Last weekend was one of the quietest here at Mission Bay RV Resort. Most weekends, the park fills up with weekend warriors, but I think people were preparing for the Thanksgiving week ahead. Donna and I were busy though.

We were up early Sunday morning. Sini Schmitt came by and picked up Donna at 8am. They were headed to Mission Valley to the former Qualcomm Stadium – now renamed the San Diego County Credit Union Stadium where the San Diego State Aztecs play. Donna and Sini were signed up for the 10k Wonder Woman run that started and ended at the stadium – the run actually finished inside the stadium where they completed the course by running a lap around the football field.

Sini and Donna at the finish

I had a Lyft driver pick me up around 8:10am for a ride to my friend Gary Stemple’s house in Clairemont. Gary has season tickets for the Chargers games at Stub Hub Center in Carson. Two of Gary’s friends, Dave and Bob, joined us and we drove to Carson in Gary’s car. On a Sunday morning, the drive was easy and we made it there after only 90 minutes on the road and were ready for the tailgate party by 10:15am.

The atmosphere at Stub Hub is really laid back and the pre-game parties are fun. Gary brought a small barbeque grill and cooked up chicken ranchero and carne asada. We set up one row off of Thunder Alley – the prime party place.

Thunder Alley

Our tailgating spot

Dave, me, Jordan Fredin, Gary and Bob pre-game

We found our seats just as a pair of F-18s did a fly-by over the field. We had great seats in the corner of the end zone a few rows above field level.

Great seats – game on

Drum Corps between quarters

The game ended in disappointment for us as the Broncos kicked the game winning field goal as time expired.

More people left the park on Monday and it was only about 40% occupied. That started to change on Tuesday as early arrivals checked in for the Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving is one of the busiest times here at Mission Bay RV Resort. The people arriving are mostly small groups of families and they are here to celebrate. It got a little noisy Tuesday night.

All day today, more arrivals showed up and I expect the park to be nearly full by the end of the day. The site next to us has been empty for a few days, but I don’t think that it’ll stay that way.

Rain is in the forecast for tonight with a 60% chance of precipitation by morning. Hopefully it’ll clear out before noon. We’re expecting company – our friends Jeff and Deb Spencer (RollingRecess) are joining us for Thanksgiving dinner. We also plan to visit with other friends that are coming to the park for the weekend. I’ll add that to my next post.

Another week has passed by here at Mission Bay RV Resort. Sometimes, when we’re stationary for extended periods of time, I don’t have a lot to say about the RV lifestyle. As full-timers, we settle in and go about everyday life as if we’re living in a permanent residence. Of course, an RV park is a different kind of neighborhood. Neighbors come and go constantly – typically the park fills up on weekends and many younger families are here. On Sundays and Mondays, a major exodus occurs and the park becomes quiet with a lot of open sites.

With neighbors moving in and out of the park, we often have opportunities to meet people. Over the past five years, I’ve had the chance to chat with quite a few very interesting people that retired from businesses they built. I always enjoy hearing their stories of how they succeeded at entrepreneurship. It takes a certain type of personality to risk financial stability and go out on your own.

I lived my working career in a corporate environment. I traded security and a guaranteed pension for the chance to be my own boss and build my own business. I sometimes wonder if I could have been a successful entrepreneur. Donna spent most of her career working for herself.

Some regular readers of my posts may have noticed I’ve taken up cigars in the last seven or eight months. In fact, I’ve become quite a cigar geek. There are some great success stories in the cigar industry – and also some failures. I think one of the greatest stories is that of Nick Perdomo Jr.

Nick’s grandfather Silvio and his father Nick Sr. made cigars in Cuba. They lived in San Jose de las Lajas and worked their way up to management positions at the Partagas Cigar Factory in the 1940s and 1950s. They were visited at the factory by then president of Cuba Fulgencio Batista and were anti-Castro. When Fidel Castro took over the country, Silvio was put in prison and Nick Sr. was shot by soldiers – he survived. Silvio spent more than 15 years in prison and Nick Sr. managed to get out of Cuba and immigrate into the United States. He lived in Baltimore working as a janitor before becoming a US citizen and moving his family to Florida. He built a successful contracting business there.

Nick Jr. served in the Navy where he learned to be an air traffic controller. Later he worked as a controller at Miami International Airport. The desire to follow his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps as cigar producers was strong in Nick Jr. He began making cigars in his garage – called Nick’s Cigars. In 1992, he employed three rollers (skilled laborers that hand roll cigars) while he and his wife packaged and marketed the product. They made a little over 9,400 cigars that year. Nick worked the business by day and at the airport on the swing shift from 4pm until midnight.

The 1990s were a boom time for the cigar industry and Nick’s Cigars took off. In 1997, Nick Sr. came out of retirement to help his son. They opened a factory in Ybor City, Florida. The high cost of labor was stifling though. In 1997, Nick produced one million cigars but wasn’t making much money.

Nick Sr. moved to Nicaragua and they opened a new factory there in Esteli. Their sales were booming and they also contracted with CAO to make cigars for that brand. Then a disaster struck. They had a large batch of cigars that were sub-standard – they wouldn’t burn correctly. Nick identified the issue as a bad lot of tobacco he purchased from a broker. He lost about $300,000. That’s when he decided to change his approach.

They acquired farmland in Esteli, Condega and Jalapa Valley – prime tobacco growing land in Nicaragua. They would take charge of growing their own tobacco, fermenting and aging it themselves and make their cigars. That way they could control the quality throughout the process. Nick continually reinvested in the company.

Today the company is still family-owned and operated but the name has changed to Tabacalera Perdomo. Their headquarters is in Miami Lakes, Florida but their factory is in Esteli, Nicaragua. They have the second largest cigar factory in the country – it’s an 88,000-square-foot facility. Nick Jr. incorporated modern farming techniques with traditional methods to produce high yields of quality tobacco. Ninety-five percent of the tobacco he uses in Perdomo cigars comes from his farms – the remainder is from Connecticut Valley or Ecuador for wrapper leaf.

Speaking of wrapper leaf, there are three main components to a fine handmade cigar. There’s the filler leaf – the inside of the cigar – the binder leaf which holds the filler in place and helps control the burn and the outer wrapper leaf which gives the cigar its color and appearance. Although the wrapper is less than 10% of the tobacco in a cigar, it has a great influence on flavor and is the most expensive tobacco used.

There are three methods of hand rolling used by most makers – the first is the book method. This is the easiest and fastest way to roll a cigar. Basically the leaves are stacked then folded like the pages of a stapled magazine before rolling. This method is usually found on cheaper cigars and can be inconsistent in quality. The next method is the accordion style. Here the leaves are individually folded like pleats on an accordion, then bunched together. This takes more skill than book rolling and the results are better. The pleats allow good airflow and the cigars draw and burn well. The third and most difficult method is called entubado. Here each leaf is rolled into a scroll-like tube before bunching. It’s the most time consuming and takes skill but it produces the highest quality and consistency.

Nick Perdomo only uses entubado rolling in all of his cigars. Today, Tobacalera Perdomo makes about 22 million cigars annually! Nick spends time at the farms and factory and also keeps a grueling travel schedule to market his product. From a beginning with three employees in his garage to a huge facility employing over 2,000 people was a journey of about 20 years.

His company is totally vertical – they plant and grow their tobacco. They makes the cigars. They have a box factory to make their own cigar boxes. Their packaging department has a machine that makes the cellophane wrappers for each cigar – 9,000 per day. They make their own cigar bands and graphics. Nick’s obsession with quality means he wants to have control over every aspect of the product with his name on it. What a rags-to-riches success story!

My blog post wouldn’t be complete without a dinner plate photo. On Monday, Donna sauteed shrimp with bacon and served it over cheese grits. Asparagus spears were the side dish. The box of grits was part of a gift basket of local goods from Miriam and Rand Armbrester when we visited with them in Alabama last spring.

Southern shrimp & cheese grits

The weather has been fine all week – sunny and in the mid-70s. The nights cool quickly and overnight lows are in the mid-50s. Last night we had a few thin clouds and it made a spectacular sunset.

Sunset over Mission Bay

The week ahead looks to be a little cooler with highs in the upper 60s. We might even have a rain shower before Thanksgiving.

The Santa Ana weather condition I described in my last post continued on Friday. It was a gorgeous day – the temperature reached the mid-80s and the wind wasn’t too gusty. After lunch, I rode the Spyder to Dana Landing where I purchased a California sportfishing license and a Mexican one-day license. While I was there, I spoke to a deck hand that had been out on a charter fishing boat three times during the week. He told me a fishing lure called a Butterfly was working well on tuna. I bought one. It’s a metal jig about four inches long and an inch and a half wide shaped like an elongated diamond. It weighed seven ounces.

He said people were having success dropping the lure over the side of the boat. It flutters as it drops down simulating an injured bait fish. You just let it drop freely and wait for a fish to hit it on the way down. Reel it up and repeat.

It was nice out and I decided to take a look at the beach. I parked the Spyder at Mission Beach next to the roller coaster at Belmont Park. The beach had fewer people on it than I expected on such a fine summer-like day.

Mission Beach from the boardwalk near Hamel’s surf shop

I ended the afternoon with a cold one at Offshore Tavern and Grill, then came home for dinner. I went to bed early. Saturday morning the alarm clock had me up before 5am. After breakfast and coffee, I packed a sandwich, a few bottles of water and some beer in a cooler. I met Gary Stemple at the entrance to Mission Bay RV Resort at 5:40am. We drove through light traffic to the marina at the Sheraton on Harbor Island where we met another old friend from my high school days, John Barrientez. We loaded our gear into a Parker fishing boat with a 225 horsepower Yamaha outboard motor from Freedom Boat Club and headed out just after sunrise.

Our first stop was at the bait barge near Point Loma. The bait barge has wells with large nets holding live anchovies for use as fishing bait.

Fishing boats lined up at the bait barge

We bought a half-scoop of anchovies. I don’t get the math or terminology, but a half scoop is equivalent to three or four small scoop nets full of fish.

Scoop net of live anchovies

We got lucky and one of the scoops came with a mackerel about 10 inches long. The live bait went into a bait well which circulates water from the sea – constantly refilling the well with water and dumping the excess through a screened drain.

Bait well full of live anchovies

When fishing here in the ocean, a good supply of live bait is necessary. Once you find the target fish, tossing a handful of anchovies into the water – called chumming – keeps the fish actively feeding near the boat.

We headed out into the open ocean. Our destination was the nine-mile bank about 11 miles away. This is a ridge in the deep ocean water – like a mountain top – where the water is about 300 feet deep. The underwater trenches and canyons around it are about 3,000 feet deep. The various predatory fish – like tunas – move up out of the deep water over the bank hunting for prey. It’s a big ocean though and finding the fish is the first order of business. You can’t catch fish by blindly throwing a line in the water. It’s like hunting – you need to find the area where you’re likely to find the target fish first.

We looked for signs of activity. Sea gulls diving or dolphins working the surface indicate areas where bait fish are and predatory fish are likely to be in the area. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the water was relatively calm. It seemed like a perfect morning to be fishing, but we didn’t see much activity as we cruised along the bank. I sat on the foredeck scanning the water and spotted a pod of dolphins feeding a couple hundred yards away. By the time we moved over there, the dolphins had disappeared and we didn’t mark any fish on the fish finder.

After an hour or so, Gary decided to move to another area. We headed south to the Coronado Islands of Mexico (Islas Coronado). Gary has had success there in the past. We found several pods of dolphins feeding near South Coronado Island. We worked our way around the island in Mexican water but didn’t mark many fish.

Coronado Islands of Mexico

We found a natural channel between islands that was 30 to 70 feet deep and finally marked some fish. After a few minutes of dropping my lure, I had a strike near the bottom in about 40 feet of water. Catching fish in the tuna family is always fun. These fish are fast swimmers and they don’t nibble at the bait. They hit it on the trot. I flicked the lever on my reel and set the drag – the hook set itself and I had a fish on!

It pulled a few yards of line out, then swam back toward the boat. I reeled the line in madly as it went under the boat then turned toward the bow. I climbed past the cabin to the foredeck and got it under control. John manned the gaff but I soon realized it wouldn’t be needed as the fish wasn’t that big. We got it on board and at first I thought it was a skipjack tuna. Later I realized it was actually a smaller cousin called a bonito.

Soon after that, John hooked one using a live anchovy and he brought it on board. We put the fish on ice in the fish hold.

Natural channel between small islands

Meanwhile, some seals and sea lions on the islands were watching us. They knew a fishing boat meant an easy meal. Soon a half dozen or so were around the boat looking for chum and hoping to steal an easy meal from the end of our lines. Just like us looking for dolphins and birds as indicators, they saw us as an indicator of easy prey.

A sea lion was coming after the 10-inch mackerel that Gary had in the water for bait. Then a couple of birds joined the meal line. Gary had taken the mackerel off his hook and put an anchovy in its place. A cormorant took his anchovy and caught the hook on his bill. Gary brought the bird to the boat and attempted to remove the hook. The cormorant – that Gary and John insisted on calling a duck – was indignant and wouldn’t have it. He stabbed at Gary’s hand with his bill and drew blood. We had no choice but to cut the line and hope the bird could shake the hook.

The seal and sea lions chased the fish to deeper water. We moved to another spot to fish away from the seals. Gary had brought some fine cigars along and he offered them to us. The thing is, I like cigars but I like to savor them. I find pleasure in smoking them slowly and discovering the complexity of flavors as it burns. The first third is different from the middle and the last third usually ramps up the flavor. I figured smoking a fine cigar while I was jigging a lure would be like pouring a couple of fingers of good scotch then tossing it down in a gulp – not my style. So I passed on the generous offer of a nice cigar.

We weren’t marking any more fish, so we headed back to San Diego Bay. The conditions were near perfect for sailing and the bay was filled with sailboats. They were able to set a reach in either direction on the bay and we had to be vigilant of their course. Sailing vessels have the right-of-way over a power boat.

View of San Diego from a couple miles out on the ocean

On the way into the bay, we saw a tall ship. It was a replica of the San Salvador. The San Salvador was a 98-foot galleon that Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed to California in 1542. The original carried a crew of about 30 men. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to sail around the world on such a vessel.

San Salvador replica sailing in San Diego Bay

We also saw a racing yacht – the Stars and Stripes. There are four of these boats in existence, one of which Dennis Connor sailed to victory in the 1987 America’s Cup in Australia.

Back at the dock with bonito

When we got to the dock, we decided to give the two bonito we caught to the dock hand at the Sheraton. Bonito tend to be a little oily and although many people like to grill or smoke them or even cut them for sushi, they aren’t a favorite of mine. We didn’t get the yellowtail, skipjack or yellow fin tuna we were after, but all-in-all it was great day on the ocean with good friends. Thanks again, Gary and John.