Chapter 1: Wilmington, Los Angeles.

So, I have been in America for five days now, and what a five days it's been. First of all, I must set the scene for you all. The boat is moored in the Island Yacht Anchorage, situated in the heart of Wilmington. Sounds nice doesn't it? Well, it's not. Wilmington is affectionately referred to by the locals as the 'arsehole of LA' and there is good reason for this. I find myself deep within LA's industrial port, with our marina, if it can be called that, bobbing precariously at the mouth of the river that allows the container ships into the loading bays. It is a scenic little spot, with uninterrupted views of the industrial cranes and the oil diggers. I feel so dwarfed by the sheer size of the machinery that surrounds us. I should have expected such a spot when James' directions to the boat read 'you may feel like you have entered an industrial wasteland, but just keep going. Don't worry, you'll be fine.' Wilmington is not exactly the most accessible of areas either; even the taxi's sat-nav did not have a clue when I got picked up from the airport. Perhaps the best way to illustrate the desperate nature of our surroundings is to tell you that in order to get to the 'Chowder Barge,' a floating American diner from which I write, I had to scale a fence, walk through scrub land, before darting across a railway bridge, making sure to dodge the mile long freight trains that pass through. In short, it is a hilarious setting for the start of our adventure.

The primary focus of this week has been to spruce the boat up. Structurally, she is sound, but she was in need of a makeover. Thus, this week has consisted of waking up at eight in order to sand, paint, and varnish the boat. Because I was the last to arrive in LA, I was lucky enough to spend my first two days in a tiny cubbie hole, scraping sludge out of the diesel tanks. Not exactly the glamorous job I expected when I thought of yachting. However, now that we have been working on her for a week, the Black Wind is looking pretty sexy. More than this, we all feel like proper men, which made my diesel adventure worth while.

It has not been all work no play this week though. On Saturday night, we went along to a Christmas parade on Belshore Avenue, in Long Beach. In order to get there, we got a lift from Gary, an old timer who is working on the boat akin to ours. Jack and I had to lie down in the back of his pick up truck and then be hidden by blankets. I felt like a Mexican trying to make it across the border. Oddly enough, whilst lying under the dusty sheets, being whisked through the streets of LA, Jack and I had a conversation about the strength of the Euro, Britain's immigration policies and the strengths and weaknesses of the NHS. It is the most normal conversation that I have ever had with him; he normally just tells me crazy stories about his mates from the army. After what felt like a lifetime, we finally made it to the parade; and what a spectacle it was. The whole community lined the street in order to watch the countless floats, marching bands and cheer-leading squads trundle by. It was Americana at its best. You would never see anything like it in the UK because it would cause too much of an inconvenience. As Jack lamented, 'if that happened down ma street, people would start throwing bricks.' After the festivities of the parade Chris, Jack and I went to a club called 'The shore,' leaving Blair and James to go to a gay bar.The club was surreal. First of all, we were greeted by the nicest bouncer in the world; he must have apologised about five times for  our wait and we must have only been in the queue for five minutes. Once inside we were challenged to a drinking competition by the barman. This resulted in him winning and then crowing like a rooster for the whole bar to hear. Embarrassing. To further our humiliation, he told us to go and get some girls and he would give us all free shots. We failed, meaning that I could no longer look him in the eye. We left shortly afterwards.

Yesterday was our day off and so Chris, Blair, Jack and I went to see a bit of LA. We took the metro to Downtown, which was quite literally mental. Our carriage was like an episode of Jerry Springer. One of the more memorable characters was a morbidly obese black woman, who was slumped in her mobility scooter, with her phone wedged into her neck and shoulder fat, leaving her hands free to pile greasy chicken into her mouth. As if that wasn't enough, there were also a lot of mumbling crack heads; one guy was stood by the door whispering 'I need to get off this motherfucker' over and over. I tried looking out of the window, only to see someone beating a kid with a stick in Compton. It was a nervy hour and a half. The people did not get much better once we got to Downtown. As soon as we got out of the metro station we were met by a gangster singing Backstreet Boys at the top of his lungs, whilst banging randomly on a metal electrical box. Safe to say, we did not spend much time Downtown. Things got better once we got to Venice Beach, although we enjoyed ourselves too much and before we knew it, it was eleven o'clock. This threw a spanner in the works for our plans to get back to the boat. We ended up having to walk seven blocks in the pissing rain, before waiting for the bus on the wrong side of the road for a good half an hour. It was a long and wet journey home.

We are pretty much ready to set sail now. Our two guests have arrived today; Barry and Dominic. They seem like nice guys - Barry got stuck right in with helping us with the varnishing. He is also going to teach us to fish which should be pretty cool. Another manly trait. All I need to do now is build fire and I should be all set. We leave for Mexico at the crack of dawn on Wednesday. I have really enjoyed my time in LA but I will be glad to see the back of Wilmington. The next time you hear from us, we will be in 'Mejico!' Wish us luck.