Greetings Nauticarazians. Welcome back…
First, we know we came raging into this world with our new boat, set up this site, then… (insert sounds of crickets here).
Admittedly, we dropped the blog ball, but not without good reason. Nauticarazi has gone through a bit of a minor refit. We’ve had plenty of issues to over come, too many really, but hey this is the cruising life.
So let’s pick up where we left off.
We took possession of Nauticarazi on June 27th (our first Anniversary) in Newport Harbor in Southern California. We packed a few days of clothes, along with a lot of cleaning supplies, and a tool bag. Our plan was to cruise up the coast to the Port of LA, and then make the long run back to Ventura. We figured we’d be there in a few days. Oh, those famous last words.
Little did we know that the diesel fuel inside Nauticarazi had been sitting there for more than five years. We got to find this fun fact out the hard way while we were out in the open ocean and lost engine power. As intrepid sailors we sailed up into Alamitos Bay, and then did what all real sailors do, called TowBoatUS. They towed us in at Alamitos Bay Marina where we busted out the tool bag and got to work. Boat is an ancronym: Bring Out Another Thousand. We’d like to say that the fuel issues were fixed from that point. But that’s not the case. We’ll come back to that later.
That initial hiccup made our 2 day trip turn into a 7 days. First lesson learned: pack at least double the clothes and food than you think you need. We finally made it to our homebase marina in Ventura and have had Nauticarazi here since. Oh, did we mention we didn’t have a permanent slip for our boat when we arrived? We got to play musical slips for 4 months until we got our permanent slip. Paying for a guest slip was another painful expense, as guest slips are more costly than a permanent slip. Happy to report that it was worth the wait — we are out in the channel in an end slip with great views and good neighbors.
Other than the aforementioned fuel issues, which will deserve a post of its own, we’ve also had to replumb the head in the master cabin, with a brand new electric toilet. The Raritan Elegance is fantastic with push button simplicity. Plus, our new PVC plumbing upgrade has eliminated “those” odors so common in most boats.
Our electronics set up has improved. We added a new AIS transceiver for safety and our old autopilot gave out, so we’ve upgraded to the new one from Raymarine, which is really nice.
We heat our boat with a Webasto Diesel heater that has taken up plenty of our time and money while ensuring a few weeks of cold nights, but we persevered and once again maintain cabin temperature of 73° during the cold central coast California nights – with lows reaching as cold as 45… I know! How did we go without the Wabasto for so long?
There is so much more to tell, but the minutia of it all would make this post so long it would be unreadable. So we’ll close with some photos from our sailing adventures to the Channel Islands and Santa Barbara.
– Steve & Sanaz