We did a short overnight trip up to Bahia San Gabriel when friends Paul and Sarah stopped by on their vacation to Baja California Sur.
We had great weather for walking the white sand beach and some swimming -- just not enough wind for sailing.
Now we'll head out again tomorrow for a longer trip. We'll be gone a week to 10 days and head further north to explore some new territory.
Going to Espirtu Santo and Isla Pardita is about the equivalent of going to Blake Island from Gig Harbor -- this next trip will be more like going to the San Juans!
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It's been a little over a month now since we pulled in to the dock here in Marina Palmira and put a temporary end to our constant traveling and overnight passages. We are enjoying life here tremendously!
We've managed to get out to the nearby islands for some fun "mini vacations" where we hike, snorkel, explore and relax in the beauty of the red rocked islands as they rise out of the azure sea. And there's a lot more of that to come.
When we're back here at the dock, we are content with some comfortable routine -- our morning hike (or climb!) to the Fisherman's Cross high atop the hill over looking the marina, walking to town nearly every day to shop, browse or just poke around learning our way through the city. Evenings bring a gathering of cruisers on the dock to watch the sun go down and talk about our days and our plans and exchange information. We've got a great group of people (and pets!) here. Celebrating the holidays with these new found friends was a real treat.
Dishes, the dog, is a very special delight. She's a true Boat Dog and has been traveling the Sea of Cortez with Vicky, aboard Inspiration at Sea, for several years. She's always there to greet you with a wag and a smile when you walk down the dock, often running to you like you're her long lost best friend. She happily jumps aboard Cetus to sit with Terry in the cockpit when he's out there reading or writing.
We are constantly busy. In fact, I still haven't been able to find enough time in the day to accomplish everything I'd like to -- organizing pictures, editing our movies from the camcorder, writing Christmas letters (opps -- too late for that now!) and on and on. When we're not walking or cooking and cleaning or any of the other normal everyday activities, we are working on "The Book". Terry's about 3/4 through the writing of the 1st draft of the sequel to Rick's Place. Once he writes it out longhand, I take it over and type and tweak and throw in my two cents worth -- it's really a fun project.
The city of La Paz is much as we remember it from 10 years ago when we fell in love with it. With no cruise ships coming into port and no huge high rise hotels, it is a quiet, comfortable city. It doesn't have the hustle and bustle and noise or street vendors with their trays of silver or piles of hats like you find (or they find you!) in the larger resort towns of Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta or nearby Cabo.
While Gig Harbor will always be home, we quickly realized as we set sail down the coast that we wouldn't ever be living aboard a boat there again -- at least not through the winter! When we reached San Francisco and settled in again at our old marina in Emeryville, we thought that might be a good place to return to when were done with this traveling adventure and want to settle in a bit. It's close enough to "home" for travel back and forth, yet the winter on a boat is much more pleasant than in the Northwest. Plus, we love walking through and exploring San Francisco!
Now that we're here, we're starting to think this may be The Place. We don't plan to "get stuck" here as so many cruisers do when they get to Mexico, because we still have some traveling dreams to fulfill. But once our wandering days are done and we want to grow some "semi-roots", La Paz, with it's quiet lifestyle, nearly perfect climate (at least in the winter) and the lower cost of living (which makes our retirement dollars go further!), just may be the spot!
| Blog Posts; Cruising Life |
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Happy New Year Everyone!
We wish you all health and happiness in 2010!
Cheers!
Terry & Heidi
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For the 1st time in MONTHS I've had a good enough internet connection and some free time so I could upload some pictures to our Photo Gallery!
Enjoy!
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Here's a shot from the top of the hill/mountain just behind Marina Palmira. It's a nice little hike with a great view.
I did a SPOT location from the top today -- so I thought I'd better show where we were so you wouldn't think Cetus had traveled inland!
| Blog Posts: Travels |
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12/24/2009, the Sea of Cortez
We send warm wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with health and happiness!
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We've been enjoying the beautiful anchorage of Ensenada Grande on Isla Partida since Friday. There's great snorkeling on all sides and some good hiking. Then today we had a special treat -- finding the Blue Footed Boobies!
I'd always thought they were only found in the Galapagos and I would have to wait till then to see them. But, the newer, 2nd edition of Sea of Cortez, A Cruisers Guidebook by Sean Breeding and Heather Bansmer has a little sidebar showing where there is a rookery right here on Isla Partida -- in a small bay, La Cueva, right next to where we are. So this morning we jumped into our dinghy, and along with Jim & Ellen (Galatea) in their dinghy, we went in search of the Blue Footed Boobies.
I did a little reading up on them last night and found out that nearly half of the worlds population of them do live in the Galapagos -- some 20,000 pairs. They're a graceful flying and diving bird, but turn clown like during their courtship dances as they awkwardly lift their big bright blue feet up and down. It was amazing as we approached their area to see them sitting on the nooks and crannies of the sandstone cliffs -- you could see the big blue feet from far away!
As we sat quietly watching for some time, you could see some pairs performing their dance and hear their calls -- the female honking and the male whistling. Truly fascinating!
We followed that by going to the small beach at the head of the small bay and hiking up the arroyo to the top of a cliff overlooking Ensenda Grande -- a spectacular view. We then snorkeled around the point on our way back to the boat and saw more fish than we'd seen any other day.
It was a good day.
| Blog Posts: Travels |
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Terry will be doing book signings at the West Marine booth at the Seattle boat show this year!
Come on by to get an autographed copy -- or just to say hi.
The show runs January 29th thru February 6th -- Go to the Adventures Aboard Rick's Place link for more information.
Other notes:
Check out the link to the right for Bryce Dylan Edwards -- he's my very talented great nephew. His artwork is amazing! His dad's website is right next to his: Brian Edwards Photography
Also click on Kavenga's Wake -- our friend Steve Van Slyke has a new book out, "Sex, Lies and Spinnakers" that's an exciting who done it set on the high seas and a must read.
| Blog Posts: Rick's Place |
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There are two things that keep most people from spending a year in the Sea of Cortez as we are planning to do: Summer and Winter.
Before making our decision to spend our time in this beautiful area we talked to cruising friends that had and got mixed answers. Some said the winter in the Sea was miserable -- too cold and too many Northers.
Northers are the frequent winter winds that can blow down the Sea. They can be strong (15 to 30 knots) and can blow for 3 to 5 days (average) at a time. With a fetch of 600 miles the water can get quite steep and choppy and not a fun place to be. The good news is that they are very well predicted and there are many well protected anchorages that you can tuck into and sit them out.
So far we haven't had any major Northers (knock on teak) and a light short one is just passing (we were in the marina so no problemo). We'll wait a couple days for the seas to settle back down and then head back up to the islands for a bit.
Many also think this area is too cold in the winter, but so far it is just perfect to us: highs in the high 70's and lows in the high 60's. Cold is definitely a relative thing and it seems a lot of us here now are from the Northwest and we're finding this very comfortable -- especially when we look at the weather reports from back home!
Now the summer is another thing. It gets VERY hot here -- plus it is hurricane season. But that's a long way off so we have plenty of time to plan for that!
| Blog Posts: Weather |
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After a little more than a week at the dock at Marina Palmira, we were ready for a little "vacation" and headed up to the nearby islands. They are as close to La Paz as our old favorite Blake Island was to Gig Harbor, so it was a short hop up here and we had the anchor down before noon and soon after that we were snorkeling in the clear warm water!
The snorkeling was fantastic with loads of colorful fish -- and coral! This was a surprise to us as we didn't remember seeing coral in the anchorages we visited in this area 10 years ago.
We then worked our way over to the beautiful white sand beach and enjoyed the feel of it on our feet as we walked the length of it.
After dinner we were treated to a gorgeous sunset and then we turned on the Christmas lights that ring Cetus's lifelines. It's a peaceful, calm anchorage and we have it all to ourselves!
We plan to explore a few more anchorages on Espitito Santos and then head back "home" to La Paz sometime next week. Many cruisers are now starting to migrate south to Mainland Mexico as the weather cools here in the sea and the water will soon be too cold to spend much time in it. But we're looking forward to exploring and hiking these beautiful islands before the crowds come back up in the prime weather period this spring, and we're very happy we made the decision to spend a year here before moving on.
| Blog Posts: Travels |
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We pulled into the dock at Marina Palmira on November 29th -- boy did it feel good to be on solid ground again after all the time traveling and on the hook!
We've been busy ever since we tied up with cleaning, paperwork (finishing our FM3's and buying Park Passes), visiting (old and new cruising friends plus a visit from Brother Dave and his wife Pink! -- they made a daring drive up from their time share in Cabo to spend a day with us) and walking -- lots and lots of walking.
Our plan is to stay here till after mid-month and then head up to the islands for the holidays.
A NOTE ON COMMUNICATIONS:
Though we have WiFi here at the marina, we haven't been able to access our aol email. So, if you've sent us something to that address, that's why we haven't responded.
We also don't check the winlink every day now, since the radio connection isn't as easy in the marina.
So, for now, the best way to reach us is through any of our g mail addresses or by phone. One note on the phone is that we can't access the voicemail. So, if you've left a message, we haven't gotten that either! But go ahead and call -- if we don't answer, just try again later!
| Blog Posts: Travels |
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We've put 2,300 miles under Cetus's keel since leaving Gig Harbor at the end of May.
The first two months were a relaxing vacation in the beautiful San Juan islands and then we began the long trek south.
We had many enjoyable stops along the way, including two extended stops (3 weeks in San Francisco Bay and a month in San Diego), but for the most part we've been in traveling mode the whole time.
That all ended yesterday when we dropped the anchor in the lovely, cozy anchorage of Caleta Lobos, a few short miles north of La Paz. We could see the anchor as it sank into the sand beneath the boat and it wasn't long before we were swimming in the clear, warm water.
It was then that it hit us: we had finally arrived at our destination, we were actually in the Sea of Cortez! We are done traveling because we were where we wanted to be. No more long passages for a while, we would be gunk holing around the Sea of Cortez much like we did in the San Juans, only here there are cactus instead of Evergreens and Magnolias and water that we can swim in! There are many more anchorages just as enchanting as this one (though right now it's hard to imagine anything could rival the beauty of this place) and we have the whole next year to explore.
In a couple days we will head in to "the city" of La Paz where we'll spend some time at Marina Palmira while we have family and friends that will be visiting the area. We'll have WiFi while there and I'll once again be able to post pictures to add to these blog posts.
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We had a long motor sail into weather today -- but it was a good day and we got to end it with a nice swim off the boat after dropping anchor. We've got another long day planned tomorrow to get around to Balandra Bay and from there it's just a short hop down to La Paz!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
| Blog Posts: Travels |
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We reached a major milestone in our journey yesterday when we rounded the southern tip of Baja at Cabo San Lucas about 9 am!
It was just as we remembered from 10 years ago as far as being greeted by dozens of sport fishing boats heading out of the harbor at sunrise, but the coastline seems to be much more built up with lots of hotels along the hills of the coast. The number of people on the beach would indicate that not many of the rooms are occupied however.
We ducked into the harbor to check it out for anchoring for the night, but the harbor was rough and more crowded than it had been 10 years ago -- mostly due to the 2 huge cruise ships in the small bay! So we continued on to the next possible anchorage at San Jose del Cabo -- where there is also a new marina that would be a possibility if the anchorage wasn't good.
We were delighted to find a lovely open roadstead anchorage off a beautiful white sand beach lined with fine hotels. Once again, people on the beach were noticeably absent. About 15 minutes after dropping the anchor in the clear warm water, we were diving off the boat and enjoying the 1st swim of this adventure! Another milestone! How refreshing after our long 30+ hour trip from Mag Bay. We had a good nights sleep and were on our way again at 6:30 this morning as the sun began to rise.
Started the morning with great sailing until our course turned us into the wind on our way to an anchorage at Los Frailes where we plan to spend the night. From there we will have a longer day (about 45 miles) to the next anchorage at Bahia Los Muertos. The winds are supposed to be nearly non existent tomorrow, so we will spend Thanksgiving motoring all day.
We will bring a little tradition to the holiday, despite our travel plans. I'll prepare a lunch ahead of time of dressing with turkey meat (canned turkey from Costco!) and then when we're at anchor I'll heat a small canned ham and we'll have that with mashed potatoes and corn and green beans. I even have a can of pumpkin I'll turn into a pie or at least a pudding tonight.
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