My O'Day 22 Sailboat Blog

Last weekend after weeks and months of planning I finally made the 3 day trip to Catalina Island in a 32 ft charter boat Turkana II, a Catalina 320 from Marina Sailing. As it happens often, the morning we left from Long Beach harbor there were very light winds so we basically motorsailed the entire way there. We got as early of a start as we could have at 9:15 AM. The seas were glassy the entire way with barely any winds so we had to improvise and create our own entertainment.

One of the fun things I start to do was to tie a double bowline with a dockline to make a leg harness. By clipping the other end of the dockline to the spinnaker halyard, I made a trapeze-like harness that we could use to hike out on the side of the sailboat.

Here is my friend Dan D. putting faith in the running rigging

Here I am giving it a little kick off of the side of the hull

While I was hanging out there, I took a little snapshot of the boat while Mike eats a sandwich with Melanie at the helm

Here is Mike getting in on the action

We passed the starting gate for the 2007 LA or Honolulu Transpac Race that was set to start the Monday after our trip

The water was amazingly warm since the air temp had been in the 80’s all week as well as the presence of a southern hemi ground swell pushing in a lot of warm water up to the California coast. We stopped the boat about 5 miles out of Avalon harbor and took a few dives in water nearly 3000 ft deep. It was a little unsettling not knowing what was beneath you but it was fun nonetheless.

When we got into the harbor it was buzzing with activity. We left Friday morning hoping that people wouldn’t have left until the weekend but apparently everyone had the same idea or people just spend the entire week there.

When we finally contacted a harbor patrol boat they guided us to our mooring buoy for the weekend. As we came around to the buoy just outside of the Hamilton Cove condos directly adjacent to a reef I began to make my move to position the boat ready for tie up. When I threw the gear into reverse I knew we had problems because no matter how much I throttled up there was no walking of the stern to kick me around. We began drifting towards the reef and luckily we had the Harbor Patrol escort and he rafted up next to use and positioned our boat for mooring. It was such an bummer for us since we had planned on sailing all day Saturday but now there is no way for us to do that without risking the same fate possibly without the Harbor Patrol escort.

The water visibility and temperature was perfect the entire weekend so we ended up doing a lot of snorkeling and swimming around the boat and close by beaches. Using the same dockline and spinnaker halyard, we swung from the port-side stern rail seats and periodically made it all the way around the bow to land in the water on the other side! It was a blast and there are videos and photos which I will post up here once I get them.

At mooring we didn’t have a real easy way of getting off of the boat with all of our gear since the inflatable did not come equipped with an outboard. The closest dinghy dock was too far away for us to shuttle back and forth using oars. There is a shoreboat (aka Water Tax) that will pick you up and drop you off for about 5 bucks a person. It wouldn’t be so bad to take them but the captains of the shoreboats at Avalon are just major a-holes. The are condescending and rude towards boaters that call for them on VHF channel 12 and the attitude they give you on the boat was plain unacceptable. For example, there were 4 of us during one of the trips and Mike had a $20 bill that he was going to pay for himself. Instead of making him change, the shoreboat captain just took his money and told him without any eye contact,

“Your friends will pay you back.”

I guess it can be kind of annoying to deal with boaters who may or may not know what they are doing all day long but if you can’t be pleasant and polite, go get another freaking job! I don’t know if they are all like this a-hole but this guy certainly was not a friendly character.

On the way back on Sunday we started out with a good solid 15 knots of wind from the south so we were excited to get going. Once we got about a hour out however, the winds completely died down again. We ended up motorsailing again the rest of the way back. Still without a working reverse gear I had one try to get the boat into dock which wasn’t very difficult as I have know done it dozens of times.

No luck with the rod. Dinner will have to come from the store

Motoring pass the Queen Mary (Taken from ashore by families of the crew)

Still no reverse

Nice and slow is the key

Almost there!

Tying her back to the slip at Long Beach after a fun 3 day weekend

Crew is tan and glad to be home

Last Sunday I chartered a Catalina 320 out of Long Beach with a few friends for the day. Anticipating the Catalina Island trip, I decided to take the same boat which we will be taking in July for a test run. Having never sailed out of the Long Beach/San Pedro/LA Harbor before (which i learned to be the worlds biggest harbor), I thought it would be prudent to get some experience under my belt before the crossing.

Lance on the helm

Long Beach harbor is indeed very big. Just getting out of the harbor took over 30 minutes. There were 5 of us on the boat with 3 who had little to no sailing experience. That meant the first couple hours of the trip had to be a sailing 101 crash course. They caught on real quick and we were headed out to sea.

The LA Harbor receives 10% of all the freight traffic around the world and is responsible for most of the import/export of good in the West Coast. That meant we had to play frogger with the tankers all morning until we were clear of the shipping lanes. The shipping lanes merge at the harbor so in order to clear them we had to travel nearly 12 nautical miles out before we are safe. Luckily by the time the tankers are near LA Harbor, they are practically sitting still waiting for orders from the tugboats so the traffic was not overly dangerous.

Having checked out the boat and underway around 9:45AM, we had very little wind for a few hours. We had some relaxing time ghosting along in 5 knots of wind while listening to music and playing the guitar.

Typically the wind comes out of the west but this past Sunday, we had a south wind in the morning and a northwest in the afternoon so we had to sail upwind going in and out. When the wind picked up in the afternoon we had some exciting sailing going at hull speed with reefed main and jib.

On the way we saw a couple of schools of dolphins and a few curious ones came very close to us for a nice photo op. We also had a few gulls following us along on the way back ready to drop bombs on us.

On the way in, my buddy Dan D. was on the helm and we were cruising at an exciting 6 and a half knots in a close reach with 10 knots of wind.

Here is a little video I shot while standing on the foredeck. Note the shot of the GPS to show the speed of the boat.

We got back in the the slip at around 7pm. I felt pretty good about the trip and very much looking forward to the 3 day trip coming up in July to Catalina Island.

I believe that stereotypes are wrong. They are based on a small portion of the population and usually is not true for the majority. But sometimes the stereotype holds true when you come across that small cross section. This is what I have found about certain members of the sailing community. Especially within people who run sailing clubs. Having been a member of Marina Sailing for nearly 2 months I have chartered twice and taking one overnight ASA lesson to the Channel Islands. Everyone from my local Marina Sailing office (Channel Islands Harbor) have been very nice but there is one guy who runs the Long Beach office that I’ve talked to a couple of times has been the stereotypical, arrogant sailing A-hole.

I have only met him once before I decided to join the club while looking at their fleet in Long Beach. I don’t even know his name because he doesn’t introduce himself when you meet him in person or when he answers the phone. Every time I talk to him on the phone he speaks in a very condescending tone regardless what we are talking about. He assumes that you don’t know shit and/or are lying unless proven otherwise. If I had not gone to the Channel Islands Office I probably have chosen another club to join because of this guy.

I sort of understand where he comes from since he is constantly dealing with people who are new to sailing. It can be frustrating to do day after day dealing with members and students who are difficult to teach. I have heard many, if not all, sailing instructors go into a rant or two about hard-headed sailing students and their frustrating failures. This guy however is clearly jaded in the business and thinks everyone is stupid and unteachable. He should not be the person in charge of the club in such a busy marina. Maybe that’s just it, he doesn’t have to treat people nicely since there are plenty of business there to go around.

You may now be wondering what exactly has this guy done for me to have such disdain for him. Well, let me tell you a couple things. First time I’ve ever met him, I was in the Long Beach club office inquiring about becoming a member. I wandered about and read literature for close to 10 minutes before he decided to drop what he’s doing to acknowledge my visit. He clearly did not think I fit into the primary club member demographic as I was dressed casually and probably 20 years younger than the average member age. He responded to my questions with just enough info and enthusiasm to where it felt like getting your teeth pulled stone cold sober.

After I joined the club I made numerous phone calls to his office inquiring about the ASA 104 class schedule and it was more of the same. He makes you feel like he’s always got something better he needs to be doing and you are just wasting his time. I am guessing that Marina Sailing would probably do quite a bit more business if this guy was not there. Are there anyone else that have felt this about this man? Does anyone know what his name is what why he is allowed to run this portion of Marina Sailing’s business? As an active member who plan on chartering boats out of the Long Beach area for trips to Catalina Island, it would certainly make my life a lot easier if someone more personable was left in charge instead.

I am currently planning a trip to Catalina out of Long Beach so I have to continue to deal with this A-hole. We’ll see if he eventually warms up or if he just stays a douche bag forever…