It looks like Wednesday was our one and only nice day and the weather has been slowly deteriorating since then. We still had sunshine on Thursday but, with the cloud cover, it was much cooler so I spent most of my time swinging in the Air Chair, a hammock-like concoction, reading and enjoying the view while David (you guessed it) played the guitar. And then they arrived. Turning calm into chaos. Two speedboats full of teenagers from Camp Malibu...leaving empty, only to return full again – the season has officially begun! And that's not necessarily a good thing.
Ray and Leah left this morning at six while we decided to give it one more day and used the time to clean the boat and pack everything away. We're glad that we did. A Northwind 58 called Bluefin carrying the Australian flag came in yesterday, and by staying we were able to meet Julie and David, who recently bought the boat in Southern California from a sailing school in Orange County. It'd been donated a couple years ago by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, an avid sailor, who apparently didn't like it after paying over two million dollars to have it built. They're a lovely couple: Julie reminding us of one of dear friends in New Zealand; and David, like most Aussie men we've met, an exceptional storyteller.
The afternoon slack tide brought a slew of boats to Chatterbox including a young man from Australia who was a “Chatterbox Virgin” and had it written all over his face. He was absolutely glowing from head to toe – I love that look but, more than that, I love the feeling which we still get every time we come here. It's absolutely euphoric!
A 27-foot sailboat that, when coming through the rapids, lost its depth sounder was also among the afternoon's arrivals and David went down to help diagnose the problem. Long story short, her house battery is carrying the load and not getting charged by the alternator while underway due to poor installation, so David brought it down to Cambria to charge it. He only managed to get 30 or 40 amp hours back in – her system needs to be reconfigured – but it should be enough to get them out safely. In return, she gave him a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio as a thank you – a classy, but unnecessary touch!
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