After saying goodbye to our friends in Utah we headed for Half Moon Bay CA, which is about 35 minutes south of San Francisco to start our next workaway adventure.  It was a 12 hour drive, so we stayed overnight just outside of Las Vegas.  We did have an unusual situation on the 2nd day of our travels.  The GPS sounded an alarm.  This what it told us.

      

“dangerous vehicle ahead”  “wrong-way driver reported”

Thank goodness the driver was stopped BEFORE we got to see it in person.  How many people can say they have seen this warning before?  🙂

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On March 9th we safely arrived at Pillar Point Marina in Half Moon Bay and were greeted by Jess and Brian with their dog Ollie. They are the owners of the 125 foot ship named the Sacajawea formally known as the Robert Gray.

The marina is a fishing marina and the Sacajawea was docked just across from the fish processing building.  We could watch fisherman unload their catch each day.

You know you are in a fishing town when you can buy bait from a vending machine – really!

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First – A little history about the ship we were going to be spending the next 2 1/2 weeks helping on.

The Robert Gray (125 feet long), was built by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1936 to serve as a research and surveying vessel for the Alaskan ocean floor.  Later it was used as a tug boat.  It even had a helipad in its earlier years.  That’s now where the dingy rests.

old pic

 

The boat’s history was very intriguing as well as seeing how the crew lived.  Look at this intercom that was used in the day.

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Jess and Brian were great hosts.  We are about the same age and got along great.  We were suppose to stay 2 1/2 weeks and then head north along the California coast into Oregon and Washington.  Now if you know us, you know we adapt quickly and quite often change our travel plans according to any given situation.  Our family and friends know this well.  Most just can’t keep up with our travel plans.  I guess you can say, we like to keep them guessing. LOL

We were very fortunate that Jess and Brian were more than willing to have us stay with them during the CoronaVirus “stay in place” orders.  Since we were on a boat, we were pretty isolated and our hosts made sure we were comfortable and well feed.

We stayed in the crews quarters and each had our own “room”.  It was not because we wanted to be in our own rooms, but usually Jess and Brian have one workawayer at a time so we agreed we would be fine with whatever sleeping arrangement we were offered.  It was all good and I secretly think Mike enjoyed it for a while.  I get hot flashes so Mike could keep his room as hot or cold as he wanted. I also stay up later than him so it was fine with me too because I didn’t want to disturb his sleep.   We did “visit” each others rooms, but that is all I am going to say about that.  Since it wasn’t  permanent sleeping arrangement,  we looked at it as a different kind of adventure although one we don’t plan on continuing.

The ship had a nice galley and we ate well.  Sometimes we would cook, sometimes Jess and Brian would cook and at other time we just fended for ourselves.

When we first arrived on the boat Brian would get bottled water for drinking.   We used the private marina restrooms and showered in the officer’s latrine on the ship.  Now for the weird part, we peed in the latrine sink.  Why would we pee in the sink may you ask?  You see, the ship has a holding tank for all toilet “deposits” but since it has to be pumped out and since it is considered ok to pee in the ocean, the sinks just drain out into the ocean, sooooo   we peed in the sink.  I have a pee funnel I brought with me to use when hiking ( I got tired of peeing on my shoes and/or phone when hiking), so I used that.  Yes it WAS weird, VERY weird.

As the virus situation continued we did have to adjust a little.  Brian bought a water filter to use on the dock providing a water source and we stopped using the marina rest rooms. Brian did most of the food shopping.  All was well with us.

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Now for the work part of workaway….

We worked about 5 hours a day.  Here is a list of what we did…

  • Painted one side of the hull.  The first pictures is the newly painted waterline.  In the second picture you can see a few of  the port holes near the water line that were welded over due to ice in the Alaska sea.  They were painted white but we painted them black and I think it looks great.

      

  •  Painted steel overhangs

  • Painted galley ceiling

 

  • Painted salon ceiling

  • Painted 1st coat on kick plates

 

  • Scraped the chain locker room

 

  • Mike sanded and varnished 2 axes

 

  • Painted some of the steel doors

 

  • Spend days organizing the engine room and recycled about a ton of old pipes and wires

There must have been over 14,000 screws, 30,000 bolts, 25,000 nails, 5,000 sheets of sandpaper, 1,600 PVC pipe fitting, and so much more.  When you are out at sea you want to have the parts you need I guess.

Just before we left Brian got started with cleaning and painting the engine room floor now that we unloaded so much unnecessary “stuff”.  It was looking great. (2nd picture shows the before and after).

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What did we do when we were not working…

We got to meet some of the other boat owners.  Prior to the “stay in place”, Jess and Brian had a small get together with neighboring boats.   It was a nice night.

 

One of the boats was used in the TV show Quincy.  It was used by the lead actor, Jack Klugman as hiresidence on the show.  It needs LOTS of TLC.  Not sure how long it has been just sitting with no one living on board.

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We also got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and go for walks on the beach.

Other than that the virus kinda put a stop to almost all the things we had planned on doing.  We had planned on staying in San Francisco on the weekends and going on local hikes and visiting local restaurants.

But…

The ship had two nice areas to sit, one inside and one outside to enjoy the scenery and get some sun on the aft of the boat.

 

Some locals spent some time paddle boarding and kayaking.

One seemed to take social distancing to extremes.

We would go out for a ride or to the grocery store once in a while.  Mike was so excited when he found a place that sold toilet paper.  LOL

This was in the Saloon on the ship and was there before the great TP shortage.  I found it so funny.

Anyway…. We ended up watching a lot of Netflix, walked along the beaches which were open to locals at that time, hung out with Jess, Brian and Ollie, and watched the sea lions catch and beat their dinner.  I didn’t know they brought the bigger fish to the surface and violently thrashed them around to kill them.  The sea gulls definitely knew and waited for the scraps.

It was very interesting to see how the marine life grows on a ship so quickly.  On a quiet clear morning you could see what I mean on the propeller and along the side of the ship.

One day a pirate ship pulled up on the fishing dock next to us.  Of course it was a replica, but it was pretty cool.  Brian, Mike, and I went over and met the owner.  He invited us to take a look around.  Have a look at the “Devil’s Gauntlet”…

 

   

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After 5 weeks, we were contacted by Aaron’s parents, who live about 3 1/2 hours north in Little River CA, to see if we wanted to stay in their AirB&B and do a little work for them since they couldn’t rent it out during the “stay in place”.  Aaron is the host we stayed with in the Orlando house a few months earlier.  Since we were getting the “one month travel itch”, we told Brian and Jess that we would be leaving in a week.  We really did enjoy the time we spent with them.  We will always be thankful for them  letting us stay on longer than planned and making us feel welcome and comfortable, but it was time to move on.  We had planned on going back for a few weeks after we helped at the AirB&B, but ended up accepting a workaway job in Vermont (more on that in a later posting).

On Saturday April 11th we said our goodbyes and headed north.  We did have a few issues with the car that morning.  The battery was dead and Brian jumped it for us.  And we got a ticket for not having a front license plate – NC does not require one, California does.  We explained the situation to the sheriff that drives around the marina parking lot and he took care of it for us.

The ride up north was really spectacular.  We traveled along the coast, through quaint little towns, over the Golden Gate Bridge again, and through wine and redwood country.  It was really a beautiful ride.  Time to meet our next hosts.

So, till next time…

“Everyone needs someone who will call and say: get dressed, we’re going on an adventure”.  Whisper

(that’s me and Mike)  🙂 xoxoxo