Sailing by the (bureaucratic) winds

A huge thank you and big hugs to every person who messaged, posted, called, and texted to say hello and send good cheer to us. It really has been lifting our spirits! And I have realized that I’ve not been very good about staying in touch and responding to all messages — we’ve been working really hard on the boat for reasons I’ll explain below.

We are still in bureaucratic limbo here in Los Angeles, while the Mexican government decides if it is restarting the process they used to have prior to 2022 to cancel the Temporary Import Permits (TIPs) that have been “uncancellable” for a couple of years now. One person has successfully gotten their uncancellable TIP canceled but so far we have not heard of any other uncancellable TIPs being processed after they were sent to Mexico City. Our TIP was sent in over two weeks ago, and we’re hoping for some kind of miracle to have them cancel it this upcoming week. If not, we’ll be sailing to Hawaii instead!

So we have been busy preparing our boat and ourselves to sail to Hawaii in case Mexico doesn’t come through. November is a generally good month to sail to Hawaii as it is the end of the hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific and the wind and wave heights are often favorable, depending on what kind of storms are happening in the Gulf of Alaska (yep, the ocean is huge and interconnected so it very much matters what’s happening thousands of miles away!). We have done countless boat projects, gone to West Marine and True Value hardware stores umpteen times for said boat projects, contacted a weather router who will help us find the best windows to leave California and provide weather updates along the way, and we have made a ton of progress getting our boat ship-shape.

A few of the many projects have been things like rebedding stanchions which hold up the lifelines around the boat, that were done incorrectly making them much less safe (this project involved cutting holes into inaccessible places only to then feel around in the dark with one-hand in order to attach backing plates onto bolts and then thread nuts onto those bolts, among many other feats). We have caulked and epoxied and gel coat covered many holes to make several areas less prone to leaks. We have (finally) gotten our wind instrument installed on the top of the mast which means now we won’t have to guess the wind direction and strength — a HUGE thank you to Scott Klodowski for his tenacity and teamwork with us to get that and other necessary items done — Scott spent five hours 75 feet in the air at the top of our mast (!).

Here are some things we have learned in our (many) weeks in San Pedro:

Go slow. This above all is the message over and over that we’re learning over and over and over — including when we attempted to try out setting what’s called a whisker pole at the dock (a whisker pole is something that helps a jib, our most forward sail, stay poled out when sailing downwind). We ended up learning that our jib wasn’t correctly rigged AND we ended up bending our 20 foot aluminum whisker pole in the blink of an eye by moving too quickly. How could that have been avoided? By going slower, stopping when you don’t understand why things are difficult and reflecting before powering ahead. Years of corporate America have ingrained in us a sense of urgency in all things, and that is not how sailing goes. GO SLOW. It’s safer and more enjoyable that way anyhow!

There are Top Gun houses all over SoCal. In addition to the Top Gun house we showed you previously in Oceanside, there is *also* a Top Gun house here in Pedro. Voila Penny’s house in Top Gun: Maverick, legend has it that if you clap five times in front of the house, Jennifer Connelly will emerge.

Listen to your body’s energy. Over these first few months of the cruising lifestyle, both of us have realized we’ve been recovering from burnout from our jobs. We’ve been working to allow ourselves rest when instead we feel like quitting the whole thing — resting usually resets that urge to just give up! Sea lions do a great job of resting — we have gotten to see them not only expending a lot of energy hunting in packs in the water, but also resting in the sunshine.

Things are way more fun with friends. We’ve made friends from the local brewery here, Brouwerij West, as well as from my ukulele class. From an impromptu wedding reception on our boat to watching the Dodgers win the World Series to a drag show in Long Beach, we have been taking time to have some much-needed fun!

Birds are awesome (but you knew that). The beauty of our planet is everywhere if you take a moment each day to observe it — this cormorant dove several times to chase fish around.

Our weather window to sail to Hawaii opens next Saturday — we will let you know in the interim if Mexico comes through, otherwise, you can follow along our two-week-ish journey via our tracker! Who wants to come visit us in Oahu or on the Big Island over these next couple of months (unless Mexico decides that tacos are in our future instead)?!