Sailing Canadian Style
Voyage 14, Marina del Rey, August 21,2004
Many times Alan Kapler had asked me to go sailing, and many times I had an excuse not to go. Its too windy, its too sunny, my stomach hurts—whatever the reason, the trip was delayed many times over. And so it had come to this, his next to last weekend in Los Angeles...
We had set the day before to meet at 3pm at the dock, but I had reason to doubt that it wasn’t going to happen. I had heard earlier in the day that Alan had been carried out of the Firehouse—passed out from post Martini Night drinking. So when 3pm rolled around, I was happy to find Alan at the dock ahead of everyone else. We had a couple of drinks, rigged the boat and shoved off.
It was an excellent day, a bit of a breeze, a few high clouds to keep the sun at bay and no swell to speak of. We motored out of the channel, set the jib and headed for the Santa Monica buoy. With a decent amount of wind, we made it to the buoy and BEYOND! Ron suggested heading up the coast a bit more past the pier, so we stayed on tack for about half a mile or so past the buoy. I spotted some rock breaks off the north side of the Santa Monica pier that I had never seen before. And we caught site of some of the more weird homes along PCH. Next sail, I think I want to explore this area a bit more it seems pretty cool.
We finally tacked back and passed right next to the buoy to give Alan, Shauna and Jason a good view of the sea lions—including one trying to jump onto the buoy. It was about this time Ron mentioned his friend who spent the night clinging to a similar buoy to stay alive. Alan later mentioned something about swimming out to the buoy for a nap sometime
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Anyway, buoy jokes aside, we headed back down the coast and in the south entrance. We cruised the channel, passing my neighbor’s San Juan 25, and glided into the slip without a problem. Then we all kicked back and had a beer (or two or three) and watched the Canuck devour the snack chips.
It was a great day! To be repeated when Alan makes it back to town...