On January 8, we arrived in the Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard after an all-night sail from Morro Bay. The Channel Islands Yacht Club welcomed us and invited us to stay in their guest slip. The harbor and the slip were very sheltered, and we were very happy to be snuggly tucked away in the slip during what turned out to be a week of storms. The rain storms came rolling in off the Pacific with about a day or two between them. The storms brought high winds and large waves outside the harbor.
On the morning of January 9, Nina took a walk out to the breakwaters at the entrance to the harbor, and watched huge waves crash over the breakwaters and roll into the harbor. It was clearly not a day to be out sailing.
Nina also discovered beautiful Hollywood Beach. The light and clouds were spectacular. Later in the day, Nina took Robert to the beach and together we watched a beautiful sunset as the next storm approached.
That evening, we went out to dinner at a Brazilian restaurant, which we picked just by chance. When we walked into the restaurant we realized that we had been there in 2012 when we first started looking for a sailboat to buy. In 2012, we went to Oxnard to look at a Tartan 37 sailboat called Wild Rose. Being in the Brazilian restaurant felt like a magical déjà vu. When we were first there in 2012 we had a dream of going sailing and were just starting our journey to make it real, and now we were on our way. We had this marvelous sensation of coming full circle and acknowledging where we had started and how far we had come. We also felt tremendous gratitude for all the people who have helped us to make our dream a reality.
During our stay in the harbor, we had several other wonderful walks along the beach and enjoyed some beautiful sunsets.
We also met two new friends, Russ and Christine, who are retrofitting a Celestial 48 sailboat named Jazz. They are preparing to sail to Mexico this winter. We invited them over to our boat for drinks, and a few days later they invited us out for tacos and gave us a ride to Trader Joe’s and some other stores to do errands. This was a huge help to us, because there were not many stores within walking distance of the marina.
The Channel Islands Harbor is a man-made harbor that is designed for boats and cars and is not very walkable – and we were on foot! It felt a little bit like living in a suburban development. In spite of this, the harbor had its own beauty, and we enjoyed taking long walks and looking at the amazing succulents that were planted along the walkways. We also repaired some leaks in the aft cabin.
Palm trees and succulents in the rain. 
Robert emerges from repairing leaks.
One morning we were delighted to discover two sea lions beside our boat! We excitedly told our friends about this, but were informed that sea lions are considered a nuisance by people in the marina, because the sea lions rest on the docks, make big messes and bark loudly at all hours.
In the marina, the cell phone coverage and Wi-Fi coverage were not that good. So every day we would trek to a nearby café to get on Wi-Fi. One day, we went to the café and met a lovely couple named Greg and Tamara, who are retired and were visiting Oxnard for three months. We invited them to see our boat, and they invited us to visit the Channel Islands Maritime Museum with them. This small museum was a wonderful discovery. It had a fantastic collection of old wooden models boats and model boats made out of bones by French prisoners. It also had incredible paintings by Dutch, Flemish, and British painters showing beautiful ships and maritime life in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s. Nina looked at the Dutch paintings and tried to imagine what it was like for her ancestors to come by ship from Holland in the late 1700s. There also was an exhibit about a Chinese mariner from the Tang Dynasty who sailed huge ships all the way to Africa.
Friday, January 18, was a glorious day. Finally we had sun after over a week of rain. But the sea state was not favorable for sailing, because the waves were 16 to 18 feet high, and the harbor patrol advised us to stay in the harbor. We decided to set sail to Santa Barbara on the following day.