good morning everyone....it is 11:30, monday, oct. 12. we are in Santa Barbara Harbor Marina. we got in saturday afternoon and were only going to stay for 2 nights, but there is a storm coming in with northeasterly winds, so we are going to stay til wednesday and let it blow over. then on to san diego. we have to be there before too long or they will be doing the ha ha without us. lol. we have met lots of people here that are doing the ha ha also, they are all flying their baja ha ha flags, as are we. they are really noticable, as they are bright yellow.

i had quite a scare when we were pulling into our dock here. i fell off the boat trying to tie us up and had to hold onto the lifelines. i wrapped my legs around the big blue fender and hung on for dear life. the guy on the boat next to us tried to grab my legs, but only caught one foot before the boat drifted away and i was literally hanging over the side. dan finally got the boat closer and dan grabbed my legs and got me onto the dock. if i had fallen in, i would have been crushed between the dock and the boat. not a good thing. but all is well, and i just have a few bruises and a bunch of sore muscles. thank god. i was shaken up pretty good for a while, then everything settled down and i could actually stand up again. my legs felt like jello for a time. lol. it is beautiful here and it is the biggest marina i have ever seen- over 1000 boats are moored here. there is a west marine, chandlery, small market, several restaurants, boat brokers and a haul out yard.

our new autopilot (nicknamed "ray") is so wonderful. it's hard to describe the difference between the old one and this one. we don't have to touch the steering wheel, we have a remote control. how decadent is that? it was pricey ($7800) but omg was it worth it. it is really quiet and we have put in all our waypoints to san diego and it will take us there automatically. even under sail. its darn amazing, i tell ya.

i talked to my nephew David and his is going to try to take Tuesday off work and drive down to see us. it's about a 2 hour drive, but he's my favorite and i'm his. can't wait to see him and we'll be able to spend a whole day with him. we're going to wine and dine him before he has to go back.

before we got here i thought there was a cruise ship convention out there in the middle of the ocean. i swore there were 3 ships anchored and 1 at a berth on shore. dan was sleeping, but i woke him to see what i should do. he said to stay the course or go around them since they weren't moving. i chose to stay on course and would make adjustments if i needed to. dan went back to bed. about 20 miles closer, they took on a whole new perspective. the one i thought was berthed turned out to be vandenberg AFB and the 3 others were oil platforms. honest, i didn't smoke any wacky tobacky either. some things just don't look the same out here. i'll never live down the cruiseship convention, tho. we still giggle a little about it, and of course dan likes to tell people about it. ha ha ha.

so that's the update so far. i haven't had many comments back from you people and i'm anxious to hear from you. please add some feed back. love u all.... hugs

guess it's time for an update. we are still at spud point marina in bodega bay. day 14. we have a representative from raymarine installing our new auto pilot. it is taking a whole lot longer than we want, but he had to fabricate some things to make the new, larger one fit. it will, however, handle this big boat without question. i got an angry bug up my butt saturday and e-mailed the c.e.o. AND the president/ owner of west marine and complained about the circumstances up to the point that this inadequate pilot went tits up. only i think i was nice. well, since then we have had 3 phone calls and 3 e-mails from the above mentioned mucky mucks plus the manager of the west marine store in fife and one of her employees. they will completely refund the money that we paid for the first one and have been very cooperative. guess it pays to go directly to the top!

we have had a tsunami warning, 3 days and nights of gale force winds and today seems to be warm and not much wind. i use to like the sound of the wind, but not so much any more. it just howls through here. the locals call this blowdega bay, now i know why.

if fred, the raymarine guy gets the pilot in today and working, we will leave tomorrow morning, but i don't have my hopes up since it is almost 3'oclock today and he hasn't showed up yet. i realize that he has had his work cut out for him on this project, but i want to go south where it is a bit warmer.

hope everyone is well, as we are. blog more as events happen...hugs