JOURNAL04

GETTING OUR SHIP TOGETHER

FROM SAN DIEGO

latt:....32o...39"; Long: 117o 13"

Well, we said it was going to be work, and it has been!; Our scheduled
11 day stop in San Diego was pay-back time for the restful days we had at
Catalina and Dana Point.

We've been puting in 12-14 hour days, tuning DREAMCATCHER after her 550
mile shake-down cruise, and doing some of the jobs we left unfinished (or not
even started)in San Francisco.

We've made progress, but, as they say, you're still fixing the boat when
you arrive at your destination.... will spare you the technical details, but
we're a few steps closer to having the boat we want, to cross the Pacific.

Additionally, we've acquired a cruising chute, or type of spinnaker -
Jonathon our rigger flew down with it last weekend and we christened it amidst
the fog in the San Diego channel, running under radar and hoping we wouldn't hit
anything while trying out our new "toy". It's large, both when flying and couched in
its jacket.... it looks like a bright yellow bean bag that's moved aboard and has
taken up residence in the salon (lounge)....doesn't require feeding, just real
estate! Next challenge is to figure out where to put it "permanently"

Dreamcatcher is attracting a lot of interest at the dock, with "San
Francisco" on her stern....the locals stop and enquire "how was the trip
down??? "where are you going next?".... they're all friendly, eager with
questions and advice, often delivered with a generous dollop of life
story.

Today was a dark day for San Diego - we awoke to eerie yellow-grey skies and
black ash everywhere- a fire which started last night and had
destroyed 600 homes and killed several people by the time we read the
news. What remains of those homes and forests lays as thick ash over
everything in the city, including thousands of boats in the marina..... a black day
all round.

So, Mexico, coming ready or not!!!!. Graham joined us for the Baja Ha
Ha - the 800 mile rally down the Baja peninsula to Cabo San Lucas.
We're looking foward to as much sailing as possible, although the forecast for
the next 4 days is light winds
more from south of the border

PS: you may be recieivng mail in the future
"mailto:dreamcatchervoyage@yahoo.com">dreamcatchervoyage@yahoo.com

This is because we will be switching more and more to our alternate high
frequency radio service providers SailMail and Winlink for email.
However, given their limited bandwidth and the fact we only have so many bits
and time on the email airwaves, we have to forgo using our own distribution lists
as they would take up all our quota of bytes and we'd never get a message out
So, Danny Savard has kindly offered to be our "post man".....we'll send a
message to him and he'll forward to you. Danny is an all round good guy, works
for HP, is a musician and a keen sailor