Pretty easy and calm day today waiting for Gregg to arrive from southern California. Unfortunately he emailed with some bad news around noon today. After arriving at LAX to board his plane to Loreto somehow he had some issues with his passport and was not allowed to board the plane. So...he informed me that he is on a bus to Tijuana and then going to grab a bus down here to Loreto. I'm impressed with his determination to get down here. I'm not sure he realizes just how long of a bus ride he is in for. Yikes! Have yet to hear from him again but I am assuming he will be down here sometime late tomorrow afternoon. I have driven it several times from SoCal and it is a solid 16 hours in a car. I can't imagine how long it will be on a bus that stops in every little town in Baja. Gregg...you are the man!
Today was the first day of Loreto Fest, an annual cruiser get together that is held here in Puerto Escondido. I attended a couple cool seminars/talks, one hosted by a guy named Stan Honey. Google him, he is a top ranked, highly sought after race navigator for high stakes ocean races like the TransPac, ARC, Fastnet and many others. He has hundreds of thousands of ocean miles in a sailboat and has worked world class boats owned by Ted Turner and many other of the mega rich ocean racing buffs for the last 40 years. His is also the creator of SailMail and AirMail, the very program that I use to send out this email every day. Amazing guy, amazing resume and yet very humble and approachable. He spoke for an hour today about ocean racing navigation tactics, equipment, forecasting, etc. I chatted with him at the same table at the pot luck at the end of the day. Amazing that someone of that caliber is here in Escondido. He is here with his wife Sally, a world class sailboat racer in her own right, on their Cal 40. Cruising the Sea of Cortez during one of the rare breaks in their busy lives.
Other than that it was a pretty easy, calm, warm day here in Escondido. Fun to hang out with some of my new friends and meet others. However, in the cruising world I'm a kid as the average age is probably 65-70. Not really my typical crowd but I'm just happy to be here. Happier next year when Marne will be at my side sharing all of this with me.
Bret
SV Liahona
No comments:
Post a Comment