My addiction to Alameda houses continues.So I pushed Geoff away from the Yard dock with the new standing rigging tuned and as he motored back around to our Marina Village berth in the late afternoon, I drove the car back round. It feels great to have everything in A1 condition with the rigging, very reassuring.
While we were waiting for all the tuning to be completed this morning we went across to Oakland to Golden State Diesel Marine, local agents for Yanmar engines. We met the wonderful and sort of infamous Barbara. She and her husband ran the business that are agents for about 5 engine brands and stocks a very large range of parts. Sometime back her husband died and Barbara continued to run the business. She is a lovely older lady who looks like your Mum and could hold a conversation with a mechanic! She is amazing! Her knowledge of marine engines, their working parts, their individual problems and how to rectify them is astounding. Geoff told her what our engine was and what we are planning to do and for the next 45 minutes, she went through what spares we should carry, options for potential problems and general diesel marine engine chit chat. It was an entertaining and educational visit. We also now have her email address with the promise that she is very used to sending parts off to yachts all around the world.
After that we did a cruise through the main commercial heart of Alameda town centre looking for a coffee spot and ending up at the Organic Market. It was a pretty good coffee, but American coffee still doesn't hold up to New Farm or Main Beach espresso's!! They are generally very large mugs as the standard small size. They are weaker than we are used to, unless you are having a dripulator coffee. And quite a few come with flavourings and cream!!! The size is the thing that gets you, everything over here comes in VERY LARGE PORTIONS!!! The market was a pretty cool place full of urban hippies with dreds and hand knitted organic wool jumpers, made from sheep that only eat bean sprouts. :)))
We, of course didn't eat there, Geoff has grown attached to the Nob Hill Supermarket and we went back there for lunch from their Cafe/Deli section. Geoff's toasted Panini dead set had about 2" of corn beef on it!! It's entertaining to watch Geoff a small eater, try and get his mouth around the size of the sandwiches over here, the fillings are intense in height.
Everything else is all starting to come together, this is the completed 'to do' list so far: new rig, keel bolts tightened, new prop, 90% of the stores on board, engine spares done, Liferaft, dinghy, EPIRB, harnesses, life jackets, new Sea drogue anchor, spares for the Propane connections, new stereo, Sat phone, solar panel, 4 new batteries, new halyard for a spinnaker, 2nd hand spinnaker pole, wet weather gear, guide books for French Polynesia, Tonga, New Cal. Insurance, spare Auto steering drive, containers for food lockers, spares for electrical breakdowns, Jerry cans..... oh and the big news is we are now officially Australian Registered Vessel 'Sea Otter II' home port Brisbane. We got the confirmation email today. Yay!!
So all that we have left to do now is, get the Solar Panel framed mounted, Geoff has to do an engine service and a outboard motor service. We have to check the electric anchor windlass works. Get our hands on a 2nd hand Spinnaker. Get that Satellite phone plan started and buy some courtesy flags for France, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Vanatu and New Caledonia. Buy some new charts, get a stock of prescription antibiotic's and medicines, get 100' of new chain and put the fresh food and refrigerated food on board. Phew...still sounds like a lot hey?? But considering we have been in California a month on Saturday, I think we've done ok.
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