05/28/2010, Puerto Escondido
As we left Puerto Escondido, we brought our insulated shopping bags to the local tienda for a couple bags of ice and beer. Unbeknownst to us, we had a stowaway, who surprised Rina in the garage (our aft store room), staring her right in the face on one of the upper shelves. Totally freaked out, she closed the door, and did not return for a few days as we negotiated who was going to slay the ugly beast. Visions of procreating bugs danced in our heads as we plotted strategy. Finally we agreed that the next morning we would clean out the garage, which like any land-based garage, becomes a dumping ground for all the crap we don't want in the main cabins. Just as we sat down to a late dinner, a 2 inch long cockroach with long antennas scampered across the ceiling over our heads and tried to hide in one of the portlights. I grabbed the roach spray and doused him and he fell to the floor, looking for an exit. It was stomach-turning high comedy as Rina and I tried to stop him from escaping down into the bilge. I continued to spray him until he was finally immobilized and Rina picked him up, legs still kicking, with a paper towel and chucked him overboard. Now completely yucked out, we sat down to our dinner and reluctantly picked at our food.
Over the next two days we tore the garage and bilge apart looking for evil cockroach spawn, eggs or any other evidence of infestation. Luckily, there was none. Our next stop was the grocery store where we reloaded our roach-killing arsenal preparing to do battle again if needed. We have always been vigilant about bugs and have been lucky over the last two years, with no major problems. No cardboard makes it aboard from the grocery stores, and all food packaging is checked for stowaways. With heightened vigilance we checked our provisions yesterday and just as I asked Rina whether we should keep the Negro Modelo in their packaging to stop the bottles from rattling around, she takes a bottle out and there sits a baby cockroach... shudder! Rina quickly squishes the intruder as I strip the remaining bottles from their packaging. Can you say eeeeeewwwww?!?!
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Comments [2]
Take care and keep us posted on what we are missing.
05/19/2010, Bahia Candaleros
On Sunday we decided to head back towards La Paz from Puerto Enscondido where we will be joined by Phil and Josie at the end of the month... we didn't get far though. We pulled into explore Bahia Candaleros about one hour south of Escondido, which was devoid of other boats. Winds were from the east so it was calm and well protected from the easy breezes of late spring. An empty bay, long beach for walking, good snorkeling, and decent free internet of all things... and after suffering through a classic "tragedy of the commons" with internet at Escondido, decent bandwidth helped us get the virtual wheels turning on all the things we need to do to restart our land-based life. Yes, it's sad but true, our minds are slowly starting to focus on life after cruising - only 90 days away. It's having one nice effect however... the days seem longer. Partially because they are, with sun setting after 8pm, the heat of the day lingering until 9-10. But also because our journey is now finite. Our float plan has us bashing up the coast of Baja in late June, San Diego for 4th of July, and entering San Francisco Bay around August 8. Rest assured we will enjoy each and every remaining day.
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Please stay in touch!
05/10/2010, 26 01.2'N:111 09.8'W, Puerto Ballandra, Baja, Mexico
We arrived at the well protected Puerto Ballandra in the late afternoon after a 3 hour motor from Puerto Escondido. No wind and pond like conditions on vast tracts of water made the passage hot, sticky and eerie. Summer is on the way, with water temps now 78-84 degrees. The conditions were calm enough that we took an extra 45 minutes to recalibrate the autopilot, swinging big circles out in the middle of the sea off Loreto while the Raymarine software identified and corrected a 10 degree deviation and relearned the steering characteristics of our new rudder. Arriving in the late afternoon, we set the anchor among several other boats and plopped into cockpit with a chilled glass of sun tea, taking in our surroundings.
On the horizon, just outside the entrance to the bay, we noticed a series of splashes, far enough away that the associated plopping sound was delayed by 2 seconds. A quick look through the binoculars confirmed that the stingrays were jumping, but in numbers we have never seen before. We counted 5-10 stingrays in the air at any one time, each with its own unique style of flying through the air�.. Back flips, front flips, sideways, you name it�.some even getting 6 feet out of the water in long graceful jumps. This went on for 30 minutes before our curiosity forced us to jump into our kayaks and paddle out to see if we could get a better look before they moved on.
15 minutes later we were slowly floating among the rays, who, while definitely tuned into our presence, continued their show, but with increased unpredictability. This made it hard to figure out where to point the camera for a close up shot. We settled for lots of distant shots and 1-2 decent close ups. Rina kept asking why the rays jump, and I keep saying �"because it�'s fun!�" but none of our onboard fish books explain why, and without an internet connection, it will remain a mystery to us for awhile longer. We�'ll just keep watching and imagine they are having as much fun as we are out here.
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Were they doing flips?
05/07/2010, Puerto Escondido
Had to come back into Puerto Escondido to send HRO a turd note about my broken watermaker so I can hopefully get some new seals later this month.
Took the opportunity to upload some Loreto Fest pictures...
Off to Puerto Balandra in the islands off Loreto
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05/04/2010, Puerto Escondido
Rina and I spent the last two weeks enjoying tranquil Puerto Escondido and the nearby town of Loreto. Puerto Escondido is a large well protected bay turned marine sanctuary with over 150 mooring balls for visiting boats and a small marina. Normally populated by 5-10 boats, the bay surges to full capacity for the annual Loreto Fest. This year over 450 people attended, a Loreto Fest record. Proceeds from the event benefit the local community in a variety of ways... purchasing computers for local schools, scholarships for 30-40 local students to attend the local college and 2 scholarships for students to attend university on the mainland, and other worthy endeavors. It's amazing how far money goes here. Loreto Fest is run by volunteer expats, many of them former cruisers, who have taken up residence in the nearby village of Juncalito, where renting land is dirt cheap, and well made palapas surround the RV's most people live in. Rina and I got to know several couples in the area in our travels, and I became the new best friend of Don, the yacht club commodore, once I volunteered my services for running the sound system and DJ'ing.
This included heading into Loreto to pick up our "loaner" sound system from the municipality, only to learn that word had not made it down to the lady who managed the sound system at the college. Conveniently, she had brought her friends that *rented* sound equipment with her... hmmmmmm... An hour and a half of bantering later, we made a deal to rent a small Peavey 8 channel powered mixer, matching speakers and a bunch of microphones. What started out as a 1500 price tag for 3 and a half days was slowly whittled down to 500 bucks... with long periods of uncomfortable silence providing most of the negotiating leverage.
Fortunately, the sound system showed up on time Friday Morning, and by 10am the Puerto Escondido Malecon was swaying to the soothing tunes from our two ipods. In the afternoons, after several seminars, including on how to both bottom and top fish (wish my bro coulda been there to learn with me!) I had the pleasure of playing bluegrass classics with Janet on Banjo and Bob on Guitar from sv Katy Hill and Howie, who joined us on a rockin electric mandolin. In the evenings, we would be joined by headliners, including a Mexican "one man band" on synthesizer, playing a wide variety of classic Mexican songs. We also enjoyed a dance troupe from the local college doing traditional dances from several parts of Mexico. Evenings usually ended with jam sessions that went late, and on Sunday night, the DJ rocked the house until the last cruisers fell into their Dinghy's and puttered back to their boats. Monday was *very* quiet in the anchorage...
Rina's highlight was competing in the chili cook-off. She made 8 quarts of chili, cool signage and got great reviews. Unfortunately, as is the case in most of these things, it's a popularity contest, so the *very* competitive local expats took top honors.
Tomorrow we will head north to Isla Carmen and the Puerto Balandra anchorage for a couple of days, then to Caliente De San Juanico, on the coast of Baja, before spending a week or so in Bahia Concepcion, which will be as far North as we will be able to travel this year in the Sea.
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04/26/2010, Agua Verde, Baja, Mexico
We took a day hike up and around the bay of Agua Verde with our new friends from S/V Scott Free (Scott & Monica), plodded down a road that had cows and donkeys grazing on what looked like grass, but with the dryness of the area, I doubt it. After a few miles over the hills and through the cacti, we came into town.. I mean, a village. We passed a sign that said "restaurant" that although we didn't partake, we heard that you can get great tacos & beer, and it's the only place to buy beer in this bay. Then we ran across a very faded cardboard sign that said "tienda" outside of a fenced in yard of someone's home. We walked in, hesitantly, where they were washing clothes, and cooking in a make-shift stove, the smell of the campfire under the pot was a memory in itself. They were so friendly and willing to help us find what we needed. The "tienda" was the building in the back of the stove/cooking area made of plywood and planks. Inside there were crates of several kinds of vegetables, rice, and beans that can stand the dry hot environment. Outside were several drop-in freezers, not powered of course, but they were full of other perishable vegetables for sale like lettuce, tomatoes, avocadoes, squash, and the longest lasting vegetable, cabbage. We packed our backpacks with our fresh finds and we were on a mission to find another boat some gasoline for his generator and dinghy. Sure enough, the "tienda" owner knew of a guy on the beach that had fuel. Off to the beach to find our fuel guy. After we found the fuel, we then decided to walk the volcanic shelf back on the water to the boats instead of walking all the way back around the road and hill. It was a very interesting walk with all of the volcanic rock that contained many imbedded stones, shells, and I'm sure, historical artifacts. Great walk, much cooler on the water. The pictures of our boats in this area were postcard perfect. Off to another day in our last few months left of our incredible journey.
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04/17/2010, 25 31.2'N:111 04.3'W, Aqua Vista
...to describe our most recent sunsets... This was off Isla Espiritu Santo. I'll just say that we are enjoying every single one, given that will be back in California in 90 days or so.
We are currently anchored in Bahia Aqua Verde, where we will hang for a week before heading to the hustle and bustle of Puerto Escondito and the Loreto Fest cruisers rally. Aqua Verde is known for its clear blue water and great snorkeling. Well protected from both North and South winds, it's a cruiser favorite.
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04/15/2010, 24 54.7'N:110 42.2'W, Evaristo, Baja Sur, Mexico
We're taking this relaxing thing seriously.This was the highlight of our day... Lets see...get up around 10, hot tea, tatos and egg breakfast, read for about 3 hours while digging the 3M 5200 sealant out from under my fingernails, Rina makes birthday dip - a family tradition, we take the dink over to the beach in the fishing town of Evaristo, hike a couple miles to the salt ponds, hike back, carve the above tribute into the sand, sit down and enjoy a little birthday dip on behalf of bro Phil. dink back to the boat, swim off the stern for a few minutes, give the ladies in the anchorage a show by showering off the stern, dig a Pacifico out of the fridge at toast to Phil being another year older! Happy Birthday Phil!
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Phil
04/12/2010, La Paz
The shitter hit the fan today... what joy. I know, your thinking: "ha ha, you got yours! Serves your right...
Just when we thought Follow You was ship shape again, the forward head started leaking.... BAD... to quote my daughters when they were younger...eeeewwww!!!! Luckily we had the spare parts on board... in this case a seal for the macerator motor that chews up the... well, you get the point... an hour later and after several scrubs with anti-bacterial hand soap... and a couple shots of tequila, all is well in the forward head...
And a shout out to my compadre in head repair... Dietmar! Sunset Alert!
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04/12/2010, La Paz, Mexico
After a week of sailing and socializing it was time to work on the growing boat maintenance list. So for the past week, we have been mostly heads down, 8 hours a day, fixing and cleaning stuff. Here's the list of stuff we worked on, most of which is pretty typical in terms of repairs that regularly comes up on a cruising boat.
On top of our repairs list, Rina had a sudden urge to re-varnish all the slowly deteriorating fiddles (wooden counter lips) in her galley. I could see why, given the amount of time she spends in there and the dull, dented state of the fiddles after 18 months of cruising. 3 days of sanding and multiple coats of varnish resulted in shiny new looking fiddles, a refreshed nav station table and seat. Now if we can just get rid of all the sanding dust that permeates the entire boat...
Waterproof and UV protect the dodger and bimini - it's been a year, and if you don't keep it watertight, mildew forms and the sunbrella deteriorates. Looks like new now, except the slowly crazing windows and chafe marks from where the slack preventers hit it when we forget to snug them.
Change Genset Oil - it only uses a quart and it's really easy to change, with a pump right on the engine to easily purge the oil. Cheap insurance in my book
Fix leak in starboard portlight - I've tried 3 times to fix this sucker from the inside. It doesn't leak much, and it *should* be easy to identify, but not so. I don't want to re-bed the whole window, which could easily introduce more issues, so I'll try caulking the entire outside with 3M 4200 to see if that takes care of it.
Wax hull and de-oxidize the fading blue boot stripe - I paid Javier 85 bucks to do this, and it was money well spent.
Clean and wax companionway slider track - Poor design results in build up of gunk and polycarbonate, making it difficult to open/close. Acetone scrub and a coat of wax worked wonders.
Rebuild watermaker ETD - Yes, the watermaker is flakey again, as predicted, even after HRO tested the pump and ETD and said everything was fine. Took apart the ETD, cleaning all seals and reinstalled - works sometimes, but as water temp rises here in the sea, I predict it won't.
Find and fix transom leak - I repaired a leak at the seam where the hull and deck comes together back in 2004, likely from somebody punching the stern into a dock, but we kept finding a couple of quarts of water in the stern lazarettes. At first we thought it was leaking watermaker filters, but after I fixed that we still had water in the lazarette. Finally located a trail of water from the seam inside the lazarette after a test sail, requiring a 10 hour repair. I removed 3m 5200 sealant from 8 feet of the seam from the inside, much of it watersoaked. On the outside I had to remove the rub rail, exposing a crappy seal job by the factory.... The problem is that the stern rub rail sits 3-4 inches underwater whenever we are motoring, so it needs to be completely watertight. The biggest problem was all the screws holding the deck to the hull on the stern were not sealed tight, making the stern a sieve.
Major clean and re-stowing of the garage and aft cabin. These two cabins become convenient dumping grounds for all our crap, and when the transom leak became significant, we found salt water making its way forward when the boat heeled, soaking floorboards and leaving salt residue everywhere. Rina pulled up the floorboards and cleaned everything, and found homes for all our junk.
Find and fix dinghy leak - a slow leak finally got big enough to be a pain. We found where a screw had chafed the hypalon when stored on the passage from Auckland to Ensenada and repaired it with a little Stabond.
Fix air leak in forward fuel tank supply hose - The transfer pump no longer pumped at 1 gallon a minute, so a little research found a small leak in the hose where it clamps on the tank. 30 minutes and a quart of spilled diesel later, all fixed.
Fix a cranky cabinet latch under the sink - always pops open on starboard tack.
Fix broken latch on freezer - finally just wore out...
Fix broken shelf in anchor locker that holds dinghy fuel tank
Errands, errands, errands - major provisioning run to Soriana grocery store, to Telcel to top off our prepaid internet card, Club cruceros for book exchange, home depot for latches and paint supplies, Fed ex for ship Zen's stanchion back to him, laundry, etc, etc...
So we're pretty tired now... time for some R&R...we will take 2 weeks to sail up to Puerto Escondito for Loreto Fest at the end of the month. The water is getting warmer, now 74 degrees, so lots of snorkeling in our future at great anchorages like aqua verde on the way up the coast.
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