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As of Monday March 16th 2020 at 2pm we took delivery of SV Brisa. Brisa is a 2019 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 410. This is a brand new hull design with design elements brought over from the big ocean racers.

The bow has a reverse angle and flat entry. A hard chine allows to boat to be very wide in the bow and carries it aft. Twin rudders ensure that the steering is balanced and once the sails are trimmed you can take your hands of the wheel and she stays on course.

We had an offshore delivery, then brought her back to the dock to finish up some commissioning work and have a canvas dodger and bimini added. These will provide some much needed protection from the elements.

While this was going on we also spent a day with a certified captain learning the boat. We both know how to sail, but coming from smaller boats have never dealt with anchoring, docking, line handling, and many other big boat systems we needed an expert to fill in the gaps. It was good training and we made our insurance company happy.

With the work done and her name officially on the stern, we had to plan and find a weather window to get out of California. We aren’t residents and really don’t want to pay the outrageous tax that the state collects, so we need to move the boat. We don’t really plan on keeping the boat in one place anyway.

We selected a good weekend to get on the boat and complete a couple of long sails. This was needed so that we could get comfortable operating the boat. Then 12:30 am on Tuesday March 31, we got up, slipped out of the dock and headed out to open water. This was our first long passage and night passage. Leaving San Diego at night was tricky because all of the shore lights were washing out the channel marker lights. To make things worse, the chart plotter decided that it was going to make up its own North and all of the headings were 30 degrees off. I hand steered going from green buoy to green buoy until I had a chance to fix the compass issue. In the end I found a button in the autopilot settings to reset the internal compass and we were okay. The rest of the night was spent heading south along the Baja coast. We made good time and by 7 am we were already rounding the corner and could see the lighthouse on one of the islands near Ensenada.

Then the dolphins showed up. Best part of the trip they came from everywhere and were playing and jumping in the bow wave only a few feet from us.

We made it into the marina and with the help of the dock staff got tied up. The marina manager then took us into town to get us checked in.

So now that we are here, we can drive down from the apartment in about 3 hours. we hope to visit as often as we can, but realize that once we do get the race season started, we might not have as many chances to do so.

So, stick with as as we document life with Brisa.

Details coming up shortly

Looks like we’re so busy that I have failed to update the blog in a while. We’re halfway into the racing season and it’s been busy. We finally had a few weeks of break between rounds, but that meant that I had time to get equipment fixed and ready for the second half of the season. In between we try to take advantage of living by the ocean. I try to pedal as often as possible. I’ve been surprised at how bike friendly the roads are and the many different rides I can take. If I want a flat easy ride, I head up towards Long Beach on the coast highway, if I head south towards Laguna beach, I can still stay along the coast, but it’s a nice rolling ride. Head inland if I’m in for some climbing. I have an 25 mile route that has 2500 feet of climbing. When we’re not riding, we are probably sitting on the beach. We can pack a lunch and be sitting in the sand in minutes. We like to take our paddle boards out when it’s calm in the mornings, and cruise around the bay. We’ve also been working on the next step of getting onto a sailboat by attending the boat shows in the area. We probably won’t buy a new boat, but it’s good to get an idea of what we want to look for when we are ready to buy. The long 4th of July weekend was nice. We spent a lot of time on the beach and trying to avoid the crowds. On the 3rd we pregamed the fireworks by attending a show near Long Beach. It was out in the water and we paddle boarded out to watch it. We might have been too close since fallout from the fireworks was raining down on us. We spent the 4th at Huntington Beach along with thousands of others. While I was surfing, Danelle got to feel the first earthquake of the weekend. We rode out the second one on Saturday that was much stronger.

I guess I haven’t updated the blog in a while. The last post was right about when we decided that we should sign up and run the Surf City Half Marathon. I don’t know what we were thinking, but at the time the race was months away. In the meantime we had a big trip over the holidays and family to visit. We rented a pickup and drove to Denver first. It wasn’t a bad drive, except instead of the four wheel drive pickup, they gave us a two wheel drive, and I guess in california they don’t think that it might get cold. So, driving over Vail pass on the tail end of a snow storm with two wheel drive wasn’t sketchy enough, we couldn’t see either. The wiper fluid was frozen and the only way to clear the mag-chloride off the windshield was to stop and throw snow onto it.

We spent a couple of days in the Denver are visiting family and then headed to Las Cruces to hang out with Charlotte. We had fun and even got to go out in the snow.

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We got back home on New Years Eve and the realization that we had a month before the run hit. So, the routine was work, run, sleep and repeat. We still spent sundays on the beach, but all of our free time was really spent pounding the pavement. For the month of January I covered 110 miles and Danelle had about the same. Race weekend was soon upon us, and it looked to be a wet one. Danelle was able to attend a women’s sailing conference on Saturday before the run, but some of her outdoor classes were cancelled due to rain and gale force winds. On sunday we lucked out and the storm had mostly moved on. We had a few sprinkles, but nothing like the day before. We finished, are a bit sore and I am ready to get back on the bike.