My Island Home

By Sundance:

Part 1: Yana in Hana

Total distance on Maui: 183.12 km
Total distance: 7381.8 km

What with our change of plans and flight schedules, we decided to unpack our bikes and take a tour around the south-east part of Maui, to get out of Garrett and Crystal's hair, and take advantage of the extra time we had up our sleeves.

But first, Yana's birthday. On the Monday, we headed out to the Emerald falls again in our rented car to wander through the bamboo groves and frolic in the water. After that we drove back through Paia and went to Mana foods in search of vegan key lime pie to serve as Yana's birthday cake. They were all out, but instead we got an amazing little ginger cake which went down extremely well.

On Tuesday the rental car had to be returned, so we headed to kite beach in the morning, and I got in some more kite surfing practice before returning the car, then wandered back to the beach for some more kiting. I actually managed to stand upright for about 25 seconds, which was a great feeling, and made me think that I might be getting the hang of it.

Wednesday and the early part of Thursday were taken up with unpacking and reassembling our bikes, and by Thursday afternoon we headed off from Makawao through Pukalani (to get some supplies), then uphill towards Kula. As it was a late start, we didn't go very far, and hunted around a little in Kula for a place to camp for the night. We settled on a local church, where we were given permission to set up our tent for the night. The next morning we set off again through pleasant bushland, to the south coast of the island. The road started off nicely but eventually deteriorated into broken pavement, coupled with a persistent headwind (which we expected, given the prevailing wind direction on Maui), dry terrain, and frequent hills. It wasn't fun, especially as the broken bitumen stopped us from building up speed on the downhill stretches to tackle the uphill stretches with. Eventually we made it to Kaupo and a general store where we made lunch and purchased a couple of frozen fruit icy-poles. We were even treated to a view across the sea to The Big Island, and a rainbow (visible below the horizon!) letting us know that we were entering the wet, lush side of the island. We rode on further and a dirt road (which we agreed was better than the broken pavement) and eventually found a place to turf-surf about 10 km south-west of Hana, on a property with a dog who's bark was worse than her bite, and a horse that didn't belong to the owner of the property, but just seemed to like hanging around there.

On Saturday morning we made our way into Hana, scouted around for more supplies at the two general stores in town, and hung out a bit drinking a smoothie to recharge our batteries before heading onwards. A little way past Hana we detoured to a local state park so that I could take a dip in the ocean at a black sand beach, as I felt we had better enjoy being by the beach, what with the weather being hot and tropical and all that. A bit further on we pulled into a roadside food stand, to discover that we'd been leapfrogging a pair of hitch-hikers who we'd noticed in Hana. We chatted a bit with them and then settled down to a plate of chicken, while they caught a ride further ahead. After riding onwards, we found ourselves more and more surrounded by beautiful rainforest and vistas overlooking the sea. At one point we stopped to look at a gorgeous waterfall cascading to the side of the road, and refill our water bottles from the water running off the nearby rock faces. As it was starting to get dark, we looked for another turf-surf a couple of kilometers further along the road. Selecting a friendly-looking house, Yana knocked on the door, and we were welcomed in by Charles, who told us that he and his wife, Linda, were avid travellers too (though they tend to go kayaking in South-East Asia), and would be glad to put us up for the night and share traveller's tales. We had a fantastic evening chatting with them, a comfy night sleeping on a futon in one of their numerous spare rooms, and after breakfast Linda showeed us around her studio where she does wonderful paintings of beach scenes.

The rest of the day we wound our way along the Hana highway, back into familiar territory. We stopped at Ho'okipa beach to watch the windsurfers playing, then made our way into Paia for a gelati (finally using the $5 I'd been given as a birthday gift for its intended purpose!) and dinner at the delightful Des Amis cafe. They have a limited menu, but their Greek platters are amazing! After dark we headed back up the side of Mt. Haleakala to Garrett and Crystal's place, and after making a start on disassembling the bikes, turned in for the night.

Monday was taken up pretty much completely with packing. We re-boxed the bikes, then fiddled with the remaining luggage, trying to make our carry-on and checked baggage fit within the size and weight allowances. By Monday evening we were ready, and headed to the airport to drop off our checked baggage before heading to the Whole Foods Market in Kahului to have an all-too-quick sit-down dinner with Garrett and Crystal. Then it was back off to the airport for our flight to Honolulu. We collected our bags upon arrival, loaded it on a trolley, and found ourselves a moderately comfy-looking couple of benches in the vicinity of the JetStar check-in counter to wait out the night. Our flight was fairly early Tuesday morning, so thankfully we didn't have to sleep too much (we couldn't have if we'd tried!) before it was farewell America.

Thanks America. We had a great time. Despite your often bad reputation in the rest of the world, we can honestly say that we found Americans to be among the kindest, friendliest, and most generous people we've ever met. It's been a delightful experience. But, by the same token, there's no place like home...

Part 2: No matter how far, or how wide I roam, I still call Australia home.

It's a ten-and-a-half hour flight from Honolulu to Sydney. A pretty uneventful one at that. We watched some videos on the inflight entertainment and our laptop. We crossed the International Date Line (and the equator) and Tuesday became Wednesday. And eventually we spotted a sliver of land that we knew to be the coast north of Sydney. There was a mixed feeling. It was nice to be so close to home, and yet, at the same time I'd hoped so much to be seeing that sliver of land from the deck of a sailing vessel, instead of a seat in a passenger jet, that I couldn't fight off a twinge of disappointment.

Land. Gather bags. Disembark. Present customs arrival cards. Collect baggage. Collect Bikes. Wait in line at customs/quarantine inspection (we even met a guy who worked there who is planning to ride from Vancouver to San Diego later this year). And then we were through, officially back on Terra Australis.

My favourite part of Sydney airport is the ramp into the public arrivals lounge. Over the ramp are a series of banners, half of which bear the slogan "G'day. Welcome Home". Those three words mean an awful lot.

It was 5:30pm and we were both ravenous. We threw ourselves at the nearest eatery, marvelling at the absence of Burger King and other now-familiar American brands, and the profusion of roasted vegetable foccacias, meat pies, and fruit salad with real yoghurt - and not a drop of high-fructose corn syrup in any of it! The food tasted glorious, and we decided that yes, everything really was as good as we remembered it. Eventually we had to get organised, and we got a taxi-van ride out to my uncle Tony's place where we're staying while we get under control for the ride back to Adelaide. We slept soundly. The following day we got a lift into town, and caught up with my mate Stewart (from my PhD days) for lunch, then wandered around Darling Harbour until sunset, and upon returning home were treated to a lamb roast that Tony whipped up which had to be tasted to be believed. On Friday morning we started reassembling our bikes, and Tony and family took off for weekend away (it being a long weekend). We have spent the rest of Friday and Today taking care of small necessities - getting a new Australian mobile phone number, dropping our bikes off at a bike shop to get some worn parts replaced, lunch with Yana's uni friend Ben, and wandering around soaking up the atmosphere of Sydney, with its slight sheen of pre-World Cup excitement. Tomorrow we may head out to the Blue Mountains and be tourists. But whatever we do, it's nice to be woken by the sound of kookaburras in the trees outside.   

Maui Wowie

By Yana:

Yes, it has once again been embarrassingly long since our last post.  So let me fill you in on the last little while, in a large nutshell:

We spent a few more days in San Francisco, which included highlights such as riding some borrowed bicycles to and past the Golden Gate Bridge, and checking out the very nifty Musee Mecanique, which is crammed full of awesomely antique and totally functional coin slot machines.  We also tried out the local "Japanese" bath house, which was fun, and went to see Iron Man 2 with Kate, which was gratuitously violent.  The day before we left San Fran, we were also treated to the sight of a bunch of army helicopters landing on the lawns of Crissy Fields.  As it turned out, Mr Obama himself was scheduled to visit a few days later, and this was a practice run with the copters.  We looked up his schedule, to see if there was any possibility of actually seeing the man.  Upon deciding it was unlikely, we stuck with the flights we had, and got up at sparrowfart the following morning to fly to Maui.

The flight and airport time was uneventful, though it was a very strange feeling after having been so in charge of our own transport for so long.  Well, we whiled away the time by watching some episodes of Heroes, which did the trick.

We actually arrived a little early, and enjoyed the balmy weather while waiting for our friend Garrett to pick us up.  As we were arriving a short time before the Mai Tai, a big kite surfing event here on Maui was to start, we knew we would be in for a crowded house soon enough, as Garrett is hosting some kite surfers.  We did spend a bit of time at kite beach over the next few days, me only flying the trainer for a bit before opting to just hang out in the sand, and Sundance occasionally getting to body-drag through the water with the big kite, and then moving up to the actual board.  As public transport on Maui sucks, we rented a car for a day and drove down to Little Beach, to see if any of the friends we made last time were still around - many of them weren't, though we did get to have a chat to Frank, a fellow who seems to be a permanent fixture there.  We also spent a little time wandering along the Iao Valley before returning the car.

After two days, the other two Mai Tai folk (Erin and his friend Steve) came along, and Garrett took us to a few of the social events there.  We also managed to slot in a game of Catan, which Garrett didn't win for a change.  His lady, Crystal, is immune to his methods of winning.

As I had little to do with myself when everyone was kite surfing, we ended up renting a car again, this time for a few days.  We made another trip to the Iao Valley, this time walking along one of the ridges, up to a little clearing where yummy thimbleberries grow.  Ah, wet tropical forests.

Today has been a kite surfing day for Sundance, during which he discovered that he has a much easier time with the double-ended board rather than the uni-directional one.  I went and did my own thing, doing the walk (and swim) up to the top of the Golden Emerald waterfall.  It was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it, and then some, as the weather was nicer this time round, and the water wasn't so cold.

We are also going to hang out on Maui a little longer, mostly because we missed the window period in which we could get a cheap flight, so we booked the next one of the same price out of here, which is a few days later.  We may decide to stick up our tent somewhere, in the name of not imposing on Garrett and Crystal beyond the time we said we would.  Meanwhile, there is more kite surfing and walking through wet rainforests to be done.  Hooray!

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

By Sundance:

Yes, we're still here! And still blogging (sporadically). So here's the very short version of the last couple of weeks...

After our boat ride to the Marquesas fell through, we did a little shopping around online on various crew-finding websites. We went and met a fellow who was heading from San Diego to Australia (which would have been perfect) but he eventually decided to take along a different person as crew, so we have found ourselves essentially boatless, and given the time, effort, expense and energy we have expended to find a boat ride - to no avail - we've decided to not bother. We spent our last few days in San Diego accommodated on the boat of Mike, the son of Gayani and Rob whom we'd met on our first trip to SD. We also found a fantastic Greek restaurant to have lunch at, and the owner was nice enough to drive us out to the Old Town section of SD to see the Drinko de Mayo festivities. We got a ride, via craigslist, up to San Francisco, and are now staying with my cousin Kate, whom I haven't seen in about 18 years, as well as her partner Jeff, and their son Shepard. We've been cruising around looking at stuff, including parks, the Golden Gate Bridge (of course), took a family car trip out of town to a beachside town north of San Fran, and saw Wicked. We also found out just how foggy SF can be, and Kate pointed out a nearby rockclimbing gym to us, so we went along there and got to do our first climbing in months. We've been walking along the waterfront between the Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge quite a bit, since that's the area where Kate lives, and recently ran into a couple of guys just heading off on a cross-USA bike journey, which stirred a bit of envy and nostalgia within both of us. You can catch their blog at lostgators.blogspot.com and follow their exploits in the reverse direction to ours. We also hung out in Palo Alto for Jeff's dad's birthday (and en route discovered a pizza restaurant called 'Pi' - actually spelled with the appropriate Greek letter, and open from 3.14pm every day!). We've also been past the Palace of Fine Arts, which is a gorgeous building, and dropped in on the LucasArts building to see various Star Wars related stuff.

Back to square one

By Yana:

Quite a bit has happened since our last entry, but if I write one of our patented day-by-day descriptions, this entry is going to be another huge monster, so I'll skip that.  We spent our last few days in Ensenada up to our ears in work dealing with our bicycles.  We decided that our best option for getting them back to Australia was to ship them from LA, and Jim and Ann conceded to let us transport the bikes on the boat to San Diego, which would be our first stop.

Through a coincidental bit of luck, we ran into a fellow bearing a box which was pretty much the perfect size and shape for our purposes.  As it turned out, he works for a company which sells flat screen TVs, and we ended up purchasing a box off him into which we could fit both bikes, actually saving quite a bit of space.

From then on, we spent almost the entire time until we left taking apart our bikes and cleaning the tiny fiddly bits very thoroughly.  I suspect the entire process probably took 24 hours or so.  By the time we had them packed, it was 4am on the morning we were going to leave.  We got a little bit of shuteye, and then set about getting our big bad box to the Cactus Wren.  Juergen, the guy who had first introduced us to the folks around the marinas, was nice enough to drive us, which made the whole thing infinitely easier.  We also got to say goodbye to Daniel, as he had gotten back from LA a little early, so that was nice.

Once we had wrapped the box up in rubbish bags and a sailcover to protect it from the spray, we loaded it onto the boat and were pretty much ready to go.  It was the afternoon by the time we set off, though.  With the wind against us, we ended up motoring all the way to San Diego.  Both Sundance and I got to spend some time at the wheel, and we went through the night.  

Sometime after midnight, when Ann was at the wheel, the self-steering rudder broke off, and we had to fetch Sundance and Jim to haul the thing aboard.  Good thing it had been tethered by the ropes, otherwise we almost certainly would have lost it.  After that, Jim steered us the rest of the way to San Diego, where we arrived at about 4am on Monday.

Shortly after arriving at the Police Docks on Shelter Island, we were in for a rude surprise: the visa waiver program, under which we had been travelling in the US all this time, does not cover travellers on private boats! The reason for this is unclear, especially as it's just fine if you're in a car, on a bike, on foot, or on a plane.  The upshot was that we had to pay a "fee" (a pretty way of saying "fine") of $540 each in order to be allowed into the US.  Heading back was not an option, due to the broken rudder and a bad weather system coming in, and Ensenada being the nearest port at 13 hours away.  All the options we tried to think of were against the rules, and we ended up just having to cough up the money, much as it hurt.  It'd just be nice to actually be informed of expensive trivialities like that before you blunder into them, but it's unclear how we possibly could have known.

On the bright side though, we did end up having a nice chat on the phone with our friends from Kentucky, Clint and Valerie.  For those of you who don't remember, Clint is the State Trooper with a fondness for harrassing possums in courageous ways.  We had hoped that some of Clint's connections might be able to help us weasel out of our predicament with the $540 fine, but no dice.  Still, we got to catch up a little, and found out that their daughter Taylor had recently won two academic awards, which was great to hear.  Took our minds off it for a bit.

We got stuck into getting some of the mundane things, like laundry, done.  In the midst of that, we started to make some local friends, at a smoothie bar called The Point.  Sarah, one of the girls who works there, ended up taking us up to the Farmer's Market at Ocean Beach after her shift, which was a very fun afternoon.  We spent the next day or so getting groceries and such.

On the Friday, Jim and Ann informed us that they'd had a talk amongst themselves and decided that we weren't "boat people", and probably wouldn't fit into the routine of living in the confined quarters of a boat for several weeks, so they'd decided to withdraw their offer to take us to the Marquesas. That was obviously a bummer, and put us into a bit of a spin trying to figure out our next course of action, and our other options for getting back to Australia. So we spent most of the rest of the day figuring out whether we could find another boat, how much it would cost to fly back, and so forth. Saturday was basically taken up by getting our stuff packed and off the boat, and Sarah was nice enough to let us crash at her place overnight. We now have a couple of other boat options to explore, and the next few days should determine how we make our way off the North American continent.
 

Not Tawawi!

By Sundance:

Okay it's been a while since we updated the blog, so we'd better get on with it or we'll be bogged down with months of stuff to remember and recount. Over the couple of days after we arrived in Ensenada we looked around and talked to various boaty people about the prospects of getting rides. Actually, a lot of this took place in the latter part of the day because we also registered on several online discussion groups and crewfinder lists, and checking email took up much of the morning. We did eventually visit all the marinas in town, including one a few kilometers north/west of town, attached to a hotel. On the Wednesday of that week Daniel's mother Jenny took us out to play tennis. Daniel's younger brother Eric (who I think looks like a very young Antonio Banderas) is learning and takes proper lessons, so Yana and I got to tag along. It was quite good fun - I haven't played in ages, and Yana hadn't ever played before. We also got quite a surprise when Jenny initiated a conversation about religious beliefs, and we found out that she, Daniel, and Eric are atheists. That really knocked out socks off because Latin America is a real stronghold of Catholicism. We don't really want to use this blog as a platform to advocate or trash one particular world-view or another, but Mexican atheists are rare and noteworthy critters indeed. Well, later that night we cooked up some green chicken curry and had a great chat with Daniel over dinner about not being religious.

On Thursday the Canadians (Tom and Kim and family) took us out for a shakedown cruise on their boat, the Tawawi. We can't fit on their boat, but it still seemed like a good idea to get some boating experience. We had quite a good time, felt a little iffy on some of the rolling waves but nothing serious, and got to throw our backs into it helping out with some of the lines and sails and hoisting the spinnaker and all that stuff. When we got back to the marina we were invited over to the Iron Barque, a boat owned by an Aussie couple, for dinner. More atheistic science-nerdy conversations ensued, and much roast chicken was had by all. As we rode home, we actually encountered Daniel who had been out looking for us. We felt a bit sheepish because we hadn't intended to be out so late and he'd gotten worried that something had happened to us.

Friday morning we decided to head back to the Baja Naval marina and talk to Jim and Ann again, about whether they were still saying "maybe" we could come to the Marquesas with them, or they had made a definite decision. They said yes, on the proviso that we ship our bikes back to Australia seperately, as their boat is a little too crowded for bikes as well. Well, that seemed like a fair compromise, although it means modifying our plan of hopping off a boat in Oz, reassembling the bikes, and riding from that very spot back to Adelaide. But still, we've got a boat to sail on!

By Yana:

Saturday, we got stuck into doing some of the things which need doing before we board the Cactus Wren. The morning got consumed by the usual inefficiency that afflicts us, but we spent the early afternoon talking to shipping companies about sending our bikes to Australia, which turned out to be a bit of a wild goose chase in broken Spanish, with little progress for that day. More productive was our quest to end our status as illegal immigrants. Yes, we have spent the better part of two weeks as illegal immigrants in Mexico, which just tickled us. The reason for this is that upon entering the country via the US, nobody even acknowledges your presence. You can just waltz in without a scrap of ID on your person, and nobody tells you what you need to know. We actually had to hunt down the information. The upshot of this was that we headed to the nearest immigration office, got our passports stamped, and paid for a six-month tourist visa. Luckily, us pointing out to the cranky immigration guy that it's not like anyone actually told us what we needed to do, and acting sufficiently benign about it, was enough to convince him not to fine us.

Saturday was also the day of an apparently rather famous bicycle race, wherein thousands of amateur cyclists of varying degrees of seriousness hop on their bikes in Rosarito, and ride the 80km to Ensenada, completely clogging the town's roads. Once we had finished our formalities for the day, we decided to merge in with the steady stream of cyclists, and rode across the finish line with them, which was fun. There were various fun costumes, including a medieval knight on a bike, and a guy with a Darth Vader helmet. We hung around the finish line for a bit, taking in the various stalls and noisy bastardised musical performances ("Achey Breaky Heart" in Spanish - it burns us, precious!), and then decided that we'd had enough for the day.

Sunday morning, Daniel headed off for LA to enjoy a well-earned holiday. We said our goodbyes, as we probably won't see him before we set off on the next leg of our trip. We then headed down to the Cactus Wren, where we did what we could to help out a little. Sundance helped out with getting the GPS wired up to the radio, which was turning out to be a rather convoluted task involving him wriggling into lots of confined spaces and attaching wires to other wires, and I ended up heading back to the apartment to make myself useful in more domestic ways. In the evening, we found out that sending our bikes with a shipping company would incur all sorts of crazy charges for the various customs processes they'd go through. Shell-shocked, we decided to figure out what to do the next day.

On Monday, upon establishing that the customs charges are specific to shipped items, rather than something sent in the mail, we decided to have a chat to the various relevant companies, only to find ourselves hit with quotes of well over $1000 per bike. Apparently, they don't do surface freight, so it's expensive express air freight or nothing. We spent the next several hours in alternating levels of shock, angst, and indecision. The bikes are worth only a fraction of how much it would cost to send them, so the logical thing is to leave them behind and just get new ones, of course. However, we have both grown incredibly attached to our steeds, as they have faithfully stood by us on one heck of an adventure. I'll admit to welling up at one point, imagining leaving my bike behind. We decided there had to be another way, and got stuck into all sorts of research, partially with the help of the awesome people at the Tourist Information Centre. Another inconvenience was the power button on our laptop breaking, so we were without internet access for a day while the thing was getting repaired.

We also went on a journey to various cheap grocery places with Jim and Ann, where we got the bulk of our provisions for the boat trip. It's kind of spooky to find that Costco in Ensenada has the exact same layout as Costco on Maui.

Tuesday, we spent some more time with Jim and Ann, who have started referring to us as "the kids". We also found some other possibilities for shipping the bikes. The tourist info people had found a local company who over the phone quoted us $280-something per bike, which was an insane improvement. Once we had picked up the laptop from the repairs, we headed to their office, to verify this quote. Unfortunately, they hadn't calculated in the volume of our bikes, which jacked up the price to $800 per bike. Still not as bad as the other companies, but we figured we'd still aim for a better price elsewhere. In the evening, after many phonecalls, we established that there are various cheaper options in LA. As the first little leg of the trip on the Cactus Wren will take us up to San Diego, this might turn out to be doable, as Jim and Ann have conceded that for that little while, we should be able to stash the bikes on the boat, although they would be in the way in the long term. It will involve some hoop-jumping, but hey, it'll save several hundred dollars to do it this way.

We've spent most of Wednesday packing, getting all fired up for the boat trip. We still have plenty to do before our departure, but things are slowly coming together. We still have to do some very thorough cleaning of our bikes though to get the mud off them, which would involve disassembling the things and cleaning each part individually. Fun. Still, Australian quarantine regulations are anal retentive for a reason, and I can live with that.

Oooh, I'm looking for cruise...

Total distance: 7198.7 km

By Sundance:

The search for a boat to take us back to Australia continues. Last Thursday, after we bid farewell to Lucana who was setting out for the US-Mexico border, Molly drove us down to Ensenada for a few hours while she was running errands, and we started looking around and locating the harbours where we could seek boats to crew on.
 The highway down to Ensenada is a toll road that bikes aren't allowed on, so this was our chance to see the coast, including many scenic views across cliffs, beaches, and Tuna fisheries. In Ensenada we spotted someone who looked like they spoke English, who turned out to be named Jurgen. He was a very enthusiastic fellow with a can-do attitude who directed us to find a Canadian called Tom at the harbour where the cruise ships came in. We bluffed our way past the guard at the front gate, and after a bit of asking around found Tom's boat, and his wife and kids although the man himself was in San Diego for the day. Tom's wife Kim was amazed that we'd managed to get through the security at the front gate, and that they'd even shown us "the all-hallowed list" of which boats were docked where.

The following day we rode out from La Mision through the hills along the free road to Ensenada. It would have made much more sense if bikes were allowed on the toll road, since it was flatter, had no blind corners, and actually had a shoulder to ride on, but alas common sense and bureaucracy are immiscible. Still, the countryside along the free road was quite pretty - reminiscent of parts of Gippsland in Australia. When we got to Ensenada we headed out to Tom and Kim's boat again, but Tom was once again not around, so we sat and chatted with his family instead. We started to joke that Tom doesn't really exist. Then we headed off to meet with Daniel, our couchsurfing host in Ensenada, and headed back to his apartment and met his mother and brother, Eric. The next day we finally found that Tom really did exist, so we chatted with him a bit. He suggested another couple we could talk to who we went and tracked down. Jim and Ann are an older couple whom we had a really nice time chatting with. They're heading to the Marquesas, although they were intending to do the trip just by themselves. They suggested a get-together at a local bar we could come along to to meet some more local sailors, which we did. Yesterday we again wandered down to the harbour and started randomly talking to anyone who had a big boat. We're basically just going to persist in meeting people, introducing ourselves and making sure people know we're out there looking until we find someone who's willing to take us, or we exhaust our options. Although we did take a bit of time to chill out with Daniel and Eric last night, by going to the cinema. Given the small choice of options that were screening in English at a convenient time, we wound up seeing Date Night, which was entertaining enough, and the first movie we'd seen in a cinema in about eight months.

Baja hahaha!

Total Distance: 7147.4km 

By Yana:

Well, the Pacific coast of North America has been fun so far.  We've been doing various fun things, hanging around San Diego and the surrounding area.  On our second day in the bustling metropolis, our host, Chrystina, spirited us off to a very pretty beach indeed, where we spent a bit of quality time frolicking, although the water was still a bit too cold for a swim.  Later that day, we found ourselves at a mansion full of stimulating New Age types who twirled poi and staffs and other similar performance implements, and met all sorts of great people.  Some nice conversations were had.  

The next day we sought out a bike shop in the vicinity and rode out to it, as we had some repairs to take care of.  Sundance's wheel was still warped from that spoke malfunction we'd had just before the 7000km mark, and I had a buckled disc brake which was rubbing and making a nuisance of itself.  It took a little bit of time, but we got everything fixed at a very reasonable price.  Sundance's bike was still making odd noises, but we were reassured that those would go away once the water in the works from when the mechanic had so thoughtfully washed the Arizona mud off the wheel dried out.

The following day, we took our first stab at trying to find a boat which might take us across the big blue.  As we found out, asking at the front office of boat clubs is not the best way of doing it, as they just tell you you're not allowed near the boats without a membership, thus we couldn't stroll up and ask people.  We spent most of the daylight hours that day trying to find crew network type things to sign up with, which all didn't seem terribly promising.  By the time 6pm rolled around, we decided to call it a day and went back to hang out at the mansion for some yoga.

On our second boat-hunting day, we decided to take a different approach, instead just riding our bikes along the harbour, and striking up conversations with pretty much every person on a boat we could find.  To start with, the effectiveness of that method seemed doubtful as well, as the first few people we found weren't actually locals and had little knowledge of the area.  However, we eventually bumped into a fellow who is heading for Hawaii soon, and is keeping an eye out for potential inexperienced crew just in case his current people flake on him.  A start, at least.  After that, it seemed like we weren't going to find much more, and we decided to call it a day again.  It was at that point that a random person on the marina saw our bikes, noticed the panier racks, and asked us about our journey.  Obviously, the racks don't even need the bags on them.  We got into an animated conversation, and it turned out he has a friend heading for NZ.  During this conversation, we were joined by another lady, who happened to have an Aussie friend who apparently goes back and forth a reasonable amount.  We exchanged phone numbers with both of them, and rode away feeling much more optimistic.

The next day, we hitched a ride with Chrystina and took a jaunt up to LA, to spend some time with Sundance's cousin Jamie.  Getting to LA turned out to be a reasonably involved process, and it was starting to get a little bit late by the time we got there.   We met Jamie and his other half, Kim, at a cafe close to where they live, and had a very tasty dinner.  I leapt at the option of a grass-fed burger, as we've been very careful with beef here, what with the feed regulations not being as reassuringly anal retentive as they are in Oz.  We all had a very nice chat over dinner, and then headed back to Jamie and Kim's place, where we were shown to our sleeping quarters and collapsed pretty quickly.

We woke up fairly late, and after a laid back sort of breakfast, Jamie and Kim took us to Venice Beach.  It was okay, as far as beaches go, though I think the conversations we had as we walked were much more worthwhile than the beach itself.  It was also kind of fun walking back along the stretch with the shops - it vaguely reminded me of Malaysia, actually, for a reason I can't quite put my finger on.  We stopped for a bite to eat, took a few photos, stopped to take in the more interesting sights (like a fellow spinning a bola in fun and interesting ways), and other such fun things.  At one point, Sundance and I got trapped by a young rapper whom Jamie and Kim had managed to evade: the fellow pulled us in with two sets of headphones connected to an iPhone, and a handful of CDs to sell.  He actually had a pretty good sales pitch going, but we broke his routine by telling him we were somewhat impoverished, and explaining our bike journey to him.  The rapper was impressed, and let us go with apparently no hard feelings.

As we had jointly decided on fish tacos for dinner, Jamie and Kim took us to Trader Joe's to get some groceries, which was an experience in itself.  I think I still prefer the huge halls of food, like WholeFoods and Central Market, but at the same time, I appreciate the way smaller places truck on despite the presence of those huge chain monsters.  We got back and consumed our tasty tacos, after which Sundance and I introduced Jamie and Kim to The Middleman.  Interestingly, despite their relevant professions, they had never heard of the series, which says just how obscure it is. 

We got up a little earlier the next morning, and Sundance made the final contact with some people we had found on craigslist to car pool with in a bid to get back to San Diego.  That done, we all took a trip to the La Brea tar pits.  We spent some time looking at an oily lake which would occasionally boil in some places as bubbles of gas released the sweet aroma of tar.  Perhaps not the top thing on my list of favourite smells, but it was still pretty interesting, especially considering all the prehistoric critters which have gotten stuck there over time.  When we checked out the museum on the grounds, aside from all sorts of oversized extinct mammals, we also got to see a wall sporting no less than 404 skulls of dire wolves.  Yow!  Yep, quite a rich source of well-preserved fossils.

After wandering past various pieces of modern art and tar-slicked earth, we headed back to the house.  Our ride showed up not long afterwards, and we said our goodbyes.  I'm really glad we at least made it to LA - both Jamie and Kim were very interesting to talk to, and LA reinforces my feeling that I really could happily live on the USA's Pacific coast, theoretically. Sundance found it to be much less crowded a high-paced than he'd expected.

Back in San Diego, we got stuck into getting all our gear packed.  We had one day left to chill out before our visa waivers expired.  We spent most of that day packing, pausing for lunch on the balcony.  The reason this detail is worth mentioning is because while we were eating, the doors started to rattle.  After a moment, it became clear that the building was shivering and swaying.  It took us a few moments to realise that we were having an earthquake.  It only lasted for maybe a minute or two, and it stayed pretty gentle, but it was enough to be an experience.

After some more packing, we decided to call our friends from the harbour.  Gayani, the lady who had joined the conversation after we had already been accosted that day, actually invited us onto her boat for dinner, which we gladly accepted.  We got a lift to the marina from Brian, one of Chrystina's housemates, and got to meet the rest of Gayani's family, consisting of her hubby, Rob, and their kids, Mike and Eddie.  We weren't the only guests, and it was a merry little dinner party, crammed into a fairly small space with all sorts of delicious food.  It was a very nice way to spend our last evening in San Diego.  It's always nice to randomly make friends with people, and come away thinking that yeah, they were really cool, and really our kind of folk.

We fell into bed, mostly packed.  It took a little doing to get going in the morning, as Sundance still ended up spending some time plotting our way to La Mision, as there were plenty of wiggly roads and city mazes to navigate through.  We ended up leaving around noon or so.

Just before we crossed the border into Mexico, the skies opened on us, and it actually rained heavily enough that we had to dig out our wet weather gear.   After a bit of uncertainty, we managed to get our bikes through the revolving doors which the pedestrians are supposed to take, and entered Tijuana.  Once again, our border crossing into Mexico went unacknowledged, and it actually took a reasonable detour to find some US border officials we could hand our green immigration cards in to, as we found out last time that the onus is on us to do that.  They don't exactly make that clear, or make it easy to do, but there you have it.  We broke a few rules getting where we needed to get to and back, but it worked out all right.

That done, we got stuck into getting out of Tijuana before dark.   The place seemed perfectly pleasant, and Sundance noted that his sketchiness radar wasn't pinging at all, but we weren't about to test that.  We did have people strike up conversations with us though, which reminded us of just how friendly your average Mexican seems to be. I found myself wondering if perhaps many Americans treat that friendliness with suspicion, or interpret it as some sort of creepiness.  Don't know.

There was one cute moment in all of this though.  As we were making our way up some ramps to take us up to a foot bridge, we found a little boy of maybe five years goggling at us from a higher level.  Sundance greeted the kid, and we headed further up, where another random fellow struck up a conversation with us.  While I was paying attention to the conversation, I was startled by someone touching my hand.  I looked down to find the same little boy looking up at me.  Now that he had my attention, he walked to the back of my bike, and rested his hand on the Barbie I had strapped to it.  I'm not sure we mentioned this when it happened, but during our stay in Piedras Negras, one of the gifts we received was that Barbie, and I had strapped her to the paniers as a sort of travel mascot, figuring I'd give her to a random little girl along the way.  I was mildly surprised that the boy was interested in her, but I detached the Barbie from my pack, and offered her to the kid.  He almost snatched it, maybe a little worried I might change my mind, and ran out of sight, which I had to chuckle at.  Through a gap in the various stalls, I could see him standing with his mother, pointing at me.  I waved to both of them, and got back to the conversation, reflecting that it was fitting that Barbie would return to Mexico.

When we finished our chat and wheeled our way past the proud new Barbie owner, we found the mother holding out a tray of chewing gum to us, apparently offering us a freebie.  We declined, and went on our way.  We briefly stopped to get some lunch at a taco joint, which was extremely tasty, and then laboured our way up one of the hills we needed to get past to leave Tijuana.  It was well into the afternoon by then.  Luckily, after a few treacherous bits, we got to some nice broad flat bits, going vaguely downhill, so we finally were making some decent progress.  Quite a few people cheered, waved, or just grinned at the sight of us.  I also received no less than three wolf whistles, which was kind of funny, especially as they were of a decidedly good natured sort.  We could also see the sea to our right, which was nice.  Eventually though, the sun went down, and we had to keep going through the dark.  Irritatingly, we were having trouble with the public phones, which made it all the more difficult to contact our couch surfing host, Arthur.  Eventually though, we made it to the La Fonda Hotel, which was close to where we wanted to be, and they let us use the phone.  We got in contact with Arthur, and from then on, it was all pretty easy.  We arrived shortly afterwards, were shown into the casita, where we would sleep, and were presented with some Ezekiel pizza for dinner.  We actually spent quite a bit of time chatting to Arthur before bed.

The last couple of days have mostly consisted of chilling out.  We had some delicious pancakes for breakfast with Arthur, his wife Molly, another couchsurfer, Lucana, and a fellow who was doing some work around the place and whose name escapes me.  Arthur told us about a film he is making about one Garry Davis, who was the first World Citizen, having given up his USA citizenship after World War II.  The idea behind it is to encourage the world to unify more.  We might write about this in more detail in a later post.

Arthur took us for a walk along the beach, and we headed towards the La Fonda Hotel again, where it was Taco night.  As the tide was quite high, we had to clamber over a lot of rocks, and Arthur actually had to go back, as one of the dogs was having trouble with the terrain.  Sundance and I continued on our way though, and made it to the hotel, where we partook in some very tasty tacos, and I accepted the offer of a margarita.  Powerful stuff, Ｉhate to think what effect it might have had on an empty stomach.  We did get to have a nice chat with all sorts of folk who were at the same table, friends of Arthur and Molly.  I am mostly glad to have gotten to talk more with Lucana, who is a very talented photographer.

We headed back to the house after a small grocery run consisting mostly of avocados, as we have grand plans of making some key lime ice cream at some point.  Yum!  Today we met up with the local couchsurfing ambassador, Rob, who led us on a taxi ride out to a local waterfall which was nestled in some very pretty countryside a way back from the coast. In the next few days, we plan to head for Ensenada, to see about finding a boat there.