Social Labyrinth
Or, a series of random encounters in Santa Cruz
We’re in Monterey. We had planned to leave today, but as Mike Tyson said, “everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” We might not have been punched in the face, but we’ve definitely been riding a whirlwind since we arrived in Santa Cruz.
Prior to Santa Cruz, Tom and Kim (friends we met at our sailing club) drove down from San Francisco to meet us for dinner at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. It felt like we were a lot further away since we arrived by sea. We had a great time, really enjoyed seeing them and felt grateful for some social time before continuing on down the coast. We had no idea what was yet to come.
Everything started out so innocently. We slid right up to the end tie on “E” dock, just as Alan and Lynda (friends too from the club) were walking up the dock, having come down to Santa Cruz from Saratoga to meet us for dinner, and to bring down the boarding steps we had left on the dock in Brisbane. As it was after hours, harbor patrol came down to the dock to handle the formalities (mainly, to take our money and sell us a key fob). After popping a bottle of champagne on the boat, the four of us headed over to The Crow’s Nest for dinner.
The meal was good, the company was better, and after we were all done, and had said our goodbyes, Donna and I were back on the boat and ready for bed.
The next day started early for me, as I’m still wrapping up with work. A round of morning meetings for me, while Donna headed into town to grab a few things. With work done, and a late lunch out of the way, we jumped into an Uber to go pick up a new starter battery.
After getting the new battery back to the boat and installed, we had a couple of hours before meeting our friend Samara in the evening, and so decided to go out for a walk.
On the dock, we ran into Michael, the caretaker for Elyxir, the Santa Cruz 52 across the dock from us. After a long talk, in which Michael agreed to pass our old (perfectly good, it turned out) starter battery along to a friend with a solar installation, he suggested we head up to the yacht club for drinks and dinner.
The clubhouse sits on the edge of a cliff over-looking the harbor, with an expansive multilevel deck descending the hillside. We ordered drinks and found seats at a table outside, where the couple we sat next to, Denise and Jason, turned out to be heading south too!
After dinner and exchanging contact deets and mutual anticipation of meeting in San Diego, we headed back down the hill to the boat to meet Samara.
As we walked up the dock to the boat to get ready for her visit, though, we bumped into the crew of Heartbreaker, coming back in after winning their class during the Wednesday night regatta. As we chatted with Jennifer, telling her about our plans to continue heading south, she told us about her husband’s brother, who was also taking his Hylas 54 Second Verse south.
A quick aside might be in order here. About four years ago, I started looking for opportunities to do deliveries — taking boats from one place to another —to gain more experience sailing offshore. After getting connected with Arnstein, a legendary West Coast delivery captain (thanks Lynn!), I had the opportunity to sail from Sydney, British Columbia all the way down to San Diego. One of those trips was to deliver a 54’ Hylas named Second Verse to Alameda.
As it became clear to Jennifer and I that I was the guy her brother-in-law had talked about on that delivery, her husband John came up from down below and out on the dock. I couldn’t help staring at him. I knew we had never met, yet had such a strong sense of having done so that my cognitive dissonance struck me mute, until he finally asked, “Have we met?”
Now it was his turn to be surprised by my response,“No. But you look just like your brother!” — at least until we finally managed to explain the situation. According to John, he’s the smarter and more handsome of the two, but I could swear they’re almost twins.
We finally exchanged contact details, and took our leave as they walked up the dock to the gate, and we walked down the dock to our boat, just as the phone pinged Samara’s arrival.
Samara is a long time friend who we met at Burning Man, and have had a nice connection with ever since, getting together for dinner or drinks occasionally, or seeing her at parties. Now she and her partner have moved down to Ben Lomond, just outside Santa Cruz, and we had plenty to catch up on, before she headed back out and we finally turned in for the night.
In the morning, we had our sail to Monterey.
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these are great stories
Lynda and Alan Maybruck from Dock 4 ? I love them