...........FALCON VII........... Horizon Fever

October 26, 2013 Newport Beach, California

We left Catalina Island last Tuesday morning under beautiful clear blue skies and just a wisp of wind. Once around the western end of the island we set our course, popped the spinnaker and had a beautiful sail all afternoon to Newport Beach Harbor. En route we passed three more oil rigs just off the mainland coast. From a distance I thought they were freighters at anchor but binoculars confirmed what they truly were and indeed stationery.

Oil rig off of Newport Beach

Just before dusk we entered the protected harbour at Newport Beach and we were both speechless. We had sailed away from the beautiful, scenic and secluded anchorage at Cat Bay and arrived in the busy, opulent harbour of the rich and famous. The harbour was huge! It went on and on for miles with massive houses and condos lining every available bit of waterfront, most of them with docks right out front. Tall palm trees lined the shore and most properties had exceptionally landscaped gardens and richly decorated outdoor spaces.

Rose garden along the boardwalk

Typical 'home' on Balboa Island

The view from Falcon at anchor - Lido Island homes with yachts and boats everywhere

As the pink glow of the setting sun dipped below the palms we anchored near Lido Island in the only area where anchoring was permitted.

Over the last couple of months we had compiled a list of items we needed to research and possibly purchase before leaving the US including a new hand held VHF radio, spare engine parts, a stern anchor and school supplies (more on that later). We thought Newport Beach might have cheaper prices for parts and equipment than San Diego. In the morning we set about finding our way around the harbour. Newport Beach Harbour Authority put out an excellent 14 page PDF, which was a terrific reference for where to dock and dine, how long we could anchor (five nights), where the various yacht clubs were located as well as laundry, dinghy docks and shore side washrooms. The 19 dinghy docks were easily identified by blue and white cones and they were scattered around the many harbour areas, islands and channels.

Walkway and dinghy dock on Balboa Island

These poor people didn't have docks for their boats, only moorings. Such a shame!

We dinghied to shore on Balboa Island where I did the stacks of laundry while Jim walked across Balboa Island, across a bridge and along Cliffside houses for an hour to locate a shopping centre in search of a particular store. When he finally arrived he found out the ‘store’ was only a box number! On his way back he did check out the bus system, which came in handy over the next few days as we became better acquainted with the area.

Mom loves roses so I like to take photos of them for her

Newport Beach’s population was about 75,000 and we think about 25,000 of them lived on or had views of the water! That is no exaggeration! Though there were a couple of small stretches of single story older cottages and homes, for the most part the houses were huge and ornate. Yes, many were grand, but not particularly pretty. Money does not always equal taste! Many were vacation rentals with rents going anywhere from $700 to $2,000 per night and others for only $6,000 a month in high season, now sitting empty. Judging by the lack of lights on in the evening, we think a third were empty vacation rentals. Not all of those houses were what we would think of as million dollar houses but in Newport Beach they were selling for up to $4.5 million. We didn’t even see any 2 bedroom condos or houses listed for sale under $1.5 to $2 million. Once we got a block away from the waterfront we found a great older part of Newport Beach on Balboa Peninsula, which bordered the wide expanse of white sandy beaches. Many of the store buildings were from the 40’s and 50’s with ornate exterior brick and tile work. Well established eateries boasted ‘the best clam chowder’ and ‘the best chili’, etc. and they were all busy!

Sunset where the rich and famous live their lives

We did see a fellow about our age with one leg amputated in his ‘Ferrari’ scooter. Who knew Ferrari made scooters as well as luxury cars! We astopped by a 1930’s art deco movie theatre, complete with the box office booth outside, and it was still in operation as a movie theatre! Surf shops and bikini stores were scattered along the roadway between nail and hair salons and several independent restaurants. The local magazine had dozens of ads by plastic surgeons! There was no economic downturn in Newport Beach, judging by the number of people eating out and the expensive yachts everywhere.

This was NOT the cottage for rent - this one was surrounded by multi million dollar houses on the boardwalk

In another high rent area we spotted an exclusive ‘food prepared for only dogs’ shop that did home deliveries and a high end dining room store. Their window fronts were beyond belief with sequence covered table clothes on display next to another round table that looked like it had been draped with a chiffon full length dress. It was decked out with a set with gold rimmed porcelain dishes, gold cutlery and gold rimmed wine glasses. And, of course, they were affiliated with stores in London, New York and Los Vegas. What were we coming to! We also wandered along the beachfront on Balboa Peninsula which we liked very much, meandering up and down short narrow streets lined with the original funky beach bungalows, many of them on their last legs. Near the surf shops and cafes we spotted a small rundown one bedroom, one bathroom cottage that had a ‘for rent’ sign outside…renting for $1785 a month! None but the wealthy could live in Newport Beach. Almost all of the painters, maintenance workers, gardeners and housecleaners we saw were Mexican. They had to commute by bus from the crowded suburbs such as Costa Mesa which were almost half an hour away by bus.

We decided that having a stern anchor would be prudent so Jim took another long walk to Minney’s Marine Chandlery. We had read about Minney’s on line and knew that it was a second hand boaters exchange with better prices than buying new. While I had a haircut Jim took off on another excursion. He had great success with finding a new anchor, chain and line for half of what they wanted at West Marine but that’s not where the story ends. When he was arriving he saw a young family standing outside near the Minney’s sign, looking around. There was an old pirate statue and the little kids were posing for pictures. The dad seemed a bit uncertain but they went inside anyway. He asked to speak to the owner and someone went to fetch Mr. Minney, who was in his 70’s and had run the store for decades. It turned out that the young fellow’s grandfather had passed way recently. He was cleaning out his granddad’s house and had found an old $30 Minney’s gift certificate from 1978. They had not expected the discoloured old certificate to still be honoured but wanted to come anyway to connect with Mr. Minney. The young dad introduced himself and showed the gift certificate to Mr. Minney, asking if he remembered his granddad – and he did! They were friends way back when and he knew his grandfather’s boat as well. They had quite a chat and Mr. Minney offered to give them a cheque for $30 or they could walk around the store and use the certificate if they wished. As they were not boaters they decided a cheque would work best. Mr. Minney graciously offered to sign the certificate as ‘paid’ and give it back to them as a memento of the granddad. The family thought that was great and were planning on having it framed. What a nice moment in time.

One of our goals on our adventure is to give back, in some small way, to those less fortunate than us. Before leaving Victoria Jim and I decided that taking a few school supplies to the Baja would help achieve that goal. With that in mind we researched options to buy supplies online then bused to Costa Mesa and visited the huge $.99 store.

Our small contribution

This chain is similar to the dollar stores in Canada but it carried lots of groceries, dairy and fresh produce as well as stationery and sundry items. We decided to purchase large quantities of school scribblers, pencils, pencil sharpeners, scissors, construction paper, crayons and glue along with lots of bubble bottles and Frisbees to round out the supplies. We know that this is only a small drop in the bucket of what the poorer Mexican families need but we hope it helps a bit. In addition, we plan on visiting schools and perhaps giving short talks and slide shows about British Columbia and Alaska. When we come back to Victoria and Vancouver just after Christmas time we will happily accept cash donations so we can buy more supplies for more kids. Also, with Jim’s varied skills and my administrative background we hope to somehow help out in small villages. We have our industrial strength sewing machine and many tools along with us. Who knows what kind of mischief we might get into!

Back to Newport Beach. Everywhere you look there were small boats called Duffy’s, mostly around 20 feet long. They were electric boats and used exclusively to cruise the harbour. Some had tiny galleys tucked in along with fine woodwork and leather interiors. Many of the homes had a Duffy docked out front, along with their larger yacht.

A fleet of Duffy's

This Duffy was tied behind the yacht, of course

A typical Duffy skippered cruise going by the anchorage

Being electric boats, clever owners named them Watts New, Almost Ohm, Currently Ours, etc. There were all sorts of boats in the harbour area. In the high rent Cannery Village area we walked by three 100’ dinner cruise ships decked out for fine dining.

On both Saturday evening and Sunday noon these dinner cruises went by Falcon

They were all two or three storeys tall and designed to cruise dead slow in the protected waters of the harbour. On Saturday night we were surrounded by these types of ships lit up like small cities, numerous Duffy boats, and private party yachts. During the day on Saturday the harbour was very active with paddleboards, kayaks, rowing skulls and runabouts enjoying the weekend, even though it was overcast.

We had been to shore many times making use of the dinghy docks. Each time we taken garbage and recycling each time. Strange – with all this wealth they didn’t have any recycling bins for boaters. What a shame.

By On Saturday we were thinking about leaving but we wanted one more Newport Beach experience before weighing up anchor. There were eight ‘dine and dock’ restaurants in the harbour and we wanted to take Falcon to one of them and then walk up for lunch, something extremely unusual. En route up the channel we passed something else extremely unusual. For a few hundred dollars you could rent a jetpack.

Saturday brunch at Woody's with Falcon moored in front of the restaurant

We motored by two individuals in wetsuits and jetpacks who were learning to ‘fly’. One was attached to a 2 person skidoo by a long hose and the other attached to an unmanned unit. They were noisy but certainly a draw to all who cruised by.

Levitation! His hose is attached to a skidoo with two guys running it.

This one had a little floating unmanned skidoo behind him, following like a dog.
Some got quite a few feet up in the air.

Brunch at Woody’s was very nice, especially because we were seated at an outdoor table with our beautiful sailboat docked in front of us. We left Woody’s with the sun trying to shine through the foggy sky and headed back for our anchorage, only to encounter dinghy races in the anchoring area. We carefully anchored then perched ourselves on the side deck. In San Fransisco we watched the America’s Cup and in Newport Beach we watched the Newport Cup! Some of the kids were already quite serious about racing, pointing out their fellow racers’ infractions. The committee boat and start line were next to us so we had front row seats again for this exciting sporting event.