pdlamarre

Monterey is super cute and chill. Picturesque bike ride to some excellent pickleball (shout out to Via Paraiso Park!), great food, solid and much needed manicure … what’s not to love? We spent a few days there, then off to Morro Bay for our first overnight sail. I had been dreading this for obvious reasons, but it was infinitely less terrifying than I had envisioned, The auto pilot was working beautifully thanks to Captain T, and there were no other boats in sight. Bonus: the night wasn’t the pitch black I was expecting thanks to the moon and an abundance of stars. So in the morning, these salty sailors decided to keep going past Morro Bay and head straight to Santa Barbara.. When that wasn’t so bad either, we just kept going like the rock stars we are to our final destination: Ventura. We knew that Point Conception could be gnarly, and since we rounded it at night during a pretty good weather window, we went for it. Two back-to-back all day/night sails and we arrived safe and sound. After topping off our fuel, we took our lucky newbie asses straight to our slip. And with a little (OK, a lot of) guidance from T, I guided us in with no (physical, at least), damage done. Yaaaassss, queen.

Sidebar: I know we’ll primarily be at anchor (or “on the hook” since, you know, we use sailor terminology now), but I’m not ashamed to say that I do not hate a marina. No dinghy to wrestle with for shore excursions, no water or electricity restrictions, nice shower facilities, unlimited wi-fi … Exponentially more expensive, but sooooo worth it.

Well, we did it.

After four (4!) years of prep and fret, we finally untied our Bay Area lines.

Boat prep? Check. Myriad friends and family rendezvous and final pickleball games with my favorite peeps? Check. Mail forwarding service and new boat cards? New cockpit cushions and purple crocodile interior mast cover? Frantic Amazon purchases, mani/pedi/brows/lashes/haircut? Check check and check. You get the drift. … and can perhaps sense the potentially misplaced priorities of this author and first mate.

Whatevs. Don’t judge. The point is that we were both as ready as we were going to be, T had wisely both reserved our slip in Ventura for August 26 and booked our September trip to Greece out of LAX … which meant we had to get outta dodge. So we packed the farewell care package that my mom had assembled (complete with my favorite foods and a tear-inducing pile of cards), and we sailed out of Marina Village Yacht Harbor for the last time.

Everything was such a whirlwind: turning in our keys, picking up my mom and giving her our car, leaving her on the dock with her equally sad and brave visage hidden by suspiciously large sunglasses … And then we were off. This was the moment we had dreamed of for years, and it was actually happening. Totally surreal. Our first leg was seven hours — all motorsailing — to Half Moon Bay, My sister-in-law/partner in crime/pickleball partner Jude visited and we all indulged in fat sandwiches, freshly grilled sardines, and my famously stiff double vodka tonics. We rested for a day and them headed to Monterey, where the whales ruled the seas (and while cool and all, were a little too copious and a lot too close to our boat for comfort) while the sea lions ruled the docks with their loud braying, shameless lazing, and super intense funk.