27.06 – Race village – Rainbow Marina – Long Beach – Los Angeles!
Finally we are at Long Beach were the Transpac start is going to be, for us only in 6 days!
We left Ensenada on Thursday after a lot of trips to the port captain. Very nice people there but they may have to work a little bit more with their new computer system. The last time we checked out at the same office everything was done in some minutes. The last night we were on the hard we walked over to a big public park that had a fascinating lightning show to music. Cool art!
From Ensenada we went again to San Diego were we entered at 0100. A half hour later we were cleared and slided again in alongside Roy Miles Trimaran at SWYC. The next day we spent with polishing the hull, taking the last trip to the self storage with stuff and buying an American propane bottle since it is just impossible to have our European style bottle filled over here. The funny thing is that both the bottles are made in Norway!
We had a great and pretty short sailing trip to Mission bay the next day. Going upwind in 7 knots of breeze with the self tacker is not the favorite but it works pretty good was the conclusion. It works well as long as we do not have the pacific swell straight on the nose. We passed Mission bay with a couple of miles so that we could set our new S4. Of course it was too light wind but this is a good sail that we believe will make us dare to put the pedal to the metal on the Transpac.
From Mission bay we sailed and motored to Dana Point. We have cleaned our primary anchor (The Ultra with 15 m chain and lead rope) since we are now storing it inside the boat. For that reason we are now anchoring with our Fortress FX16 which weighs only about 4 kilos, and only with a polyester rope. In the north of the Dana Point harbor it is a pretty high cliff that was generous with heavy drop winds. Our fortress was surprisingly holding us in position but it was not a place where we would sleep well. We decided to move to the anchorage south in the harbor where it was almost no wind.
From Dana Point we had a perfect sailing day to Long Beach and Rainbow marina. Most of the time at a pretty sharp reach perfect for our A5. We entered in by the breakwater in 8,5 knots of speed in 12,5-13 knots of breeze. This is good numbers for us and lovely to sail with a boat which is starting to be in race mode again.
At Rainbow Marina we met our host, Jane Malbon. She has Norwegian ancestors and we had a lot to talk about. She brought a welcome gift consisting of Norwegian goat cheese, Macarel in tomato, bread and also 6 beers from Hawaii to give us a taste of how it`s going to be in a couple of weeks too. She invited us on sailing with Cal 20s at the Shoreline Yacht club today followed by taco evening.
Cal 20 is not the newest design but as long as the boats are equal the sailing is always good. At Shoreline Yacht Club they have eight of these boats and on the Tuesdays they race. Which boat is going to be used by which skipper and in the end what crew is decided by a draw. We had a nice afternoon on the water and ended second and third. After the race we were invited at the taco Tuesday and conversation with a lot of nice people – thank you all for the hospitality!
