Sailing BOAT

Join us as we follow a dream and start in on the cruising life onboard our 41' Hunter. We will be heading south from our home part of Channel Islands, CA and traveling as far as we can go/where the wind takes us over the next 8 months.

02 April 2018
25 March 2018 | Sayulita
10 March 2018 | San Blas
10 March 2018 | Isla Isabella
09 March 2018 | La Paz
28 February 2018 | Los Frailes/Ensenada de los Muertos
27 February 2018 | Cabo San Lucas, BC
20 February 2018 | Bahia Magdalena
08 February 2018 | 27 41.11'N:114 53.13'W, Bahia de Tortugas, Baja Sur Mexico
06 February 2018 | Punta Tomas
01 February 2018
01 February 2018 | Ensenada
31 January 2018 | Ensenada
26 January 2018 | Fiddler's Cove, San Diego
23 January 2018 | Catalina
23 January 2018 | Two Harbors at Catalina

La Paz

09 March 2018 | La Paz
Courtney
La Paz to Punta Bonanza (Sea of Cortez)

Whelp, back to being a week overdue in where we are in real time. So time for catch up. We’ve covered a ton since I last check in. Spending time in La Paz (freaking awesome city) to heading out to an island in Sea of Cortez, and then rallying for our longest passage yet, of 292nm, making a run for mainland Mexico, which is where we are now (San Blas, Nayarit Mexico—check map out to see where we are!) I'm going to break this all out into a series of shorter posts as our wifi is being finicky going in and out and I am done playing the "where is my wifi waltz" game.

Before getting into La Paz, check out the killer Bluefin Tuna we (rather, Jay) caught just outside of La Paz:





Guys, WE FINALLY GOT OUR TUNA!! And we had enough tuna for three meals--Yay for my fishing fool of a husband, Nicole Kidman style claps all around! Our first night in La Paz, we had our friend over from Lamanee, whom we met back up with after parting ways in Los Frailes, and enjoyed our delicious catch (Braggs Amino Acids and EVOO marinated Tuna with veggie couscous salad. Can we say DELISH!) As a side note, I am so completely and totally into this living off the earth diet thing. It's my hippie daydream diet come true! Eating fresh gifts from the sea and snacking on local veggies just picked from outside someones garden—culinary dreams do come true. All that is left is me to find my fresh coconuts, chop them open with a machete and I am set for making this trip a full time lifestyle! Maybe Jay will monkey up a tree for me and get me a few coconuts. I keep dropping not-so-subtle hints of “Hey look at that palm tree with coconuts, you should climb it and get some for me”, so fingers crossed he finally starts picking up what I am laying down. (The machete is ready and waiting for some coconut hacking action-sweet nectar of the tropical beach gods!)

ANYWAY!

We decided to stay in a marina while in La Paz, as BOAT needed a good washing (she was pretty salty and looking a little rough around the edges with all her grim both inside and out.) Plus, Jay wanted to get a few things done on BOAT that would be easier done on a dock. We stayed at Marina Palmira, which I must say was freaking modern civilization godsend.





Gorgeous marina, with great slips, full showers (which I took full advantage since I have been on the shower every 5 days routine—great for your hair, but not so much for having friends—remember Steve? I was registering about a 6 on the Steve scale of smelly) full laundry and a cruisers lounge. Paradise! I think this is the boaters equivalent of a 5 star hotel? I don’t know, nor care as it was HEAVEN ON EARTH! and since the earth was finally still for a bit, there was the added bonus of being able to brush my teeth without almost poking my eye out, or TKO’ing myself.


(see what I mean, you try brushing your teeth or washing your face when water does this mind bending trick. Sailors are no joke talented-like Cirque de Soleil level. Astronauts trying to “eat” water in space. Heck, I raise them a sailor dude trying to pee in the toilet when the boat is heeling over 20 degrees to the left and right. Now THAT my friends is freakin talent!)

So for the four days spent in La Paz, we took full advantage of all the amenities they had. Short of our shoes and anything not nailed, welded or permanently adhered to the boat, I stripped and laundered everything! Back tracking a bit: Both in Turtle Bay and Cabo when we got our clothes laundered, both places used the ever prevalent and pretty pungent smelling fabric softener that is EVERYWHERE in Mexico. To describe (and Nicole, I know you are reading this and laughing your guts out right now as you know where this one is going)

Ok so fabric softener in Mexico—we need to talk about this. PHEW-WWYY! I mean I love the smell of fresh laundry and smelling good, and all. And I am the first to whip out Febreze and dance around spraying it everywhere singing show tunes, because smelling good is MUY IMPORTANTE especially for having friends. (Truth be told, I totally stocked up on a million bottles of perfume as I wasn’t going to be the smelly girl on this trip!)

BUT….

BUT, then there is Mexican fabric softener on the other end of the spectrum of smells. I can't really describe it, beyond saying that sometimes too much of everything isn’t good. Like mixing colors or flavors (or too much of most anything really.) A few together really enhance the flavor, make a great dish or make a cool color, but on the other end if you add all the colors or throw in all the things, you are going to get…

well, fruitcake.

You get a fruitcake when you add all the things (1940’s housewives are still laughing at their passive aggressive genius. Before the bra burning, I am a firm believer that fruitcakes were symbolic of women’s lib, a silent and hilariously unifying housewives club protest. “Women’s place is only in the kitchen?! I’ll show YOU!” says Holly Homemaker with her perfectly coiffed hair as she dumps the entire contents of her “baking pantry” and almost rotten fruits PLUS the canned ones and anything else she can find lying on the kitchen counter into a large baking dish laughing maniacally. The rum was an afterthought as she glanced at her noontime half finished “Mommys medicine” of straight booze, because well, anything baking or cooking-wise with alcohol in it is automatically “fancy." It lends more legitimacy of passing this garbage can dish off as a real dessert people should enjoy. Little do they know…….HaHA! Point for Team Women!

Ok, digressing again, sorry!

Whelp, mexican fabric softener is the equivalent of fruitcake. They added all the good laundry smells together, resulting in a nasty overly perfumed smell, which permanently lingers on clothes for entirely too long that is normal in the world of smelly things (good and bad). The kicker of why this stuff is heinous, it adds this weird soft but thick texture to your clothes, which kinda creeps me out. No clue what is in that stuff and a little wary about what weird cancer I might get by it touching my skin. Needless to say, I was beyond excited to wash all our clothes in my known and enjoyed lighty perfumed smelling laundry detergent, ridding us of the terrible fruitcake-of-a-smell and cancer causing coating. (Yes, I am being dramatic, and no, I don’t care—don’t mess with my laundry, yo! It's my only lasting tether to living a somewhat civilized lifestyle at this point. Parting with my full walk-in closet and 60+ pairs of beautiful, beautiful shoes was traumatic--don't take decent smelling clothes and sheets away from me!)

Well then, moving on from my abnormally long winded and entirely unnecessary rant on laundry…. where were we?

La Paz!

La Paz simply put is a cruisers/boaters paradise. I mean they have EVERYTHING here—anything you could possibly need to outfit/fix/build your boat—they have it here! And all within nearby walking/biking or a short taxi/uber (yes, Uber is in La Paz too!) So after we spent our first day on the dock, mouth agape and marveling at all the luxury around us called “civilization” and “normal 21st century amenities” such as electricity, full sized bathrooms and separate showers AND populations of people totaling more than 2” (ok kidding, we haven’t totally been roughing it that much and for that long that we stood in dumbfounded awe. We actually said, “Cool” and then cleaned both inside and outside of BOAT all damn day long.) The next day we biked into town to check it out:











I'm kinda in love with La Paz. It’s gorgeous as you can see. The ocean is a teal green color which in contrast to the light terra-cotta streets and purplish dirt/rocks is simply stunning to look at. The city is set along the this big bay, with shops and restaurants lining the malecon. Very touristy and obviously catering to the large population of expats living here as well as the touristas (I think I heard equal amounts of English and Spanish being spoken here—hey, it's like LA!) As you travel away from the malecon, smaller streets intersect creating bustling but cozy, welcoming neighborhoods lined with more restaurants, small shops and little tiendas selling meats, pan (bread) and TelCel (Mexico's version of Verizon or AT&T) So charming! I mean, even the trash cans were pretty. Little sculptures of turtles, dolphins, and whales transformed these ugly city necessities into little works of art! Too embarrassed to be THAT tourist taking pictures of trash can, I sadly don’t have any pictures to share, so hopefully my description will suffice.

Warmish day (mid 70’s) turns to cold evenings as we are still in the desert climate of Baja. In fact, it was actually really cold at night (cavet: I have become a thin skinned whiny Angeleno after living there for 20 years so "cold" by my definition is anything under 60 degrees) So once the sun sets, the desert arctic cold sets in. So much so, and since hooked up to shore power, we sadly busted out our heaters at night (endless electricity rocks!) Jay and I actually joked about making a wrong turn as we started up from Cabo into the Sea as the temperature started dropping as we ventured north….um, not what we signed up for. We were suppose to be leaving the cold, not heading towards it. As explained to us later by the staff at Marina Palmira, we are still in winter here and temperatures won't actually get warm until later in March/April. Darn, guess we should have timed this trip better….se la vie, right?

On our last night in town, we met up with our friends on Lamanee (who would be staying here, getting their boat ready to store while they headed back to BC to work for the summer) as well as our friend Gary and his son, whom we knew from our dock back in Oxnard. He had left two weeks after us, making the same trek down the CA coast and into Baja. We had been playing anchorage tag and FINALLY timed right for us to meet! We enjoyed a nice night of sharing tales of our travels and laughs. Knowing we would be heading out in the AM, we called it an early night.

Sunday, we had a pancake breakfast and said our (tearful) goodbyes to our friends on Lamanee before we headed out. I have to give pause here to reflect on meeting our friends, as well as others we have met since leaving our home port and taking this trip. Cruising is both a big and small community. There is this bigger, and largely still unknown to me world of people that do this and have been for a long time, be it full time or part time and for a few years or making it their long term lifestyle. Before leaving on this trip, I started reading tons and tons of blogs written by other cruisers, as they are called and call themselves. Reading with wonder, as they recount their travels all over the world, leaving all their material belongings behind, saying goodbyes to family and friends, quitting jobs or just recently retired and setting out for a life filled with adventure, exploring untouched lands, being one with nature and challenging themselves as they take on the seas. This is a huge community that exists all over the world and they travel all over the world. Its endlessly fascinating to me and something I knew nothing about, and I mean nothing about until I started researching and asking around on our dock for others stories. Truly it is nothing like I have ever experienced before—and so vastly different than just taking a trip. I mean, you are taking your “home” with you and stepping out into something largely unknown. Unknown in so much as, while researching and researching some more on other’s experiences, nothing will be like how you experience it. The seas, the places you visit, your mindset and headspace…all of it is unknown and continues to be even as you are traveling. Every day is different and each day brings about it sets of challenges, frustrations, joys and moment of sheer “oh my god is this real?” like awe. This is where the smaller communities comes in. With each anchorage, we commonly would run into the same general grouping of cruisers as most all of us are following the same weather patterns and specific “stop points” that are commonly known for having desirable amenities such as diesel, laundry, chandleries, grocery stores…etc. So you see the same people a few times over, when covering a general area. You meet a few of them either in passing in town, or a quick dinghy ride over to say hello. Other times, you click with some and spend dinners together at your current anchorage, or share travel plans and see if they align. Meeting Lamanne in San Diego and traveling with them for this past month was a hugely amazing and unique experience in so much as we conquered so many firsts for the both of us together—long passages, entering into a new country, experiencing ports and learning the in’s and outs of checking into a country/navigating its waters along with its share of hazards. Thru this shared experience you develop a kindred bond—relishing in the newness of experiences together, stepping into and facing your fears, both as a group and as individual crew. We spent many nights for a month straight with Lamanee planning our next passage, rehashing our days events, lamenting on similar or different boat (or personal) issues and offering advice and assistance to deal with said issues all while also sharing our lives with each other. We got to know each other quite well over a 30 day period. So when it came time to say goodbye, it was hard. I wouldn’t say emotionally traumatic hard like having to 3 flush salute your favorite goldfish down the toilet type scarring, but hard in that you are saying goodbye to good friends and not knowing when we would meet again.

Bittersweet is maybe a better word. Knowing its the end of what was a crazy, cool and epic first couple of chapters of our trip.

So yeah, I cried while we gave goodbye hugs, pulled myself together to get the boat off the dock and then teared up again as we set out towards Isla Espiritu Santo. Jay? As his dear wife whom he loves and knows I always tell the truth, I say, “Heck no, he doesn’t cry”

…mysterious “people” sometimes just happen to be cutting onions nearby :)

Shout out to Kande and Dennis at Lamanee—we will see you guys in Canada…or somewhere where the wind blows warm in our future!! Get your spill proof glasses ready for us and we will bring the fresh catch of the day! xoxo


Last Passage Distance: 14.6nm (La Paz to Punta Bonanza)

Cumulative Distance to Date: 1,160.2 nm

Days since last donating to Posideon: 7! We are on a roll here guys—this is HUGE!

Items donated: n/a
Comments
Vessel Name: BOAT
Vessel Make/Model: Hunter 410
Hailing Port: Channel Islands, CA
Crew: Jay and Courtney
Social:
BOAT's Photos - Main
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Created 20 January 2018