Steve
05/11/2011, Puerto Escondido, B.C.S.

We are currently in Puerto Escondido. Bob and I left La Paz one week ago today. We anchored overnight at the now very familar Balandra and left early the following morning for San Evaristo, a 40 NM trip which took us about 8 hours. We were dropping the hook in about 30 feet of water and 15 knots of wind when the fun started. With about 75 feet of chain out the windless (winch) that raises and lowers the anchor slipped a foot or so then held. I made a decision (not a very good one as it turns out) to use my ratchet to tighten it up, I accidently pulled the winch the wrong way and Bob and myself looked on in horror as 125 feet of chain came flying off the windless, I tried to tighten the drum but the ratchet was rusted and I couldn´t change the ratchet direction. Things were not looking very good as the 15 knot wind was blowing us back and the chain was reeling off the windless uncontrolled. Once my 200 foot chain reached it's end and we started in to my 200 feet of rode (rope), the rode became snarled in the windless, thus bring us to a very quick stop. This turned out to be good news and bad news. The good news was we were now stopped, the bad news was that we now had a MAJOR rode jam in the windless. I was able to pull the rode enough to wrap it around my bow cleat and Bob and I started working on untangling the mess. Once we untangled the snarled rode it became apparent that when the rode jammed it also snapped off a small plastic piece that keeps the chain/rode from wrapping all the way around the windless. This means that when we are raising the anchor one of us now has to hand feed the chain through the windless while the other one works the control, this is a slow, and some times painful process....oh well, no one ever said cruising was going to be easy.
We ended up staying in San Evaristo for two nights. San Evaristo is a very busy fishing village where the panga fisherman come in from all around the area to drop off their catches and restock their fuel and ice before heading back out. One of my cruising books calls it a charming mexican fishing village...one mans definition of charming isn´t the same as another mans. I would call it more like a dusty, dry, kinda dumpy Mexican fishing village...just my opinion.
Tomorrow I will blog about our next stop which was Bahia Agua Verde, and our first encounter with the Mexican Navy.

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Steve
05/04/2011, La Paz, B.C.S

We´ll be leaving later today for our next destination, which is Santa Rosalia (SR). SR is about 224 nautical miles north of La Paz, if we were in a big hurry (we´re not) we could do this leg in less than two days. We´ll be anchorage hopping up the Sea of Cortez through what is said to be some of the best cruising areas in the world. Our current plan is to be in SR towards the end of May. Most of the coves and small fishing villages that we will stop at along the way are within 25-50 miles of each other. God willing we should be able to do this entire leg during daylight hours, stopping each night to anchor. We now have two people aboard Si Bon, myself and a friend of mine Bob Gregory. Bob is an adventureous traveler from Australia, whom I first met on a two week sailing trip we did in Turkey and Greece a few years ago. I will update the blog posts along the way whenever we can get internet access. Of course as usual all this is subject to change.
God bless.

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Steve
05/03/2011, La Paz, B.C.S

Marina Palmira has been my home for the past month. Marina Palmira (MP) is a beautiful marina located within the La Paz harbor and is further protected by it´s own breakwater. MP has many amenities including; showers, laundry, wireless internet, a tienda (store), two restaurants and a hotel with a pool that we are able to use (I think). MP has a free shuttle into La Paz central three times a day and it´s location at the end of the malecon makes for nice walks into La Paz central. The thing that sets MP away from other marinas is the high level of customer service. It became apparent to me the first time I hailed MP on the VHF radio and was greeted with a warm, friendy voice instructing me of what to do, that I would be having a pleasant stay here. It was only when I arrived in the office to check in that I became aware that the young lady with the non-stressed voice was actually doing 5 things a once and put a whole new meaning on multi-tasking. The entire staff, from the dock crew to the guys in the tienda to the dude at the front gate have always treated myself and my guests with the utmost respect and ALWAYS with a smile. The three girls in the office, Lupita, Marcela and Adriana have helped me with everything you can imagine, from renting a car to helping me with my computer to giving me directions to somewhere I needed to go.....and always in their easy going polite manner. We will be leaving Marina Palmira tomorrow and heading north up the Sea of Cortez. I may not have great internet access until we get to Puerto Escondido (Loreto), so if I miss a few days blogging I´ll catch up then.
God Bless.

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Steve windy
05/02/2011, La Paz, B.C.S

Due to the fact that my "never breaks" MacBook Pro is broken and there are no Apple stores in La Paz to fix it, I decided to buy a cheapie notebook. The main reason for this purchase was to be able to check weather, email and still be able to blog. I could have found other ways to get weather and used internet cafes for email, but since I am the number one fan of Si Bon´s blog I knew I had to get a new computer soon. A couple of days ago I went to WalMart and for $3,990 pesos I purchased an HP Mini notebook. During the purchase I inquired wether the computer would be able to be translated into English and the salesman assured me that I could purchase a windows upgrade online and it would be "no problema". In the mean time all my web sites would be in english. Ha Ha nice thought, but the minute I opened the computer I knew thing were going to be different. The keys are all in different places, to add the @ sign you have to hold down the alt gr key and then hit the Q key the " sign is now located at the number 2 key and I still don´t know how to get the back slash. I then decided to turn on the computer and start figuring it all out, HA another nice thought. First thing that happens is the HP registration and configuration pop up...en español, my first thought was "this sucks" my next thought was "oh shit" and the thought after that I can´t put on this family oriented blog. I immediately threw everything into the box and headed up to the Marina Palmira office. The girls in the office have always been super helpful and it was the only place I could think of to turn. As always they took care of me with a pleasant smile, even calling their IT dude at one point to come down and help. So as you can tell I´m now up and running (sort of) and striving to figure out my mexican computer. I do now know that instalar means install, acceso means access and power off is apagado. I can also now write a ñ and while writing this blog I figured out where the / is.
Right now we´re still in La Paz waiting out another norther. The same high pressure system that is providing my family and friends in San Diego with 80 degree temps is funneling wind down the Colorado River valley and into the Sea of Cortez. Today and tomorrow the sea has projected winds of 30-35 knots and we have decided that spending a few extra days in La Paz won´t be all that bad.

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Steve
04/29/2011, La Paz, BCS

Today will be another busy day on Si Bon. Shaybo is returning to San Diego this afternoon after being here for a month. When she purchased her ticket here she left her return date open, we really had no idea how things would unfold between us and her adjusting to boat life. Sharon (Shaybo) was hoping to stay until the end of April... even though I have pretty much lost track of what day it is....I think it must be getting close to the end of April. There are not to many people that could live this lifestyle for very long...but she may be one that could.
Bob and I will be leaving La Paz in the next day or two slowly working our way up the Sea of Cortez to Santa Rosalia. Right now we are monitoring a weather system moving into the northern Sea and as always will be flexible as to our departure date and time. I will be renting another car this morning to take Shaybo to the airport and then for Bob and myself to provision for our journey up the Sea.
La Paz holds MANY fond memories for me. I have had several friends visit while I've been here and have enjoyed exploring a non-tourist Mexican city with them. Shaybo and I pretty much picked up where we left off in San Diego and we now feel almost like locals here as we have met and become friends with many people. All that said, it is time to move on and continue exploring somewhere else.
Last night was date night before Shaybo leaves. We've been trying to have date night since she arrived and were to busy...still not sure what we have been so busy with.

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Steve
04/25/2011, La Paz, BCS

As most of you know I'm a twice a year church goer, usually those times are Christmas Eve and Easter. I use to also go with my Mom on Mother's day but now that she has moved on up to heaven I only go twice a year. Yesterday Shaybo and I went to the local Catholic Cathedral (the oldest cathedral in La Paz) for Easter mass. Shaybo is Catholic and also only goes to mass twice a year. I was raised Episcopalian and if the service had been in english it would have been almost the same as the Episcopal service my Mom dragged me to every week as a kid. We found out later in the day that the Mexican's don't really make much out of Easter Sunday. They have a two week celebration of Easter and yesterday was pretty much just another Sunday to them. Never the less it always makes me feel good to attend church and I usually find myself wondering why I don't go more often.
Yesterday my 6 month old, bullet proof, never has problems MacBook Pro died. It suddenly just froze up and quit working. After using Shaybo's computer to do a little research we found out that this is a very common problem with the MacBook Pro. It seems that it was designed with a faulty hard drive, and since there are no Apple service centers in this part of Mexico I'm pretty much screwed. The moral of the story is before you spend three times the cost of a PC on something that never breaks....get all the facts.
Phew!!....one more thing.
We have had some MAJOR changes in the crew of Si Bon. Catherine, Peter and Rich are now all gone. Bob is taking a little boat break at a local hotel before he and I leave on Saturday for a month long cruise up the Sea of Cortez to Santa Rosalia. So right now it's just Shaybo and myself and we're off to Balandra for a three day trip....just the two of us. Shaybo will be returning to the States on Friday after being here for a month. She has slid into the cruising lifestyle with amazing ease. Shaybo will be moving back to her hometown in Vermont and I'm hoping to visit her there this summer.
We'll be back to La Paz on Wednesday and as usual I'm sure we'll have a story or two to tell.
God Bless.

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