My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

This past holiday weekend the Ventura Harbor hosted a couple of tall ships. This happens a couple of times a year and it usually follows the weekend after they dock just a few miles south at the Channel Islands Harbor. Marlene and I went and checked out one of them a couple of years ago and it was pretty fun. Seeing the way these ships are made and how they operate really makes you appreciate the amount of work it goes into making these things. Although they are replicas of the old clipper ships, they are pretty true to the original. This last weekend however I did not make it out to see them. The only photo I got was today when I was going to do some early spring cleaning of the O’Day I caught both ships just as they are leaving the harbor.

There were quite a bit of people standing at the jetty near the harbor entrance checking them out as they left. I couldn’t believe there was even a family hanging out at the beach in bathing suits since there was no sun and quite a bit of wind in this overcasted February day.

Maybe next time I will catch them a little earlier in the weekend and actually take some photos and videos while I am on board. As for the O’Day, I managed to find some time to derigged her and will be replace some rusted out pins here and there as well as making sure she is ready for the coming spring. Can’t wait to take her out again. Soon.

My wife’s parents live in San Pedro, CA which is by the Port of Los Angeles. We are planning on visiting them quite a bit in the next few years while the baby is young so I am looking for boats to rent while I am down there visiting. I have been posting on Craig’s List but I have not heard from anyone so far. It seems to me that there must be people who wouldn’t mind letting an experienced sailor rent their boat for a few bucks a day to help offset their monthly slip fees but apparently either no one is interested or no LA sailors use Craig’s List. I am contemplating moving the O’Day down to an LA dry storage possibly for the next year if I don’t find anyone to rent from but that seems like it is going to cause more hassle than it’s worth. If you or someone you know wants to rent you your boat hear San Pedro, I will be glad to hear from you

Port of Los Angeles

Vincent Thomas Bridge

So I haven’t been blogging here for a few months now because a few things have happened ’round here in the last few months. One of the reason is definitely the larger seas and colder weather. I know, it’s pretty ridiculous for me to complain about winter in California. But I did go out one afternoon with my friend Fred and his 4 year old son and we had gigantic seas but hardly any wind. Fred and Jaiden had no sailing experience what so ever so I was not able to snap any photos of the event.

The way the Ventura harbor is situated makes certain swells a bit dangerous for small boats to exit and enter the harbor. The entrance is a bit of a beacon for waves on either side and that leaves you a small channel for navigating through to the open sea. It can get pretty bad to the point where it breaks all around you as you try to traverse through the opening.

The other major event that happened to me recent that prevented me from sailing is the birth of my first child. My wife was due in January of this year and she was born on the 12th at 1:34 PM. Needless to say we have been a bit busy. As much as I wished I could get back out in the water it just doesn’t look like it will happen for another few months yet. I see so many people putting their boats on craigslist when they are expecting a baby but I am just not ready to give it up quite yet. Call me naive but somewhere inside I think I will be able to find time to go sailing sooner rather than later. I even had to temporary halt my daily podcast (not sailing related) I was doing with a buddy of mine due to the new family addition. on the other hand the new baby has been a blessing to all of our family. She is the first of her generation for both sides of our family. Everyone have been ecstatic about he arrival and she was born healthy and beautiful at 7 lbs 11 oz so we couldn’t really ask for more.

This weekend I plan on bring the boat back to the house so I can pay a bit more attention to her and clean her up a little to get her ready for Spring. The rains around here seems to have stopped and before my wife goes back to work in April I hope I will be able to get at least a couple days of sailing in.

I am also going to try to blog more. We’ll see how that works out….

A few months ago I spotted an O’Day 22 parked on the street around the corner from the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market in Ventura. I decided that I would stop and chat with the owner since he was right there working on his boat. It’s not something I typically do but the camaraderie of owning the same boat made me feel like we’d at least have that to talk about.

When I got out of the car I noticed the owner was inside the cabin tidying things up so I walked up next to the boat and introduced myself. He was an older man and later I found out that he had just bought this boat from Redding in Northern California and was on his way down to the Yucatan peninsula. The tow vehicle was a smallish, 20 year old Ford pickup truck and I was frankly kind of amazed that he had made it this far already. He proceeded to tell me quite a scary tale about coming down the side of a cliff with the brakes on the verge of failure with the boat and trailer behind him. It apparently had already been quite an adventure for him thus far and it is no even close to being over.

He introduced me to his native Yucatan wife whom he met and married while he was living in Mexico. They flew up to the States to visit his family and bought the truck and the boat for the trip back. It’s great to see someone his age still has the spirit of adventure in him. I wished him farewell and bon voyage as I snapped this little photo of his boat with my cameraphone…