a perfect evening. The next day, we went to the Mission Beach Coffee Break to snag some wifi for Rand to work and Jody to chat with Tannika (who is again in France). We had a chile relleno burrito from Sara’s then sailed CD up to the Catamaran at the north end of the bay so we could provision (mostly we needed ingredients for pain killers). The wind was light, but we made it there; the sail back was another story. We knew we would be beating back to da boat, but we didn’t account for the incoming tide that brought with it a lot (a lot) of current. Holy hell. It took us over an hour to get back to Free Luff; by then She’s No Lady had arrived and rafted up. They even offered a tow, but Rand is tenacious on the helm and we persevered. It was actually a lot of fun.

A bit later, Lancey-pants arrived on Ocean Spirit with a student and his family. They rafted up, too, and we were one happy Fountaine Pajot family (see Shakedown Vid #7). So nice. Suki and Di then arrived to stay on She’s No Lady and the pain killers came out. The reason for the pain killers was that T/K, Suki, and Di are headed to the Caribbean next spring and pain killers are the drink of the islands, but they’d never had one before, so Randy obliged. And they were yummy. Headaches all around the next morning — yay! (Not.) We rendezvoused with Jody’s Pop and bro for a scrumptious (if also way too big) breakfast at The Mission Cafe and spent the rest of the day visiting with Chris and Beth of Sophia and Kurt, who brought some folks up on Island Destiny, then relaxing and contemplating the long list we’d face once we got home.

Then came Sunday morning — Rand went for a surf, Jody went for a quick SUP, Thad and Kristin fended off a neighboring boat whose captain anchored too close the night before, then took CD for a little sail. Then came the inevitable — time to head back to the Bay Club. It was a lovely, slow sail/motor back, and since we’d given up our slip back in June, we pulled into Pacifico’s slip, which will be our home for the next few weeks. Thank you, Fred! We cleaned ourselves up and ran off to dinner at Jody’s uncle Nobi’s house. It was like no time had passed, although we were much tanner, and we fell right back into our life here in SD and at the marina. We were home.