Skype Me!!

A typical suburban street in Alameda on a lovely Sunday morning!
My lovely friend Wendy in her business the 'Dock Cafe' just opened 5 weeks ago
Yeah I couldn't resist adding another pic of another Fab home
A funky, very cool music store in Webster Street

No I am not swearing! Skype has just come on board Sea Otter and as some of you have already found out, Skype is computer based cheap phone call technology. I actually joined Skype back at Main Beach, but for some reason, probably all the running around with boats and boat issues...I totally forgot about it! Then yesterday it came up somehow, so I was explaining to Geoff that you can call someone even if they don't have Skype on their computer. He didn't believe me, so looked it up on Google and of course....you can. It's not free, but it is pretty damn cheap! So that motivated me to go out today to Radio Shack on the other side of Alameda Island and buy the headset you need. Now we have Skype. Which means we can ring you when ever or where ever we are that we have Internet connection on board (or even from a Internet Cafe) for only .3 cents a minute to a land line or .21 a minute to a mobile....not bad hey?

Whilst I was out enjoying myself today by walking the 5 kms back to the boat from Radio Shack, in the fabulous Sunday sunshine, taking backstreets to see more FABULOUS homes and popping in to visit my friend Wendy at her business 'Dock Cafe' to have an espresso and a chat, then having lunch at the Sushi Smoothie before heading back to the boat 5 hours after I left!!! Ok, it sounds like I have left Geoff with all the work I know, but he was running the wire to connect the solar panel to the batteries. And it required most of the day, with the floorboards up and him drilling into fiberglass to feed wires through bulkheads etc, etc....so it was better I was not around to get in his way. Well.. that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!

He is pretty amazing at what he can do around a boat and is very happy that after most of the week at the yard dock, yesterday the Solar panel and the new stainless steel bridge was finally installed on our stern. Though it of course ran over budget, even with Geoff spending most of the day helping them install it! Now tomorrow he can do the final run of wires to the panel and hopefully we will have free solar power topping up those four big beastly batteries. Whoo Hoo! Now we just need that self steering gear to arrive, so the guys can install that!

This coming week we will go back to San Fran for a day and go see Customs about what we need to do to clear out of the USA and get a nice exit clearance ready for our next port of call. Plus of course do some more wanderings around SF, hmm maybe the North Shore would be nice this time...visit some of the old Italian Cafes and walk around the Golden Gate bridge or through the Presido park? And of course we will do another shake down sail, to check out the spinnaker and how the boat is handling as we keep loading the gear onto her. Maybe even anchor out for the night at Angel Island. That is if the wind backs off...today has been pretty blowy and now the afternoon is pretty cold.

That's about it for news over the last two days. However expect a few phone calls being made before we leave the Marina and the Internet connection!!