Looking for a Catamaran Cruising Blog?

If you found this blog via a link from a cruising site ~ we did cruise Mexico on our Ocean 49 cat for a season. See the first text box on the right for links to our preparations, trip down Baja, life in Mexico, cruising and trip back up to SoCal. Unfortunately we are back to the grind in the USA...

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Caregivers Sail-a-Thon

Just a few weeks behind in posting what has been going on in our lives.
Stupid jobs get in the way of us having fun and sharing our fun.

We had one busy weekend a couple of weeks back.
What am I saying, every weekend is busy for us.

The day after the Highland Games it was time for the Caregivers Sail-a-Thon.

We weren't quite ready to take "Meerkat" out.
Too many half completed projects.
Too much crap on the boat.
Too lazy to take the crap off.

So we, Chris of "Vela", Jim and I, went on Randy's 42' Hunter.

It took us about a week an hour to get to the starting line, as there was no wind.
Everyone was piled up at the start which made for some fun pictures!












And fun swearwords times squeezing between Andy's boat and the pier."Afterburner" managed to squeeze between our boat and the pier.


I thought they screamed past us, but I have been corrected by one of the "Afterburner" crew.
He said they weren't really screaming past.
But I explained it was all relative.
We were standing still.

Our friends, Colin and Wendy had "Indy" looking great, as always.They are starting the search for a catamaran similar to "Meerkat".
We are shopping for them too.

"Afterburner" screamed wallowed past us again.We slid over the top of a few boats.Thank God.
Got passed by "Burnt Monkey" "Uhambo".Got lapped again by "Afterburner", as they once again squeezed through a slot we didn't think they would fit through.

We had a "celebrity" in our midst.We got lapped by a lot of boats.
We had fun.We raised money for a great charity.

6 comments:

Travis and Maggie said...

Looks like fun! Hey, we were wondering if in your travels you get borderd much by the man?

Alaskan Dave Down Under said...

Nice pics. Light air racing really brings out the tacticians and the uber-trimmers. Looks like y'all had fun.

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

T&M - by the Coast Guard? Never. I think Jim was checked years and years ago. Same day he got checked by Fish & Game.
By the Mexican Navy? Once in the year and a half on this boat. And on our old Columbia 50', about 3 to 8 times a year. Easy with them - they are just looking for drugs and guns and we had neither. We would give them a soda and a tour and all was good.
By our Harbor Patrol in Ventura Harbor? Once a year we "invite" them over for our liveaboard inspection. They make sure we have all the safety items, are legal owners and are using our holding tanks. That's all easy too. We used to have one harbor patrol guy named Jim who would mainly want to do our inspection so he could talk to my Jim about fishing. We also used to give him food, snacks and even had him over for dinner sometimes. We give them stuff at Christmas, because they are all nice guys and we like to keep them liking us...

ADDU - YES, you are 100% right. It's easy to make the boat go in wind, but light or no wind? And this wasn't even a race and we were still doing it!

Doug and Carla Scott said...

Looks like a great time!

Markitos said...

We watched Afterburner come into Catalina once. Crazy fast. I think they pay dolphins to pull them along

Jim and Heather on Meerkat said...

No, Markitos the dolphins pay "Afterburner". You got it backwards! And the best part... someday we get to go sailing on "AB" because we are cat people too!! Yes, the owner did invite us and he has been on our boat! I just don't want to go on a super windy day... or a hardcore race...
Hope all is well down your way M !