Ketch 22 departed for San Diego in October of 2007 and didn't return to US waters until 2009.  There were several stops along the way with crew changes at each stop.   Aside from nearly being run down by a rogue container ship, coming in to San Francisco Bay near midnight as we were headed out, things went fairly smoothly.   Regarding the container ship, I would have (and still do) expect that being roughly a mile outside of the marked channel should prevent any misunderstandings between freighters and smallish yachts, but it pays to stay alert regardless.

The first first trip was an overnight sail from San Francisco to Monterey California.   The crew members were Myself, Roberta Bernhard, Jeff Smith, and Stan Phillips, all members of the NASA Ames Sailing Club .   That trip was coincidental with the Monterrey Jazz festival , so we took a cab to the festival grouds and enjoyed ourselves while relaxing to the sounds of one of California's premierre jazz festivals.

The second leg featured myself and my daughter Alyson, Dan Casey and Stan Phillips as crew. This leg took us from Monterrey to Oxnard California.

The third leg sailed with myself and Adrian Agogino as crew.   The two of us drove to Oxnard in his Prius , sailed from Oxnard to Newport Beach, grabbed a rental car the next morning, picked up his Prius, dropped off the rental and drove back to San Jose.   A busy weekend.

The last leg was made by myself and my wife, and we sailed (motored as I recall) from Newport Beach to San Diego where me met up with the crew who was joining us for Mexico.

The trip down the coast is kind of a blur for me.  I was working at my day job 4 days a week, and delivering Ketch 22 down the coast to San Diego in order to be at the start of the 13th annual Baja Ha Ha.   Although not on an agressive schedule, I ended up being exhausted due to the combination of sailing on long weekends voyages and working my day job the rest of the week.   By the time I got to San Diego, I just wanted to rest for a while.   But the Baja Ha Ha schedule suggested otherwise.   After a couple days of prepping and partying, we started with the rest of the fleet of about 160 yachts who were about to invade Mexico.