11/01/2007, Bahia De Tortugas (Turtle Bay, Mexico)
We arrived at Turtle Bay, aka Bahia De Tortugas, at 0800 hrs this morning. We motor sailed the last 5 hours after sailing "Wing on Wing" for 38hours without tacking once. From what I understand that is a rather rare thing to be able to do. The wind was with us the whole way until we turned to come into land. We were generally 25-35 miles off shore for most of the time.
When we got into the bay and anchored, we had a nice breakfast with a delicious cinnamon coffee cake and then an incredible shower. The shower was only 1 ? gallons of warm water but I got to use some real soap. Getting the last 3 days of sun tan lotion and grime off with more than just a wet wipe was a wonderful feeling.
The ride into the town was scenic. The church is right next to the fuel dock and local bar. Rich and I went for a walk thru town to explore. There are no stop lights and only dirt roads. Some of the cars have socks over the windshield wipers to keep the dust off the windshields. It looks like there was a fishing industry here 30-40 years ago that has not been used and is just rusting away. The people are very friendly. I got to give a little boy who was in his Halloween costume some candy.
We walked up a hill and found the town's cemetery. It has a mixture of stone mounds, tiled rectangle mounds, mosoleums, and fenced areas with crosses. As we were leaving, I found a really great rock by the side of the road. We hear "Senor, Mister, Senor.wait please". Uh oh.Did I pick up something I shouldn't have??? He motioned us to follow him to a grave surrounded by concrete bricks painted in bright neon purple and turquoise. He starts moaning and saying that this was his father Gordo's grave and he did not have enough money for a head stone. OK, I need to back up a little. I am thinking he was a "he", but Rich is not so sure. It could have been the smudged lipstick or the perfectly plucked eyebrows, or??? His voice was very low..so???? He said that his rich brother would not give him any money. He swore in half Spanish and half English that his brother was crazy and he was the good one in the family. If only he would some how get the money for the headstone then his father could rest in peace. I was still standing there with the rock, but he said nothing about it, so I did not put it down. He finally saw that we were not going to help his cause-though I would have just for the pure entertainment value of the whole show-so he saw another group of people and bid us a cheerful farewell as he/she walked over to them. We then walked down the hill and had a beer and chips and salsa. We started to walk to the dingy dock and I had to run back to get the rock that I had left under the table. Rich was asking me (OK, more like grumbling) the whole time about where I am going to store this heavy thing on HIS boat. I got this horrible, shocked look on my face and I said that I could not abandon Gordo's headstone now.. He laughed and I still have the rock.
Rich is presently working on getting the auto pilot installed. Hand steering the 356 nautical miles (409 statute miles) was tiresome even with 4 people on board. My shoulders and arms are sore.
We will add pictures when we get an internet connection. We cannot send pictures over the SSB and I forced Rich into taking a photo of me with Gordo's head stone in front of a dockside memorial to Gordo.
| 2007 Baja Ha ha |
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Comments [1]
10/31/2007, 285mn South of San Diego
Rick decided to school us in the art of fishing and within 15 minutes of having his line in the water, we hooked a nice 8-9lb Yellow Tail Tuna. The Filets are now resting in the fridge and will be baked with butter in a Pistachio crust. Who says you can't eat well at sea?
We should enter Turtle Bay sometime after sunrise on Nov 1st, and will then get a few days rest at anchor before heading on to stop No. 2.
| 2007 Baja Ha ha |
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10/31/2007, 252nm South of San Diego
On the morning check in net we heard of several boats that had to pull out for mechanical reasons, about 6 blown out main sails, a few broken mainsail travelers, and an Islander 36 taking on about 1 Gal of water per MINUTE through a keel bolt. The captain was pretty calm about his situation, but just hearing about makes your stomach hurt.
As we approach Cedros Island the water is warming up and Rick is getting our fishing gear ready to deploy in hopes of catching some dinner.
We are going on our 34th hour of Wing-on-wing sailing on the same 150deg heading and still making our 6-7kts. From the net position reports we were happy to hear that we were not bringing up the rear but somewhere in the pack with plenty of boats behind us. While we aren't really concerned about racing, it is nice to see THIRD DAY holding her own. We are expecting to reach Turtle Bay late this evening and then have a few days at anchor for some needed Rest, for my crew of "senior citizens"! Rick also said he is going to lock me in the sail locker until the auto-pilot installation is finished, as he has something against hand steering in flowing seas....I say it builds character!
I'll try to get some crew to write something for a different take, but all I can get out of them is hand steering, eating, and sleeping, who would have thought!
| 2007 Baja Ha ha |
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