After living in Glendale for about a year, we decided it was time to live by the ocean so we moved to Hermosa Beach.
When we were in Glendale, we were always driven to go to the ocean. One day in December, we were in Long Beach looking at boats when we came across this place that was offering sailing lessons, two for the price of one. Learning how to sail has been on my husbands Bucket List for years so we jumped on the offer.
So for the next six weeks every Saturday we drove to Long Beach to take our lessons. It was so much fun learning how to sail.
We would go sailing whenever possible. My husband utilized Craig’s List and found a guy who was willing to have us pay him a monthly fee for the use of his boat. I believe we could take the boat out six half days a month or three whole days. His boat was parked in Marina del Ray which was about a twenty minute drive from Hermosa Beach.
So, our typical weekend in Hermosa Beach would start out with breakfast at Good Stuff. They had the most awesome food and the best location. One of our favorites was Crabby Cakes Benedict. We would also order their muffin of the day. Good Stuff was right on the Strand which parallels the beach. Hermosa Beach is unique as it has such fine sand that it is the beach of choice for Olympic Volley Ball athletes. What fun it was to eat breakfast and watch these professional athletes.
Once breakfast was over, we would head to Marina del Ray to take the forty foot sailing boat out on the ocean. The boat was so big and the harbor so full that when we would start to get the boat out the of the slip we would have to drive backward until we met the middle. My husband was the master and did an awesome job. Sometimes it would be a little scary if the wind was whipping around as we could hit another boat.
Once we would drive out of the harbor, we would pull up the sails and sail off. We would sail all the way to Malibu passing Venice Beach then double back and head to Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. As long as we had wind, we would be fine. Oh, I did sometimes worry about fog but we never really had much of a problem. There was a fire inland one day and it was really eerie seeing the smoke. Fortunately the winds pushed is West of us.
One day, there was not a lick of wind. We stopped the boat about a mile or so away from land and started reading our books. Our hopes were that the wind would eventually start up. I believe we were over by Malibu when I looked up and saw for half a mile in each direction was a Super Pod of dolphins. They were swimming along at a rapid speed. My husband started up the engine and off we went. I climbed to the front of the boat and started filming the dolphins swimming in and out of the front of the boat. After awhile, I took the wheel and my husband got to film them.
Below is some of the video we took – enjoy the video.