Newport beach

I'm back at Catalina Island, but I spent a week in Newport Beach, the sailing capital (some would say) of the west coast....
Sadly, I was dissapointed. There is tons of sailing done in the harbor, which is prodigious and crowded at the same time, but there wasn't a lot of wind or sailing to be done outside the harbor. Its kind of rough there all the time.
And there weren't any old-timer cruisers lanking around with their leathery skin to tell me in a gravelly voice that they approved (or did not) of my boat. In fact, the high class crowd there looked down their noses at me nearly the whole time I was there. And I ran into trouble with the law. Of course.
You can anchor 5 days at a time in the harbor for free, and I did, and it was mentioned to me that the period between stays need only be 24 hours, so 48 hours later, I came back to anchor again. I had tried to call the harbormaster to get confirmation of this, but the phone would not connect me to a person, so after leaving a message, I figured I would try it out.

And at midnight, I was summoned to deck by a bright light and a motor right next to the boat, and a voice called from the lofty heights of the patrol boat, telling me that I would have to move.
So I moved back to the outside place, (another free anchorage spot) where I didn't get much sleep. That's been a theme lately. No sleep.
On another front, I am sorry that I haven't written or posted anything in the last little while. I have another excuse, if you'll read on...
My faithful computer became sick and died while I was in Newport, and I managed to reach into the grave and (with 100 bucks and 4 days of waiting) ressurrect it, while in Newport. I managed to do so, but I still need to re-install a lot of programs, so its a work in progress still.
I also got to meet up with a friend of mine Matt, who I first met in Costa Rica, and then, on my drive around the country 18 months ago, I saw him over in North Carolina. So I'll see him again in two years or so. We went out sailing.
Now I'm in Catalina Island, and I will head up to Marina Del Ray, then pick up Danny from the airport, and we will head out for a week. And I'll have lots of pictures to post after that for sure.