Whoa -- It seems like we're back with our blog. Sorry to leave you up in the air while we were absent, but for some reason we lost access to our blog, then we got busy with other things, then we kind of forgot about it. Now we've remembered it and have gotten access and are going to try to be more regular with our updates. We don't understand how some people seem to make almost instantaneous entries. How do people enjoy what they are doing and write about it at the same time? Not one of the great questions for the ages, but we wonder about it.

Let's see if we can get you caught up. Our last entry we were "leaving LaPaz." Well, that's what we're going to be doing again tomorrow -- Leaving LaPaz. In the meantime, traveled up the Sea of Cortez from La Paz to San Carlos along with our friends Mike and Delphi on Trig. Their guests aboard for the trip were some of our other friends from Rose City Yacht Club, Mike and Carol Pick. We were also joined by another boat, Merlot (our new friends Larry and Fran). We made a quick trip north (two weeks), including a stop in Santa Rosalia where we had the picture below taken. Then we left Tamara for at Marina Real in San Carlos for Hurricane season.

We got home to Portland in early June by driving a motorhome North from Mazatlan. The motorhome belonged to another cruising couple. We were able to enjoy stops at the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Ashland, Oregon along the way to Portland. Ship's cat Moo Moo really got into being Motorhome Cat Moo Moo, especially since it meant she could get off onto dry land and get closer to the birds! We were in Portland until late July. Since our housesitters were still in our house, we spent most of our time in the Portland area house-sitting for our friends Mike and Carol Pick in their lovely home in Ridgefield, Washington. Then, after spending a week in our own home and getting it ready for NEW house sitters, we packed up the car in late July and began a road trip to visit Dave's family. That meant Moo Moo got to get used to being in an SUV instead of the motorhome -- which she finally did, about midway across Idaho. We stopped in Minnessota to see Dave's Mom and Dad and his sister and her family, then headed south to see the kids and grandkids in Mississippi. From there we headed west, stopped in Victoria, Texas to see his brother and his family, then on to Mexico! We had traded in our two vehicles for the SUV while in Portland, and it proved to be well worth the investment.

We got back into San Carlos in Mid August, arriving earlier than most cruisers because we wanted to be on scene during the worst of the hurricane season. We rented an apartment in the home of our friends Bob and Marilyn Hicks who have their winter home in San Carlos, and that's where we were when Hurricane Jimena -- by then a tropical storm -- reached San Carlos. Winds blew over 50 knots for 20 hours and there was 26 inches of rain in 24 hours. Tamara weathered the storm at Marina Real just fine. We found the heat and humidity in San Carlos almost unbearable and kept trying to take Tamara out to the Northern Sea where we expected we would find at least lower humidity. Boat projects and lethargy kept us in the marina until the first of October when we made what we thought would be our escape. Not to be!!!! We had a few quiet hours in the San Pedro anchorage just north of San Carlos. Then the swell came up from the West and made most of the night unconfortable. We headed further north to Las Cocinas but we found that anchorage was also untenable because of the westerly swell. At this point we could have decided to go back to San Carlos but we decided, for reasons that seemed to make sense at the time, to go across the Sea to the San Francisquito anchorage. The motor-sailing/sailing trip took most of the night and when we were 7 miles out of the anchorage we smelled smoke from the engine compartment. We found that our alternator was frozen up and the smoke was coming from the belts slipping on the alternator shieves. Since we don't have an alternate way of charging, we decided to return to San Carlos -- another all night sail across the Sea of Cortez.

Once back in San Carlos we had the alternator rebuilt and ordered another one. We also arragned for the alternator and other stuff to be delivered to us in San Carlos by friends of our Tucson friends, Allan and Deedee Stockman. As we waited for the delivery we took a land trip to a resort at Puerto Penasco with Mike and Delphi. We enjoyed the land trip but we ate too much -- crusing does involve some suffereing.

When our delivery showed up, we got a functioning alternator installed and repaired a broken head and FINALLY got away from San Carlos on November 1. We spent three of the best weeks of our cruise coming down the Sea of Cortez. Almost every anchorage was perfect and both of us kept saying "This is what we signed up for". In case anyone out there is tracing our passages, here are the ports we visited on our way down the Sea:

Crossed San Carlos to Concepcion Bay/Coyote Bay, 11/2-5
. Punto Pulpito, 11/6
. San Juanico Bay, 11/7-8
. Ballandra Bay on Isla Carmen, 11/9-12
. Puerto Escondido, with a daytrip drive to Loreto, via rental car, 11/13-17
. Bahia Agua Verde Bay, 11/18
. San Evaristo Bay, 11/19
. Isla San Francisco, 11/20-21
. Isla Espiritu Santo - in the northern cove of Puerto Balena, 11/22

We did have one mishap while sitting out a Norther at Puerto Escondido: our dinghy was flipped over by the wind, and unfortunately the outboard was attached, so it was upside down and submerged for about ten minutes. With some help from the folks on Lilly, anchored nearby, we righted the dinghy and the next day flushed it with fresh water. We held up on further restoration work until we got into La Paz.
.
We arrived in La Paz the Monday before Thanksgiving and had Thanksgiving Dinner with about 200 other cruisers. Since arriving in LaPaz, we have been able to get caught up with several couples we have met along the way. At the present time we are enjoying La Paz, but unfortunately haven't gotten the outboard started. Our choices are for Dave to tear it apart and see if he can get it started, give up on it, or have a qualified mechanic look at it. Which choice do you thing we are going to make? Moo Moo and Marili feel that if Dave were to tear it apart any further it would be the same as giving up on it, so I guess we'll have to get in touch with a mechanic.

In early December we plan to cross over to Mazatlan and cruise further south. We also plan to make more regular entries to our blog!

So far cruising in Mexico has been an enjoyable experience that is worth everyrhing it has taken to get here -- well the vote is two to one on that question, Moo Moo, we think would prefer life on land. We have met some really great folks during our travels. We've been here long enough that almost everywhere we go we meet old friends. We enjoy life in Mexico and hope to be able to travel more extensively into the interior. Tamara is holding up well but as time goes along in the warm salt water environment we have to do more and more maintenance to keep things tip top. Marili continues to work on her writing assignments, Dave lives the life of an "Old Guy Cruiser", and Moo Moo dreams of her escape. While we haven't seen nearly enough of Mexico, our thoughts have turned to what are we going to do next. Right now our plans are to finish this cruising season in Mexico, return to Portland and work on the house during the summer, and return to Mexico next Fall and begin a trip southward toward the Panama Canal. These are cruiser's plans and, as our friend Delphi says, they are firmly etched in jello.

Dave, Marili, and Moo Moo