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When we left Marina del Rey in the morning, we did not know if we would stop in Malibu Beach or had to continue to Channel Island Harbor. We heard about lots of kelp in the anchorage and wanted to decide once we got there.

After sailing for hours in lots of wind, I was hoping we would be able to anchor and the Captain, looking at the surf break, was most likely as well. It took a bit of circling until we found a spot which seemed somewhat ok, we still saw kelp in lots of spots around us. The Captain let the anchor down in what seemed like a good location, let it set and after his signal I put the gear in reverse. The anchor grabbed the ground very well.

We had something to eat, made sure the anchor had not dragged and prepared the dinghy and SUP to get all of us to shore. Malibu is really pretty. We checked out the beach by the pier and I thought a lot about celebrities. The next morning, we decided to stay another night, since we really liked it. It is always nice if it is pretty, safe and does not even cost you anything. 🙂

Just after we finished breakfast, a surfer came paddling towards our boat and asked us some questions about the “beautiful” Sailboat Alsager. After he paddled on, the Captain looked at me and said…”Wasn’t that Matthew Mcconaughey?” I did not think so, but hey,   we will never know… 😀

We prepared for a beach day and the Captain wanted to go to a different beach this time. When we got closer, I saw that the shore break seemed bigger than where had landed the day before. I tried to point out, that we might be better of changing plans, but no agreement there.

I had Mats on the SUP in front of me, Evan was rowing the air dinghy with Noah inside.

When it seemed like the right moment, I let Mats in the water to swim ashore (he really wants to do that, as he is afraid of shore break and does not want to be in the dinghy) and paddled hard. I made it to the beach fine, ran the board up on the sand and swam towards Mats. I had let him out a bit early, so he had quite a bit to swim. All went well, a wave came and I held him high up.

Noah did not get quite that lucky. He swam, was pulled back right into a breaking wave just when I had him by the collar. I pulled him towards the shore and helped him out of the water where Mats took over. Now it was the Captains turn and he had to wait quite a while as a big set of waves smashed onto the beach. I did not like all of this at all. But he made it. It was hard for me to relax afterwards, as I knew, we had to get back out at one point.

It was super hot at the beach, we found a nice shady spot for Noah and the Captain went surfing. Our neighbors at the beach had a huge shade structure, which they hadn’t set up yet. We helped and they were so kind to share it with us. Mats had a great time playing and found some kids to share toys.

When it was time to get back to the sailboat, I watched the water, picked a good time and paddled as fast as I could with Mats sitting right in front of me. I was so happy! The Captain did a great job as well and once again, I was hoping that that was the last surf break we had to conquer before returning home!

The Sail from Catalina Island to Marina del Rey was fast and a bit uncomfortable. Pulling into the channel it sure was pretty! After a bit of remoteness, feelings are mixed about getting back into civilization. But we had spent a good 10 days on Catalina Island and slowly wanted to move towards San Francisco.

We found a fair priced Marina by the Burton Chace Park and went for a stroll. Mats was happy to ride his bike again and we all enjoyed a hot shower.

In the evening we went to explore more of the area and started being very hungry. Mats did not want to ride his bike anymore, so we stopped at a fish restaurant. The food was simply not good! A bit disappointed and after Mats had some ice-cream, we started our long walk back to the boat. It’s hard to beat the happy hour at Seafood Peddler in Sausalito or the fresh fish in Mexico. But man, that restaurant was bad.

The next day was my birthday and we took an Uber to Venice Beach!

It was a lot of fun. We rented some bikes and cruised from Venice Beach to Santa Monica. Of course we did a stop at Muscle Beach, watched some street artists and finished a beautiful day at a nice restaurant with self brewed beers.

On our last day in the area, we went and visited friends of mine in Santa Monica. The daughter of my aunt and her family. It was so nice to see them. It was the first time for them to meet Mats and they were very cute with him. We’ve been knowing each other since I was born. 🙂

The next morning we were off sailing to our next destination: MALIBU BEACH!

The Sail from Wilmington to Catalina Island was a comfortable one, first a little bit of motoring and soon able to pull up the sails and sailed right into Emerald Bay. Took us about 5hours. This was our first time at Catalina Island and it’s sure pretty! There was a mooring available close to beach which we were assigned too. What a great spot, we decided to stay a while.

Here a little clip from the fun.

The first set of pictures are from Emerald Bay. It was remote, even though there were quite some boats coming on the weekends. But during the week we mostly had beaches to ourselves or boy scouts were out kayaking and doing there thing. The water was nice and clear. We had a good time just swimming around, snorkeling, SUPing. Hanging at the beach. We walked over to the Boys scout camp to explore or took the dinghy. At one point they were so nice to sell us some ice for our fridge. That meant we were able to stay a bit longer. It was a relaxing time. When we needed to stock up again and were ready to see something else, we headed to another anchorage/mooring which is called Two Harbor.

Alsager our sailboat is the black one closest to beach. This was a weekend, when we had neighbors.

Heading to the boy scout camp:

The Captain cleaning the hull

Is there something underneath our little man??? :-O

Frisbee Fun at the beach.

And here we are enjoying Two Harbor. They have a supermarket (block of ice $9,50) and some restaurants on shore. It was a nice change after the remoteness of Emerald Bay and we met up with our friends Chim Chim one day. They invited us over for dinner and we enjoyed spending time with them on there beautiful Catamaran!

Here some pics pulling the Kite-Surfboard behind the dinghy. That was fun!

Sailboat Alsager and Mats!

We headed over to Avalon as well, got the last mooring far away from shore and stocked up at a very affordable Supermarket. We only stayed one day, as it was super crowded (kinda felt like Cabo San Lucas) and too cool as it was foggy. We decided to head to warmer weather and went back to Two Harbor.

We stayed at Catalina Island a total of 10 days. Getting a mooring is a bit costly, but we do not recommend anchoring, the ground is full with kelp and the anchor does not hold well, if at all. As they harvest the top of the kelp, you cannot see where it actually grows. The moorings reach all along the beaches, so the only anchor possibilities are in deep water. We once had a power boat almost on top of us. The Owner slept on board while his boat started dragging. Our Captain was able to wake him up in time, before he dragged on top of our anchor.

After our return from Germany, it was time to get back on the Sailboat. We wanted to explore southern California and slowly move the boat back to the San Francisco Bay.

But first, we had to pick up our dog Noah, who had stayed with friends and was very well taken care off. After we checked upon a few things back home, we made our way to Wilmington, Los Angeles. The Sailboat had to be cleaned up and provisioned. But we were soon ready to head towards our first stop – Catalina Island, one of the Channel Islands. We were excited to see them.

Wilmington is very industrial and motoring out, we passed endless numbers of cranes and container ships. It was super interesting to see how the Containers were being loaded. We were hoping to not get in the way of a Container ship entering or leaving the channel and we got lucky.

After a little bit of motoring we were able to sail straight into Emerald Bay, which was highly recommended to what we were looking for. We were assigned a mooring close to the beach and had a nice first sunset. The adventure continued!

Knowing that the bread supply, especially in Mexico would be limited and since we don’t have an oven on board, I did some research before we left. I found these useful information from The Boat Galley and decided to invest into the Omnia Oven.

We were very happy to have it on board, as you can only eat that many Tortilla’s. Especially coming from Germany, it’s hard to get by without bread or beer, well, both. 🙂 Whenever we got the chance to run into a larger supermarket, we would check on flour and we sometimes also had a hard time finding yeast. When we did find either or the other, we would try to stock up, or mixed bread flour with tortilla flour. It turned out quite nice, see for yourself.

Our good-bye from my Dad was special and had an unwanted extension. My Dad drove us, after a yummy breakfast with everyone, to Freiburg to the train station. When the train suddenly arrived, we jumped up and grabbed all our belongings and my Dad helped us aboard. While we were storing luggage, the doors suddenly shut! BEFORE it had reached the scheduled departure time. I ran to the door together with my Dad and we tried to get the attention from the station agent, to open the doors again. He looked at us, than simply looked away and the train slowly started moving. This is common, ones the doors are locked, they won’t open anymore. My adrenaline was flying out of my ears and I looked at my Dad in disbelief. He had such a great humor about it and just said, hey, this way, I just have you a little bit longer.

He walked up to the front to find out, why the train had left early. When he came back, he told us, we were all in the WRONG TRAIN. Oh man, and that when you try to get to the airport and have to catch a plane. We listened to the announcement of the train agent in case there had been other people, who got in the wrong train and found out, that we were able to catch the right train at another stop. This train had been delayed and the right one as well, both luckily going in the same direction, but this one did not stop at the airport.

My Dad stayed with us for about an hour until the train stopped for the first time in Baden-Baden. We said our good-bye’s and this mistake almost made us laugh already. We continued and switched trains on one of the next stops. We made it fine to Frankfurt airport and had quite a long walk and bus drive from the train station to the terminal of WOW airlines. Just shows you ones again, better plan extra hours when traveling.

The flight to Reykjavik took a little over 4 hours and the flight attendants are pretty darn cute and super friendly. I understood, why the Captain was liking the airline. 😉 But they don’t have an entertainment program, so it seemed like a long flight, there is only so much you can do with a kid.

Arriving in Iceland, we found out that they had checked the stroller through to San Francisco, so we decided to take a Taxi to the hostel. We had a layover of 18 hours. Damn, Iceland was cold! AND we were told that that was the warmest day. The hostel looked cool, as you can see from the pics.

It was nice to rest up and have a good night sleep. The next leg was about 8 hours and drove me nuts. We were all happy, when we arrived back in San Francisco.

After we received our luggage, we made our way to the air train to get to the rental car place. The train just left, but the Captain rushed us to the other track and we quickly went aboard. I was laughing and looked at him, yes, let’s just get on quickly, before checking if this is the right one. After we sat in the train, did a full circle around the airport, w arrived again where where we had gotten in. Wow, we again had entered the wrong train (even just an airtrain) and felt pretty silly. We owe this story to my Dad! LOL

Now we just had to get dog Noah and continue our journey. The plan was to drive down to Wellingtons to the sailboat with the rental car, after a little rest.

Back in Staufen, our final days in Europe had started. Wanting to see France one my time, my Dad and his partner thought of the Ecomuseum in Alsace.

The Écomusée d’Alsace is the largest living open-air museum in France and shows an Alsatian village from the early 20th century. It illustrates what rural life was like in Alsace and invites visitors to find out about popular traditions and art of the region, including buildings and artefacts, craftsmen at work, temporary exhibitions, attractions and events both small and large.

It was quite an experience and enjoyed from all of us, even from Mats. 🙂

Wonder what the cow thought of that device?

Bye, bye, France, or see you later!

My Dad had recommended to drive to Interlaken  and take a little train up the Alps to the Schynige Platte. Wow, that was insane and the best tip.

It took about an hour to get up there and we had a beautiful sunny day to enjoy it.

Mats surprised us with managing a big hike and enjoyed smelling lots of flowers along the way.

The view was spectacular.

Luckily the Captain had already gone ahead with Mats, when this snake crossed my path.

We finished off with a nice meal up the mountain, before taking the train back down and continuing our drive to Linz to another campground.

The Captain always wanted to visit the Alps and we were not far away. So, we drove towards Bern and stopped at the Lake Thun in Switzerland. All Campgrounds close during there lunch break. After a long drive and that not in mind, it can get a bit frustrating to arrive at exactly the times when they are on there break and all you need, is a break. It also happened, that we had no swiss coins and everywhere we tried to park, that’s all they would take.

After my entry was denied and I was also ask to move away from the parking spot in front of the gate, Evan tried his luck and his charm got us in. Yeayee! 🙂

We parked and walked to the lake and chilled a little. The Alps in the background, the scenery was so pretty.

We only stayed one day. But it was a good one!

Before I continue with our travel to Europe, let me just give you a shout:” WE MADE IT BACK TO SAUSALITO!”

It’s been challenging, but the Captain tried to make it as comfortable as possible for us, we really waited for perfect weather windows, stayed in Marina’s when it started being too cold for showers in the ocean waters.

Especially the last part from Half Moon Bay to Sausalito will stay in our memories on the sailing agenda, as we were able to sail with south winds all the way through the Golden Gate Bridge. This is rather rare.

We now enjoy being back home and have lots of tasks to work on and have to start making some $$$ soon.

It’s been a big adventure!

Thank you for following us throughout the year, there is more to write and show you, when I get the chance. 🙂

To Sail or Not To Be – For the Captain a sentence, a question for me. This journey gave me an answer.