Plans

Brenda and I would like to thank our friends and "fellow travelers" for their kind thoughts in both blog comments and email messages. Your interest, encouragement, and genuine concern for our welfare has helped us a lot and enhanced the quality of our experience.

Yesterday we contacted a marina which met our requirements of having local amenities and being close to transportation. However, for the first time in my 10 months in US waters I was asked to produce proof of boat insurance. I contacted several big companies who either could not help me (e.g. must be USAA member.) or offered no products for transient boats. I then started contacting local insurance brokers. Two never returned my call but fortunately the third one answered the phone and he thinks that he can help me, though I may have to purchase insurance for an entire year. The problem, as in Opua New Zealand where I was in the same situation, is the requirement for a boat survey. I would like to avoid the expense of a boat haulout and survey if possible. So I spent most of yesterday going through my documentation and sent to the broker the results of two boat surveys - the most recent in 2005 when I purchased the boat - and a history of all of the maintenance and upgrade work in the four years that I've owned the boat. I also included a spreadsheet of the major expenditures and another of Pachuca's cruising history. I told him that I was willing to visit his office with my thick dossier of reports, receipts and work sheets that will back up my statements. I will telephone Frank the broker this morning and see if this will suffice. If there is still a problem I will remind him that all I require is "third party"cover which should eliminate a strict survey requirement, given that the boat itself would not be insured.

This insurance issue is very important to us because according to what I've been told this insurance requirement has been in effect for about 3 years and is California-wide.

Brenda and I had a discussion about our plans for the next few weeks and we decided to stay in the San Francisco Bay area until Brenda departs for Australia in early December. We concluded that we would get more out of exploring what the Bay area has to offer than sailing on and getting glimpses of Monterey and other destinations further south. There is another very practical advantage: it will be much easier to book Brenda's flight and get her to the airport from a stable situation here in San Francisco than from the uncertainties associated with sailing down the coast.

This means that I'll do much of my preparation for Central and South America here in San Francisco rather than in San Diego. Fortunately the requirements are minor, e.g. repairs to my cockpit spray dodger that got torn probably when that big wave it us, Raymarine chart cartridges for Central and South America, courtesey flags for Mexico and other countries that I am likely to visit, and possible extend my Sailmail license for another year because I don't know where I will be at renewal time next March or April.

After Brenda departs I expect to be in "solo sailor" mode and will probably travel quickly down the coast, with maybe a night or two in the Channel Islands, and make for San Diego for a short stay before heading for the Sea of Cortez.

Brenda has lost weight and looks slimmer. I am encouraging her to write "The Pachuca Seasick Diet" which could turn out to be a best seller. (30% of the proceeds would go to the Pachuca maintenance fund.