Maybe Freedom isn't All What it's Cracked Up to Be

Thursday we headed over to the guest dock in order to get away from the noise and motion of the A-9 anchorage, get a shower, fill the water tanks, go to happy hour at Humphrey's and a maybe a good night sleep before heading for La Playa for the weekend.

Really didn't get much sleep though due to the radios on the police boats blaring most of the night because some boat ran aground somewhere out in the bay. Early Friday morning we get up deciding to go to La Playa sooner rather than later, maybe get some piece and quiet. Look around for Zero and he's nowhere to be found. Walk around calling, whistling for him, still no cat. Start wondering if he has stowed away on one of the boats that pulled out that morning to head north, worried that he may have gotten into it with one of the stray cats, and eventually decided that he probably decided that he wasn't ready to leave and decided to lay low for awhile. He's done that before, somehow senses when we're getting ready to leave and goes to find somewhere to hide. When we were getting ready to leave the docks of a yacht club we stayed at a few weeks ago, he ran and jumped through the open portlight of a neighboring boat. He wasn't about to come, not for kitty treats or anything, we finally had the idea that a loud noise might scare him out and so Jim got out the air horn, one blast and one cat comes flying out of the portlight and back onto his own boat. Problem solved. Anyway, on this day, we are running out of time, docks are full, boats are waiting for slips, they want us out of there. We decide, well, Jim decided that we'd leave him there and come back later to look for him. Let him miss a couple meals, he'll be ready to come next time we call him say Jim. So I spend the day, trying to get things done, killing time, trying not to worry about the little bastard cat. Trying not to think of all the bad things that could of happened to him and tell myself that he's just hiding because he was having fun and wasn't ready to leave.

So dusk finally rolls around and we take the dinghy back over to the guest dock, walk up the ramp, give one whistle and out he comes from under the bushes by the shed, howling away as if to say 'I can't believe you guys left me!'. Excited to see us, purring madly. He hardly even protested the ride in the dinghy back to the boat and even enjoyed watching the black skimmers flying along the surface of the water trying to scoop up fish. We get back to the boat, he happy, he's fed and then realizes he's trapped on the boat again, now he's pissed, won't have anything to do with us. I was hoping he would learn his lesson: don't come when you're called, get left behind, no one to feed your sorry ass. Good thing he's got a short memory, he's forgiven us now, back to his old self, resigned to being trapped on a boat in the middle of the water. He's staring at the cat on the boat anchored near us, maybe they're contemplating learning how to swim. I've heard of other cruiser's cats taking up swimming, cat disappears, find their sopping wet cat on someone else's boat. There was a cat at Emeryville that would jump in the water and swim from one dock to the other instead of taking the time to walk all the way around. Knew a guy who said his female cat went into heat, decided she needed to get herself some no matter what, so she jumps overboard during a storm, they thought they'd never see her again. A few weeks later a found cat poster goes up on the bulletin board with a picture of their cat. They go claim her and she then gives birth to a half dozen kittens several weeks later.

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Other than that, our weekend hasn't been as productive as planned. The swap meet that we were going to take stuff to and try and sell only resulted in us acquiring more stuff. Jim decided he wasn't going to try a haul a bunch of stuff over there only for it to not sell and then have to haul it all back. So we just walked down with nothing but money in our pockets and ended up buying 2 stainless cowl vents with the deck fittings for $20, they sell new for around $300 each, so that worked out well, they are much nicer looking that the crappy plastic ones we had and they do a much better job at bringing fresh air into the boat. We were then given 2 dorado boxes that turned out were built by the same guy we bought our boat hull from. He had built them for a guy who had also bought a boat hull from him but never got around to actually finishing the boat. So in the end we end up with more projects and more stuff to get rid of....

San Diego

At times it feels as though we are in the middle of a war zone

Haven't been motivated to write a blog post since returning from New Mexico, so here it is for those of you who have been wondering what we've been up to and where we are. We're here sitting on the hook in San Diego Bay at the Crusier's Anchorage. Nice little anchorage right next to the airport. Spend the day listening to the airliners landing and taking off. Across the bay from us is the Naval base, so we also get to listen to the Navy helicopters and fighter jets taking off. The rest of the day is spent rolling around and rocking back and forth as every boat, and especially the large Navy ships, that passes by puts up a big wake that rolls right through here. Luckily, it all starts to calm down towards sunset and is actually pretty quiet (aside from Jim's snoring) during the night as there are no flights coming in and out after midnight. Although the other night they must of been practicing their war games because there was a considerable amount of machine gun fire going off late into the night then add to that the sound of the fireworks from the Padres games. We're going to head back to La Playa for the weekend, it's much calmer over there and closer to the showers too, but that's also where you have to listen to the partiers all night as that's where the yacht clubs like to go and raft up for the weekend.

Night time view from Cruiser's Anchorage

We've been here for about 3 weeks now. Of course we didn't plan on spending 3 weeks here but nothing ever goes as planned for us. We maxed out our allotted time in Newport Harbor, they let you stay 2 months during the winter and then 15 days in the summer season, which started May 1st, so they let us stay until the 15th at $5/night and then we spent our allowed 5 free days in the anchorage before finally sailing out of there. The distance from Newport Beach to San Diego is only around 60 miles, but it took us 1 week to make the voyage. 1st leg was to Dana Point, which is only 12 miles but took us about 6 hours, what little wind there was that day was coming out of the wrong direction but it was a nice day so we kept the sails up. After 4 hours of that we decided to start the engine and motor the rest of the 10 miles due to the fact we sailed away from the coast further then we sailed down. Spent the entire weekend hanging out in Dana Point watching huge waves breaking over the breakwater. By Tues the seas had calmed down enough to sail on to Oceanside, and then to Mission Bay. Thurs morning we sailed the final 8 mile into San Diego. We spent the 1st few nights at the guest dock at 10.50/night, then headed over to the Cruiser's anchorage, which we found we didn't enjoy much, so then headed over to Glorietta Bay, which is much nicer but they only let you stay there for 72 hours at a time. We also spent some time at the La Playa anchorage, which they only let you stay there for 72 hours and only on weekends and only if you get a permit 1st.

Waves crashing over breakwater at Dana Point

While we've been here we decided to go ahead and replace the bladder tanks altogether since we couldn't get the ones we had to stop leaking. Went with a different brand that cost much more but is of a much better quality and they haven't leak one solitary drop. We also had to replace the VHF radio, the old one shit the bed. The new one works great and even has an AIS receiver in it but we haven't figured out how to get it to work yet as it needs a GPS input in order to work and won't communicate with any of the units we have. We've been told that we will have to buy another gizmo that will do a baud rate conversion. I don't want to spend anymore money. AIS is cool and useful as it allows you to see all the other AIS transmitting boats that are out there, what their direction and speed is and allows you to call the specific boat that you might be concerned about. The big ships are now required to have it and those are the ones you're worried about.

Anchorage at La Playa behind Shelter Island

We'll be here another few days, there's a swap meet coming up this weekend, so we thought we would try and sell some stuff, we still have too much stuff. We still need to make sure the SSB radio works and repair the main sail, it ripped again, I hope we don't end up having to order a whole new sail, can't afford that right now. Maybe we'll finally get to leave for Mexico next week sometime. Then we have to decide if we hang out around Northern Baja for a few months or head down into the Sea of Cortez to wait out hurricane season.

Dolphin escort

Rest in Peace

Last week my mother, Mary Witkop passed away. It was quite unexpected and yet we all knew she was on her way out and she had told us as much only we didn't want to know.

We've spent the last few days here in Taos amongst the best of friends and family. The out pouring of support has been above and beyond our expectations. I thank everyone who came through for us with kind words, prayers and hugs. I love you guys.

The day of the service started out dark and raining, as if the heavens were crying too. As we headed for the cemetery the rain stopped though and the sun came out and it didn't rain again until we were finally ready to leave and make our way home after the reception. The ceremony started off with a eulogy by my step-father, David Hopper. I want to reprint it here, with his permission for all of you who wanted to be there but came late or weren't able to make it.

April 17, 2010 - Pilar Village Cemetery

Eulogy by David Hopper

On behalf of Mary and her family, I would like to thank you for being here in her honor. Also, I would like to thank Mary's brother Leonard Suazo and her beloved neighbors in Pilar for honoring her wish to be buried in their hallowed ground. Also, I would like to thank Mary's brother, Luis Barela for the donation of the beautiful Cedro Marker Cross. Other Master Santeros had a hand in the carving, Carlos Barela, Leonard Salazar, Richard Salazar and Dan Rael.

They say "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words." This wonderful image is from a bad copy of a faded newspaper article from 1974, about 5 years into Mary's career as a potter, when Juanita was 3, Monita was born 2 years later on Easter, but on today's date. Through the magic and fine skills of Barry Norris, whose studio is in El Prado, if has become what you see, a work of fine art. I showed up there yesterday afternoon unannounced, he donated it in Mary's memory. In Thursday's Tempo there will be an article and I hope this will be the cover. It saved you-those thousand words have reduced my eulogy to only a thousand more...

I know all of you here have been deeply touched by Mary. She loves you all and I know you all love her. She is indeed, as Jonathan Warmday said, very special. This year she is being honored for her 40 years of turning mud into magic. Her precious pots are in all of our homes, many of them were gifts for birthdays, graduations, weddings... she gave everything and took very little.

I've been with Mary for 23 years. I've been totally devoted to Mary from the beginning. I wanted her to enjoy life, and we did - we walked up all these mountains, camped at the high lakes, made wondrous treks through out the natural spiritual centers of the earth, and roughed it always. Mary wasn't what she called 'fancy ass'. Among Mary's last words to me were something she said all the time - to me and to you I'm sure - "you're a very nice person" Well, Mary is the very nice person and I assure you that what I say comes from my heart. Where she will Always exist.

Mary always reminded me of a line from a song by my old friend, Kris Kristofferson. Kris wrote the song after the death of Janis Joplin, the great love of his life, "Why Was She Born All Black and Blue?" Mary has endured physical pain throughout her 40 years of fame - pain that intensified as her ability to do the things she loved diminished with age. She may have broken every bone in her body, bat as you all know she didn't have a mean bone in there, she didn't have to love her enemies, she didn't have any. Her life and her work was a selfless gift as was her passing.

Her work was her essence. As she became unable to function physically her work became her only focus. When she became unable to do the work, she only had her spirit animating her frail and failing body. At that point she told many of us that needed to know that she was done, too tired to carry on, far to much pain for beer to kill. She wanted to die where she worked, in the midst of some of her finest creations. She didn't want to bother anybody with it. Everything she did was for us. She has taught us as much about loving kindness as the Buddha.

Mary's last wish was that she be honored for her work. In her studio are 9 major pots that have accumulated as the market deteriorated. Ray Trotter of R B Raven Gallery was planning a major exhibition of her work for September - he will now be doing it as a memorial. We hope some work will end up in the Millicent Rogers Museum where they belong. Mary's work is for the people.

Mary is a medicine women. She is a holder of a sacred pipe of the Northern Cheyenne. Her Brother Harvey Beartrack is the only appropriate person still living to have prayed with the pipe at this moment. I couldn't find Harvey and I hope he is doing well. We love him dearly. So, in this spirit, I would like to close with a prayer that was meaningful to Mary. This is Black Elk's prayer:

(silence while we are always looking, pause, turn facing sundown, pause, turn facing the purifying wind - full circle, stop. Face to the sky, hands up, as loud as I can shout...echoes off the cliffs)

TONKA SCHILA! WAKON TONKA!

'Grandfather, great mysterious one! You have been always, and before you nothing has been. There is nothing to pray to but you. The star nations all over the heavens are yours, and yous are the grasses of the earth. You are older than all need, older than all pain and prayer. Day in, day out, you are the life of things.

Grandfather, all over the world the faces of living ones are alike. In tenderness they have come up out of the ground. Look upon your children, with children in their arms, that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet. Teach me to walk the soft earth, relative to all that live. Give me the strength to understand and the eyes to see. Help me, for without you I am nothing.'

Mary, without you I am nothing.

Peace be with you Mary and with your spirit I know that your feet are firmly planted in the spirit world, that you are young, beautiful, free of pain, and eternal and that you are still giving us your all. I'll see you there. Amen

Mary has been behind everything that unfolded here. I believe she wanted to throw a big party for Mo's birthday so she could be with her grand kids.

I'm sure many of you have something to say. So now is the time and that will conclude the service here. Afterwards we are gathering at Mary's favorite spot above the bridge at the confluence. I think Mary will be pleased if it is a joyous, happy celebration of her life.

Hetch Atu Alo

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Several people got up to speak afterwards, all with kind words and fond and funny memories of mom. It was a very special day and we will all miss you mom. Thanks to everyone who contributed to making this day special.

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Cedros Cross Santeros - Richard Salazar, Leonard Salazar, Luis Barela, Carlos Barela & Dan Rael. Mayor Domo - Leonard Suazo

Newport Harbor

A number of other cruisers have told us that they always skip Newport Harbor because it's a very expensive place to be, wonder if that's something they just assume or from actual experience. It's one of the least expensive places we've been on the coast so far.

Mooring - $5/night includes shower

Breakfast at Chester Drawer's - 2 omelets, potatoes, fruit, eng muffin and 2 coffees -$12 before 8am.

Lunch at El Toro Bravo - 2lbs your choice carne, 3 dozen tortillas, pico, salsa, chips, 6 pack soda - $18 feeds 6 - 8 people easy.

Dinner at Great Mex - 6 tacos and 6 beers - $12

Drinks at American Legion Yacht Club - $2

There's a number of other food deals around depending on the night, everything has been excellent so far and the beach here is awesome, not that I've been out there yet, you have to row to the dinghy dock and then walk across the street to get there from here :)