Commander #155 'Mephisto Cat'

[Rico]

PICTURE 1.- I've made it to Newport Beach!
Here is the Mephisto Cat at the Harbormaster's (Police) dock. It took me a little bit to get settled as I could not find an available guest dock (which are FREE). And I did not want to deal with the anchorage, as I really did not look forward to worrying about anchors in the night after only 4 hrs sleep in the last two days... (There are two or three free anchoring areas within the harbor.) And I also did not have a Dinghy in which to get to shore...)

Lacking a guest dock; I returned to get my luxury $5 mooring, but had to wait as there was an issue that the harbor police had to attend to... There was a 50-60 year-old skipper roaming around the harbor... This guy was completely toasted and he was running around the harbor (tight quarters - lot's of traffic) on a 50ft sailboat!!

It was one of the dozen or so 20-year old non-sailing women on the boat who got so scared when he started getting awnry and having too many close calls with other vessels that finally made the call to 911... I wasted some time, but it was entertaining at least... Only in LA...


PICTURE 2.- My Mooring. I spent the night on the boat, but decided to leave the boat there until the next weekend when the forecast called for a bit more wind... I had a lovely night's sleep on the boat. I think it took me 5 seconds to fall asleep.

Accommodation at the house pictured behind the Mephisto Cat was sadly NOT included in the $5 mooring fee. (If people pay $1m for 800sf in the harbor, I wonder how much this little chateau went for...) I found out later that my mooring was in front of (behind me as I took the picture) John Wayne's old house, which was later owned by Nicolas Cage the actor. There was a 100' or so motoryach parked in front of that...