Wednesday, June 20

---

Today started for me at 6am, but for Peter and Harry at midnight, when they switched watches. We arrived at Pillar Point, in Half Moon Bay at 7:30am, well ahead of our anticipated arrival time. I had the pleasure of bringing the boat in to the fuel dock on little sleep and an empty stomach. We only crashed a little bit hard. It’s been hard to figure out the whole speed/momentum thing, as well as the depth perception necessary to get the boat close enough to the dock for Harry to step off without breaking his neck. Peter has been the perfect crew during these maneuvers: absolutely quiet.

Lucky for me, after we’d fueled up, I had another opportunity to practice docking, as we decided to get a transient slip in the marina for the night. But this time, I had tremendous success! I moved the boat at a pace that would have impressed a turtle. We lumbered like a big, slow whale into the slip without incident.

We had our first meal off the boat, a breakfast that we could hardly eat because we’ve been hardly eating in the first place. Harry and I staggered off to showers while Peter read the paper. Then we fell into our bunk and slept for a couple of hours. I wanted to sleep all day but duty called: laundry.

At the laundry facilities, I met Cecily, a fellow cruiser who'd come the same route as us, back in August of 06. When she and her husband, Leland, arrived in Pillar Point, they decided to stay a couple of days. They're still here! Leland decided to rescue an 82 year-old fising boat and resurrect it as a harbor cruise boat, with the proceeds going to an educational fund for the fishermens' children. As Cecily describes it, "Oh, he just had the idea, I guess." Their website is www.schoonervoyage.com. Cecily and I had a super time together and she offered to take me grocery shopping, since they had a car here! (This offer warmed my heart and reminded me how important it is for us to remember to take care of each other.) So I tootled off to Safeway and the hardware store with Cecily, provisioned us nicely and even bought a new wire whisk (one tool I'd really been missing).

We invited Cecily and Leland out for dinner, to thank them for running me all over town. It was such fun! Leland has stories upon stories, and the hands of a man who spent 29 years building his own beautiful sail boat. The three of us and the two of them had such a lovely evening. I'm going to look for more meetings like this in our future harbors.

Peter has been putting together plans to leave our vessel! We knew he'd be de-boating at about this time, but it's tough to see him go. He has obligations, though, and we can only guarantee him access to major transportation right now, here in Pillar Point. We're about twenty minutes south (by car, not boat) of San Francisco.

Tomorrow Harry and I will head out on our own, bound for Crescent City and our first over-night with just the two of us. This day has been eternal and as I write this, I can hardly believe it's almost midnight and I'm still alert. We spent some time on Cecily and Leland's boat getting weather reports, plus Harry and Peter did some major work on the head (that's "toilet" for you landlubbers). We're right as rain now, and I'm going to fall into bed.



Late note: I just realized that all the photos I've posted for tomorrow's entry should have been with this one! You can figure it out.

---