Harbor Cruise on Valentines Day

It's Valentines Day and we went for a harbor cruise with Victoria and Elena. It was supposed to rain this weekend so we didn't really plan on going sailing. Victoria and Elena visitied a private school in Ojai yesterday and spent the night with us. They had to return for the airport in the early afternoon so we didn't really have much time for a sail. I headed down to the boat an hour earlier and finished sealing the new electric sockets that I installed last weekend.

When the crew arrived we ate lunch and motored through Channel Islands Harbor and back. It was a beautiful clear day and we got to test the autopilot for the first time. Everything worked great!















One the way back I spotted a nice Islander Freeport 36 which just might be my next boat. They're well built and have lots of headroom!

Some recent photos

We've spent quite a bit of time down at the boat this winter - unfortunately most of it has been at the slip! Not that that's a bad thing - we love our marina, and especially D-Dock, which has the most awesomest of awesome boaters we've ever met. We love hanging out with the D-Dock crowd!

But it has been a rather cold and, some weekends, rainy winter, which has not been very conducive to actually taking Julianne out. Still, we have made it to Santa Cruz a couple of times, and done a few day-sails. Here's sunset over Anacapa, looking from the stern of Julianne at Smugglers in Santa Cruz:















A view of Smuggler's Cove, Santa Cruz:















I'd gone hoop-netting the night before we left, and ended up with two nice-sized lobsters and a HUGE rock crab. Here they are, ready to be cooked up for dinner...and then, on the plate in front of Charlie:















On the way home we encountered a pod of dolphins. I couldn't get too many decent shots (they move so fast!), but I got a few:

































The night of the annual Parade of Lights was horrendously windy, and FREEZING cold! Still, our entire dock pulled out all the stops in decorating our boats, and D-Dock ended up glowing brighter than the Las Vegas Strip!















Naturally we won the harbor-wide contest for the best-decorated dock, rewarding us with a catered dock party (to be held in March). We celebrated with a party of our own at the clubhouse:















...followed by a frigid night of watching the lit-up boats from other docks go sailing by:















Here's a shot of our new brass bell, mounted in the galley so I can call the skipper and crew to dinner:

We've been enjoying the boat!

It's been several months since we've posted anything... so I thought it would be good to give an update. We've been using the Julianne pretty regularly and have made a number of incremental improvements to her. We've done a number of daysails with friends and a couple of over night trips to Santa Cruz Island. Julianne has proven to be a comfortable and confidence inspiring boat!

Our new brass ships clock and "comfortmeter" are functional and beautiful. They balance out the brass ships bell and gas light that we acquired last summer.







We also replaced the remaining two broken original equipment solar vents with new ones. The vent above the head sink is solar with battery backup which enables it to run continuously day and night. The constant air flow keeps the boat smelling nice and fresh.



Yesterday I installed an Autohelm tiller pilot. It fit nicely just above the cockpit coaming with a clean and unobtrusive brass socket mount. I routed the wires through a new deck fitting and out of the way down to the main electrical panel. The tiller pilot will make Julianne a lot easier to handle single or short handed... especially during our longer trips to the Channel Islands.