Journal Entry – Monday March 7, 2005 – Puddle Jump Potluck

Author: Scott

Nothing like getting your day started to the fine smell of boiling eggs. Toss in that you are tired from the 30 Something party the night before and you have a deadline to transform the stinky eggs into something edible and you can pretty well picture our morning. Today was the Puddle Jump Potluck and we had decided to bring deviled eggs after Pam found a cute sailing deviation from the old standby. Pam read in a cruising guide that you could decorate your deviled eggs to look like sailboats by using toothpicks and triangular pieces of paper, you could further enhance your egg boats by writing the names of the boats attending the party on the sails of each egg. So there we were frantically boiling eggs (pew), peeling, slicing, scooping, mixing, filling, cutting, taping, writing, and finally stepping the masts of our dream boats.

Once we finished the eggs we scurried off to meet Grasal at their boat so we could follow them to the party, we heard the dinghy landing was a little confusing. It was very interesting touring another 32’ boat and we got some great safety ideas. We also got to meet Keltie, the ship dog. We all jumped into the dinghies and set off for the party. There are two entrances to Los Gatos Beach which is protected by a reef with an opening at each end of the beach. To enter the beach you have the choice of the southwest entrance which is wide open but can have very rough surf, or the northeast entrance that leads you into a shallow lagoon full of swimmers and tour boats. We opted for the crowded entrance and crept along the beach at a snails pace. We had to wade in with our engines out of the water when it got too shallow and then drag the dinks quite a ways up the beach because the tide was very low, but we were there without a single egg-plosion.

The party was held under a large beachfront palapa and the view was magnificent. We turned in our potluck contribution (Martha Stewart eat your heart out) and everyone was thrilled with our little sailboats, people took pictures and everything, they were a hit! We spent the afternoon nibbling and talking to cruisers. We were a little sad because we knew we would not be leaving with the group, but we managed to meet some very nice people by attending the Puddle Jump meetings and we are sure we will see at least some of these people over in the South Pacific. After taking a group picture Pam and I headed home, but first we had to drag our dinghy out into the lagoon (Pam did something to her shoe on the rocks that now makes it squeak whenever it gets wet). When we got back to the boat we realized there was nothing to eat so we headed into town and had a yummy pizza dinner at a new Z-town restaurant find.