Santa Maria and onward
14 February 2016
February 12, 2016
7:48pm, underway with the engine. 11.3 true wind speed on our backs, gentle rolling swells off our starboard quarter, depth is around 320 feet. There's not quite enough wind to push us along without the rocking and rolling causing the sail to flap around.
There is a half moon out tonight. It's clear with lots of stars. It's gotta be at least 70 degrees out. I can see the lights of a ship off our starboard beam. It is 948 feet long and it's about 8 miles away. Its name is Tar Pride, probably a passenger ferry. I can't imagine they would name a cruise ship Tar Pride. Hmm.
Let me just say here that our water maker is working fabulously! We left Ensenada with a full tank ten days ago. It's more than half full now. We can make 5 gallons of water at a time. We usually run it while we are under power because it uses its fair share of power and we don't want to run the batteries down.
Our wind generator is working pretty well too! When we were in Turtle Bay it was really windy and it completely charged our engine with the help of the generator. Brian, am I exaggerating here? No, I don't think so.
Brian is sleeping right now or I would ask him.
So we left Turtle Bay on February 9th. That was a salty anchorage. I have a theory about why. Turtle Bay is on the coast from Guerreo Negro and next to that place is a salt mine. I think the wind blows the salt right into the bay. The boat rails were coated with salt. I think it was happy when we finally left. Two nights ago there was a light fog and in the morning the boat was wet so I wiped down all the rails and they looked much better. ☺
We've been sailing quite a bit but we've done our share of motoring too. It recharges the batteries. We've found that our laptops suck up quite a bit :/
Speaking of laptops, we have not had a good internet signal since we left Ensenada. If you are in Turtle Bay, you MUST go to Maria's. OMG, we walked all over that town asking about W-Fi and they just looked at us like...what?? Brian had to remind me that it was a fishing village. Someone finally told us about Maria's and it was like a blessing ;) We walked up to this concrete house up on the bluff of the cove. There was a Mexican lady sweeping the steps and she said "Hello!" or "Hola!" (I don't remember which) We climbed the steps and told her we were looking for Maria's (because there wasn't a sign saying "Maria's!") and she said that was her! Thank goodness! We sat at a table on the patio facing the cove. It was so nice there. She had the primo spot. The view of the bay was beautiful and with the colorful hammock hanging on the edge of the patio there was such a nice ambiance. Most importantly, she had Wi-Fi! Woo Hoo!! It was kinda funny. I was so relieved because I had a work deadline. I was able to sit there and work with that fantastic view and lunch on carne asada tacos. I'm sure Brian was quite relieved too because I was a little stressed after walking all over town with no success.
So the 9th and 10th we were underway. We started seeing lots of whales and turtles. We were very close to the lagoon near San Ignacio where the whales birth their babies and it is prime season (February). Brian said a whale popped up not 20 feet from the boat and blew twice, just checking us out, when he was on watch one night.
Just checked the radar, all good. We are about 8 miles from Pinnacle Rock though, gonna pass it pretty close so I'll have to keep my eye on that. It's probably submerged but still....
On the 11th, we arrived in Bahia Santa Maria It is a small bay outside of the very large Magdalena Bay. We decided not to go into Mag Bay because we would have had to check in to the port there. Too much hassle. BSM is a pretty large bay and we were the only boat there. There really is nothing but a fishing camp and some factory blowing brown smoke into the air ☹ Wonder what kind of a factory it is?? I'd google it but we didn't have a wi-fi signal!!
We spent the night and decided to take off the next afternoon because of the wind factor. Not one fisherman came by to sell us fish ☹ I was thinking we need some kind of fish flag to signal them. Also, we are running short on cerveza ;P (Chart check, still 6.5 miles away, depth is good...) Not to mention food. Seems we could have shopped a little better. I was probably distracted with that work thing. It's not that we don't have plenty to eat aboard, just not enough fresh fruit or meat or fish. NO!! We have NOT caught any fish yet, gawd. Seriously, what is the deal with fishing anyway?
OK, gonna focus on that rock. The chart says it's submerged 144 feet but still. It's a rock on the chart. Just sayin.