Friday November 2 Blog by John

Location: 27 41.8' N, 114 52.6' W, Turtle Bay
Date: November 2, 2018
Time: 7:30pm

Day two in Turtle Bay started off with Diane, Shelley and Roxy going on an early morning hike to the top of a nearby hilltop with fabulous vistas of the anchorage and surrounding hills. On the way back from their hike, they motored around the anchorage to say "hi" to some of our fellow cruises. Meanwhile, Anna and I slept in and then spent the morning sitting in sun in the cockpit talking about how much we love cruising life.

Each morning the Ha-Ha fleet joins the morning net on channel 69. The net starts with a roll call of all the boats, broken down by division.  At the end of the roll call the Grand Poobah provides everyone an update on the expected weather, events of the day or simply asking if anyone lost a flip-flop the day before. Once all the formalities are taken care of, the net is open for anyone was has a question. For example, this morning there was a discussion about whether we should all change our clocks when the time changes back to Standard Time. The final portion of the net is devoted to a Q&A session for anyone having mechanical issues.  You realize how resourceful cruisers are at fixing things by listening to all the advice provided. Everything from how to fix a Raymarine auto-pilot to diagnosing alternator problems. The responses are not only interesting, but sometimes very funny.

By noon we were cleaned-up, sun-screened, and ready to hit the beach for the Turtle Bay beach party. We moved Celtic Song to a new location just off the shore from the party. By the time we arrived, the beach was full of cruisers with hot dogs and beers in their hands. The music was playing (power provided by a Honda generator) and sailors were dancing.  We even managed to get a large group photo on the beach with most of the 500 sailors participating in the Ha-Ha. For the nineteenth year in a row, the women beat the men at the tug-of-war contest.

We came back to Celtic Song after a day in the sun for some of Roxy's awesome cooking. After some navigation planning and prep, we are ready to leave first thing in the morning for our 40 hour sail Bahia Santa Maria.

John