San Diego: a silver evening.

I tried to upload photos that show the silver or perhaps pewter, but the system does not seem to be working.  We are better, at least some of us, than the platforms.

So take my word for it—and as I recently wrote to a magazine editor I care more for my words than for my voyages—it is a gray evening.  That is good.  

As I have noted here the ‘boating’ season ends in San Diego as in places in this nation with less temperate climates, in early September on Labor Day.   

Few people are around now, both on the docks, and on the water.  The kayak rental business is dead.  In the little more than twenty-four hours I have been back, only a handful of kayakers and stand up boarders have passed.  Yet this is perhaps the best part of the year.  

I arrived yesterday around noon.  Kevin, my marina neighbor and friend, had offered to pick me up at the airport, which is only three or four miles from the marina, and we then went and had lunch at the Royal Rooster on the other side of Quivira Basin which may have the best tacos in the world.  Certainly their carne asada taco is the best I have ever had.

After lunch I found GANNET in good condition.  Kevin had hosed some bird droppings off that morning.  The interior was understandably musty, but Southern California being a desert dry and mold free.

I slept well after listening to Bach accompanied by sea lions on deck in the evening.  During the night sea lions woke me from time to time.  One must have been swimming close to GANNET.  He was very loud.

This morning I scrubbed the deck and then walked to the supermarket to get essential supplies.  Although I Ubered back, my watch tells me I walked four miles today.

In Evanston we have a very nice condo.  The interior space is light, comfortable and convenient.  I appreciate that.  Life on GANNET is inconvenient.  I love being with Carol.  I love being on GANNET.  Convenience is not the highest value.

I am settled in.

I have arranged for a diver to scrub GANNET’s bottom on Friday.  I have inventoried provisions and find that with only a few additions I have enough on board, once I fill jerry cans with water, to sail to Hawaii.  I don’t intend to sail to Hawaii, but I expect to sail some next week.  I will turn the Yellowbrick on if any want to follow.

There are more big birds here than two months ago.  Cranes or egrets, perhaps both.  I am not sure.

Sitting on deck an hour ago, sipping tequila, watching birds and a few kayakers, listening to Vangelis’s OPERA SAUVAGE, I felt peace and serenity.  You know that if I could live wherever I want, I would be in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, but I can’t, and, although I have lived almost half my life in the Midwest, San Diego’s Mission Bay and Mission Beach are more truly my land home than anywhere else.  Careful readers may recall that I quoted the Greek poet Kazantzakis Ulysses, ‘my voyages have been my native home.’  My voyages have been my home, but so is Carol.

I love being with her.  I love being here.  I love being a thousand miles from land.  And I have had all.