Rainy day in at King Harbor

Boy did it rain today!! Thought I was in Vancouver for all the rain and chilly too. Steve went with Neil to get parts for the boat (muffler is now here) and me and the kids hung around here. I scrapbooked all afternoon - good thing too cause I'm way behind. Here are some photos of the boat at the marina in the rain.

Movie day too, nice just to hang out. The kids are doing school work (math and spanish) Can't believe tomorrow is the first day of December. Where has the time gone?

Land of The Mouse ( and friends!)

The Castle at night - a true fairytale land!!


We had a fantastic time at Disneyland!! If you haven't been must go!! We lucked out and only had to stand in a long line on 2 rides (25min) - the rest of the time we basically walked right on in or maybe waited 10 minutes. Emma saw Cinderella but I didn't get a picture cause she was leaving. Unfortunately the fireworks were canceled because to much wind but it did snow!! they had some fake snow come down, that was neat. It sure was Christmassy there!! We all loved space mountain! that is a cool ride. and of course Pirates of the Caribbean we went on twice. Also Thunder mountain was a hit. we did that in the dark! It sure is pretty there at night. my photos don't do it justice. Kyle loved Indian Jones- Emma got scared!! Maya loved the Pirates of the Caribbean. So much to see and so much happened it's almost a blurr- very stimulating!! Hey Holly remember our trip? i still like the Tikiti Room! love them birds.

time for another trivia question-
#8What was the first Mickey Mouse sound movie? ( easy right)

harder now #9 What year did they make the Tikitiki Room? (this is the room with the robotic birds,flowers,and tiki drummers that sing)

FYI the pirates of the Caribbean and country bears jamboree (no,longer there) came after the tiki room

the Latitudes and Attitudes magazine office is just at the top of the marina we are in - so we went in and said hi and guess what - They may do a story on us, the girl in the office is going to send Bob Bitchin down to see our boat as he is building one and should see our cockpit. Will keep you posted on that!! Exciting , eh?! for all of
you who don't know this magazine published an article of mine about 2.5 yrs ago in the Sea Urchins section ( about kids rescue on the dock at Spruce ) that article I also put in the Spruce News. It's a great magazine. I love it. They also gave us 4 back copies - so we are reading away.

King Harbor - Redondo Beach

so here we are- at the dock and Steve's buddy Neil is our personal tour guide!! we will be staying here for about a week, seeing Hollywood, driving the coast, Disneyland- shh don't tell the kids that yet, and whatever else. We will do a big stock up here as we have a van to use. it took us 13 hrs to get here from Santa Barbara, we sailed for about 2 hrs before the winds died down to nothing. Then we motored. We were escorted into the harbour by about 20 dolphins by moonlight. They were so cool- phosphorescence everywhere and the dolphins looked like ghosts. very very neat. sorry I couldn't get a picture.

I forgot to say that trivia #7 was John Masefield and Sea Fever is the title, and yes once again Dana got that one-

Santa Barbara

look at the moon over the pier in Santa Barbara!! beautiful



Hey, well done!! Dad you got the address even!! My parents are so smart- we are in Santa Barbara at the dock. Good price here for transient moorage. (60 cents/foot)We went along States Ave to the city center - stocked up on food and had a great time in the township.
The kids and I went to the Zoo yesterday. We took the battery electric shuttle form the marina to the zoo - way cool it only costs 25 cents per person to ride!! We had fun looking at all the animals. Steve stayed and played on the boat in his engine bay. We are leaving today in the afternoon to head towards LA. We are going to see Steve's friend Neil.
We all went to the Pier to check out the cool shops - got some great ideas for gifts!! not gonna tell you........
Kids met some friends on the dock and have being fishing and having a blast with them

we had a great time in Santa Barbara - love it here!!

We are at LAT 34*24.40'N LONG 119*41.37'W

Trivia question #6 Where are we? I gave the Lat and Long , so have fun figuring it out!!

This morning I glanced in my bookshelf and came across a poetry book I didn’t know we had – opened the book randomly and this poem was what I saw!!

“I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life.
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.”

Trivia #7 What is the title and who is the author?

FYI this poem means a lot to me, not just because it is my life but for another reason. Everyone on my (Dionne’s) side of the family should recognize it from 71/2 yrs ago. When I read this my heart fills up ,I feel free and I know why my grandpa loved the sea!! (I take after him!) I see Freddie at the helm the first time I ever went out on a sailboat
( Windbird- Chevron fishing derby and he certainly did spin his fair share of merry yarns. And that is when I new I wanted to live on a boat!)

Out on the deep blue sea!!

Here we are out on the ocean making another crossing - heading for Santa Barbara
This is the sunrise - Kyle and Maya are so great at the watches!!

Steve is on the boom- watching for crab traps!!! and me and my shadow!!

we sailed the first day and half and then motored as it was so calm. we took it slow 5knts. Had the moon almost full and guiding us!! I think that my uncle Bill is watching out for us!! We keep getting great weather for our over night travels.

on our way !!

we are on our way further south!! Steve fixed our head and wired up the outside console!! Yes Ronald, we have a light above the barbeque working!! It's excellent. have nav lights hook up outside also, along with the windless and a bunch of others. Steve has been working hard!! There is less and less on the deck also. We sold off the last of our extra sailing hardware, Yeh!! less on the boat. Have met some great fellow cruisers here and will be seeing them again !! We did a little cheese cake and sing song for Maya's birthday today. Homemade cheese cake by me and yes barbeque works great for baking cupcakes. just have to turn them around every so often.

trivia #5 answer is; Maya was born at 12:01am NOv 19 Remember Heather - I almost had her in the car!!!

(Emma May 10 at 11:00 pm)

Until our next port.............

Maya's Birthday coming up November 19

looks like we will be leaving here tomorrow (Sunday November 18) so we will be traveling on Maya's birthday. the weather looks good with winds 15-25 knots from the north and seas 8-11 ft. So this should be a nice sail. time to go!! so this blog is for Maya's birthday . You all know her birthdate, so the question is:

Trivia #5 What time was Maya born? we will save a piece of cake for the person who gets the right answer and mail it back!! haha seriously something will happen.

Maya likes cheese cake so will make sure she gets some. My oven is not working right now so i have to get creative in how to bake cupcakes - will the barbeque work? I am going to try this today - will let you all know.

this is kyle i think moms going mental cupcakes on the barbecue honestly and when we went to Alcatraz she misspelled our last name so for one day we were Trembaly not Tremblay. i think being offshore is cracking her up because shes done lots off weird things like that for the last month.
Hi everybody hope you are doing well!!! My mom hasn't dunked anyone in the water...... yet!! I have a trivia question and Dana can answer it......
What day and time was i bornd? Love Emma

At the Sausilito Library

Kyle, Maya ,Emma and myself are out burning some energy in the town and hanging out at the library. Steve is busy running some more wires and hooking up things. So I took the kids out for a while. we are taking turns on the computer here. Its cooler today and foggy , it looks real neat coming of the hillside, almost like a giant wave. We are getting ready to leave here and head further south. sometime this weekend or maybe Monday/Tuesday. Weather once again is what we are waiting for. This time I want a little bit more wind. Costing too much on fuel, and I like to sail.
So obviously I need to come up with a question that Dana can't answer....... Will work on that one. We (all of us) have enjoyed playing the trivia game with you and my kids keep coming up with more questions. The answer to trilvia 4a &B was Quince and The owl and the pussy cat. brought to you by Maya !!
She and I sang that song a few times coming down the coast to San Fran on the night watch together!!

Miss Maya's birthday is coming up on Monday and she will be 11... where did the time go?

Clearly that was far too easy!!!

okay you smartie pants!! I think between Dana ( who emailed me claiming to be first)Danny Lou and Annette you named them all!!! Except no Ma Baker cause Alcatraz was only for the boys!! No women prisoner was ever locked up in Alcatraz. So..... now we need a harder question:

trivia #4A What kind of fruit is this? hint "they dined on Mints and plentiful ........ which they ate with a runsiple spoon"
#4B what song is this?

ha ha have fun!! Pot luck time now on Orca III with fellow cruisers! look forward to your answers, we are working on prizes. Danny Lou for baggy eyes ooops i mean winkles, and still thinking on Alcatraz. How come you guys no all the criminals? What have you been up too?........

Pier 39/Alcatraz

We took the bus from Sausilito over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. We went to Pier 39 and looked around, quite cool there. All kinds of neat shops and everything- They are decorating for Christmas - it looks beautiful except for the huge tree that they cut down to put in the center. Don't know why they just can't grow one there. They did the same thing at Jack London Square....

Went to Alcatraz in the afternoon. Very neat, I wouldn't want to have been there though. The cells are small, (bigger than our staterooms however) The audio tour was fantastic, very informative and sometimes too graffic for Emma ( she didn't like the guns and knife sounds from the inmates trying to escape or fighting) I sound like you were really there when it was happening.

The gardens are beautiful and all kinds of birds. It's a national park now and both Maya and Emma became junior park rangers!! Quite the history this island has - military prison, federal prison, indian's trying to take back the land to a national park. We saw the video there about all. Well worth going to when you are in San Francisco. Steve even bought himself an Alcatraz harmonica!! There were a few attempts to escape but all but 3 were recaptured. However, it is believed the last three drowned but no one knows for sure. their bodies never were found and nothing was heard of them.

Trivia question #3 Name one famous criminal who was at Alcatraz?

back in Sausilito again!!

hey we came back - Steve ploayed blues again last night and there was another harmonica player (who's in a touring band) he was awesome. Steve and he clicked! We are taking the bus over the golden gate bridge to San Fran and then off to Alcatraz today. The place we wanted to anchor in San Fran is all blocked off cause of the oil spill. Marinas want $1.5-$20/foot. ouch!! Bus thanks!! It's a beautiful day here, no storm like I understand his happened in vancouver. We will be heading south soon . It's Maya's birthday next (Nov 19) wow!!

Oakland

still here. waiting to see if we can take the boat to San Fransisco as there has been quite the oil spill here. I'm sure you've all heard. They were not letting boats come to the docks and shore. Got the deck painted yesterday YEH! and went to the farmers market they have here. Great!! I found quince! never new what it looked like check out the picture on the right. also checked out the "Last chance Saloon" totally cool. It was built in 1883 and is still standing and operational. It is slanted from the 1906 earthquake and totally stable. Also have the sod house of Jack London here. quite neat.
Not sure of our next plan of action. still want to go to Alcatraz but it's booked out today. will keep you posted. Apparenlty the last big oil spill here was in 1976 or so.
So far we have not found any hurt birds. thank god!!
having toubles loading pictures so stay tuned.
Maya has been having fun with the digital camera !!

Kyles 13 th Birthday

First off you all made us have a great laugh!! It sure is fun playing the trivia game with you all. Now we don't even know if they are baggy WRinkles or Winkles anymore. But I gotta give the prize to Danielle for creativity or honesty !!! And the rest of you get bonus points for having the right answer and Tim you gave a great full report!! Maya is quite impressed!!
We had Annette and Lincoln come down for Kyle's birthday. did a sing song and cake. They stayed the night and Annette and I went to Emeryville to do some shopping. But first we almost didn't get back to Jack London Square. Let me tell you our next great adventure. we anchored out in a small bay area, just off the Oakland side - (as the Alemeda marina were all full)we got our anchor in good and tight!! Big THUNK! sat there for 3 days, didn't move,except the anchor line kept getting shorter. You guessed it !! we could NOT pull up our anchor. It was very stuck, turns out there is a bunch of junk (old pier, old boats ect.) had to get a diver down to unravel the anchor. it was wound around a piling about 8 times and then caught on some other junk. but he got it off in a very short time and only charged us $40 bucks!! great guy and great deal!! We got to the dock just in time for Annette and Lincoln.Kyle and Lincoln played alot of Dungeons and Dragons!! had a great time!!
Hey Kevin did you notice the "friend" Kyle had at his birthday party?!!

I'm so very IMPRESSED!!

Well done all of you who answered! Jack London was indeed an author who wrote "CALL of the Wild" , "White Fang" (these two were made into Walt Disney moveis) he wrote alot more- died just before his 40th birthday, grew up very poor,leaving school at the age of 12 to help support his mom, dad took off before he was born .Jack was born in th late 1800's. He lived in Alemeda ( at that time Alemeda was a dry town so they had to go across to Oakland to get their drink) "The last chance bar" is still in Oakland!!
All this is from my memory after a couple of locals told us he was an icon. There is a great bookstore here in Oakland "Barney and NOble" kinda like a chapters. anyway thanks for playing!!

Kyle really enjoyed all the birthday greetings!! Thank you all, you made me cry! Great card mom, the kids ( including steve) laughed and love it!!

Trivia #2 (from maya) the kids have been making "baggy winkles" for our boat. Maya wants to know what are baggy winkles? She would like a full report.

look forward to your answers, once again a prize

cause you were first Dana prize to follow - Wayne and Elly and Auntie Sandy good information prize to follow for you as well.

love you all , thanks for having fun with us!!

Well we went to a blues night at the Sausilito Cruising Club on Monday night and Steve was up on stage playing his harmonica. Boy he sounded great!! Emma was dancing "all night long!" she was the bopping queen! wonder where she gets that?! Kyle was listening to all the musicians. they even had 2 sax players, Maya also did her fair share of bopp'n. we had a great time. Have made many friends there!! Left the next morning to cross the bay and are in Oakland right now. We spent Tuesday night tied to the public dock right in Jack London Square.
trivia question- Who is Jack London and what is he famous for? prize for the right answer.
Tomorrow is Kyle's 13th Birthday!! oh my god, I have a teenager on a 46ft boat!! what am i going to do? haha.
Just stocking up ( groceries, water,little bit of fuel- expensive!! and some more fittings for that watermaker.) We are going to hit Alcatraz this weekend and start planning to head out to the open ocean again further down south. It's getting cold here for me!!
answer to the question on the next posting - look forward to your answers!

Sunny and Hot in Sausilito

Well we've had a quiet lazy day today. stayed on board all day. HOt out!! we watched all the boats going by us. The kids we swinging in the bolsuns chair and everyone who went by thought that was neat. We will be moving over to the Oakland/Alemda side either Sunday/Monday. need to get some more fittings so we can make the watermaker work. Also time to go sightseeing ( Alcatraz) May have to change the head gasket!! bummer! Steve is trying to diagose that right now. Dam jellyfish!! this is our friend seagull. seems to like our dingy!!

Halloween in Sausilito

we did the trick or treating thing with the kids in Sausilito. They do a parade and all the stores down the main street give out candy. The rec center has all kinds of tables set up in the basketball courts with candy, glow sticks galore, books and toys for the kids treat bags. They also did a haunted house. that was quite cool. Even saw some people who we met the previous day at the park. There are NO fireworks, strange not to hear all that banging. We also walked to a few houses. The streets here have very steep hills!! All in all it was a good time. We over heated the engine the other night. Got a jellyfish stuck in the intake and it caused us a muffler. Steve has patched it for now and we have one waiting for us in Hunting Beach ( close to LA) There's $300 we didn't want to spend. Oh well, at least the engine is Okay. It is quite foggy this morning - eerie . usually the fog burns off by mid day, however this one is thicker than the others have been.