This American Life

Boat travel is all about cultural immersion. Actually, it’s all about finding grocery stores, Laundromats, boat parts and cheap showers. But along the way we do get immersed in culture. Or, in the case of Southern California, a reasonable facsimile of culture.

 It started with Disneyland. I have Disney issues. It might be because my parents opted to go without us when we were kids because my dad thought it would be more fun that way (who does that?), the fact that every movie seems to have a dead mother as a plot point, or simply the rampant consumerism, but honestly, the magic is sort of lost on me. But we went anyway, twice, and as Maia said, “If I had to chose between this and surfing, I’d go with surfing. Providing the water was warm.”

 Then it was back to Newport Beach, where we were greeted by a billboard that read, “Get her something you both want for Christmas – New Breasts!” Which was almost as hard to explain to Maia as the Disney Princesses…

 Christmas in Newport Beach is spectacular, in an utterly over-the-top Disney kind of way. Between houses that take weeks to decorate and a boat parade where owners spend up to 30k decking their decks we were treated to more twinkling lights and holiday cheer than we thought possible.

  But just when we had reached Santa saturation, our friend Sarah arrived and we headed out to Catalina Island where it was us, the bison and a handful of boats for a peaceful Christmas.

 Peace on Catalina was destined to end though and now we’re in San Diego, doing what every sailboat that’s perched on the precipice of heading into Mexico does: we’re soaking up the culture, shopping at Trader Joes, stocking up on decent chocolate and buying the odd boat part or two.

Pirate at the San Diego Big Bay Parade