San Diego!
As soon as we leave Catalina Island, splashes indicate that dolphins are around. They approach us and surf the bow wave, leaving glowing trails behind, caused by air bubbles and bioluminescent plancton activated by the pressure change. It’s wonderful to see, the dolphins enjoy our presence!
With clear sky, many stars, but also the glowing reflections over LA & San Diego metropolitan areas we start. It seems to get darker farther south, but wind will remain missing for this leg. Early morining we approach good old La Jolla, where I visited Matthias (my brother) & Suasanna years ago. By boat the Mariners Basin is the first place to go. It's a wonderful anchorage, only available for 72h in a 10 day period, right behind the beach and in a colorful neighborhood. A little bit towards La Jolla is Pacific Bach, where we met Karsten & family. He played volley with me in Zurich and has settled here and founded his family. It's wonderful to see how everybody from our "youngster days" is making a living while following their passion - besides growing their kids. We enjoyed interesting hours with them at xmas and playful hours with Yaiza and the kids sailing through the bay. While pointing out all the ships to the kids the dolphins once more showed their interest: two dolphins came to Jade Akka to surf JA's bow wave - rocket like, as the kids declared.
San Diego somewhat puzzled us. Downtown is obviously in a huge transformation. Urban neighborhoods explode with wonderful coffees. In the business district most buildings seem of recent dates. The downtown rail, probably a Stadler model, seems thriving. Planes and helicopters cross the sky every few seconds. The bay is busy with boats. And the sun shines all day.
However, Isa and I got a cold as the nights are chilly. Just at xmas we both managed to go out again and enjoy the urbanistas lifestyle.
Finally it was time to take yet another step - not long, but significant: we cleared out of the US! It's actually easy, but took us over two days to get to the right information. Travelling by boat makes entries and exits quite an experience: sometimes you need a zarpe (a.k.a. exit documentation), return acquired licenses (e.g. cruising license) and make sure your departure is documented (similar to API passenger data). After too many calls and partial answers we got the credible information and did everything at one office. And off we were to Mexico!
Here are the pictures from Catalina / Avalon to San Diego and our video log.
With clear sky, many stars, but also the glowing reflections over LA & San Diego metropolitan areas we start. It seems to get darker farther south, but wind will remain missing for this leg. Early morining we approach good old La Jolla, where I visited Matthias (my brother) & Suasanna years ago. By boat the Mariners Basin is the first place to go. It's a wonderful anchorage, only available for 72h in a 10 day period, right behind the beach and in a colorful neighborhood. A little bit towards La Jolla is Pacific Bach, where we met Karsten & family. He played volley with me in Zurich and has settled here and founded his family. It's wonderful to see how everybody from our "youngster days" is making a living while following their passion - besides growing their kids. We enjoyed interesting hours with them at xmas and playful hours with Yaiza and the kids sailing through the bay. While pointing out all the ships to the kids the dolphins once more showed their interest: two dolphins came to Jade Akka to surf JA's bow wave - rocket like, as the kids declared.
San Diego somewhat puzzled us. Downtown is obviously in a huge transformation. Urban neighborhoods explode with wonderful coffees. In the business district most buildings seem of recent dates. The downtown rail, probably a Stadler model, seems thriving. Planes and helicopters cross the sky every few seconds. The bay is busy with boats. And the sun shines all day.
However, Isa and I got a cold as the nights are chilly. Just at xmas we both managed to go out again and enjoy the urbanistas lifestyle.
Finally it was time to take yet another step - not long, but significant: we cleared out of the US! It's actually easy, but took us over two days to get to the right information. Travelling by boat makes entries and exits quite an experience: sometimes you need a zarpe (a.k.a. exit documentation), return acquired licenses (e.g. cruising license) and make sure your departure is documented (similar to API passenger data). After too many calls and partial answers we got the credible information and did everything at one office. And off we were to Mexico!
Here are the pictures from Catalina / Avalon to San Diego and our video log.