12-31-2009 What an awesome day!!!

Besides washing both cars, getting the new fish acclimated and cleaning up around the house, we made our last trip of 2009 - hit the beach (as usual).

Beautiful weather down here in Gulfport today! What a great way to end the year!!!

New Fish

I ordered these guys yesterday and the FEDEX dude had them here today!!!

The kids were stoked to have:

A Humuhumunukunukuapuaa, a Porcupine Puffer and four new Three Stripe Damsels

While acclimating, the puffer looked like it was going to be the overly aggressive tankmate, taking nips at everyone in the 5 gallon bucket. But it was the triggerfish that quickly came out Alfa -

All the fish seem to have gotten settled -

More to follow!

Happy Christmas Kiting!

The family packed up and visited the rest of the Velascos in JAX over the Christmas weekend.

On Christmas, I got to get in a quick session (as in we had to get to my parent's house, and the wind was marginal at the beginning and only got worse as time went on), but considering my lack of waves over the past few months, anything felt better than nothing!

Also got to wake up every morning watching small waves break in front of sand dunes at upper Mayport Beach.

It's been several years since I've gotten a chance to play in the Atlantic (early 2004???)

Quickie

Punched out early today (heck I was on leave... ended spending 3/4 of the day in the office, but we are really busy - just watch the news) and took the boat out for a late afternoon sail.

5-13 kts on the NOAA Gulfport Port Weather Station during the late afternoon.

Got 12.1 mph on the GPS - not bad.

No crew today - kids are just getting over the flu and La doesn't like the cold. Maybe next time.

I did play around more with the reacher - I need to pay more attention to wrapping it tight enough before going out.

On our way to Jacksonville for the Holiday weekend!!! The forecast calls for some great winds!!!! I'm bringing a 16, a 12 and an 8!!!

HOOYAH

And the final post for tonight...

I got boat name stickers made!!!!

One for each side, placed high near the bows of the amas -

Check it out ;)

I had to pull the big Dakine sticker off the port ama - but the name didn't look good if I worked around the dakine sticker.

I love this boat!!!

And if you didn't already know, stickers make boats and boards go considerably faster so HOOYAH should top out somewhere between ludicrous speed and warp factor 7.

Port and Starboard

More boat stuff...

We were in Dick's Sporting Goods and in the camping section, they had these LED lights that pull quadruple duty - flashlight, non-chemical based light stick, blinker and whistle - nice combination for boat use!

One Port, one Starboard.

HOOYAH!

Reacher Fairlead

Here's the furler at the front of the bowsprit. Picked up a half-twist shackle to replace the straight shackle the boat came with. This should reduce the friction when deploying the reacher (not that it had much to begin with), but more importantly, it should keep the furling line straight so it doesn't bunch up in the furling drum.

The weather has SUCKED here lately so not much amphibious activity (high bacterial count from the high rainwater runoff).

Florida Panhandle Weekend

Took a couple of days to get the family reacquainted with Florida (La - the two kids have not really spent anytime there).

Cold weekend.

But got to see the BSP in Destin - the only one (to my knowledge) to have a saltwater aquarium!

Also checked out a couple of surf shops (Liquid Surf and Sail in Ft Walton Beach; Inner Light in Destin) - man do I miss the surf culture....

La finished up her second half marathon (HOO-YAH!!!)

Brought the standup paddle boards, but it was too cold for the kids to stay on the beach. Next time -

Fun weekend!

What a difference a day makes

The wind shifted from the NW to the W-WSW-SW and dropped from the highs of yesterday to 7-12 today.

Got to do a 6 mile downwinder from Pass Christian to Gulfport (across from the Waffle House on Broad and 90).

Got up to 7 mph riding calf high wind swell. Yeah I know it's not that big a deal, but hey - you got to take what you can get.

Sharky

This guy washed up on the beach where we launch the boat from.

Needless to say, the kids were fascinated by the shark.

Save the Jellys!!!

That was the mission Marlon and Noe accepted this afternoon -

Poor Noe discovered that some jellyfish do in fact sting (she stepped on one). These two kiddoroos still had no fear and had filled a bucket - with the goal to repatriate them to the ocean.

It's the simple things in life that count - I know what I'm thankful for!

Sailing Thanksgiving Day

We had some friends (Ave, Ray and Layali) over from Houston for the weekend - the wind was up (but from the NW) so we took HOOYAH out for a spin.

The wind was stiff - ranging from 10-17, to 20-27. More than a couple of times the leeward ama was buried deep and pushing the boat towards a capsize. Didn't go over - just close (rounding up slowed the boat down enough to get the ama to pop back up). Ray thought it was great, La got a little spooked - rightly so - she was out on the runs when the gusts were pushing 27 mph!!! What a salty trooper!!!

Ray and I got the boat up to 16 mph!!! I think the extra body weight in less winds allowed us to make the best of the situation. A new personal best on the boat!

All in all another beautiful day -

HOO-YAH!

New Garage

The Gulfport Garage!

This is the biggest garage I've had the privilege of using - room for La's van, some boxes from the household items and tons of room for my wind generated stoke extracting devices.

Mind you I'm not showing off, just sharing! If you are ever in the Gport neighborhood, give me a hollar, and we'll get us some good ol'e surfing in!!!

YEEE HAAWWW!

Maintenance

No usable wind down here...

How do you make constructive use of all the time you don't spend kiting/surfing/sailing?

Maintenance.

I haven't used these kites in a while - filled the struts to see if there were any leaks. Of course there were - wouldn't be maintenance if there weren't any leaks.

The kite is a prototype X4 12m. I have a nose line rigged for it (the only way to fly...)

Now I just need some wind!!!!

Cleared up

Here's the tank ready to go!!!

Sailing Sunday

Roger (the owner of the F28 I talked about last weekend) called and asked if I would like to crew today. I said yes and at 1000 this morning, I got to see he, Kenny, and Camielle step the mast. I learned alot.

Kenny couldn't make the sail afterwards, but the rest of us took the boat out - in horribly light wind (3-5kts).

I got to helm most of the way out and back from Cat Island. We beached the boat at the Northeastern tip of the island. These trimarans are awesome for this type of sailing!!! Shoaled in less than 1'!!!

On the leg back, we put up the kite and I learned alot about sailing downwind (more like broad-reaching) using an asymmetric.

Roger is the guy in the hold. Thanks amigo!!!

Great day!!!

Waiting for the dust to settle

Getting closer...

We actually went to the fish store (near Biloxi) and they had just sold their last porcupine puffer. That made the decision to wait a little easier.

I'll post more later today - the tank has actually cleared up alot.

2000 miles, a few less rocks, a new SCWD and we're back in business!

Oh well -

It would have been ultra nice to have been able to drive from our old place in Oxnard, down for the weekend to eat carne asada burritos from A'Dalbertos on Rosecrans, then watch the megatri BOR 90 as the sun sets over the horizon.

Why couldn't the America's Cup be held last year??!!>>$%#^&^%&%

Stupid litigation! Now I am stuck admiring all the development from afar -

It's no secret who I'm cheering on, and it would have been amazing to see them in person. Here's the boat at moor in San Diego Harbor (not far from the burrito capital of the universe). The night watch has rigged up some mooring sails to keep her bow to the wind. The blog I copied this from said the schooner in the back is a replica of 'America' for whom the Cup is named after. You couldn't have scripted a better picture!

Oh Well!

Photo credits to the guy whose name is in small print on the picture.

Kiting on Sunday

Fun day out at the beach. Winds were a bit puffy (10-20) but I put up the Shockwave to compensate.

This was La's inaugural foray back into kiting. Did some land based work today because of the gusty conditions.

If this place got winds like this all the time, I'd buy a house and stay here. Unfortunately, this apparently takes a Hurricane sitting a few degrees latitude below you to make blow....

It was fun while it lasted - BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES, REEF THE SAILS - A STORMS A BREWIN'!!!!!

Roger's Farrier

On the way to go kiting today, we passed by the Long Beach Yacht Club and the trimaran I've seen was being hitched to a truck. Turns out Hurricane Ida is headed North and will hit somewhere between here and Panama City, FL. The LBYC asked everyone to move their boats out of the area and that's how I met Roger.

We stopped by and talked to the owner (Roger) for awhile about his boat. It's a Farrier 28, built in 1998 and it's in great shape.

I told him we have a Weta and that we often launch from the eastern part of the LBYC. Turns out he has been sailing multihulls extensively and with age, he's turned from his Nacra 5.8 to this F28 to keep the thrills up without the drenching/pitchpoling/hull hauling factors that the cats give.

He invited me to crew for him one day - I left him my card and hopefully we'll go sailing soon!!!

This is one of the boats I've been eyeing to get once we plant roots. Having a chance to crew one will be awesome!

White Clouds

Everyone except me thinks a tank full of caridina shrimp is boring. I got ganged up on at the fish store about the need for fish in the small tank.

After a great deal of debate, seven White Clouds were bagged up and taken home with us.

I watched them closely after the acclimatization period to make sure they wee not going to eat the juvenile shrimp - so far so good.

They are pretty active and add a nice touch.

Big Shrimp, Little Shrimp

A couple of the clutches have hatched and transformed into the sub-adult phase. The tough older shrimp that made the journey across country, that have been passing slowly, but surely are now being replaced. I lost about 10 of the 30 that made the drive out.

If you look closely at the pictures, you'll see one of the new kids on the block - perfect replica of the larger (but in reality, still small) shrimp - everything is relative...

There are still a few more shrimp holding clutches of eggs - life goes on