Strange Bedfellows

Kenutu is staying in the Port of Los Angeles right now. She's in the slip that her previous owner had her in while we try to weasel her into a marina closer to our house. The marina is the equivalent of a floating trailer park, with power boats and sail boats and big square house boats built to look like river boats. Some of the boats have their own coral reefs growing on them and others are leaning precariously to one side. The dock is a tetanus land mine with rusty screws and nails everywhere. There is hardly any paint on the dock, the fingers literally scream when they slide up and down the pilings with the tide, and when we some crazy El Nino winds last week, I was more surprised that the dock hadn't blown away than I would have been if we'd found Kenutu floating out in the middle of the channel. 

Even with all its dilapidation, the marina is an exciting place to be parked. And since we have no doubt it will be shut down in the near future, we're enjoying it while it lasts. Just look at this madness.

That's the Mardia Gras on the far left. And that grey intimidator just past him is the USS Iowa, a 900-foot long battleship. Then there's a cruise ship, which are like a sideways skyscraper when they roll by. At the far right is a container ship, probably all the way from China. All this is floating right outside our cockpit (aka back porch).

Since it's the trailer park marina, we also run into cops at the dock sometimes. Last week the drama involved a mechanic trying to sell a huge fishing boat on a lien, but he didn't know how to park it after he gave his prospective buyers a test drive. He came coasting into the channel, got all crooked, knocked about three boats, and was finally dragged into his spot by helpful bystanders once the engine officially died. Apparently, earlier that day Lien Man had almost thrown Boat Owner over the edge of the boat and she was taking him to small claims court to get the lien lifted because his mechanic work on the engine was crap.

The other thing this marina gives us is a lot of fun freaking out over "what's that sound?" We'll be doing some work and then it will sound like the bilge is running non-stop. We pull up the engine panels and look inside, but the bilge is chilling. We try to locate the source of the sound, and then one of usually gets a clue and looks outside and sees this.

Or this. 

Right before these guys passed, we thought we heard water running somewhere near the front of the boat. Then we peeked outside and the boat on the right looked like he was Tokyo drifting and his ass end was swinging right our way. As he passed us and we relaxed, we turned right and saw that container ship. Nothing gets past us.

We definitely prefer less industrial smelling marinas with fewer threats to our safety, but we will miss all this bizarre activity and nautical triumphs that pass by our door when we're hanging with Kenutu.