Our new best friend Ben from Oceanside pre-warned us about the kelp on the approach to San Diego, and while he made it very clear that we had to watch out for it and be *very* careful.
He failed to mention that it was MUTANT NINJA DEATH KELP.
This stuff was ridiculous, the bulbs were the size of both my hands shaped around a ball and you couldn't see it until you were almost upon it. I'm pretty sure it eats boats for breakfast, sea otters for dessert, chews with its mouth open, and never calls its mother on Mothers Day.
On the approach, the boat was feeling weird, I was rather concerned that we had some MUTANT NINJA DEATH KELP around the prop... we tried to reverse to see if we could shake it off... no go, so Dad dove it, it was clean *aroo?*.
Then the transmission resigned from active duty and refused to shift. Tensions were running a little high with the MUTANT NINJA DEATH KELP lurking, and Dad yelled at me. For the first time in my life I merely asked him what he would like me to do, I didn't yell back, or take it personally... although for the record I was ticked off too. I'd just like to say that this is a moment of personal growth for me, that I am really proud of myself and wanted to share it with you.
I raised the sails while Dad checked engine/transmission stuff and discovered that the transmission oil was very low, we topped it up and ghosted our way into San Diego. Then the biggest freaking ship came barreling out of the channel, luckily the wind had left us just outside of its warpath... I took a few moments to thank whatever Gods may be, as well as my entire stable of lucky horses eating four leaf clovers that we weren't close to being underfoot.
After the tranny had some time to cool down, and it's oil replenished... and we'd changed our pants after the huge ship from Singapor went by. I started 'er up and after some back and forth shifting, finger crossing and muttered coaxes verging on threats finally got it to drop into forward. We picked our way carefully up the chanell through the falling darkness, did a loop by the yacht club... and when we didn't see any easily accessible end ties, we looped back to the Harbour Police dock.
It was like poetry in motion, Dad put the bumpers and dock lines out while I pirouetted in the channel. I told him that since I wasn't sure if it would shift out of forward again, my plan was to just turn it off when we got close and coast in. We traded off, and I prepared myself to jump off the bow when we got close to the dock with the forward line... Dad cut the engine... and we coasted.
Are you sure you're ready for this??!?
Everything went perfectly. I jumped, nudged the bow out the tinyest bit, and walked her forward. At the same time Dad looped the stern line around the dock cleat while standing *on the boat*!!! Together we tightened them up, slowed the boat to a stop and cleated her off.
By this point I had already decided that we were staying here, so I started making dinner. Dad did some running around trying to get ahold of the Harbour Police using their after hours number. They sent someone down, who gave us the okay to overnight here and sort it out in the morning.
*blinks* We're here. We've arrived. We'v made it to San Diego.
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