The LA area – La la land it surely is!

Our first port of call in the Los Angeles area was Santa Barbara. As an anchorage it left a lot to be desired with a very, very rolly sea under the boat, sleeping was about as difficult as not falling out of bed. A fellow yachty that came and told us he'd spent the summer in this particular anchorage had a kind of crazed insomniac look in his eyes with bags like santa's sacks under them! The town on it's offical website is self described as the equal of London, Paris or Rome condensed into 1 square mile with the world's most perfect climate. To us it seemed a bit laughable when looking at the top 20 things to do in Santa Barabara, 19 were restaurants. Not to say that we were expecting the Louvre or the Colosseum but a cloudy town with a street full of chain stores and restaurants was what we got. With the added bonus of the most homeless people we've ever seen. One who we saw drinking the dregs from coffee cups he found in three different bins and another that was singing at the top of his voice from cue cards with 80s classic lyrics on them?!

2^nd port of call was Venice Beach – wierdo central for the whole world. If anyone would like to be shocked at the human race then I suggest you walk along Venice boardwalk and take in the rich tapestry of dysfunction. A personal favourites had to be the no toothed, red hot pant clad runner up to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1978 Mr Universe contest who now spends his days walking around muscle beach semi naked charging 2 dollars for a picture of himself in an arthritic Hulk Hogan style body building pose. Another highlight of human tragedy amongst the tattoo faced, medical marijuana dispensing, dog dressing up crowd, would be a 65 year old hippy in orange tracksuit pants and bobble hat dancing to a Bob Dylan cover band while balancing a bottle of water on his head?!

Our personal favourite impression of LA had to be given at our 3^rd port of call, Redondo Beach. After anchoring we were instructed to go and see the harbour master to fill out the appropriate paper work (a form to drop anchor!!!). Upon leaving his office we were confronted by a most disgruntled looking gentleman in a fire department T-shirt. He first told us that the place where we had pulled the dinghy out was for launching canoes only. Hence we would not be allowed to put it back in the water where we just pulled it out from. Instead we were made to carry it across the marina to the area he deemed suitable for launch. Not content with making us move our dinghy double the distance it originally was from the boat, he went on to say that as we didn't have any life jackets in it we would not be able to make the 100m row back to Indian Summer without getting a ticket from the charming gent himself. What an absolute jobsworth. 2 dive instructors and an ex-fireman/advanced diver not being allowed to row in calm shallow water back to their boat! As if the chemical factory directly opposite the marina and the cheap version of Blackpool feel to the place hadn't put us off staying enough, fireman twat certainly did.