At anchor at Punta Cobre

 

Salt Flats at Isla San Jose

 

Urchin shells

 

Here are a few of the urchin shells to be found on the beaches.

Clam digging

 

John, Lisa and Steve looking for clams...

Argonaut Shells

 

Here are the Argonaut shells Linda found on the beaches of the Sea of Cortez in the spring.

The Argonaut swimming

 

The Argonaut

 

Here's a live Argonaut that we found on the beach. I put it in a bucket and set it free out in deeper water.

The Argonaut

 

Another view of the argonaut

Burro Rider

 

One of the fancy horseman at El Quilete

 

Roosters at El Quilete, a little town outside Mazatlan

Mulege

9 July 2007

We spent most of the past week enjoying all that Mulege has to offer thanks to Garth on S/V Inclination. He has bounced between Mulege, San Carlos, and Friday Harbor for over 20 years, and has spent so much time in Mulege that he's been "adopted" by a local Mexican family. He has a small apartment attached to the back of their house where he spends a few months a year fishing and diving the local waters in his panga when he's not working on improvements to the house.

Ever since we first came up into the Sea it's been a goal of John's to take Nakia into the river basin at Mulege. We knew Garth did it, but had never met him until this year when he reported a new channel, deepened by the flooding from hurricane John (in 2006), and with minimum depths of 7-8 feet. He sat down with us in the Santa Domingo anchorage to point out the route and hazards using the excellent aerial photo in our Williams guide. Garth returned to Mulege in his panga that afternoon and led another boat across the bar. At 5 PM when we heard they had made it safely in, we made a quick decision to get over there ourselves before John had to start the Southbound net at 6:45. Garth and the other people had already gone out to dinner so we were on our own, but John took it slow and easy and we made it in without bumping anything. The water was green and opaque, making it impossible to see the bottom, which may have been for the best!

Rather than rush ourselves trying to get Med moored to the sea wall before the net started, we dropped our bow anchor on short scope just aft of the other boats. John went ahead and ran the net as if there was nothing out of the ordinary while I sat up on deck to make sure we stayed put. After the net finished we pulled up the bow anchor, dropped the stern hook, and pulled in close to the wall with two bow lines securing us in position. Once everything was set it felt like we were in a marina (other than no power or water), and the best thing was that the temperature was much cooler than it had been at Santa Domingo. Instead of a hot land breeze we were now getting a cool sea breeze and even the water was cooler.

Garth was kind enough to loan his truck to the two visiting sailboats and we rode all over town in the back of this little pickup. In his spare time Garth introduced us to various members of his family, and he even drove us up to the Lookout for a lovely view of the river winding through acres of date palms and up into an agricultural valley. We did some shopping, laundry, internet, took on water, and had delicious mango and lime paletas (real fruit Popsicles) before it was time to go to Gary's for the big Fourth of July party in El Burro Cove.

The ride in the back of the pickup was wild (top speed of 55 mph) and surprisingly hot. We were amazed to feel a 10 degree rise in temperature between Mulege and El Burro Cove, and were very happy we made the decision to keep Nakia at Mulege. I counted 16 boats anchored off of Gary's beach palapa, and the karaoke machine was getting a workout when we arrived. Gary had just handed out the last of his 240 free hot dogs, so we had some of my corn bread and ice-cold 10 peso Pacificos to tide us over until the fireworks show. These started before the sky was completely dark, which was probably just as well for those of us who had to drive home. There were lots of oohs and aahs for the wonderful efforts of the volunteer fireworks committee, and an especially enthusiastic round of applause for the moment when a bunch of rockets lit unexpectedly and fired off mostly horizontally into the desert brush. We loaded everyone back into the truck for the return trip, and Garth was a prince to stop at a hot dog stand in Mulege so we could have salchichas with the works to make it a truly complete Fourth of July experience.

Linda and John

La Ramada

28 June 2007

Things I'd rather be doing instead of composing this blog: walking on the white sand beach looking at shells; reading my latest good book, "Barometer Rising" by Hugh MacLennan; snorkeling and swimming in the aquamarine swimming pool we call an anchorage, and looking for the school of 15 golden rays residing here; hiking to San Juanico bay over the small hills to the south; listening to the two morning nets to find out where our friends are; or working a crossword puzzle with John. Things I've had to do instead of writing a blog: vacuum the boat (the first time this summer that the heat and humidity were so high I had to wipe up the sweat dripping from my chin and elbows as I went along); clean out the cockpit for company (where does all that sand come from?); get outboard parts out of long term storage for various repairs John had to make; and make the morning coffee and lunches, and wash the breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes. Okay, so there's not all that much to the latter list!

We've bounced from La Ramada to Punta San Antonio (just north of Punta Pulpito) and back south here to La Ramada, one of our favorites. The boats already up in Bahia Concepcion are reporting cabin temps in the mid-90s and water temps from the mid-80s to the low-90s, depending on depth. If that keeps up, we will most likely not go to El Burro Cove for the Fourth unless it's by rental car from Mulege! So we're taking our time and enjoying the places we like best for as long as the weather cooperates.

We've been a bit dismayed by signs of development in both the San Juanico and Punta Pulpito areas. New dirt roads have scarred both landscapes, heavy equipment and a construction trailer have sprung out of nowhere, and Pulpito is sporting an expensive looking and perfectly straight (great surveying job), three strand, barbed wire fence, protecting what looks like a dirt air strip in progress. The latter runs from the beach up an incline to the west which means the prevailing north-south winds blow at right angles to the air strip. That should make for interesting landings - up a hill in a cross wind. I guess the takeoffs would be downhill, except that if you didn't get lift off in time, you'd end up flying off the bluff into the sea. Kewl!

The fancy fence prevented us from hiking to Punta Pulpito, but the cleared area next to it made for a nice path out to the SE edge of Punta San Antonio where we could turn west along the bluffs back to the beach. There were a couple of interesting veins of quartz and some other crystallized rock along the way and, because it was Saturday, there was no one around to chase us off if they would have been so inclined. It was interesting to us that unfenced San Juanico had a few "Propiedad Privada" signs posted on the new dirt roads, while at Punta Pulpito the fence was the message. During the week at San Antonio clouds of floury dirt were created by the industrious work of a dump truck, a bucket loader, and a grader. The workers drove their pickup trucks to and from the work site along the pristine white sand beach of the anchorage. Curious that an airstrip would take priority over a proper road out to the site.

We returned to La Ramada and found that the annual squid mate and die event had arrived. There were at least 100 dead squid (1-2') in the shallow water by the rocky berm. They haven't stunk up the anchorage because they're not up on the beach, and the gulls and rays have had a feast. One night we could even hear what must have been a new batch of squid dying in the shallows of the far corner. As they sucked air they made a racket of gassy sounds which was quite unique and entertaining in spite of the somber finale.

Monday night we watched a bright object move across the sky at a rapid clip before fading into a red dot and disappearing. Tuesday night at about the same time but in a different part of the sky we saw the same, Venus sized object pass by again. Wednesday we put the word out on the net and were informed by another boat that it was the International Space Station. We looked for it again last night at the same time and saw something only half as bright pass overhead west to east. Definitely an event we would have missed had we not been sitting outside enjoying the cool of the evening.

As many of you know I collect shells, and am especially enamored of very small ones. I check them carefully to make sure there's no animal living in them but I've occasionally been surprised by a tickling in my palm when I'm holding shells in a loose fist and a hermit crab decides he wants off this ride. The other day I brought some home in the little container I carry and I forgot to wash them in fresh water until the next morning. I laid them carefully on a galley sponge to dry, and we went for a hike. We walked over to San Juanico and got to watch sting rays munching on dead squid in one foot of water, which was pretty interesting. When we got back to the boat I went down the companionway steps into the galley, squealed, and then burst out laughing as I tried to tell John that one of my shells was walking around on the counter top. John was kind enough to run the little guy back to the shallow part of the beach where I found him.

And now my "homework" is done, and it's finally time for a swim!

Linda and John

Pictures!

While we were in Loreto John was able to post some new pictures to the blog. He added them to their associated text, so you'll have to go back through our most recent entries to see the pics. Unfortunately we didn't have Lisa's pictures of the live argonaut/paper nautilus with us so those will get added to the Paper Nautilus blog entry the next time we have internet access. Stay tuned!

Linda

Loreto

9 June 2007

Yesterday was another slow sailing day with our best average hour being 3.7 kt and our slowest, 1.0 kt. We did a fly-by of the boats anchored at Juncalito and had some of our best sailing in the cove there. The wind got lighter and lighter as we passed the Nopolo resort area but we were still creeping along. John lost track of the time, and even though we finished the run motoring, it was too late to buy a fishing license by the time he got to the office - they must have closed up mid-afternoon.

We came in yesterday so we could get up early and go to the "farmer's market" people had been telling us about all week. Well, it turned out to be more or less the local tiangue, with more produce than usual, especially for its small size. We loaded up on: broccoli (3), cabbage (1), cauliflower (1), green peppers (2), limes (12), cucumber (2), avocados (4), tomatoes (8), jalapenos (4), poblano chiles (2), another type of small, yellow chile (6), carrots (6), onions (6), asparagus (2 bunches), zucchini (6), bananas (6), eggs (2 doz), and goat cheese. In order to make this last until around the end of the month when we might get to Mulege to restock most of it has to go in the fridge. We left out one avocado, the tomatoes, cabbage, onions, bananas, and eggs, and managed to fit everything else in the fridge along with four cans of beer, four liters of water/juice, yogurt, and the salad dressing, margarine, mayo, lunch meat, and cheeses we already had stored there. Our fridge is nine cubic feet. This means that most of the food has to be taken out in order to get at anything not stored right on top of what is essentially a misshapen hole with a lid on it. Coming home from the "grocery store" isn't a simple thing to do when home is a boat!

Cool Nature Stuff: We got to see an osprey dive from it's perch on top of a cactus straight down into the water (just like a tern!) and pop back out with a fish in its talons because we happened to be sitting out in the cockpit before sunset enjoying a beautiful evening. I'm pretty good at spotting osprey, and John picked up the binoculars and commented on how it was sure moving it's head around looking at something, like it was getting ready to fish. But the way it completely disappeared under the surface of the water took us totally by surprise! And during our slow sail to Loreto we were accompanied by a huge school of some small sardine-like fish. They were right at the surface with mouths wide open, making that fish fountain splashing sound whenever parts of the school broke the surface in unison. They kept up with us for a few minutes until we got a bit of breeze and Nakia left them in her wake.

Boat projects: John had been assured by another boater that pouring muriatic acid into the head periodically would clear out the calcified stuff that builds up when urine meets salt water. So one night he was a little overzealous in trying to clean our Lavac head by flushing two liters of industrial strength muriatic acid (complete with skull and crossbones on the bottle) through it. But he lives under a lucky star, and the manual bilge pump (which is black) for this boat is the exact same pump (white) that the head uses, which is where the parts broke (including one side of the housing). He cannibalized parts and now we have two "mixed race" pumps! Also, lately our Garmin 65 GPS has begun turning itself on, usually during the night (beep, beep, beep), and even tried turning itself off once when we were underway. The PWR/STAT button must be sticking somehow but there doesn't appear to be any way to access it for John to take a look. And a quick check of the web found that Garmin doesn't even make this model anymore, so not only can't we get a plain old GPS, but we have to get a chart plotter just to replace it!

Decks and bright work: What? Are you kidding! John's still burned out from all the work last winter, and is taking a much needed hiatus from the big stuff.

Fishing: The sailing has been too slow for any big ones like dorado (not that we've heard of anyone else catching those) and he hasn't been out trolling much lately, so we're eating rice and beans these days - kidding!

Linda and John

Agua Verde and Puerto Escondido

31 May to 7 June 2007

We made our annual stop in Agua Verde for provisions on May 31. We thought we were all set for a nice SE light air sail from San Marcial/San Marte (depending on whether you're using the Williams or Cunningham guide books) but an hour later we were watching a line of white caps building to the north of us. Rather than face tacking into the anchorage in the chop we reluctantly fired up the engine and motored into it for an hour.

The next morning we picked up Jerry, a single hander on the BCC Destarte, for a walk through the village to the tienda. Big changes are afoot in Agua Verde. There are several new cinder block homes being built, and the tienda is now in a similar new building just below Maria's house where the old tienda used to be. According to the woman running the tienda, it's all thanks to government efforts to provide housing which will stand up to the summer rains and hurricanes. The new homes had a layer of Styrofoam insulation under the tin roofs (a luxury the tienda building didn't rate), and are being painted the wonderful bright oranges, greens, and blues typical of houses here. Sadly Maria is no longer able to run the tienda as she must now care full time for her husband, who has taken a serious turn for the worse.

We enjoyed our stay in Agua Verde, with no weather to speak of, but on June 3 we decide to move to Candeleros to catch up with Flying Free before their friends, Rick and Kathy, arrived from the States. We had a lovely spinnaker sail which was interrupted by a VHF call as we passed Candeleros Chico. It was Evan and Flossie on Jambo hailing us! We had missed them in Evaristo because we left the morning after they arrived in the main harbor, unbeknownst to us. Normally Chico is a one boat anchorage, two max, and Jambo had already anchored behind Adios. But they were on their way from Loreto south to La Paz, and we hadn't seen them since our Seattle visit, so we dropped the spinnaker and raised the jib to sail back into Chico for a quick get-together. John dropped the hook in 11' on short scope to stay out of Adios' way and we dinghied over to Jambo. Two hours later, after a great time catching up with Evan and Flossie, we sailed off the anchor and hoisted the spinnaker once we cleared the cove. We weren't able to anchor under sail that day because the wind died just short of the anchorage at Candeleros, but we had a refreshing swim to Que Tal for a chat before the sun disappeared behind the mountains and we had to swim back to Nakia for showers.

With both tiendas in Puerto Escondido closed, we hiked 3-4k out to the Ligui tienda on Hwy 1 for beer and tortillas Monday morning. It's an easy one hour walk, with a Tienda Comunitaria in the tiny village of Ensenada Blanca along the way. The next day we followed Flying Free to Puerto Escondido where they picked up a mooring in the Singlar harbor and we dropped the hook in the Elipse anchorage.

The Puerto Escondido old-timers have, for the most part, been boycotting the Singlar mooring field because the daily rates doubled when the new facility was completed; we saw only a dozen boats on the Singlar moorings when it might have been double or triple that in the past. In the old days the mooring fee was something like .10/ft/day and now it's around .25/ft/day, but the old rate got you nothing but a mooring. Now there's a self-service laundry (33p/wash&dry) with brand new machines; lovely bathrooms and showers; what looks like a comfy lounge area w/fireplace (not quite open yet); a small lap pool and jacuzzi; and dock tie-up for taking on potable water or washing the boat. The new facility is very nice with already much to offer and lots of potential for more, so we doubt that it will stay empty for long. All it needs is wi-fi, a tienda, and a restaurant/bar and it will be packed, because at the monthly rate it's still half the cost of private marinas. For anchoring in the API controlled Elipse (this goes for the Waiting Room too) we paid API a $6 one-time annual fee plus a whopping $1/night (it's $3/night for bigger boats; and that's NOT per foot), and were able to do laundry and take on water at Singlar. The bathroom situation at Singlar was odd in that they were locked after office hours and often even during the day, but we managed to help ourselves to showers one day while we were there. They probably just haven't got the key system worked out yet.

We liked having a foot in both worlds but with Willy's tienda completely gone (he died) and the Tripui tienda/laundry closed up (rumored to have been run out of business by the woman who runs the RV park), we needed to move on to Loreto.

Linda and John

South of Agua Verde

30 May 2007
25 degrees 30 minutes N, 111 degrees 01 minutes W
Either San Marcial (Williams) or San Marte (Cunningham) depending on which guide book you're using.

About a week ago someone flipped the Summer switch to the ON position and it's been warm and flat calm ever since. We struggled to sail from Moreno Rocks to Punta Prieta on Saturday and managed to cover 12.5 nm in five hours. The next morning we roused Flying Free out of bed for a hike up an arroyo north of where we were anchored. Except for the soft sand and gravel dry stream bed it was an easy and very beautiful walk all the way back to the tallest of the dry "waterfalls." It would have required more strenuous climbing up some loose rock to get past this one so we made it our turnaround point. There was an abundant variety of vegetation, and several hummingbirds buzzing around to enjoy it too.

On our return to the rocky beach landing we explored what appeared to be an abandoned village complete with its own cemetery. There were several small primitive huts, and fenced pens for goats, chickens, and cows. The lush palm tree oasis at the mouth of the arroyo would seem to indicate the presence of ground water, and perhaps it used to be plentiful enough to support families and livestock. The most elaborate grave of the dozen in the cemetery was dated "Abril 1989."

We returned to the boats for lunch and a short siesta before an afternoon snorkel on the south side of the point. The water clarity was perfect for snorkeling in 5-15' depths, and we saw all the usual suspects including one of the largest Crown of Thorns sea stars that I've ever seen. I wish we'd had the spear with us to get rid of the critter. They are very poisonous and they devastate coral reefs. This one was so big that you could barely see the poor coral head it enveloped.

There has been no shortage of awe inspiring wildlife sightings. In the "pure dumb luck" category we were visiting with friends who had dinghied up from Puerto Gato, when a baby (25') gray whale appeared out of nowhere headed straight for Ray and Jayne in their dinghy off the stern of Nakia. It missed hitting them by veering off to port and continuing up the side of Nakia passing within 15' of our vantage point at the rail and continuing on towards Flying Free. It was pale mottled gray in color, and headed south where I'm hoping it hooked up again with its mother.

The second coolest thing was when we were enjoying a late afternoon in the cockpit and noticed the sound of a rushing river. Way across the glassy calm sea we watched a densely packed pod of hundreds of dolphin moving through the water. We can only assume they were chasing fish since they changed direction several times. We've also seen, but mostly heard (at night), fin whales passing the anchorages. They have a unique sound which I think our whale book describes as an asthmatic wheeze, and once you've heard one, you'd recognize it anywhere. The coyotes were also out yipping at the moon, and I caught a glimpse of one on the beach one afternoon.

Here's something we need help with. As we entered the anchorage at Punta Ballena yesterday we counted almost 20 rays, the most we've seen swimming on the surface anywhere so far this summer. Our fish book only has entries for a few species of rays. We recognize all the various sting rays, mantas, and bat rays but we're not sure what these were. One of them was orangeish brown and definitely not white underneath; the other was brownish gray with a white belly and a black "raccoon" band between its eyes, and it had "horns" like the manta. Both kinds were small (2-3'), diamond shaped, swam in schools of 2-6 near the surface (and commingled in even larger schools), and regularly leaped clear out of the water to splat like their bigger cousins, the manta rays. While we were in La Paz someone said that the ones people see jumping all the time in the Sea are called something like mobilars or mobilas. If anyone is interested in researching these for us, we'd love to hear more about the different species of jumping rays.

Today we had a short sail from Punta Ballena to San Marcial. It was less than three miles so we even towed the dinghy. We'll probably spend one night here before moving a little north again. This is the first day in a week that we've had any sustained wind, so I guess we're out of the doldrums for awhile.

Linda and John

Moreno Rocks

25 May 2007
25 degrees 11.5 minutes N, 110 degrees 53.5 minutes W

The settled weather has made this a good place to hang out for a few nights. There's basically no wind blowing down the middle of the Sea of Cortez or on the outside of the Baja, making for calm seas and light breezes in the anchorages. Last year we only spent one night here probably because it was too rolly. The rocky reef provides only a little protection from the SE swell, otherwise it's just a stop on the side of the road. It took us six hours of spinnaker sailing and a little over an hour of motoring to get here from San Evaristo; that's 23.5 nm for 20 nm made good. But it was a beautiful sunny day with cool breezes and we were in no hurry.

Yesterday we walked the beach around Punta Cobre to see if there was anything remaining from the dead whale we found on the beach last May. We didn't see a single sign of it and a later chat with Manuel, a local panga fisherman who routinely visits the cruisers to sell fish or bum a cold Coke, confirmed that Hurricane John washed the remaining bones away. There wasn't much in the way of shells on the rocky beach but pin cushion and pencil urchin shells were plentiful. The (sandstone?) rocks were wonderful to walk on at low tide, in one place looking like a jacuzzi and in another, a tiled terraza. We left the beach to hike back along the low bluff and up the ridge of Punta Cobre for a nice view of the shallow spots in our anchorage.

The water clarity was terrible when we first got here. We dropped the hook in 14' of water, the boat ended up sitting in about 9', and we still couldn't see the bottom through the green murk. This morning we woke to much clearer water and went for a "dinghy snorkel." The water is still only about 69 degrees which is too cold for swimming, so we went for a ride over the reefs and rocks to view urchins, King angel fish, porcupine fish, sergeant majors, coral, and even a school of Jack Crevalle from the warmth of the dinghy.

We found a good spot on the beach below the high tide line to burn our weekly grocery bag of garbage. We're very meticulous about separating our garbage into non-burnables (cans and glass), kitchen (food scraps), and burnables (paper and light plastics like bags). The first two categories are broken down as much as possible and saved until we can dispose of them when we're in deep water and far from any inhabited shoreline. We thoroughly burn the third category, and are subsequently left with very little that actually has to be stored for disposal in a larger city. We take pains not to leave our garbage with any of the smaller fishing villages because they either burn it in unsightly piles (including cans and glass) on the side of a road or next to a house, or it's left out in the desert to be blown back to the sea by the winds. We met one boat asking where to dump their three full size garbage bags and can only assume they have no onboard garbage management plan yet.

We hope to try a short swim this afternoon before our daily sea bath. We like to take care of the latter before 5:00 which is when two pangas arrive to catch bait fish. They beach the pangas and then two of the guys walk a small mesh net along the beach. The men are fully clothed, including rubber boots, and they walk in waist to chest deep water while the other two guys walk the pangas over to them to pull the net of fish in. There's a third panga which throws their net into the water from the panga and then pulls it in to the boat, which makes more sense to us, but maybe they don't get as many fish that way.

Except for the cold water, we are living in paradise and loving it! I heard a reference to Memorial Day weekend on the radio today and experienced a moment of total confusion when I couldn't place the holiday - wasn't that weeks ago? No, it's this weekend. That's how disconnected we are from the "real" world. It's a lovely feeling. :-)

Linda and John

Day Sail

21 May 2007
San Evaristo, Baja

After spending two peaceful and bug-free nights in the north anchorage here, we decided to take a ride across the San Jose channel to Punta Salinas just north of Amortajada where we were last. There's an endless beach on that side and a large salt pond operation just over the dunes. We were a little concerned after a boat departed south and then immediately returned after deciding they didn't like pounding into the 2-3' wind chop, but we were headed east and figured it would be a good sailing breeze.

It only took an hour to cross the channel to Isla San Jose but instead of finding flatter water and calmer breezes in the lee of the island it was still a little rolly from a wrap around Punta Salinas. We decided to anchor anyway and after lunch John rowed us ashore in the dinghy. The salt ponds appeared to be in operation with about 20 bags of salt in one corner, but it being Sunday there was no one around to chase us off. We walked across the raised berms to the south side of the point for a look at half a dozen dilapidated buildings and a few rusted trucks and pieces of machinery. A cursory search of both beaches for paper nautilus turned up nothing but a still rotting pilot whale carcass. Hmmm, we may have to return in a month or two...

We had a pleasant sail back across the channel to San Evaristo with lighter winds and a big swell to catch us on the beam every now and then. Even though it's one of our favorite anchorages, we have decided that we won't be visiting the hook at Isla San Francisco this trip because everyone is reporting large chop and heavy wind there. We are very cozy here with virtually no roll and only light breezes. John is working on sewing projects this morning and we'll probably take a hike this afternoon. We're happy to stay here until we decide to mosey up farther north.

Linda and John

Paper Nautilus

15 May 2007
Amortajada, Isla San Jose (50 miles north of La Paz)

Today was a red letter day because we saw something new and quite extraordinary on our beach walk with Steve and Lisa of Flying Free. We hadn't walked 20 feet from where we landed the dinghies when I spotted the holy grail of shells (at least it is to me), a paper nautilus. Lisa was closest to it and she discovered that the animal responsible for making the shell was still in it! According to our shell book it's an argonauta, similar to an octopus, but only 4-8" big. The shell encloses the eggs laid by the female and part of the animal itself. You cannot imagine what serendipity it was to be at that spot on a long beach circling the bay, on an ebbing tide, when the animal had just been deposited at the water's edge. After taking pictures of it (thank you Lisa for always bringing your camera with you) John put it back in the shallow water close to shore and tried to get it to swim farther out. It shot a wad of ink in distress, and didn't seem to be making any headway back to deeper water. We couldn't leave it there where it might get washed back up on the beach so John put water in a bucket we keep in the dinghy, loaded the animal in the bucket, and motored out to where the water went from azure to deep blue. When he got back he told us that the animal attached itself so firmly to the bottom of the bucket with its suckers that he had a hard time floating it free. We hope that it was able to swim down to deeper water where it could find a nice rock to attach itself to until the eggs it was protecting are hatched.

We've found a few of the empty shells so far, but only one of them has been intact. Anita on Liberty Call II has found even more very nice intact shells. So Linda, aka She Who Seeks Shells, is a happy camper today!

Linda and John

Out of La Paz (for now)

Isla Partida (25 miles N of La Paz)

As John wrote almost a month ago we had one of our best passages ever when we crossed from Mazatlan to La Paz. The stats are:

Sailed: 36.5 hours (31 of those were consecutive)
Motored: 12.5 hours
Total elapsed time: 49 hours
Fastest hour (by GPS): 7.6 kt (a favorable current helped)
Slowest hour: 3.2 kt
We had eleven consecutive hours of sailing at a 6+ kt average.

It was a blast!

We then spent a week anchored off the Naval Base before moving to Marina Palmira to use up the last of our five nights of credit left over from last year. We enjoyed catching up with friends on Milagro and Ceilidh and giving the boat one final wash before moving back out to El Magote (the anchorage across from the town at the sand spit) on 4/21. The weather was very changeable with mostly strong coromuel winds at night, often continuing a little lighter on into the day time. We had a few days of minimal breeze which made for pleasant beach walking and shelling. The nights and mornings were unseasonably cool and John eventually had to fix a small problem with our Webasto heater so that we could warm up the boat a little. Swinging with the tides (which prevail over the wind in that anchorage) meant our solar panels were pointed at the sun all day and kept our batteries fully charged which was a nice bonus.

On 4/29 we sailed here to Caleta Partida. We managed to sail the entire way (25 nm in nine hours), waiting patiently for the wind to return every time it died (which was at least 4-5 times). We tacked into the bay and anchored under sail, earning us a placard with "10" held up for us to see from John and Debby on Lovely Reta. We moved to Ensenada Grande on 5/1 to meet Flying Free after their passage from Mazatlan and had a beautiful afternoon/early evening for cocktails on Nakia. Our guests left at 8 PM, the wind came up straight out of the west, and by 9:30 PM I was taking something for sea sickness (just in case). We were completely exposed to the 2-3' chop that rolled straight into the anchorage and caused us to stuff the bow sprit several times during the night. Fortunately we managed to get the dinghy up on deck before it worsened leaving us with one less thing to have to worry about. No one slept well that night, and all but one boat departed for the safety of Caleta Partida the next morning. That evening, while we had dinner and played cards on Flying Free, we all listened for any indication of the wind revving up again but of course that night stayed flat calm and glassy. This time John woke up in the middle of the night disoriented because he thought he was back in a marina!

The water in the shallow areas here is swimming pool blue and crystal clear. It's so gorgeous you ache to jump in, but with the temps still in the low 70's it's still too cold to stay in for very long.

The gang was on Nakia again last night for drinks, and with only two ballenas of beer left we may have to make a run back to La Paz for supplies soon! That's okay though because we're in no particular hurry to go north this summer.

Linda and John

Arrived

April 9, 2007
La Paz, BCS, Mexico

We arrived in La Paz this morning after a very fast passage. We sailed almost all the way, and with the wind just aft of the beam we were able to do 7 knots at times. It too just over 48 hours for us to cross from Mazatlan, which is a good 10 hours shorter then the last two times we've been over that stretch of water.

We've both had hot showers and a nap and are both very happy to be back on the Baja side and cruising again. I (John) even opened a book for the first time in almost 6 months!

John

Outbound for La Paz

April 7, 2007
At Sea

Well we were waffling on going across the Sea of Cortez today and had decided not to leave Mazatlan until tomorrow. But then we got out in the ocean and started sailing and it was so nice out we changed course for La Paz. How's that for decision making.

Hopefully the windy weather reported by other boats on the Baja side will break up a bit by Monday and we'll have a better ride. We'll see.

Our position at this time is:
23o 20'N 106o 40'W
ETA La Paz, Monday afternoon

John

Crash!

The inevitable happened on Tuesday. We suffered a complete hard drive crash on our notebook computer. Windows was wiped out and the computer would not boot. I put in the recovery CD and it couldn't even read the file system on the hard drive.

I have a couple extra notebook sized hard drives laying around on NAKIA so I put one in, installed Windows from the recovery CD and began the long process of getting all the applications loaded again. Man what a process.

We have a back up from November so our data was just out of date, not completely lost. The one thing that was really bad was that our back up from Quicken was a week or two old, which meant all our tracked expenses for that time were lost. In an effort to recover that, I bought some recovery software online and put the crashed hard disk into an external USB case. The recovery software (Data Doctor Recovery) was expensive but worked as advertised and I was able to recover all our Quicken data and all the pictures we'd taken since the November backup. Whew!

The one saving grace in all this was that this year I decided to do my taxes online at TurboTax.com instead of downloading the software and doing them on the computer. As a result, I didn't loose any of my yet-to-be-filed tax data. Yeah!

Now, everyone repeat after me: "I resolve to backup my valuable data every month!"

John

Mazatlan to San Carlos/Guaymas road trip

30 March 2007
Marina Mazatlan

As part of getting ready to leave Mazatlan for another summer in Baja we returned our truck to San Carlos, Sonora yesterday (Thursday). Here are some of the stats for the drive north:

490 miles
9 hours
9 toll road stops
545 pesos in toll fees
340 pesos for one premium gas fill-up on the road (we departed with a full tank, and left it empty in San Carlos)

After dropping the truck for storage with Ed and Dorothy we caught a TAP primera class bus back to Mazatlan that same afternoon:

11 hours
520 pesos per person
70 peso cab ride from the bus terminal back to the marina

Total trip time was about 23 hours, and it's obvious that bus travel is the most cost effective way to travel in Mexico. But having the truck with us for three months in Mazatlan was invaluable for making multiple trips to Home Depot and the industrial park for refit supplies.

We'll spend the next week putting the boat back together for the passage to La Paz. We've had the booms, sails, halyards, and sheets off to get them out of the way of the refit projects and all the condo construction dirt. John's put two coats of paint on the dodger, and we have the dinghy inflated again. It's almost difficult to imagine life on the hook again, and I'm sure we'll go through a bit of marina amenities withdrawal, but we're looking forward to going cruising again!

Linda and John

Done with the deck, for now...

As many of you know we've been in Mazatlan for a while (almost three months now). We came here with the plan of having Rick on Cape Starr put non-skid fiberglass panels on our decks after I removed the teak. Rick gave us a quote that made us reevaluate our options (the quote was for $12000).

We decided to try doing the work ourselves. After all, there's nothing to a bad fiberglass job that a grinder can't fix.

So, I started in earnest around the 24th of January. The job included filling the voids left when the teak inserts were removed, fabricating a frame for the new hatch, fiberglassing over the foam core used as a filler, fairing the fiberglass, priming and painting the fiberglass, painting down non-skid and finally re-installing deck hardware.

What do you think, was it worth $12000?

We still have the side decks to do, but we're tired of sitting in the marina and much of the side deck work can be done at anchor (I removed all the teak while we were at anchor). So now that the deck is water tight again we're going to head out and have fun for the summer and work on the boat in a more leisurely pace.

John

"Before"

 

This is a composite picture that I put together from some pictures we took before trucking NAKIA to Seattle in 2004. The perspective is a little off, but you can at least get the idea of what the deck looked like before we started work.

"After"

 

In this picture you can see most of the work we've done over the last six months. Four new Lewmar hatches (three replacements and one new installation), removing the teak decks, filling in the inserts, and painting and non-skidding the deck.

"Before", looking forward

 

A view of the foredeck before the teak was removed.

'After", looking forward

 

Here we are looking forward of the mast.

Another view of the new decks and hatches.

 

Here's a little closer view of the new hatch. I'm especially proud of this because if you note in the 'before' pictures there's nothing but deck in this area. I had to fabricate the raised hatch frame from scratch and even close up it looks pretty good. You can also see some of the stainless work we've had done here in Mazatlan. We had some supports added to the mast pulpits to stiffen them and also provide a protection for the dorade vent (in case we want to add staysail tracks someday).

Another view of the new decks and hatches.

 

Another view of the new decks and hatches.

Non-skid pattern

 

Here's a close up look at the non-skid pattern we now have instead of the teak. It's been a lot of work, but we saved ourselves a bundle by not having the local guy do the work, and we're pleased with the results.

The pastry cart at Panama

 

Birthday girl at La Costa Marinera 2/10/2007

 

 

Leslie and Tom at El Capitano 2/11/2007

 

Wine tasting with Lisa and Steve on 2/8/2007

 

 

Surprise!

1 March 2007
Marina Mazatlan

Well, that was quite a month! Between a week of dog sitting, my 50th birthday surprise party, Carnaval, a bus trip to Tucson, boat projects, and a head cold that started on February 1 and just won't quit, February was a memorable month that left little time for blogging or email. I apologize for being out of touch for so long, but I was either out having the time of my life, or wasn't feeling well enough to document the great times we were having.

February started with Caravan leaving for a train trip through the Copper Canyon. Rather than letting them kennel Clipper, their Schipperke, I begged John to let me take care of her for the week. Fine, he said, as long as it doesn't interfere with the weekend following your birthday (Hmmmm). Clipper was a sweetheart, very smart, and an affectionate little girl who loved being brushed every day. But her twice daily walks were ruled by her nose (she wanted to track every interesting scent), and she missed her pack terribly and barked when I left her alone on her boat. We finally figured out that we could keep her on Nakia to keep her quiet during the day, and I chose to sleep on Caravan so she wouldn't be lonely at night. After a few days I learned that being owned by a dog is more demanding than it looks, and I definitely prefer being an auntie. But now that Caravan has sailed south we miss Clipper, Fiona, Vici, and Gene very much!

My birthday was the absolute highlight of the month, and John need never think about planning another party for me because he couldn't possibly top this one. First we went out the night of my birthday with Flying Free for a wine tasting seminar, fondue, hot dogs from a street cart, and a glimpse of the Carnaval fun fair. I know it sounds like a weird combination, but it worked (you had to be there). On Saturday I was led to believe that John and I were spending the weekend at a sedate B&B after having dinner with Stan and MJ as they were passing through town. Instead I walked into the restaurant to find the SolMaters sitting at a table for 20, along with cruising friends (Flying Free, Caravan, Traveler, La Balena, Willow) and, TA DAH!! - my sister, Leslie; brother-in-law, Tom; and college friend, Amy, with her 11 year old daughter, Alex. Overwhelmed by the thought of these four special people flying down to celebrate my birthday, I couldn't hold back the tears as we hugged and laughed. Everyone was pleased as punch that they'd managed to pull off the big secret, and it took me forever to stop gazing in wonder at the out-of-town faces. I had no idea how fantastic it would feel to have people from our previous lives join us here in Mexico, as this was the first time anyone had come down to visit us. It was very moving, and I will never forget the fun we had with all our friends that night. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who was invited but couldn't make it, and for keeping it a secret from me! I love you for even remotely considering the possibility of being there.

Fortunately I had recovered from the first round of whatever's been going around Mazatlan in time to enjoy the long weekend at the Hotel Playa Mazatlan with our visitors. We had a great time playing tourist; eating far too much delicious food at places like La Costa Marinera, El Capitano, El Bambu, and Panama; practicing numbers in Spanish with the beach vendors (Alex wins the prize for going home with the most souvenirs); sun bathing by the pool, and building sand castles on the beach; taking jet ski, boogie board, and banana boat rides; riding pulmonias, red trucks, and local buses all over the city; and crashing from exhaustion at the end of the day in our comfy rooms overlooking the ocean. Many of these things were firsts for John and me, and it was a real treat to ignore the budget for a few days of pure indulgence!

We barely had time to recover from my birthday weekend before Carnaval was upon us, but I'll cover that in another post. Then Carnaval had just ended and I was on a bus for the 22 hour trip to Tucson to visit my parents, who were staying there for the month. After more delicious meals with them, a visit from my aunt and uncle, and watching the Academy Awards show (a Hill family tradition!) I was back on the bus to Mazatlan. Finally we're back in boat project mode, hoping to wrap up the deck work by the end of March so we can cross over to La Paz and get back to our beloved Baja for the summer.

Thanks again to everyone who was involved in making my 50th the birthday surprise party of a lifetime!

Linda and John

Totally Babeled

[Here's an email I sent my sister. It's off our usual topic of living and cruising in Mexico, but she thought the rest of you might enjoy it.]

I think I mentioned that we were going to see Babel this week. Most of the time I like to go to movies knowing as little as possible about them so that I can be pleasantly surprised. On Tuesday I checked the theater's web site for show times and we made arrangements to meet Steve and Lisa yesterday to drive together for the 5:00 show. A half hour before we were to meet I checked the web site again because the show times had been different from those posted in the newspaper. Sure enough Babel now started 1/2 an hour earlier and we were going to miss the 4:30 show. John decided we should continue as scheduled and maybe there would be something else we could see at 5 PM. I was bummed because I'd really wanted to see the Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winner Babel.

We arrived at the theater and Babel had actually started at 4 PM, so both newspaper and web page were wrong. The only other option for 5 PM was Storm Breaker, which looked pretty lame, so we bought tickets for the 6:40 Babel and went out for tacos next door. Yay, I was going to get to see the movie I didn't want to miss.

A related aside: Recently we popped one of the DVDs a friend had copied for us, titled A Beautiful Country, into our machine for an evening's entertainment. I know that often a movie will begin with an unsubtitled foreign language as a means for setting the scene. John pressed the Subtitle button on the remote and got No Subtitles for a response. So we were patient and waited for the expected transition to English. We listened to Vietnamese for six minutes into the movie until John fast forwarded to another chapter where we heard English. So we went back to our previous six minute point of departure and watched some more scenes in Vietnamese. Finally we accepted the fact that for whatever reason the subtitles hadn't transferred to the copied DVD and we gave up.

Thus I had a feeling of foreboding when Babel started off in Arabic (?) with, of course, Spanish subtitles, and there were no signs of the advertised stars, Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett. Our discomfort increased when the scene switched to Spanish speakers (no subtitles), and then to Japanese (Spanish subtitles again). Finally, there was a scene with the Pitt/Blanchett duo, and we could understand what they were saying. Yay! Wait, wait, don't leave; we don't want to go back to Mexico, Japan, and the Arabic speakers - go back to P/B! If you've seen the movie you know that the P/B scenes were few and far between, and they seemed to us to be much shorter than scenes with the non-English speaking characters. Our Spanish is okay, and I was managing to get the gist of most of it. John pointed out later that the Japanese scenes were best because they seemed to use more syllables/words, which gave us longer to decipher the Spanish subtitles.

The movie theater in the Zona Dorada has a quirky little habit of abruptly stopping the movie and raising the lights somewhere near the middle for an "intermission." Afraid I would lose our new friendship with Steve and Lisa (not to mention John's good humor), I proposed we make our getaway at that point (which was: Mexican pistol had been fired into the air at the wedding; Japanese girl attempted to kiss her dentist after flashing her crotch to boys in bar; and Blanchett was stoned from the old Morrocan woman's opium cigar). They were all polite and asked if I was sure I wanted to go, but I knew everyone wanted to give it up and so we left. I'm not sure they would have been any happier with Babel even if the whole thing had been in English however.

That was our evening. Hope yours was uneventful!

Linda and John

Waiting for the ball game to begin

 

 

Lisa and Linda at the ball park