5/26/2002 - 6/23/2002
Within the hours of arriving in Santa Barbara, the feeling of arriving home swept over us. While living in Santa Barbara, the major event of ordering Whisper, choosing the multitude of options and visiting the yard (the yard is where a boat is built) in Sweden occurred. The acquisition of our first land-based home transpired here. We also grew our first tomatoes and herbs in the garden here. Many lasting friendships started while living in Santa Barbara. Needless to say, Santa Barbara holds a special place in our hearts.
Chalk Madonna
Doesn't look like when we used to draw with chalk on sidewalk
The town of Santa Barbara looks for many reasons or themes to justify a festival or party. Discovering our arrival coincided with the weekend of the I Madonnari festival was a pleasant surprise. This festival consists of local businesses or organizations buying squares of sidewalk to create chalk drawings. Over the course of the weekend, plain concrete evolves into an art gallery on the grounds of the Santa Barbara Mission. Another fun festival is the Solstice festival. Around mid-June, people dress up in costumes and build floats to parade down State Street. A few months before the Solstice festival, a theme is announced. This year the announced theme was "Circus". The theme does not always influence the costumes or floats. People in the parade as well as observers prance around with butterfly wings, halos, or other wacky dress cracking confetti filled eggs on people's heads. After the parade, people eat drink and listen to music either at the festival park or local restaurants.
Every party needs a pink elephant
A Solstice sun
Robin cooked - it's a salad
As many of you know, Duncan and I thoroughly enjoy eating out at restaurants. Slowly, Robin is developing her cooking skills purely to reduce the expenditures in the eating out budget category. However, many of the fine restaurants in Santa Barbara somehow made it in to the budget. Sushi at Pirhana, great fish at Rocks, Mexican food at El Paseo and Left at Albuquerque, seafood at Brophy's, breakfast at D'Angelos....yes, we exceeded the budget. With four different movie theaters on State street, we sampled summer movies including Insomnia, Star Wars (really bad), Sum of All Fears, Bourne Identity and Minority Report. Beach volleyball is huge on East Beach. During our stay, an AVP beach volleyball tournament took place on East Beach. Both men and women pairs displayed phenomenal strength, agility and skill while we basked in the sun and breeze in the stands. In between fun stuff, Duncan fixed the remote VHF microphone in the cockpit and added a few coats of varnish to our teak drink holder.
Bruce, Zeke, Duncan, Robin and Ryl
One reason to arrive in Santa Barbara when we did was to attend a party to "celebrate" the closing of the Robin's former office at Alias|Wavefront (AW). Silicon Graphics decided to close the AW office here and the employees organized a reunion for all former employees of the Santa Barbara office. Over 200 people attended the BBQ at a park in Mission Canyon. As a result, we visited with several friends from the Bay Area as well as local friends. Russ, Leslie, Gabe, Bruce Wilson, Sheryl, Zeke, Spam, Bruce Hickey and many other former co-workers attended the party. Without the Santa Barbara office of AW, our stint of living in Santa Barbara would only be a fantasy for us. Another treat was getting to see one of Robin's friends from her old job at Kintana, Dave Gauthier. During Dave's visit to a friend in Santa Barbara, we went to lunch and movie.
Racing in and out of fog
The Santa Barbara Yacht Club (SBYC) is perched on the beach by the harbour with a 180 degree view of the ocean. Whisper spent a week of our stay in Santa Barbara at the yacht club dock. Finally, our yacht club membership payed off with significantly lower rates at the SBYC dock. On Wednesdays, the yacht club organizes Wet Wednesday races and BBQ. Every Wednesday, we observed the races from the deck of the yacht club. The SBYC race organization and participation outshines any of the yacht club races attended on our way down the coast. Many different classes of boats race and the start/finish line is right in front of the club. Just to add spice to the races, the marine layer occasionally enshrouded the boats in fog. Like ghosts, the boats disappear in the fog and then magically reappear. How the boats avoid hitting each other is amazing.
Nice Digs and a bathtub
During dinner one evening with friends Rose and Bill, they mentioned an upcoming trip to Las Vegas to celebrate the birthday of Rose's brother, Alan. They just so happened to have an extra two night reservation for a hotel room at the Venetian for $59/night. Robin's eyes lit up and inquired, "Does the room have a bathtub?". Extended showers and an occasional bath become a luxury when you live on a boat. Before we knew it, we drove their 2001 VW bug across the desert and arrived at our suite at the Venetian hotel. The room was beautiful, huge and inexpensive -- thanks Rose and Bill! After several showers and baths, Bill taught us the ropes of Vegas. In our past trip to Vegas, we only spent our money in restaurants since neither of us knows much about gambling. Bill, on the other hand, knows how to gamble. After teaching us the tricks of video poker, Bill said, "Come on, let's play at a card table". To non-gamblers, sitting at a table in Vegas is very intimidating both from a monetary standpoint as well as a "don't know the ropes' perspective. Plus, losing precious cruising kitty in Vegas definitely did not pass by the budget committee. Then, Bill said, "We'll use my money". How could we refuse? With Bill's money and coaching, Robin played 'Let It Ride' at a table. In less than two hours, Robin lost Bill's money, but we at least received free drinks. A fun side trip to Vegas ended with a beautiful drive back in the bug. Rose and Bill stayed in Vegas for the rest of the week which allowed us to use their car to make trips to the grocery, to drive by our old house and to drive to Montecito for dinner at Cava. What a treat to have a car for a week.
Too Much Wine in Vegas?
Our car for a week
After we both recovered from colds and Robin recovered from food poisoning, plans to leave Santa Barbara started to form. The next stop on the agenda is Santa Cruz Island in the Channel Islands. Most of the island is owned by the Nature Conservancy. To go ashore on the island, a landing permit must be obtained. Normally, this is a simple task. In this case, the office of the Nature Conservancy conveniently located by the harbour on Stearns Wharf burned the week before we arrived in Santa Barbara resulting in no way to pick up an application or receive a landing permit. Eventually, a temporary office opened at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and we dropped off our application for a permit.
As Duncan discovered in Morro Bay, an issue with the genset causes the voltage not to properly regulate. Dave Thompson from Fischer Panda, the manufacturer of the genset, visited us in Santa Barbara to further diagnose the issue. The current thinking is that the voltage regulator circuit board needs to be replaced. Dave left us with the hope a new circuit board may arrive prior to departing Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, the board did not arrive before we departed.
Why is this man smiling?
The final task prior to leaving for Santa Cruz Island involved Duncan making a decision on the state of his employment with Intuit. His leave of absence was scheduled to end on July 10. As the conclusion of the leave approached, we both knew that six months of our sailing sabbatical did not satiate our need for adventure and exploration, so Duncan has officially terminated his employment with Intuit. Now, two unemployed dreamers continue their travels south in search of warm weather and turquoise waters.