06/16/2010, Sea of Cortez
There are two tropical depressions we are tracking in Southern Mexico... both are more than 400 miles to the west and are predicted to die out rather than turn north. Our weather window to get around Cabo Falso looks good for Saturday, which should put us in Bahia Santa Maria before these storms will come anywhere close to Cabo. Now if the weather up in California can just calm down, we might make it back without any major drama! We're half way down the coast from La Paz and should arrive Cabo by 7am tomorrow, where we will check out of Mexico and prepare for departure.
|
Comments [0]
06/16/2010, La Paz Mexico
Our time in La Paz and the Sea of Cortez has come to an end. Two wonderful weeks with the bro and Josie and a couple of days to prep the boat have passed, and as we let go the docklines at o-dark thirty this morning, we can't help but be a bit sad. We are heading for Los Muertos, the first of our stops on our way back to the USA. From there it is back to San Jose Del Cabo, then around Cabo Falso and the great Baja Bash... all upwind for 750 miles... The weather is looking good for a Saturday departure from Cabo, but we'll have to wait and see if it stays that way.
|
06/02/2010, Todos Santos
Renting a car in La Paz, Rina and I drove 3 hours through endless parched desert arroyos to pick up Phil and Josie at the airport in Cabo. After a quick stop to top up the wine cellar at Costco, we were off to Todos Santos, the artsy historic village about an hour north of Cabo. Our planned overnighter stretched to two after we fell in love with Casa Bentley, an eclectic boutique hotel 2 blocks off the main drag in town. The rooms have all rock walls, built around the perimeter of the pool. And by around, I mean the walls of our rooms are the walls of the pool, resulting in a very non-traditional setup. Little round skylights built into the pool deck peer down into our rooms, and the master bath has underwater windows. Bob the owner has built this on a half acre lot over the past 26 years, and you can tell it was a labor of love. He is a geologist by training and after introductions and a bit of small-talk, he was giving us a tour of the walls of the hotel, explaining where the rock originated. With an extra day to kick around town, we did the obligatory tourist tour, checking out the original Hotel California and various tourist traps. Phil and my favorite was the tequila tasting bar, where we sipped different kinds of tequila for an hour, and on an empty stomach no less. We figured the tasting bar was put there by all the jewelers in the area to soften us up for a rather large purchase. Luckily we held our ground and liquor. After purchasing a large bottle of tequila for 40 bucks, down from an original asking price of 120, we proudly headed off to lunch and a nap... photographic evidence of which can be found in the gallery.
|
05/28/2010, San Francisco, CA
Good friends Seth and Elizabeth from sv Honeymoon, now back in San Francisco, brought a new cruiser into the world a couple of days ago... Continuing his usual high standards for blogging, Seth has documented the happy event at www.sailblogs.com/member/honeymoon.
Congrats Seth and Elizabeth!
|
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?!?!
|
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.
|
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.
|
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
|
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.
|
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.
|
