Romancing the Stone

This is not my boat. It is the boat from the final scene in Romancing the Stone

Trailer VIN verification in California

In the last post I ended up not quite owning a road legal trailer for Bazinga in California. Well this past week I decided to not waste time on work on resolving this. Well I have resolved it and now have a fully California registered trailer. Since my Wednesday afternoon this past week didn’t have any meetings booked I decided to take the afternoon off to go and complete the trailer VIN verification. Well, as you can guess it was an adventure.

In advance of heading up there I noticed that AAA offers up many DMV type services so I called them and confirmed that they do out of state trailer VIN verifications at their Pinole branch which is the closest branch to where the boat it. I was happy to be able to avoid having to go to the DMV to get this done. At lunch time I headed out from the office to drive up to the marina and get the boat to take it to AAA in Pinole. I expected to be done quickly and get some tidying up done on the boat afterwards. It didn’t quite happen this way.

As I was pulling into Point Richmond it suddenly dawned on me that I had not brought the hitch insert and ball with me. An hour drive from home I was not relishing the idea of driving all the way back to get it. So I went to the local Marine Hardware store (I am going to be a regular there) to see if I could get a hitch insert and ball. They didn’t have any but recommended me to a local trailering store called Camp Quest so I headed there. Luckily they had them and they weren’t that expensive so I bought one and headed back to the marina to get the trailer.

Where I had parked the boat I was assured that no one ever parked across from it so getting it out should not be a problem. Well on Wednesday afternoon there was one care parked in that whole section of the parking lot directly across from the boat. There was no way I would be able to get it out with the truck. I went to the office and met the manager of the marine to get my keys. I talked with the manager about the situation and he suggested that he had a couple other spots open that might be better for me. With my key I went and got the yard tug as I thought I may be able to get the boat out with the tug and then hook it up to the truck. Got the tug and checked out some of the other available spots. Found one on the list that looked much better. Got back to the boat and hooked to the tug to give it a try to get the boat out but was not going to be able to get it out even with the tug. I did figure I could pull it right through the parking spot across from me through the parking spot next to the one with the car in it. I got it through there and then when I was trying to turn the boat into that driveway I noticed that the stern was going to swing directly into another car as I made the tight turn. Luckily someone from the office building came out and said they knew who owned that car and a couple minutes later they came out to move it. I thanked them profusely and pulled the boat into the driveway so I could hook up to it with the truck. I got everything hooked up, returned the tug and headed out.

A frustrating drive up to the AAA in Pinole on surface streets with too many traffic lights. It was a slow drive up there and then I had to find a place to park in the mall where the AAA office was located. I walked in and got in line which was luckily not very long. When I explained what I needed they explained that they don’t do that at this branch and that what I needed is a specific DMV only function. Ugh! The lady helping me was sincerely apologetic when she saw the boat parked outside. Looked up the nearest DMV which was in El Cerrito which was back towards the marina and headed there.

Had to drive on the freeway for a couple miles to get there and then the GPS took me on an interesting route. The El Cerrito is up on a hillside compared to the freeway. The GPS of course did not understand that I was towing a 33ft. boat and sent me on the most direct route which involved going up some rather steep narrow residential streets. I managed to find a route that got me to the main street that the DMV was right next to that didn’t involve too steep a hill. I am sure that a lot of residents did a double take as the boat went by on their sleep residential street. Got to the main street and the GPS said to make a right and then a u-turn to get to the DMV. Well that wasn’t going to happen so I made the right turn and drove away from the DMV while making another tour of the residential area on the other side of the main road. This area was full of one way streets and blocked residential streets that took a while before I got back on the main street heading the correct way.

I pulled into the DMV and went down the one way road around the back to get in the line for verifications. As I got to the building there was a line for verifications that lead right under an overhang that had a sign on it that the clearance was 11ft. I wasn’t going to fit under there so I parked right on the one way road and put my flashers on. There was enough space for people to get around me so I figured I would be okay. I went inside and was instructed to wait at my vehicle. I waited about 15 minutes and no one came out so I decided to go back in and explain things a bit further since they couldn’t see me in the line. I got in the formal line and waited till I got to the front to explain my situation. As you might expect the receptionist was this crusty lady who appeared to have been there forever. She had a big argument with the person in front of me so I was not looking forward to facing her with my story. I explained myself and she stood up and looked outside to see the boat parked in the driveway. At this point she yelled out in a loud voice that just about everyone in the building heard “oh, just like Romancing The Stone!” Just about every head looked up. You could tell only a few people, including myself, got the reference. She was my best friend and explained that I should go out and wait at my vehicle. She also gave me a number to get me in the queue for the next step after that. I went back to the truck and sure enough only a few minutes later a DMV employee came out and verified the VIN on the trailer. I went back in with my paperwork and was shortly thereafter called to the counter where I was quickly and efficiently helped. A few minutes later I paid some fees and had my plate for the trailer.

I went back out to face the problem of how to get out of the DMV. I pulled forward into the inspection lane and the same employee who helped me with the verification came out to leave for the day. It was 4:30pm by this time. He offered to help me. As I pulled into the inspection lane it became clear that I was going to be a couple inches too tall to fit underneath. The exit I was hoping to use turned out to not be an exit and was permanently blocked. The DMV employee suggested I turn the boat around and go out the way I came in. He assured me he had seen others do it and that he would stick around for a few minutes to help me. He also assured me that it would be okay to drive the truck up on the lawn in order to make my cuts and get the trailer turned around. Since he was an employee there and was directing me I went for it. After a hand full of cuts back and forth across their lawn and backing the trailer around some large bollards and into a one lane blocked off exit I had everything turned around and pointing the wrong way down the one way entrance driveway. Luckily it was late enough that no one was coming in for their driver’s test and I made it out without any problems. Headed back to the marina wondering how I was going to get the boat back into my spot. I got back to my spot and the original car blocking me was still there and someone had parked in the spot where I was able to squeeze the boat through so there was no way I was going to get it back in there. I decided to just go and park it in the one good spot from the list that the manager had suggested. I called and left a message with the manager to let him know what I was doing. I easily got the boat into that spot. There was lots of room around it so that even with cars parked in all the parking spots I will still be able to maneuver the boat into the spot. I took a few minutes to put my new plate on and head home.

On the way home I realized I had totally skipped lunch and it was now after 6pm. I was hungry! As I was going to pass by Berkeley I called up the Sylvinator but she was not interested in dinner with me. I decided I was going to go back to the Nations Giant Hamburger place for a burger in Berkeley. As I got onto University Avenue to head up towards Berkeley I noticed a BBQ join that looked like it could be good. I pulled into the parking lot of Everett and Jones BBQ in Berkeley. I ordered the ribs and 2 sides with a tub of peach cobbler for desert and sat outside in BBQ bliss to enjoy it. I ended up getting home just after 8pm very tired.

First work day on the boat

I have been thinking about what to do with all the stuff I have related to the boat and what to do with it. I looked into self-storage units near the marina where I could put everything and decided to check it out to see if it would be a good option. The Jellobear is in town for a couple days arriving on Friday night so the plan was for us to go and do some work on the boat on Saturday. Good daughter/dad bonding time. My plan was to scrape off the Arizona registration and put my new California registration number on the boat, go through all the sails and tidy up all the stuff on the boat and then check out the self-storage units nearby.

After sleeping in and having a nice breakfast we headed out to Richmond. I stopped at the marine hardware store to get stick-on numbers for the registration number. We got the marina and started work. I vaguely remembered seeing a sign next to the marina office regarding storage lockers so while the Jellobear figured out how to get the ladder off the trailer I went to the office to check out the situation on storage lockers. Sure enough they have storage lockers. They are a bit more expensive than the self-storage place but they were also a bit larger and right on site so I decided to take one. They needed to sort out the key situation for it and said they would come by the boat with the keys once they figured it out.

I got back to the boat and the Jellobear had the ladder set up and was figuring out how to scrape off the registration numbers. I gave her some pointers but honestly didn’t have any more brilliant ideas than what she was doing. I climbed up on the boat and started going through all the things I loaded onto the boat when I picked it up in San Diego. I started lifting things out and stacking them on deck. The Jellobear was struggling with the scraping but was making some progress and got one side mostly off. We took a bit of a break and decided to start taking everything off the boat. The Jellobear chose to go down and receive everything that I was going to pass down to her. I got all the tote bins down and then started pulling all the sails out as well. It was hard work maneuvering everything out of the boat, onto the deck and then lowering it down the side for the Jellobear to reach and pile it next to the boat. Got everything down and came down to take another break. We chatted a bit and the Jellobear suggested that I should paint the boat and trailer in a Barbie pink color because that would look really cool. I told her that if she agreed to sail to Hawaii with me I would paint the boat any color she wanted. She thought about it for a minute and proclaimed that that may be a deal she would consider. We shall see how the works out.

We started going through the sails. We pulled out a couple to take a look at. We looked at several of the the various weight spinnakers on the boat spreading them out, inspecting them and then repacking them. It took a while for each sail. After going through the easiest 4 sails and looking at the remaining pile of 11 more sails in the heat of the early afternoon I decided to call it for this project. We started carrying everything over to the locker and piling it all into the small room. After too many trips to count we had everything neatly stacked in the locker. I will buy some shelving units to put in there as I will need it in order to keep things organized and to fit the additional 5 tote bins I currently have at my apartment.

We went back to the boat to figure out the boat cover and close up the boat. The boat cover was designed to connect around the mast and drape over the boom so with the mast down and the book inside the boat there was no way we were going to be able to get that to work. We took it down to the locker as well. As I was lashing on the ladder and checking everything was good on the boat, I looked at the foot holding the trailer up and was quite uncomfortable with the odd angle it was at. I decided to go and get a jack stand to take the weight of the trailer while it was parked. So where did I go, well to the local marine hardware store of course. The owner there is starting to recognize me but advised he didn’t have jack stands and that I should check out the local O’Reilly’s auto parts store. A 10 minute drive and had jack stands. I discovered they can only be purchased in pairs which make sense so I have a jack stand for the trailer and a spare one which also went into the locker. By this time it was quite a bit later than I had expected and we headed for home. Both of us were tired but eagerly anticipating getting home and making lasagna for dinner.

On the way home I decided to stop at the outlet store for my new favorite brand of ice cream, Koolfi Creamery. Since their store is in Hayward on our way home it was convenient and not much of a detour. We each got a scoop of ice cream and sat in the truck to enjoy it. I felt instantly less tired and happier as we headed back out to the freeway and into the section of the drive with the worst traffic. Ice cream was just the pick me up I needed since we hadn’t had lunch and had been working hard outside in the sun all day. We got home and worked together to make lasagna for dinner. We impatiently waited for it to cook up and dug into it as soon as we could. It was very good except I noticed that I had forgot to put salt and pepper into the meat mix so it wasn’t quite perfect. In the collaboration of making it I had forgot to add that at the end of the cooking. It was still very good though. As it cooled and we tidied up I was able to get several containers filled and into the freezer. Looking forward to that as left overs.