Steve
05/13/2011, Puerto Escondido

Both Bob and Myself had enjoyed our time in Agua Verde. We had walked around the village, taken hikes, snorkled and are starting to become submersed into the unique culture of the panga fishing community. That said it was time to move on. I don´t think I´ve mentioned yet that now that we are away from the La Paz area, we no longer have the nighttime coromuel winds. The nights at anchor have been VERY calm, sometimes it´s hard to tell if you´re at anchor or tied up to a slip. Then a panga will buzz by and you´ll remember that you are indeed at anchor. As we were raising the anchor with the gimpy windless on Tuesday morning, we noticed that there was a breeze starting to kick up. I´m saying to myself " this is great, maybe we´ll actually get to sail for awhile". As we headed out of the cove the wind continued to increase and I wasted no time in getting my sails out. The wind continued to build and the sea surface started to get whitecaps on it, there was some spray starting to come over the bow of Si Bon and I started to think about reefing the sails (reducing the sail area). There´s an old saying (there are a lot of old sayings in the sailing world), that if you´re thinking about reefing, you probably already should have". This saying was turning out to be true in our case as we were now having some problems holding our course and we also had some major spray coming across the deck, Bob had a sort of deer in the headlights look on his face and I knew it was time to reef. Once reefed Si Bon settled down and we were sailing along in somewhere around 20 knot winds. After about an hour and a half the wind died out and on went the iron sail. After lunch we were able to sail again for awhile before getting to Puerto Escondido, making it a nice sailing leg up the sea.
We are now in Loreto doing a land trip and staying in a nice hotel, we´ll be here again tonight before heading back to Si Bon in Puerto Escondido tomorrow.

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Steve
05/12/2011, Bahia agua Verde

As we prepared to leave San Evaristo on Saturday we really had no idea what we would be facing with the now broken windless. When the accident happened two days earlier we slowly took up about 50 feet of chain just so wouldn´t be swinging all over the anchorage with 200 feet out. We how had to bring up the other 150 feet and then move to another anchorage and drop the hook there, at this point we both felt that we would be OK dropping the hook, but were very nervious about raising it with the now gimpy windless. As it turned out we figured out a system of raising the anchor without jamming the chain into the windless, it is a slow process and leaves me with a bruise on my forearm that is about the size and color of an apple.
Originally we were going to stop somewhere between San Evaristo and Agua Verde for a night or two, once underway I made the decision that we would continue straight to Agua Verde, thus limiting the times we would have to raise and lower the anchor. We arrived in Agua Verde around 1700 and dropped the hook in about 20 feet of water, as we had thought dropping it went smooth.
Agua Verde (pic) is a small fishing village that I would describe as charming. It was a stark difference from Evaristo, the waters are a beautiful green/blue, the village sits in a lush valley at the base of the majestic Sierra de la Giganta mountain range. While walking around the small village I was surprised to see that most of the simple casas (homes) had beautiful gardens around them. We found a small tienda and needed to replenish our fruit supply. We not expecting much in this out of the way village at the end of a 25 mile dirt road and were very pleased to find better fruit and veggies than what we had been getting in La Paz.
On Sunday night PT208 a mexican patrol boat (see pic) pulled into the anchorage. PT208 dropped their hook outside of the rest of the boats at anchor, launched their dinghy and proceeded to stop all of the outbound panga fisherman. I wasn´t really sure what to expect but decided to end happy hour early and put together my ships papers....just in case. PT208 ended their questioning of the panga guys at around dark and went back to their boat. They ended up staying in the anchorage all night and first thing in the morning they headed my way. There were four guys in the dinghy, an officer, a dude driving and two dudes dressed in cammies, helmets, flack jackets and with very large automactic machine guns. As they approached Si Bon the officer said in pretty decent english " Hola, we are the mexican navy and we are here to inspect your papers" the young officer was having a little trouble getting onto Si Bon so I offered him a hand and once aboard asked if he or his men would like something to drink, he declined but the three amigos in the dink said they would take a coke. The young officer was professional and friendly as he wrote down my info and asked me questions, he then gave me a brief safety check and told me that they were available on channel 16 if I ever needed help.
The Mexican navy carries out many of the jobs that the US Coast Guard does in the US, I look at both as a mariners friend and I´m sure I´ll be seeing PT208 again.
Tomorrow I will update the blog with the trip from Agua Verde to Puerto Escondido and explain why if you are thinking about reefing your sails you probably already should have.

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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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