Fun in the Sun

China Camp has been a lot of fun! We have gone hiking and swimming and have enjoyed playing board games with the kids. It feels like a step back in time to when they were little and enjoyed just sitting around listening to the radio and playing with their “Ma and Pa.” Stewart, Neil and I went swimming yesterday. Stewart practiced with his paddling and got out his surf board. I, not having swam in a while, thoroughly enjoyed being in the water and am really looking forward to warmer and clearer water. I think it’s a great way to get the exercise you will need after spending a few days barely moving. We are also glad we put up the hammocks. They were great to just sit, swing, drink your coffee, read…you name it! The only problem there is it is hard to get out! Haha. The panels are terrific for wind and sun break. I am really happy that all of our “theories” have been tested with great success! We still have a few issues to tend to, but for the most part it has been just lovely! We still have all the amenities of shore. Food, water, electricity, tv, games, internet card, and cell phones. Only now we have to limit the electronics to just a few hours a day. This may not sound like much but you really don’t realize how much power you use while on shore. So if we want to watch a movie we have to make sure we will have enough juice to sustain the anchor light all night. (that and I must have enough juice to grind my coffee in the am.…..to that note: a year or so ago, our batteries went dead on a sail back from Monterey and I had to take a hammer to the beans..we were desperate! Haha it worked). It is nice to see everything working well, especially after you, like most boaters, have spent a year’s worth of salary getting your “escape pod” ready! We are going to sail back over to Pt. Richmond later today or first thing in the morning as we need to move the car and the kids have a dental appointment. We haven’t sailed Hand Full as much as we would have liked but the two runs we gave her were pretty good! I think if we were worried about stressing her to test, we certainly got a good first couple of days to do so. One thing for sure is that we cannot sail with the dinghy on its davits. We sit a little too close to the water nowadays, but always did in this vessel. Hand Full, being an Islander 34, has not ever been very tall. She is more like a canoe. She is the only boat that doesn’t need a step to get on her dockside. When we are sailing with the dinghy on back, she is fine, until the boat heals over more than 15 degrees or the waves grow over 3 ft. In anchorage it is great to have it ready to go off the back and Neil made it incredibly easy to hoist her up and down. So, when we get ready to leave we will have to put it back up on the bow.*******check out the video***