Oxnard Overnighter

Friday afternoon Wil, my husband, and I went to Oxnard. Our plan was to stay with our neighbor Dean on his boat overnight, then visit the Water Safety Day activities and demonstrations involving several agencies, including the Coast Guard.

This is Dean's boat, the Dawn Treader. His wife is a fan of the Narnia series (as am I). Dean bought this boat about six years ago. It was a real wreck. He brought it home to his backyard, totally gutted it inside and out, and rebuilt everything on it. He did the majority of the work himself, including the painting. It took about three years of weekend and evening work and lots of beer!

Here we are on the fly bridge enjoying an afternoon coctail (or two or three...).

Here's the owner of the boat. He designed this area so the table and captain's chair are removable. Wil is sitting in the captain's chair on the left of this picture. When the boat goes out the table is removed from the pedistal and set to the side while the chair is moved from the side pedistal to the front-of-the-wheel pedistal.

After a while it was time to go to dinner. At Wil's Coast Guard appointment last week they told him any experience driving a boat would be brownie points, so Dean let him drive the dinghy. Besides, we needed a designated driver!

And of course while Wil was waiting for us to get ready he had to pause to text one of his friends.

This is on the way to dinner.

I don't really have anything to compare it to, but Oxnard Harbor seemed really big. There were boats of all sizes and types everywhere.

When we got back from dinner I tried my hand at some night photography. Hmmm, maybe too many Tom Collins'??

Just kidding! The real reason the night shots didn't work out was because I didn't have my tripod and the whole being on the water thing wasn't really working (you have to leave the shutter open and if your camera isn't still you get blurry pictures). This is about the best one I could come up with. I set it on a cooler on the dock next to the boat, but even that was not perfectly still.

The next day, Saturday, we took a little tour of the other section of harbor. Here's Wil getting more boat driving experience. This was a truly residential area of the harbor. There were water "streets" with names and they all had docks to tie their boat(s). This home was protected by a scary watchman. I don't think I'd mess with him!Then we took a quick spin out to the ocean. On the way out of the harbor we passed the Coast Guard Station, where the Water Safety Day activites would be.

Here is a helicopter from the Ventura PD.This is the Coast Guard dock with a few of their "smaller" boats.
Father and son--future Coastie (hopefully).

It was a nice beginning to a great Mother's Day weekend.

I hope you all had a good Mother's Day too!