Tuesday February 20: It's Always Good to be Back Home ....

Rebecca and Wendy on Moonlight beach

It was a great visit to San Diego for our family Christmas - Finally!!!

Of course the beach is always on the list of things to do. Moonlight beach is one of the nicest and is only a mile from Matt and Wendy's home.

Steve likes to walk the beach at low tide especially as the tidal pools are then uncovered and likely to have small anemones and other sea life.

Self heating mug

Present opening is always fun of course - as is playing with the toys from previous years.

Matt became quite adept at flying the small 'helicopter'. It wasn't long before the rule of outside the house was enacted!

And of course there were a variety of crafts to be done including a gingerbread house - mostly completed by Becky and Wendy. Take a close look at the smoke coming out of the chimney!

A totally good idea by Becky and completed by me. (She had to head back to LA before it could be finished).

Steve spent part of his time learning how to spin yarn from raw fiber! Wendy is a great teacher and he was a quick learner - perfect combination.

Now he'll have to learn how to knit :-)

Of course we usually went out for breakfast (it's a hard habit to break!). And while Steve often has a fresh fruit as a side instead of potatoes, the fruit provided by A Little More in Leucadia was beyond what we've ever had - even in health conscience California!!

As an added bonus (no pictures sadly) Craig and Karen from Rahn DeVous whom we met on the Trent Canal two years ago) drove down from San Juan Capistrano to spend the day on Friday. So nice to see them!!


Overall it was a great trip. Not sure where or when Christmas will be this year but it'll be fun :-)

Matt, Wendy, Rebecca, Me, Steve

What was really nice was Matt and Wendy put their Christmas tree back up for our gathering :-)

Once we returned to the boat, it seemed we never left! It was time to deal with the leaking circulation pump on the engine before we were going to be able to go anywhere - and there was good weather on the horizon

First, the old water pump needed to be replaced. First was to prime and paint the new pump and the old pulley.

Easy enough to do. Next was to install the new pump.


Steve could do it but it meant turning himself into a pretzel to be able to do that! I, however, could simply sit directly in front of the engine and install the 4 bolts on the pump.

It took me a little while to convince him that my hands are now ready and that I can return to the engine room :-)  It's been quite a while for sure!

Installation - done! Now simply refill with antifreeze and we're good to go. The weather is promising for a night at anchor tomorrow!

Mmmm .. it seems to still be dripping. Not good. Antifreeze is coming from the weep hole - which is how you know the water pump is bad to begin with.

What the heck. I mean I ordered this from Cheepo.com but really - leaking from the get go???

Well, it was docktail time anyway so we stopped for the night.


Up early the next day. No more leaking. Very strange. We continued filling the antifreeze and headed out for an overnight. We'll keep an eye on what the antifreeze level does.

The anchorage off of Little Bahia Honda Key was very nice. The key itself was really devastated by Irma - very little greenery left. Most of the vegetation of the key is dead.

Steve kayaked over to check it out but who knows if it will ever come back .....


There was a bit of snorkeling but with less than desirable clarity, there wasn't much to be seen.

It was a beautiful evening. How nice it was to be away from the marina for a night :)

Quiet time on the flybridge was in order for sure ...

and the sunset was crazy nice.

Plus a gazillion stars to be seen as there was little light pollution that night away from the lights of Marathon.

Morning might have been the best with my new self-heating mug :-)

It keeps my coffee at the preset temperature of 145 degrees - right down to the last drop :-) Thanks, Becky !!













We were greeted back by one the manatee the next day - stopping by to catch the drips of fresh water dripping from the leaking water line in front of our dock.

Nice trip both to CA and out at anchor :-)