Finally back at it and headed for margaritas!

After an unexpectedly long stay in San Diego, we are back to cruising down Baha California! Woot woot!

San Diego was an amazing place to be for almost 2 months, and I will miss it! The weather was always perfect (okay, one day without sun), hikes, no bugs, running paths, good food, reunions with good friends and a gorgeous ocean and marina to enjoy coffee by each day. We fit in all the things: the zoo, LegoLand, Disneyland, SeaWorld, hiking, ice skating, a visit from my parents and touring the USS Midway, Hotel Del. and other city sites.

We stayed in a boat yard in San Diego, and we got a lot of work done: we converted to lithium batteries, installed solar panels, put a new alternator in, fixed stabilizers (reduced and tightened connections), and washed/waxed the boat. Shockingly, the repairs took longer than expected, which worked out because it gave us a chance to visit friends In Maryland and celebrate Thanksgiving with family in Ohio. We also found out that our paperwork to obtain a permit to cruise to Mexico was not submitted on time and would delay us until mid-December. Paul’s mom flew in, and Paul and I headed to Las Vegas with my sister, Shannon, and her husband, Mark, to see the Eagles at the Sphere – an unforgettable, amazing concert. We returned to San Diego, topped off our trip with a Christmas light boat parade and celebrated Paul’s birthday before finally setting sail early Monday morning.

The boat is running great (it scares me a bit to write that!), which was great, because the ocean was roly poly, and we had to work on getting our sea legs back. We kind of stumble around a bit, looking a bit intoxicated. I do cook; I have pot holders on the stove to hold the pot in place, and I just flounder around the kitchen a bit until something edible appears on the plates. We pulled into Ensenada later afternoon, checked in and went to a great dinner in town. We are already immersing ourselves in Spanish, and the kids are feeling motivated to learn. The next day, the kids enjoyed the hotel/marina facilities, and we played tennis and swam on the pool. Once again, we had to wait for another permit, which came in around 3pm, and we pulled out of the marina around 3:30pm. We are now amid a 3+ day, 24 hour boating schedule on route to Cabo (San Lucas? San Jose? Who knows? We are being spontaneous. (I love spontaneity….). We plan to only stay in Cabo one day before departing for LaPaz, where we will spend a few days and hopefully meet up with the friends we met this summer in Alaska.

Welcome back to our SeaXII adventure; it feels good to be boating!