More Blogging From Jeff

More Blogging From Jeff ---

There are more islands off of the California coast than I realized. It's not like they dot the coast line, but there are more than a few. Unlike the Bahamas and most of the Caribbean, they have “vertical relief”, aka large hills - small mountains. The cruising sailors that I met while running races in San Diego spoke about them. Anyway, and like they said, the southern coast of California looks to be excellent for cruising.

The immensity of Los Angeles's Long Beach Harbor cannot be overstated. As far as you can see, meaning 5 - 8 miles, there are ships and the accompanying dock-side, monstrous container cranes.

A high school buddette, and life-long friend, Betsy promptly met us at the pier and took us around by car. We traversed a particular bridge that was used for a chase scene in the movie, “To Live and Die in L.A.”, for which Betsy was Assistant Director. We're looking forward to renting the movie again.

Not getting enough of the cruise ship thing, Betsy, Jeanne and I had lunch on the original Queen Mary. Presently it is permanently docked and used as a hotel, restaurant, and small convention center. The differences in styling and construction were noticeable. There are compound curves throughout, meaning that the decks, railings and bulkheads follow traditional, sloping, contour lines, rather than the boxy, straight lines of modern liners.

Even though we'd been on-board for 17 days, it seemed like we were just beginning the voyage while leaving Los Angeles. Except that now, even 3 days after that, heading towards Carl and Carla's in Hawaii - while we've been on our way around the world now for weeks, we don't seem to be getting away from the US.

The trip from LA to HI; again, the Pacific has been different than what I've experienced in the Atlantic. The long swells never stop. Wind has been mostly medium to heavy, meaning 15 - 25 kts., first from the north and then from the east. When it has calmed to almost nothing, the swells are still 6' - 8', have a distance of +/- 100 yards between peaks. From discussion, the seas may lay down closer to the equator. Presently, we have some low clouds, and may see some weather prior to arrival tomorrow in Honolulu.

The food battle continues. In the gym, the PRECOR elliptical machine is getting an hour out of me almost every day. That's followed by a half-hour or so on the other machines.

Robert Macomber came on board in LA as a lecturer. Bob is a charter member of our southern club, the Caloosahatchee Marching and Chowder Society. While his lectures at CMCS were interesting, we didn't realize that he is a player on the international lecture scene, and a renowned expert on the subject of shipping during the period from Columbus to WWI. By the way, that subject is more interesting than it sounds. Besides the “retail” subjects like pirates and treasure, history at that time was shaped by naval power. Anyway, we share our favorite local band, the Yard Dogs, and Bob - who is our age - remembers horses grazing where our Sandarac condo is located.

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, aka RADA, is on-board in the form of 4 graduates who are giving lessons on acting. Over 100 people showed up. None of us is kidding ourselves, meaning that what people seem to be intent on is not learning how to be an actor, but how to be more proactive on how one acts - as in “act your age, not your shoe size”. Anyway, I have to get up in front of sailors at most regattas. For me and the RC, the better my talk goes, the better the regatta goes. This might help with that, plus the class is enjoyable. In a week or so they will cast a few of us in a play. However, just prior to that, I will give an unsolicited interpretation of “anxiously running away”, which will be performed with blurring clarity.

We were accompanied by “Stella”, the given name of our GPS's voice, on our visit with Carl and Carla. Stella was only one source for many of the laughs we had during our combined tour of Oahu. As Carl said, spending a few days in Honolulu is like visiting Chicago for the weekend. Not a big island at about 30 miles across, it has 6 lanes of freeway traffic, all jammed-up at rush hours. The whole time I kept wondering, “It's a small island. Where could they all be going?” Anyway, the weather was a low ceiling of clouds and an occasional sprinkle, so we opted for coastline vistas and views of the landscape until the mountains disappeared into the clouds.

The surfers were out, as were the outrigger canoes. We were there on a weekday, and it was amazing how much activity there is with these canoes. It's not a tourist thing. Every possible entity had them, including high schools, colleges, hotels, yacht clubs, other private clubs, and on and on. Like sailing, they appeared to have an agreed upon, one-design - meaning that the paddlers make the difference, not the craft. They were everywhere, and it looked like there are serious competitions between them.

Diamond Head, that iconic image. It turned-out to be the quintessential short attention span, tourist exercise. Instead of tediously hiking the mountain to the top in order to look down across the massive (inactive) volcanic crater, a two-lane tunnel was blasted through the side of the mountain. You drive in, take a look around, sort of like a sub-division cul-de-sac, the turn around and drive out. Done in a matter of 3 minutes, never got out of the car.

That saved us almost enough time for cocktails at the Waikiki Yacht Club. Carl had his NLYC membership card, which, together with airs of financial responsibility extending to at least a round of drinks, gave us instant reciprocity. A sailing club is a sailing club. Location doesn't seem to make much of a difference. This one had a Friday Night Series, and a Weekend Series for PHRF and one-designs. There were Lasers, Opti's and others on the racks for sailing school. Most important/typical was that it had Mount Gay on the speed rail, and friendly people at the bar.

While enjoying the WYC, surprise, surprise, I totally lost track of time. “Hyacinth” and “Onslow” (“Richard” is not the correct image here) were 20 minutes late returning to the ship. The ship operates on the same philosophy as the Kettle Moraine High School Band: “If you're early, you're on-time. If you're on-time, you're late. If you're late, we're gone.” All the gang-planks were up except the one for the deck-hands that help untie the ship. Luckily (especially for Onslow) they were still topping-off the fuel tanks, which held the ship over long enough for us to hop aboard. (WHEW!)

As luck would have it, being late boarding in Hawaii served well for this next item. There are many traditions from the British Royal Navy that were begun, taken up by most of the rest of the nautical world, and show no signs of receding. This particular one involves individuals crossing the equator for the first time. The “Neptune's Ball” ritual involves mythology, which has always been a part of life on the high seas. It is similar to the Bilgepullers initiation, which is maybe where the Bilgepullers initiation came from. “King Neptune” takes over the ship and administers the transformation of a “pollywog” becoming a “shellback”. One of the steps in the ceremony is where King Neptune decides on forgiving a single transgression that is representative of all one's transgressions. A requirement of the transgression is that it has to be real. Causing the ship to remain in port in Honolulu was a no-brainer.

The overcast that came on one day prior to Hawaii and stayed on one day after Hawaii has finally lifted. The seas have been the same since leaving LA. There are swells about 5' - 8', with short chop on top of them. Unlike the Gulf of Mexico, there are a number of patterns to the swells and waves. As a result there continues to be ship's movement, meaning slight rocking. It is great for sleeping, but there is never a moment that you might forget that you are on a ship.

Pago Pago in a couple days.

All is well,

Jeff