10/30/2009, which called for a "comfort food" pot-luck
Below are a few shots of the San Francisquito inner harbor area where we have been hold up for a few days waiting for the strong north wind to die down a bit before we head into Santa Rosilia. As you can see from the photos, there's no reason to feel sorry for us being stuck here, because there could definitely be worse places to have to wait out what's known in the Sea of Cortez as a Norther. When we awoke to a cabin temperature of 70 degs this morning, the whole crew was cold and ready to head for the Mexican mainland and warmer temperatures! The winds should start calming soon, and we plan on heading South in the early pre-dawn hours of Sunday Nov 1st.
Last night we had a "comfort food" pot-luck aboard the sailing vessel Gemini that included pots of home made Minestrone soup, New York Clam Chowder, and Beans. We had a great time and enjoyed both the good food and company.
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10/29/2009, talk about a bad day!
Photo of the boat from the 2007 Ha-ha
It's every crew's worst nightwear and it happened yesterday during this year's Baja Ha-ha cruisers rally when SV JWorld was struck by a whale and sank! The link below has the story but all five crew members abandoned ship and waited in their life raft until they got a lift and ride on a USCG Orange chopper back to San Diego.
Link to Latitude 38 Story
An event like this makes the purchase of a $4000 life raft seem like a good piece of cruising gear. One has to ask, was it a White Whale that sunk their ship?
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10/28/2009, which is typically what's for dinner!
We have received a few emails asking us what our latest cruise plans are now that we have survived the summer in the Sea of Cortez. Well, anyone that has followed our blog for some time, should now know that cruising plans tend to simply be an expression of what one would like to do based more on ignorance of the future rather than some deep future insight. So it is with this view of future plans that I'll now share our current thinking of what's next; however, first, as somewhat of a set-up, I'll talk about where we currently are located and I've updated our tracking map with this blog update.
The above photo shows THIRD DAY anchored in what's known as the inner harbor at San Francisquito. We've been here now for a few days after coming down from the Alacron anchorage and have just not found any compelling reason to continue south at this point. Our next stop will be Santa Rosilia, and while being a nice town, it is after all a town and not quite as enjoyable as where we are currently anchored. Santa Rosilia's big draw for many cruisers is, of course, the singular marina and some good provisioning sources. Many cruisers that went north for the summer, haven't been in a marina in months, so you can't fault people for wanting access to an endless fresh water boat wash down and shore power, but we spent some time in the Puerto Penasco marina in early October, so a marina slip isn't a draw for THIRD DAY. We plan on anchoring inside the town's harbor during our short stay for some provisions, bacon wrapped hot dogs and ice cream before departing for Conception Bay, where we intend to spend some time enjoying the still warm clear water.
Still looking short term, we will hope to head to the Loretto area and then look to cross over to Mazatlan with the goal of being in San Blas for Thanksgiving. We have been to La Paz on several occasions, and while we don't have any negative feelings about La Paz, we also don't feel the need for another visit, opting instead to save our time for points South of San Blas, which we didn't have a chance to explore last year.
Now drifting into a more long term plan (or guess), we are thinking of trying to start heading south of San Blas before Christmas with the goal of heading south of Mexico sometime in early February. Our first stop south of Mexico will be El Salvador, where we intend to stay and enjoy the facilities at Bahia Del Sol for a few weeks before heading for Costa Rica. The website for the Bahia Del Sol resort is www.bahiadelsolelsalvador.com for those interested in checking out the facility. We will be able to anchor in the estuary and have access to the resort for only a few dollars per day and have heard form other cruisers that's it's a nice place to stay to celebrate our entry into Central America.
Costa Rica and Panama are the next targets, as is a Panama Canal transit, but following our entry onto the east coast of Panama, it's really pointless to try and speculate about where we will go next. The San Blas area, as well as Cartagena, sound equally appealing and both have received high marks form many cruisers we have come to know personally and have discussed cruising destinations over dinner aboard THIRD DAY. For some reason, the Caribbean still doesn't hold much interest for us, while the idea of heading for the US east coat seems to be gaining traction with the crew. The US east cost option would require a pause of our cruise to refill the cruising kitty before we would leave the east coast for points unknown. So that's it for now as far as speculation, as I've already most likely put too much down in writing that I'll have to explain away later when we find ourselves heading in a yet to be mentioned direction.
I think this "destination uncertainty" is an important aspect of our voyage and something that I try to get across in our blog. Because out of the people we have met out here cruising, the few that haven't enjoyed this type of lifestyle seem to be the ones that brought along the thinking and almost micromanaging nature of their old lives ashore, and had a difficult time adjusting to the true nature of cruising. This is again where I don't want to imply that the crew of THIRD DAY is somehow better than others, heck, we suffered from this same over-plan-it-to-death syndrome when we first cast off and managed to shed that burden during our stay in San Blas, Nayjarit last December through February!
The freedom and flexibility that the cruising life offers, along with the almost endless possibilities and adventures, is at the core of what pulls many of us crazies out here in the first place and we must fight the urge to fall back into our societal training, almost brainwashing, of over planning and worrying about what's next.
It has taken the crew of THIRD DAY a full year of cruising to finally be at ease and comfortable with the answer, "we don't know for sure where we are going next", to the common question of "where are you headed to next". All we know for sure is where we have been, where we are, and that it has been the best 396 days of our lives and we have spent it together, but who's counting!
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