Newport Beach, CA [Stormy Start]

       We left Catalina knowing storms were headed our way and wanted to be in the safety of a harbor on the mainland. All of us were looking forward to spending time in Newport, visiting with family and friends.  Chris and I both grew up near there, and it's the harbor where Chris learned to sail.

       Our arrival had a bit of a rocky start. With the winds, we had a hard time pulling in, and away from the police docks. Basically, we ended up knocking over the dock steps and bent an already bent sign when we pulled away. The wind was pushing Secret Water hard, and Chris did what he could to make a getaway. Looking back, all we can do is laugh, because we're learning. It was great we had some daylight to spare to figure out how to do a mooring when you don't have the luxurious poles to grab like in Catalina. All of this is so new, every day, every stop has new challenges. Luckily there was a nice guy on a boat next to us who was willing to help us. I'm loving that about the boating community so far, people seem to be ready to lend a hand, even if you don't need one. In this instance, we totally needed it! We settled in for what was an uneventful night.


      The following day however was filled with the promised storm. Winds were gusting up to 60 mph., and we started to pull our mooring ball and tangled with another mooring. We called it in, found out we were about 9th in line, and Harbor Patrol would get to us when they could. We sat tight, not much that we could do. The truth was, we now had a third ball helping hold us in place, so we were staying put.

        When Harbor Patrol arrived, they knew we didn't want to stay tangled so they opted to help move us. We were put on one of their moorings, and there we stayed. What we thought was going to be a 2 week max in Newport, ended up being more like 5 weeks. Little did we know this at the time, but we loved every minute of our new location, right next to the ferry and fun zone. Epic views, and easy access to fun for the kids and public docks and our [borrowed] car made it one epic adventure.

Chris and Harbor Patrol worked well past dark getting us set up on our new mooring.

Our Newport Harbor view of the Balboa Fun Zone.