All we wanted for Christmas...was to go Sailing!

Arriving to the Hunter 36 on XMAS eve. Look at the fog layer.

 

  We arrived in San Diego Saturday night and had great weather for our family Christmas gathering on Sunday. We had been following the weather and knew that there would be a change of weather thru the night before Xmas eve. It was fully expected to let up by morning. Our reservations for the boat were for 9:00 a.m. and there we were arriving at the charter office as it was still raining. We were all baffled by the weather as NOAA and local forecasts showed it to be clear weather by then. We delayed a few hours while we went for breakfast arriving back around noon and got the OK we were looking for to be allowed to sail as the weather did improve.

 

Headed out to sea

We had originally planned to head out of the harbor for a course to the Los Coronado's Islands. However with this late start we wouldn't have enough daylight left so we just went out for a good sail. There were very few other boats who had decided to head out on Christmas eve in this weather. Surely it was only us die hard sailors.

 

 

 

We pulled out of Shelter Island on this well equipped Hunter 36 and noticed right away how much easier the sail handling was on it as we hoisted the sails. The big problem was the wind had shifted as well from what was predicted and was coming from the southwest right on our nose as we were headed out of the bay. After a couple hours sailing upwind we took the approaching Navy supply ship entering the channel as a sign to head back into the bay.

 

 

 

 

 After turning back, we picked up speed as we jibed back and forth in the narrow channel heading back into San Diego Harbor. We both got in quite a bit of practice as we took turns at the helm and working the sails.

 

 

 

 

A decision was made to get back to the slip a little early instead of heading further into the bay because of the winds direction. We were having a lot of fun and made it back in better time then expected. So we doused the sails, turned on the engine and made our course back to the slip.

 

 

 

 

 After an easy docking and securing the boat for the night we poured some wine to celebrate another successful day of sailing. We spent some time looking over the harbor chart to see where we had sailed, and looked over the boat getting acoustomed to it's layout and equipment.

 

 

 Going up to the cockpit to lounge for awhile longer and looking out thru the harbor before heading out to another family get together. We relaxed and took in what it will be like to one day soon be living on our own boat. 

 

 

 

 

 

We did come back in the evening after dinner as we had the boat for the night and spent the night sleeping aboard very comfortably. We woke up on Christmas day refreshed from a good nights sleep aboard. We packed our things into the car and locked up the boat saying goodbye for now. We reflected on our focus for this new lifestyle which we had fulfilled in 2012. And knew that we were going to enjoy many more fun filled days sailing in the coming New Year.

 

 

 



 

    And Sailing...... We Did!!!