Thanks for all your great help and feedback on the trip to San diego. My son and I set out from the MDR Yacht Club last monday with our new Hunter 31 and made it to Newport Beach in a little over 8 hrs. The first 3 hrs were terrific. We even had a school of dolphins swimming around our boat (literally playing with us) for about five minutes. The weather was great until we turned the pt. at Palos Verdes. The wind slammed us, gusting to over 30 knots. As we are new sailors, we were a bit panicky but kept our heads and reefed our main to a managable degree. But the seas were very rough and came at our stern for about 5 uncomfortable hours. On Friday we finished the trip to san diego in 10 1/2 hrs. WE motorsailed and made an average of 7.2 knots for the trip. We had a tough decision to make as we sailed past mission bay...it was around 5:30 and we wanted to make pt. loma by dark. Do we put up in MB for the night or go for it and try to make it past the pt and into our slip at harbor island before dark ? We threw caution to the wind and sailed around pt. loma at just before 7. My son was lying on the bow, navigating us through the mine fields off pt. loma. We didn't really have time to go out to the fourth or fifth buoy as darkness was approaching, so we decided to cut the pt. short. There was still some light as we turned into the SD Bay, so we just beat the dark...fortunately the seas were calm and the light was sufficient to get into our slip just after dark. It was an awesome trip (especially for guys who started sailing just three months ago), and having my son with me made it that much more special. Every man should be so lucky.