Winter – This Blog Returns to the Moment

Here we are freezing in Monterey again. I am mostly just standing around waiting to drive Chloe to her next event. School – homework - school – doctor – hair – school – mom's house - party – homework – school. I just stand here in the apartment looking out at the dreary grey uninviting Monterey Bay. I'm making an effort to see all the local friends while I'm here. While my general rule is that no plan is the best plan, I have made a tentative plan because airlines, boat sellers and such see business differently. I will dawdle here in Monterey for a few days. Then go to Mexico to take the old spoiled cheese out of her fridge, check the docklines, pickle the watermaker and have a few fun days with the friends there. I'll return to Mexico at the end of February to sail Eupsychia up to Monterey where she should have an easier time finding a buyer.

When the purchase of Red Sky is completed, and there is nothing simple about international business, I will fly to Malaysia. The current owners are leaving immediately for an extended stay ashore in Thailand. I will take the boat a few hundred miles north to the island of Langkawi. Chloe and I visited there during the Christmas holiday and found Langkawi is a popular yachting center. While there I will haul the '50 out of the water to freshen up the bottom paint. I am planing on having time for a short cruise before I need to fly back to Monterey and Mexico.

This Santa Cruz 50 is presently named Red Sky. She's been cruised by Steve and Carol Easterbrook to Southeast Asia over the past few years after an extensive refit in San Francisco. Prior to that she was sailed in the San Francisco area by Bartz and Bernadette Schneider as Entropy. The records become sketchy, but apparently she was at times sailed as Cara, Clark Kent and Six Belles by various owners perhaps in Florida and on the East Coast. She's hull number 23, built in 1982. Standard size rig plus an inner headstay. Standard keel but a newer carbon elliptical rudder. Her interior is typical. She's encumbered by a good bit of the necessary cruising gear but I believe I can cruise lighter than most people so hope to unload a few hundred pounds to refloat her on her lines.

Of all the things that a boat's name is, from the philosophical to a clever play on words, for a busy cruising boat the name needs to read well over the radio. Eupsychia is a cool word with its new age ring of sweet soul, but it is frustrating on the radio. Some know it but cannot read it - others can hear it but not repeat it - port captains cannot write it even when spelled echo-uniform-papa-sierra-yankee-charlie-hotel-india-alpha in the phonetic alphabet. The pen refuses to form the letters. So I am considering a simple name. Very simple. Something like X. I have several other choices too. Whatever I choose I will explain my own whackiness in this blog. I've got the science to back up my choices.