Days Twenty Six thru Thirty One - Newport Beach

Sarah, Jeff and Marco departed this morning (boo!) and we headed over to Newport Beach Harbor.  About a mile from the harbor entrance we were greeted by dolphins:

Newport Beach has a small designated anchorage area and that's where we like to stay when visiting the harbor. It's located on the main channel so there is always lots of activity - mega-yachts, large party boats:

Sailboat races:

and cute little baby duckies:

This visit we had a very odd experience   As we pulled into the anchorage and were assessing where we would drop our anchor we noticed a powerboat that had anchored too close to a small sailboat and was picking up his anchor. We waited to see if he was going to re-anchor. He did and we waited to see where he ended up before dropping our anchor. We dropped behind him and we were both in great spots – us on the very end of the anchorage almost touching the buoy markers. Well, over the next couple of hours five other boats side tie to the boat in front of us. That’s just what happens here, it is packed on summer weekends. Saturday night, just about cocktail hour, the wind picks up and the flotilla starts drifting towards us. A guy gets in his dinghy and comes over to talk to us. He introduces himself as the “Anchor Master”  for their group and wants us to know they are getting closer to us. John asks what are they going to do about it and the guy says they were hoping we would pick up our anchor and move. What??? And then he says – “And we’re prepared to pay you!!!!” What???? John’s response – “Well, we’re not prepared to move.” We got in our dinghy and left for a harbor cocktail cruise, of course not getting out of sight from Poseidon. Did I mention all six boats were on one anchor??  And all the boats were from Newport Beach and had moorings or slips  in the harbor. We got close, but never touched. Later we couldn't stop laughing about his offer to pay us to move. Wish we knew what his offer would have been. 
Here’s part of the group coming towards us:

While we were in Newport we visited a couple of our favorite restaurants (The Cannery and Bluewater Grill), our favorite store (Charlie's Locker) and re-provisioned at Pavillion's.  We also had several visitors - John Markley, Derek Hanson and Bart & his beautiful girls - Natalie and Sara: