After spending several glorious days and the Labor Day holiday enjoying the sunshine and warm water out at Santa Cruz Island we decided to return to Oxnard and the Channel Islands Harbor. Initially we came back to get the laundry done and restock, but ended up deciding that this is where we're going to stay for awhile after weighing our options. We need to get some work done on the boat, replace the goose-neck which fractured on the way down the coast, replace the self-steering gear which proved to be the wrong installation for this boat and get the mainsail repaired and we needed a place to leave the boat while we take a road trip out to NM so Jim can get some hunting in. We now have a slip at Vintage Marina, which at $200+ more than we were paying the bay, was the least expensive one we could fine between here and San Diego.
We rented a car and took a trip back up to Emeryville in order to pick up the truck and while we were there got to spend some time visiting with quite a few, but not all, of our friends, which I really miss. It was a good time although too short.
Waterfront at Emeryville Marina
So we get back to Oxnard with the truck, spend a couple days sanding, grinding and repainting several of the worst rust spots on the hull and deck where the paint had cracked, chipped or was scrapped off by metal bolts sticking out of the side of a work dock that we were trying to tie up to. Then the fire season started right on cue, Santa Ana winds make a little brush fire turn into a big, huge brush fire. We, being down wind, found ourselves in a snowfall of ash and really bad air quality and so decided it would be a good day to make the drive down to Costa Mesa and Minnie's Yacht Surplus to see if we could find a replacement part for the goose-neck amongst all the bins of crap.
We jump in the truck and head down the 101 in just horrible traffic, it would of been more pleasant to spend the 2 days it would take to sail down there. 1st stop we make in Costa Mesa is one of our old favorites, El Toro Bravo, about 1lb of carnitas, 1/2doz tortillas, beans, rice, salsa, pico and a coke for 7.99, more than feeds 2 people. We get to Minnie's and find the part we needed and also finally found a steel boat compass, for which we had been searching for ages. Then we drove around looking to see if we could find some of the people we used to know while we were living down there, 1st we found Jeff, then Fred and finally Mike.
Fred and Jeff are a couple of the last boat builders left in Costa Mesa, which was once the boat building capital of the US. Jeff was and still is the same yard we built our boat in, and the last boat still in that yard. He's been working on his boat for 10+ years, maybe closer to 20, anyway, he's retired now and says he's been working on it full time getting it ready to launch, although it didn't appear as though he's gotten any further along on the project than he was last time we saw him 5 years ago. Jeff is very meticulous and a perfectionist, what he's building is a work of art, be interesting to see if he ever gets it done and what happens when he rubs up against that dock with the bolts sticking out of it. Fred also has been building a boat and has been since sometime before we 1st met him 6 years ago. The boatyard he had been in was closed down in order to make room for new condo's which were never built, and so had to find another yard to keep his boat and one that would also let him live on it. Fred's been living on a shoestring, works when he can get it varnishing other peoples boats and has had some health problems but doesn't suffer from having to get everything perfect. He has been hammering away at it, each time we see him, he has just that much more done and is just a little bit closer to finishing. Also, it would be nice to see his boat floating in water someday. Mike is a collector of boats (he owned up to 16 boats at one time and has 6 for sale right now) and other boat related parts among other things. He has an aversion to sunlight, which makes him appear ghostly white, after experiencing a bought with skin cancer. He's a very interesting guy, very generous and always in the middle of something, he's quite the character.
After taking Fred out to our favorite sushi restaurant, which we were happy to see was still in business and it was still as awesome as always, and then later meeting Mike and some of his friends for drinks at the Yard House, we finally decided that we had probably given the traffic enough time to thin out and it was time to head back to the boat. This is where it really starts to get expensive...
The truck decides it's not going to run any further, somewhere, while climbing a hill, on the 405 just north of LA. We end up having to call a tow truck as Jim doesn't even have a flashlight in the truck anymore much less any tools. After about 45mins the tow truck shows up and takes us back to Culver City, drops us and the truck off at a mechanic shop and we walk across the street to the Half Moon Hotel, which actually turned out to be both cheaper than I though it would be, also cleaner and slightly more comfortable than I would expect, but I wasn't expecting much. It was long night of listening to the sounds of the city, yelling, car alarms, couples in the throws of ecstasy, flushing toilets, police sirens, helicopters, street racers, and garbage trucks, how does anyone get any sleep, is this why city people are so irritable? Anyway, the mechanic says he can get to our vehicle first thing, it was determined to be a bad fuel pump, expensive to replace but we really didn't have much choice, we just bought new tires for the thing and it's supposed to make at least one more trip out to NM. We went and had a pretty decent breakfast at the Metro Diner, and about 11am this morning the truck was ready, we paid the guy, thanked him for getting to it so quickly. We start heading down the street and well, the truck is not wanting to shift gears, head back to the mechanic, where it was determined that the transmission was destroyed by it not having been in neutral during the tow. So we had to pay for a rental, transfer all our stuff out of the truck and head back to the boat to feed our starving cat, who was actually fine and incredibly happy to see us, well, until we fed him and then he really didn't care.
So now what? Old junk truck is not worth spending the money for a new transmission, but we just spent $500 getting the fuel pump replaced and another when we replaced the bald tires. Jim still wants to go hunting and we still haven't found a resonable priced place to stay. and then there's still the purchase of a new self steering unit.
