Dana Point to San Diego

We departed from Dana Point at 5:45 AM under clear skies and calm winds. As we headed out of the harbor we could see a large very dark cloud of smoke on the horizon. It took us about 2 hours to reach this cloud and once under it we could not see the sun and were constantly bombarded by ash and soot. Destiny’s light gray decks were soon layered with black. It took several hours for us to transit through this into something that was smoky but not quite so bad. While we were about 7 miles offshore, we picked up a passenger, a baby Warbler according to our Bird book. We think he was probably blown out to sea by the strong easterly winds and may not have made it were it not for our being there. He stayed with us for 2 to 3 hours and once the air cleared a little and we were closer to shore he was gone.

We were able to secure dock space at the very primo San Diego Yacht Club where we’ll stay until we depart for Mexico on Monday, October 29. We’ve already heard about SDYC members who lost their homes and everything in them to the devastating fires now happening in this area. We can wash the soot off the boat but their lives have been turned upside down for quite a while. Rod and Peggy Kidd will join us Friday and night and will be our welcome crew until we reach Cabo San Lucas. The four us have been talking about doing the Baja Ha-Ha rally/cruise for at least the last 5 years so it’s very exciting to know that we’ll actually be doing it. The next time your hear from us we should be somewhere in Mexico.