Scott / Lots of wind and waltzing
12/05/2011, La Paz

We spent a fun week in Mazatlan getting caught up with the Seattle cruisers that were in Mexico a whole year ahead of us. The one resort we visited had lots of iguanas just 'hanging out'. On Thursday, the 24th, we volunteered at the Vina/Vine Church and helped build 300 tortas/ sandwiches and distributed them to the "Displaced people of the dump". It was a humbling experience to see people in such dire-straights that they subsist on garbage scrounging in a stinking Mexican landfill. It was especially poignant as it was on Thanksgiving Day and our turkey dinner that evening seemed to be a special blessing. Also,(Donna mentions)there was a hospital that they are building close to the dump that has been worked on for over 3 years and not finished. I wish they'd use these people to do manually labor and get it finished, but what do I know?

After the week, we said goodbye to our friends and motored out into the Sea of Cortez with slowing building wind and seas on the nose. Later that night we rediscovered the joy of slamming into the short steep waves of this sea. Sailing into Los Muertos Bay at midnight was interesting, but the next day was great as we swam, kayaked and sat in the sun. That night we watched the third in Donna's series of Christmas movies (Christmas in Connecticut).

As these things sometimes go, the beautiful calm, warm and friendly bay during the day became an angry maelstrom of rolly sea, broken eggs and crashing dishes. In all our years at sea, this may have been the worst night yet. We left before dawn as it was more comfortable to be at sea, go figure! Sailing into La Paz was great as we tried to remember how it was 23 years ago when we first sailed here.

Sunday they had a great festival right in the Marina to support children of La Paz and we won two raffle prizes! Unfortunately, the wind kicked up after we left the boat and we heard the announcer saying the boat Celestial went on a 'walkabout'. We dragged onto the side of a sand bar but were able to back up and get into the deep water again with no repercussions.

Club Cruceros is the local hangout (www.clubcruceros.org) where you can get help with whatever you need at the 9:30 coffee.

This is the 2nd windy night and they predict a week of this weather with gusts up to 25mph even in the harbor. La Paz is famous for it's waltz. When the winds kick up one direction and the currents pull you in another direction, boats dance around each other so you always have that to look forward to as well.

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12/04/2011, Mazatlan

Had a super week in Mazatlan with s/v's Panta Rhei, Sirena, Grace and Ponderosa. I included a picture of the 'ladies' who went walking every morning at 7am. (In 1988, the ladies that went walking we called the Ladies of the Wall.) I got some great shots with the beautiful sunrise colors as well. Unfortunately the last day we walked, we thought we heard gun shots and later did hear a policeman was shot. Still checking into the details.

There are so many great places to eat and you have to check out Panama for their sweet breads, yummmm. We swam at the El Sid Resort twice; they have waterfalls, a HOT hot tub, iguanas, etc. The bus system takes you wherever you want to go. We weren't sure we'd get to the Sunday Mercado as we headed out of town on our 2nd bus but we got there and found lots of fresh veggies and more. After walking, there was a local farmer who came to the Marina Mazatlan 3x a week, I believe to sell his wares. Karen off Panta Rhei convinced me to soak all items in a bleach water solution so we were bug free! We didn't get the termites that they did but we've been on the move more.

Right now we're FLY CENTRAL, something we haven't dealt with for awhile, so we are using our food covers and bug zappers. Paradise has its drawbacks. I even had to wear a sweatshirt as I went kayaking in Bahia Balandra yesterday! I know, hard to feel sorry for me.

My piece of coral fan is decorated as our Christmas tree for the 2nd year, we strung some light and hung our stockings on the hinges of our salon cabinets so we're ready for Christmas as well. Still have tons to write about, till then...

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Sunny Mexico
11/23/2011, 23.16N 106.29W

We left San Diego with a cold front approaching and had to beat into moderate winds, as the front approached all we could see was a black wall of rain squalls coming at us.

Entering the gloom we beat thru the extra wind when the rain hit as hard as I have ever seen anywhere, it was so hard that it knocked down the waves and soaked right thru all my rain gear.

After the front passed we got the heavy NW wind shift I was counting on and really started to smoke down the coast. On our second day out we logged 209 NM and a top surfing speed of 15.8.
With diminishing winds we sailed into Santa Maria Bay and after 3 days at sea, dropped the hook and got some glorious sleep. Our extremely fast passage left us ahead of schedule enabling us to take a lay day and work on some projects around the boat. Santa Maria is a large sandy bay surrounded by 3000 ft mountains, we all climbed them last time with Nate going all the way to the top. Sailing out at the crack of dawn in very light air we passed Magdalena Bay where the humpbacks winter and give birth to there calf's. I was bummed to have to motor most of the night but at dawn a nice Sou-westerly came in and we started close reaching straight for Cabo San Lucas. Now as we were hitting 8-9 knots we were able to make up time and anchor in the crystal clear water of Cabo just before sunset.

We spent most of the next week (12-19th) doing the resort thing with our friends Dick and Ann Tracy in their beautiful timeshare laying in the pool, snorkeling, eating out and generally being the gringo tourist. It was a good thing we were able to spend most of the day off the boat as the bay is very exposed and rolly, but the worst problem is the jet-skis, pangas, tour ship shuttles, water taxis, and fishing boats turning the bay into a dishwasher of waves and noise.

We left Cabo with a light wind forecast but there was a nice little breeze as we started our 199 NM sail to Mazatlan. As predicted the wind disappeared over night and we had to motor for 10 hours. Morning the wind filled in and we sailed to the coast very fast but our landfall was late and we finally anchored off a small outlaying island at midnight. The next night was very windy and very rough so in the morning of the 21st, we motored into the marina and met up with our friends on Grace, Panta Rei, and Ponderosa, all from Seattle. We will be here about a week then back to the Sea of Cortez for some lazy anchorages.

Fair Winds
Capt Scott

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Sunny but we'll be short on wind
11/19/2011

Well, our Cabo days are over.... Wanted to jot down a few facts for those behind us. Officially it cost $13 a day to swing on your own hook and dinghy in to a dinghy dock 30 mins. away. The dinghy dock is 30 pesos a day but no one sat there and collected from us so it was one tax we didn't have to pay. The water taxi was $3 a head one way and allowed us to be dropped off closer to our friend's condo but be sure to return before dark. All bets are off as to if they'll still be running.

The check in only involved 3 stops and it was done within 3 hours. Our Sea of Cortez book had a pretty good map we could use to locate all three spots. We paid around 700 pesos for a week.

We didn't realize how lucky we were to not have cruise ships in the harbor every day. Between jet skis and water taxis and gringos on a string, we were bouncing all day long Wed-Friday. The only good part was we decided to go snorkeling while pangas were taking people over to the beach and they would feed the fish so the tourists could see them all gather and since we were in the same spot, we enjoying the fish show along side the tourists. Did get some jellyfish and mosquito stings but it could be worse, right?

Couldn't resist showing one of the flying fish that beached himself. Also have a picture of a squid that shows its massive eye.

So now we'll sail 200 miles to Mazatlan to meet up with friends on 3 other boats.

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Donna/ a little rolly in the anchorage but not bad.
11/12/2011, Cabo San Lucas

We made it to Cabo! Our only disaster was a salt water fitting from our deck salt water pump spliting and spilling salt water on some clothing and blankets. We looked like a refugee boat as everything 'dried'. Now to rinse them all in fresh water! Of course, we had just talked about the importance of making sure all pumps were shut off but this one got turned back on after our anchor in Santa Maria to clean off the anchor. Our bad.

We sailed over 700 miles anchored once in Santa Maria and now in Cabo! We really appreciated our lazy jacks for a quick main release.

It took 17 hours of motoring to get here. This was what we were hoping to avoid. We left in rough conditions but flew down the coast averaging 7-8 knots usually. Oh well, you take the good with the bad.

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Donna/couldn't be nicer
11/02/2011, Coronado Y C

What a gorgeous day! No wind on the water so we're glad that we chose yesterday to sail from our downtown mooring to our 3 day anchor permit off of Coronado Island. Four friends joined us so a great time was had by all.

We hear a storm is brewing Friday so Sunday will probably be our sail away day. We have mail to pick up Friday. As usual, there was one more piece of mail we had to wait for.

We now have Lazy Jacks (a rope system to keep the main controlled when we have to bring it down). It will really help us when its just the two of us to manage a main that goes 75ft up in the air!

I also have an inflatable kayak which is fun to use. We really tried to get two used ones but San Diego's craiglist didn't come through for us.

Scott put in a new hot water tank and pressure switch for our water. We had nursed both systems since we got the boat in Sept 2009.

He was afraid he had a turbo problem when we couldn't do more than 4 knots, 1500 rpm but he kept researching until he pulled out the exhaust elbow and found a huge restriction so that was cleaned out (two hours of chiseling inside the elbow).

We attacked the bottom for at least a week, first with a scraper than with hard brushes. We were happy with the performance of our shake down cruise yesterday. We motored to two other anchorages since we returned but this was our first full sail cruise.

Enjoyed the San Diego parties for the Baja Haha boats. We heard there were 172 entries and now I hear its down to 140 boats. They were just leaving Bahia Santa Maria today.

Well, hope to hear from you. Making new entries are always subject to internet access but not impossible!

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