Oct 1st we got up and had breakfast before heading Nogales. On the way we have to make a stop in Youngtown, Az to pick up my Thyroid RX. It turns out that Armor Thyroid, Nature thyroid is not available in any of the states, so I had to go to a compounding pharmacy to have the prescription filled. The first pharmacy in California would only give me a thirty day supply due to the shortage of materials in California to make my script. So we had to find another compounding pharmacy that would give me six months worth. Hence, the stop in Youngtown, AZ. Thank you Judy Lane NP and Donna at Impac Health for all your work on this. We arrive at Nogales at about 6:00 pm.

Oct 2nd. We cross the border into Mexico and arrive in San Carlos around 4:00pm.

From Oct 3rd to Oct 13th were spent getting the boat ready to launch and making trips back and forth from the house to the boat to reload the boat. In the evenings we played Mexican Dominos, watched movies and ate out with mom and dad. We also got mom and dad hooked on the TV series 24. We even found a little time to go to the movie in Guymas. If you have not already seen "The Ugly Truth" you really need to do so.

The boat was launched on Oct 8th and motored over to Marina Real. We took a slip for three days. We washed the boat topside and also the bilge. We loaded the rest of the provision and took on water. On Oct 12th we said goodbye to Mom and dad, they are headed back to the states and we motored over to San Carlos and dropped the hook. We tried the water and it is bad. Lucky we had filled our cups with good water.

Oct 13th, Russ is trying to detect the problem with the water. He took all the filters out of the system and the water is bad. So he decided to taste the water right out of the back tank. The water smelled soured and tasted sour. The only conclusion he has come up with is that when we drained the water bladders back in June it must not have gotten all the water out and in the summer heat it soured and was enough water left in to sour the entire system. Solution as of now is to Clorox shock the bladders then drain them and then re-fill to see if that was the problem. All tanks were pumped out except for one.

Oct 14th. We pulled up anchor and while motoring into the fuel dock to take on water we pumped out the remaining tank of water. Russ tasted the water before putting into the tanks, water was good. We filled our tanks then motored back to the anchorage and put the hook down. Russ installed the water filters and it appears to be ok with only a minor hose taste. The charcoal filter should take care of that taste. The wind is blowing and gusts are about 20 knots. This wind has to do with the tropical depression Patricia off of Cabo San Lucas which is expected to head west. Since a tropical depression is a low pressure system, the high pressure system will always flow toward it. Now you have had your weather lesson for the day. Russ is looking for the weather fax 2000 to install on the new little computer. I am just writing this log since the napping thing did not work out, too much noise from the anchor chain on the bow. The outside temperature reads 82 and the feels like temp is like a balmy 75 degrees.

Oct 15-17th. We have had high winds for a few days. We will take white caps in the margaritas over the two fan night in the v-berth (bed). Yeah, you got it. After the high winds it went to no wind at night with high humidity which made sleeping very difficult. Today our friend Sea Quest loaned us his truck to go into Guymas to do some provisioning. When we got back we tried to get a slip at Marina San Carlos for the hurricane that is trying to come our way. They were all full and had only 50' slips available that were out in the open and you had to pay for a 50' slip. So we called over to Marina Real and got our old slip back.

Oct 18th we motored over to Marina Real and took up our slip and doubled the dock lines and got on line to get updated information on Rick. The rest of the day I was working on the little computer to get back in the saddle again. Russ worked on the boat. There is a lot of work putting the boat back together when you have decommissioned.

Oct 19th the computer work continues. I had to restore the computer back to out of box state. So I lost all the progress I had. I now decided not to put all the stuff I backed up back onto the computer. If I need it I know where the discs are. We are lucky we have internet access right on the boat. Back in June it was not available and though the access reads "Marina Real Wifi" the marina does not know about it. Back in June I had to go to the office to get access. We decided that we should make contact and called everyone while we had the chance. I have been trying to up load photos to facebook and it has been a real pain. I will keep trying tomorrow. Russ did a Microsoft update on the gateway and it crashed and will not boot. We had an Osprey sit on the top of our mast looking down at us and the dogs. We took pictures and immediately got the dogs and put them in the cockpit undercover, then chased him away. When we went to bed last night is was 86 degrees in the cabin and the humidity is high.

Oct 20th. At 2:30 am the temp was 81 and then the rain came and when I got up this morning it was 79 and high humidity. I suddenly realized that this weather was the reason we left Florida. At least there is a breeze right now and we hope is continues. I am told that Baja is not as humid. I am asking my self why am I doing this. Am I in some self inflected experiment? I got back on facebook to up load photos and my best friend Liz was on so we had a great long chat. Thanks for making my day. Now I am writing in the log while facebook tries to upload photos. It takes so long. Russ is working on re-installing his system on the gateway (which has vista) and then start working on the water maker. We heard from our friends Gary & Phyllis on Apolima that Gary got back to the boat on Sunday and Monday was spent preparing for tropical storm Rick. Most of the models say that Mazatlan will take the storm and one model shows that it could walk up the sea toward us. We will stay put for a few days and let it all play out. , Russ managed to put the new membranes in to the water maker now it is a wait until we get into clean sea water to see if we can make fresh water.

Oct 21st. The tropical storm made land fall at Mazatlan. Our friends Lori and Ken reported 66 knots of wind constant and gusts to 75 knots. All the boats faired very well. I managed to be on the computer all day uploading photos to facebook. Russ pulled the starter off and fixed the solenoid and put it back in and the engine turned over three times in a row. He is confident that he fixed the problem. The solenoid piston had 20 year old grease that had turned to glue so it could not move freely, once cleaned it now moves very free. I believe that earlier in the log I said it was a diode and it is a solenoid.

Oct 22nd. The day was spent finishing up loading photos on face book and Russ spent most of the day in the office attached to internet by cable working on his gateway computer getting vista back up and running. After the photos I spent time on Mafia Wars - facebook and chatting with friends. We had a great hamburger dinner on board and Russ took the dogs for a walk. We met Sue and Lex from Herrons Flight. They are throwing in the anchor after 10 years of crusing the world. We are suppose to have dinner before Sunday.

Oct 23rd - 24th. No dinner with Sue and Lex. We stayed aboard for dinner. We worked on a few projects and enjoyed the internet before leaving the dock.

Oct 25th Sun. We left Marina Real and put up all sails. The fishing lure was put out and we sailed over to Martini Cove, 15 knots of wind, double reefed main and 90% jib making 7 knots. On the way we caught two pacific mackerel. They were perfect dinner size. Lowered the main and furled the jib (in other words we took all sails down). The anchor went down and there were a few other boats in the anchorage. We got the swimsuits on and I jumped in, the water was perfect with the exception of the microscopic jellyfish particles that decided that my left leg would be a good attach point. I don't think you have seen anyone climb up a ladder so fast. Russ got the zapper (his electronic toy) out and we zapped my leg. It appears that it worked because after an hour of zapping it did not sting or itch any more. Russ decided to put on his dive skin and jump in and check the anchor. He did not get stung nor did anyone else swimming off the other boats. HMMMM!!!

Oct 26th. Sleeping in is a good thing. When we woke up we had the anchorage all to our self. The activities of the day was snorkeling (complete with dive skins) and then pick up Taco and Lucy and give them some water and beach time. While snorkeling we saw a starfish we have never seen before. From a distance it looked like a cross between a sea urchin and a starfish. A closer view yields that no sea urchin is involved. Brown dots like chocolate chips all over the top and around the perimeter of the star. It is pretty neat looking. Now it was back to the boat to pick up the fur kids. While snorkeling, another sail boat came in anchored. The boat name is Last Chance with Doug, Joanna and dog seagull Lilly. They were taking their dog swimming. We got into the water with the fur kids and Lilly swam over to meet Taco and Lucy. Lucy saw Lilly swim and decided to swim. Then Taco joined in. It was not long before they were passing each other to reach mom and dad. It did my heart good. Thank you Lilly. I took them to the beach and they ran and played and ate what they should not have. Taco even decided he wanted to come to see me and walked as far as he could and then swam to me. Now this is way cool. We headed back to the boat and pulled up anchor and motored in to San Carlos Bay where we dropped and set the anchor. It was a lot windier here that at Martini Cove.

Oct 27th. We are anchored in San Carlos Bay. I went in and did laundry and went with Adam (boat estrella) to Guymas to TelCell to get the USB Modem Banda Ancha 3G for internet access. Now we can have more reliable access more of the time in the convenience of the boat. If there is a cell signal we can get internet. On the way back we picked up Adams wife Christina and met Russ for lunch. Toward evening the winds started getting strong. We had around 40+ knots in the anchorage. Since we do not have a wind instrument you might ask how do we know what the wind speed is? As we have learned from our last cruise twenty + years ago that the Barbeque lid blows of fthe barbeque at 40 knots. We call this our reality meter. We were concerned about our anchor dragging. It appeared that it had dragged and we were to close to another boat. So we were up most of the night planning and getting ready just in case we had to do the Chinese fire drill at oh shit thirty. We put on the SOS's (life preservers) and got the tethers (lines that hook to us and the boat to keep us attached to the boat) and also the head lamps. We were planning to up anchor and move the boat to a new location in the dark with 40+ knots if need be.

Oct 28th. The strongest winds were at about 3:00 am from the southwest and then started to clock around to the west. The southwest wind brought a swell right into the anchorage. When the winds clocked to west we were now sideways to the swell. What a rock and rolly night. At dawn around 6:00 am we could see that we had not drug the anchor and it had clamed enough for us to go get some sleep. I was up at about 8:00 am. The winds are from the northeast. According to the weather the winds are to clock around from the north to about 36 knots. We pulled the anchor up and moved the boat to a different location. The concern here is with the winds out of the north and if we drug anchor about 50 feet we would be on the rocks to the point. All this wind has to do with the low pressure over the four corners. Now we wait and see. It is now 4:52 pm and the winds are very mild a few clouds in the sky but not many, it makes me wonder if we have seen the worst of the weather. Russ keeps telling me no more is to come. Then we got a gust of wind out of nowhere of about 8 knots and poof it is gone.

Oct 30th. Went ashore with the puppies and walked to the opposite end of town to Dog Days Canine Center. We stopped along the way at the bakery. They have some good bakery pastries. At the Canine Center they have a small dog park and dog supplies. However, there were four big dogs. Three behind a gate and one the owner had to kennel. A better selection of items then I thought there would be. Not a lot of items though. They had puppy training pads. Now that was amazing. We then went to Santa Rosa Market. Russ waited outside with the puppies while I got groceries. We walked to the bus stop and for 5 pesos we rode it back to near the marina and got off, walked to the Captains Club and had lunch. Now it was back to the boat with our loot. Adam & Kristina (Estrella boat name) came over for a visit. Adam may do some work on Russ's gateway that took a dump. He has worked as a software specialist for over 10 years. He will do this with in the next few days.

Oct 31. Russ took the puppies and rowed ashore to the beach and played. I got on line per Russ's request and looked up the life span of the common house fly because we were inundated with them yesterday. Between him and Taco we have fewer flys now. Yeah!!!! I have been playing Mafia wars most of the day and now writing in the log. We hope to go ashore to the Marina Cantina for a drink and watch the Halloween party tonight. Meanwhile Russ is working on the dingy ore locks. A mans work is never done, especially if you own a boat. HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE.

Nov 02. We went ashore to have breakfast with Ardy & Marv on Odessey. After breakfast Marv and Ardy droped us off at Dog Daze, we purchased a couple of bones. Then it was off to the grocery store for final provisions. On the way back to the marina we stopped at the bank and then caught the bus back to the marina and hauled our load to the boat. We up anchored and went to the fuel dock to get water. It was low tide and we were only able to get within 1 ½ of the dock. We were a ground. The water hose was long enough so we filled the tanks. Now the real fun begins because the tide had gone out farther leaving us hard aground. The fuel dock manager and the owner "Tequilla Sunrise" jump on board for more weight distribution. Russ powered up and maneuvered with "S" turns (turning the wheel from left to right and right to left) and finally drove Smoke-N-Blues thru the hard mud. The only place that was deep enough at a dock to get the two gentlemen off was across from the fuel dock on the opposite side of the marina. The plan was, to side tie to the dock and use the dingy to transport them back to the fuel dock. The two gentleman jumped off the boat and a different dingy took them back. We motored out to the anchorage and dropped the hook. Russ helped with dinner. We had excellent hamburgers. We were going to grill them but the winds were to strong so I pan fried them and with them we had fried potatoes because we did not want to start the oven for French fries. Movie time and the feature is Harry Potter and The Secret Chamber.

Nov 3rd. I was up at 7:30 this morning and started my morning routine. Russ got up and went back to bed. We leave this afternoon for Baja. The boat is now ready to leave and we pulled anchor at 2:00 pm, from San Carlos Sonora Mexico to Conception Bay Baja Mexico. We started with full main only with Mr. Auto ( the autopilot). I am starting to get sea sick so I took ¼ tablet of promethazine this worked as usual. One hour later we could see that the winds had built and decided to tuck a double reef in. The winds were 18 knots from the west and the seas were 3 foot from the northwest, these conditions held until about until about 6:00 pm. At about 6:00 pm the seas were down to about 2 foot and the wind was about 12 knots still making 6.5 to 7 knots of speed. Mr. Auto decided he was very tired of steering and went to sleep. No more working autopilot. So Russ rigs the wind vane up and we give it a try. It worked beautifully from the start. The farther into the center of the Sea of Cortez the wind starts to clock around. We decided to change course and go to Punta Chivato which is north of Conception Bay by about 20 miles. We have been going so fast that our arrival time is before sunrise, that is a no,no. Never enter strange port in the dark. We MUST slow the boat down!!!!!

We dropped the main at about 8:30 pm and now are on jib alone, still making 6 knots. This speed will put us in at about 2:30 am. We may have to hove to (purposely stopping the boat utilizing the sails) which gives you about 1 knot or less of speed. What a spirited sail. As projected the wind started to clock and die. By 3:30 am the wind was dead and we were making 0.0 knots of speed. Well, so much for the 2:30 arrival. Remember Mr. Auto went to sleep, well I do believe that he has gone into a coma and will need surgery. We are now on the human steering (Russ & Jodee). We started the iron jenny (the engine) and dialed in 3-4 knots of speed and the projected arrival is at 6:30ish.

Nov 4th. We arrived and put the boat to bed and hit the sack at about 8:00 am for some well deserved sleep. I woke up at 11:30, ate breakfast and started writing the log when a jet sky came by to talk. It was Harvy & Jill from Stateline CA/NV. They are developers down here and invited us over for a beer. I am very surprised that I have internet signal with out the air card. Very poor signal but signal the same. We were able to check e-mail. Relaxation was in the cards for today, of course Russ tinkered with things. We watched a Harry Potter movie and went to bed.

Nov 5th. I had breakfast while Russ slept. Then I took a nap and he tinkered with the boat. In the afternoon we went ashore with the fur kids. Chivato is known for shelling. It has so many complete shells. One can only imagine how that many could have gotten there. Hurricanes ???? I have never seen so many shells. It was better than a shell store. Mater of fact if you owned a shell store it would pay off to come here to get them. So need less to say I had to pick and choose a little care package for my granddaughter Libby. The dogs went hog wild on the beach picking up shells and running with them and then Miss Lucy just walked out to belly deep water and then took a run on the beach. She then decided to cool of and laid down in a couple of inches of water. She plum tuckered Taco out. We got back in the dingy and motored down the beach to boat ramp and beached the dingy. Harvy and Jill told us about a restaurant that was within walking distance.
We had great fajitas and walk back to the dingy and went home. Yes, again we watched a Harry Potter movie and I cross stitched before going to bed.

Nov 6th. We got the boat ready to move. We are leaving for Conception Bay today. Before we leave we have a few projects. Russ checked the water maker out. YEAH!!!! It is good water. So I did laundry. We started the motor and did circles to the right to swing the compass to the auto pilot to see if that is the problem. After swinging the compass it said "No Data". Russ says he can work with that. So now we are sailing and steering with the monitor windvane making 2-3 knots while fishing, drying clothes (clothes line) and making water. It does not get much better than that. Oh I guess one could have a little more speed like maybe 4 knots. There is a better chance of catching fish at that speed. But we don't want to work to hard so the main will stay under its cover. We had 23 miles to go today. We left at about 12:30 and we had the anchor down at 6:00 pm just after sunset. Let me back up a little. At about 3:00 pm we realized that at the 2-3 knots of speed we would not make it to anchorage before dark so we rolled up the jib and started the iron jenny and dialed in 5 to 5 ½ knots. We also decided to give Auto another try. Yeah!!! He came out of the coma and worked great with only one hitch for a few seconds. I guess a coma can do that to your memory. About a half hour later we made a heading change and now the winds will help so we rolled out the jib and the speed went up to 6 knots. Boy did we need that. That is what allowed us to get in between the reef and to the anchorage before the sun set. Our friends Sea Quest (John) and Out-a-here (John & Liz) were here. They will leave tomorrow morning at oh-shit-thirty for San Juanico. Dinner to night was left over chicken and rice while watching the last Harry Potter movie.

Nov 7th. Sleep was not good last night. It was hot and could not get comfortable. At about 2:00 am there was lighting and Russ got up and started putting the side windows down and the center window down so if it rained everything in the cockpit would be protected. I got up at 3:-00 am and closed the hatched and lowered the dingy so the rain would not come inside the boat. With the dingy on deck upside down and a line on the bow we raise the bow into the air for a wind scoop. Works great. Today will be a resting and relaxation planning day. It seems that we require more sleep these days. Santispac is one of our favorite places. It is also popular with the RV'ers and campers. Russ is going through the nav table (navigation) to see if there are any magnets to close to the auto pilot compass that may have caused the problem. I am working on the log and then Spanish lessons. Maybe later we will put the dingy over and go fishing and take the kids ashore. But then who knows. No we did not go ashore or fishing.

Nov 8th. Got up had breakfast put the dingy in the water and took the fur kids to shore to run on the beach and give another swimming lesson. Lucy just loves the sand. She digs it like she will never see another beach. The beach is a myriad of toys for her. She thinks that it is a game of keep away. Taco on the other hand, smells and catalogs everything. Taco is making progress on swimming. If I am in the water he will actually walk out until he can't touch and then swim to me. Now Lucy she just jumps in and try's to hop in the water and then swim. She gets so excited that she wants to jump and hop. We got them back into the dingy and Russ snorkled while I followed in the dingy on our way back to the boat.

Nov 9th. We left Santispac at about 11:30 headed for Santa Domingo at the north end of the Bay of Conception. We moseyed our way there. The wind and swell are out of the Northwest. We got the hook down. It is a bit rolley. We expected it to lay down at night because it always does, but not tonight. We got little sleep due to the rolling from side to side all night.

Nov 10th. The alarm went off at 6:00, however I was already up and dressed taking my sea sickness med. What a great way to start the day. We got underway at 7:00 am and Russ put the fishing pole line out and set the drag to heavy then went to the bow to take down the jib cover, by the time he got to the bow the fishing reel squealed and line spooled out. I was still not feeling well and did not care about catching a fish. By the time we got the boat settled for the sail and tended to the fishing pole Russ brought in fishing line with out a fish or our $9.00 lure. The fish bit through 80 pound fishing line. The fish was really big or small with very sharp teeth. Headlands are notorious for higher winds. Knowing this, we thought that once that we got around the headland the wind and waves would calm down. Well we were wrong again. We have seen about 6-8 fin or beak whales. Man they are huge. The forecast was for 10-15 knots of wind from the north. Since we our destination is about 45 miles south we anticipated a down wind sail. Now let me tell you the reality of it. The winds were 25 knots with reported gusts to 30 from the North. The waves started out at 3 foot and ended with rouge waves at 8+. A rouge wave is double the average wave. Our speed was from 6 knots to 9 knots. When planning a leg (trip) we always calculate on 5 knots of speed. So if you take 45 divided by 5 you get 9 hours. We shaved one hour off that. We arrived in San Juanico 8 hours later. The weather today was a non predicted Norther. If anyone out there is familiar with Elieen Quinn's CD's the one that comes to mind is "No Significant Features". The cover has a hurricane on the front. With very little sleep and a bobsled ride through hell (a line from Elieen Quinns music), we just vegetated the rest of the day and Russ made his mandatory fix it list. Oh, what I forgot to mention was that the bilge high water alarm kept going off and we had to keep pumping the bilge out, luckily Russ had just replaced the impeller in the bilge pump. Now we can just turn the bilge pump switch on instead of having to bleed the line (to get the air out) to pump out the water. Before he replaced the impeller it required two people because the valve for the pump is on the port (left) stern (rear) side and the switch is on the starboard (right) side. Note to self: MANDATORY TO FIND LEAK.