Aurora has been sold!

Aurora has been sold

2011-10-23T08:19:00.001-07:00

In late September, 2011, we sold Aurora to Bill Joos, who happened to be our broker when we purchased Aurora six years ago. Our current broker, Dick May, did a super job of taking care of some details to bring Aurora up to first class condition. Dick is someone who knows Valiants inside and out, and we would recommend him without question, if you are interested in a Valiant.

We had several interested buyers and some tire-kickers in the year and a half that we have had her for sale, but nothing serious until Bill saw her for sale. At the time we had another prospective buyer who had read this entire blog and seemed to know Aurora inside and out. We took him and his wife for a sail on the boat, along with a friend of his who went over the boat in detail looking for flaws. In the end the surveyor found some minor things, such as a masthead light that needed changing, but nothing that a sailor wouldn't want to take care of himself before setting out.

In this case the prospective buyer low-balled us on the price and we gave back his deposit immediately. Both Aurora and ourselves were insulted by the offer. Why anyone would play games with a first-class boat that was selling for over $100,000 less than its fully outfitted value in order to save a few bucks is beyond me. Bill had been waiting in the wings for this buyer to bail out and he snapped up the boat in a minute. We are thrilled that the boat will have an owner who truly appreciates the quality and beauty of a Valiant - and one in such excellent condition as Aurora, which is truly equipped to sail around the world.

One last comment: when informed of Aurora's sale, why does everyone congratulate us on having achieved the second happiest day in a boat owner's life? It is with mixed feelings that we sold Aurora. She was a superb cruising boat, envied by most other cruisers. She kept us safe and secure in the worst of the conditions we met. She gave us much pleasure and an adventure that most only dream of. She was dependable, beautiful, forgiving, and loyal - all characteristics of the perfect spouse. If I didn't already have the perfect spouse I would be reluctant to ever part with Aurora.

On the other hand we finished with that adventure, and it is time to let Aurora serve another owner who will truly appreciate her. We hope she will be well used and wish her happiness with her new owner.

2010-01-23T20:01:00.001-08:00

Valiant 42 “AURORA” for Sale

2010-01-21T12:09:00.000-08:00

This sailboat is fully rigged for round-the-world cruising in full safety and with every sort of convenience. If one were to buy a new Valiant 42 and equip it to the extent shown below, one would have to add at least $100,000 to a half million dollar boat. The price for this boat is a steal!

Location: San Francisco, CA
Serious Buyers contact Jim Goetsch at
Phone: 530-278-3205
Email: jimgoetsch@hotmail.com
or
Dick May
2415 Mariner Square Drive
Alameda, CA 94501
Phone: (510) 521-2727
FAX: (510) 523-0391

Type: Sail, Cruising-Aft Cockpit ....Builder: VALIANT
Year: Model-1997 Mfg-1997 ...........Model: VALIANT 42CE
LOA: 42' ......................................Hull: Mtl: Solid, hand-laid-up fiberglass
LOD: 40' ..............................................Cfg: Fin keel with canoe stern
LWL: 34' 6" ..........................................Clr: White with Green Stripe
Beam: 12' 9" .................................Deck: Fiberglass
Min Draft: 6' ................................Top: Cutter rig
Max Draft: ...................................Naval Arch: PERRY
Disp: 24,600 lbs ...........................Engines: Single x 42 hp Diesel IB
Fuel: 77 gals .......................................1997 Westerbeke 42 B
Water: 94 gals ..............................Overhaul:
Range: 400 nm .............................Max Speed: 7k @ 3600 rpm 1.8 gals/hr
Bridge Clr:57' 11" ..........................Cruise Spd: 6k @ 2300 rpm 1.0 gals/hr
Headroom: 6' 5" ...........................Accom-Gsts:
Flag: USA .....................................Galley:
Sail Area: 849 sq ft (main & genoa) + staysail
Equipped: For Cruising ..................Ballast Mtl/Wgt: Lead/9500 lbs

Introduction:
The Valiant 42 is one of the quintessential cruisers of all time with a proven history of circumnavigations and long voyages. Although not a circumnavigator, Aurora has been fully outfitted for blue-water or coastal cruising. She has been proven in action from San Francisco to Zihuatanejo in Mexico, the Sea of Cortez, and back to San Diego. This boat combines comfort, strength, exquisite finish work both inside and out, and performance as well.

Built with serious cruising in mind, all hardware and systems are of the highest quality and accessible for maintenance. We have been meticulous about keeping everything in excellent working order and adding everything needed to make her a turn-key vessel equipped for cruising and/or living aboard. You are encouraged to explore the Valiant website to understand the quality construction and reputation that Valiants enjoy. Features include:

Communications and Navigation:
.....ICOM IC-M422 VHF (with cockpit control and speakers)
.....ICOM M802 SSB/HAM radio with Pactor Modem
.....Sirius Starmate 4 radio (integrated with stereo system)
.....Pioneer AM/FM/CD stereo (6 disc CD changer)
.....DSC Receiver
.....AIS Receiver
.....Wireless internet antenna
.....Hailer (available but not configured)
.....20” Samsung computer monitor at navigation station
.....KVH integrated instruments
.....(wind speed/direction, speed/distance logs, depth sounder)
.....Furuno GP 1850-D GPS/chart plotter
.....Furuno radar
.....Alpha 3000 autopilot
Cabin:
.....Quartz clock and barometer
.....20” Sony Bravia TV
.....Magnavox DVD player
.....Stereo speakers
.....TV antenna control
Cockpit:
.....KVH instruments on pedestal
.....ICOM VHF control mike
.....Speakers for VHF, AM/FM/CD stereo, Sirius radio
.....Ritchie powerdamp compass
.....Garmin 178C GPS/fishfinder/sounder
............(with internal GPS antenna and a second depth transducer)
.....Alpha 3000 autopilot controller
.....Hard radar arch with GPS, DSC, and internet antennas

Galley and Head:
.....4-Burner Regal 2 stove/oven/broiler
.....Samsung microwave oven
.....Sea Frost 134A icebox/Freezer (AC & DC powered)
.....Engine-driven refrigeration compressor
.....Seward hot water heater and storage
.....Double stainless steel sink
.....Two 316L S/S 40-gallon water tanks
.....Spectra 150 Watermaker (150 gals/day)
.....Hot and cold water spigots in galley, head, and cockpit
.....Water pump and accumulator for water at sinks
.....Separate water pump for shower
.....Foot pumps for fresh and sea water in galley
.....Pressure sea water on deck
.....Manual Raritan head w Ronco 20 gallon, heavy-duty, plastic holding tank
.....Holding tank has both deck and overboard discharges
.....Level indicator for two water tanks and holding tank

Engine Area:
.....Westerbeke 42B diesel inboard engine
.....1736 total engine hours
.....761 engine hours since April 2008 rebuild
.....2.47:1 transmission ratio
.....Dual Racor fuel filters
.....Engine alarm
.....Acoustic insulation
.....Autoprop propeller with kelp cutter
.....Raw water sea strainer
.....Carbon monoxide detector
.....Stove and engine fuel shut-off valves
.....(1) Manual and (1) electric bilge pump
.....(2) 5052 aluminum fuel tanks – total 77 gallons
.....New access ports in fuel tanks for cleaning
.....Both fuel tanks cleaned in December 2009

Sails and Rigging:
.....Mainsail with Dutchman flaking system
.....110% genoa with UV panel
.....Staysail with UV panel
.....Asymmetric headsail (with dousing sock)
.....Profurl roller furling on both headsails
.....Navtec backstay adjuster
.....Dual block and tackle boom vang; doubles as preventer
.....Aluminum keel-stepped mast
.....(2) Lewmar #58 winches
.....(5) Lewmar #40 winches
.....All winches serviced in May 2008
.....Mainsheet traveler (new line 2008)
.....Main, Genoa, and two extra masthead halyards (new 2008)
.....Rod standing rigging
.....Dual flag lines to lower spreader
.....Whisker pole on mast

Electrical System:
.....12VDC and 110VAC systems
.....Seven 14-volt AGM batteries (new November 2008); 770 total amp hours
.....50 Amp shore power cord
.....Starter battery parallel switch
.....Xantrex house battery monitor
.....Truecharge 20+ amp multi-stage battery charger
.....Prosine inverter charger
.....Two Kyocera KC-130TM solar panels
.....Courtesy lights
.....Locker lights
.....(3) Fluorescent Alpenglow lights in cabin

Mast and Deck Equipment:
Mast:
.....Tri-Lobe radar reflector
.....KVH wind vane and anemometer
.....Windex wind vane
.....Furuno radar antenna
.....Analog TV antenna
.....Hailing speaker
.....Deck, anchor, and steaming lights
.....Whisker pole
Deck:
.....Avon 280 roll-up inflatable keel dinghy
.....6-HP Mercury 4-stroke outboard
.....Monitor wind vane with two (2) blades and repair kit
.....45-lb Manson anchor with 250’ of chain
.....45-lb CQR with 20’ of chain and 200’ of rope
.....23-lb Fortress with 20’ of chain and 150’ of rope
.....Lighthouse 1501 windlass with foot controls at the bow
.....Hard dodger with Strataglass and Strataglass covers
.....Bimini
.....Stainless rail surrounding cockpit
.....Hard radar arch integrated with rail
.....Port and starboard stern seats integrated with rail
.....Bow pulpit, lifelines, and stanchions (uncovered stainless)
.....Boarding gates
.....Swim ladder on swivel (can be activated from the water)
.....Running, shore and aft lights
.....Navigation and compass lights
.....Dock lines
.....Inflatable fenders

Safety Equipment:
.....(4) Life jackets
.....(4) Fire extinguishers
.....Man Overboard pole
.....Stern hoist for outboard and victims
.....5:1 Block and tackle for lifting outboard and victims
.....Life Sling
.....Throw-able horseshoe buoy
.....Horn and bell
.....(2) 40’ Jack lines
.....EPIRB with integral GPS
.....Flares
.....6-Person Winslow life raft with ditch bag
.....Quick release swim ladder activated from the water
.....Emergency tiller

Other Features and Equipment:
.....Storm anchor parachute with heavy duty line
.....Sea Breathe air compressor w two diving hoses, regulators, and harnesses
.....All through-hulls labeled with backup wooden bungs attached
.....Froli Sleep System mattress supports
.....Hidden safe
.....Cherry finished interior
.....Hardwood flooring (1/2" solid teak)
.....Custom bookcases in cabin with fids
.....Port and starboard lee cloths in cabin
.....Screens for all ports and hatches
.....Lightweight mirrors
.....Cabin lantern
.....Factory limited warranty transfers with biennial surveys
.....Full maintenance records
.....Full inventory list with serial numbers

June 18th (2009) – San Diego – Jim’s Blog #94

2009-07-13T18:07:00.000-07:00

[This is the fifth of five blogs describing our bringing the boat up from Mexico to San Diego - otherwise known as the Baja Bash, named for the bashing of the boat by contrary winds and waves all the way.]

Current Location – Harbor Island – Sunroad Marina – slip A-17 – Lat: 32°44’ N / Long: 117°12’ W

06/14/09 - Jim G: I think we all got a good sleep last night and were up at the crack of dawn to continue our voyage. On the radio this morning we found that another sailboat, "World Wind," got held up at Cedros Island (near Turtle Bay) because of strong winds up to 30 knots. It appears we were lucky to leave Turtle Bay when we did. When they reported this morning we were about 140 nautical miles ahead of them and experiencing fairly calm conditions with only 10 knots of wind.

We had good weather during the morning, but have been fighting 15-20 knot winds and 5-7' seas since early afternoon. It's getting a bit tiring to constantly be bracing for the pitching and rolling of the boat. At one point I was working with the stove and let go just as the boat did a violent pitch. In a second I was slammed across the boat and into the navigation station. Luckily I didn't hit my head, but I will have black and blue marks on my butt for weeks to come. Good thing I have some beef back there to take the hit.

We saw a catamaran coming up on us from behind; so I contacted it by VHF radio. It turns out that John and Debra are employees of the owner, who are bringing the boat north for him. It is a 70' catamaran with twin 200 HP engines, but it still had as much difficulty maneuvering in the seas as we did, and we only have 42 HP on one engine in a 40' boat. We agreed to meet at Marina Coral in Ensenada for cocktails when we get in. We might also get a tour of the boat.

Craig H: Since 2 PM the winds have been brisk and seas fairly high. Hope things calm down some as we get further into the evening and night. We are still making fairly good progress - better than we did two nights ago. We’re looking forward to our planned arrival in Ensenada tomorrow afternoon.

Current Location – Ensenada – Marina Coral – Lat: 31°51’ N / Long: 116°39’ W

06/15/09 - Jim G: We're now ensconced in Marina Coral in Ensenada with just 60+ miles to go before arriving in San Diego. Because we can only count on about 4-5 knots of speed, that means we need to leave some 12-15 hours before we want to arrive in San Diego. Since we want to make sure the customs folks are on duty when we get there, we decided to arrive around noon. You can do the math and realize that we need to leave Ensenada somewhere between 9 PM and midnight to get there at that time.

Marina Coral in Ensenada – note the abundant room there for boats (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

We have decided to use tomorrow to check out of Mexico, clean the boat a bit, and get some laundry done. Then on Wednesday evening we are planning to leave Ensenada for San Diego to arrive around noontime on Thursday. If we have bad weather it could be later in the afternoon, whereas better weather could mean our arrival as early as 7 AM. Since Sheilagh was to be the single member of our welcoming committee, we have agreed to call her on a cell phone when we reach the outer buoy that marks the entrance to the channel. It will take us about an hour or so to get to the Shelter Island quarantine station where she will meet us, which should give her enough time to get her coffee, take her morning shower, put on a face (as she puts it), and drive the 15 minutes to Shelter Island.

Last night I had a very uncomfortable midnight-to-3-AM shift with the weather turning boisterous to entertain me. We had 20-25 knot winds and seas greater than 6' that kept us at 3 knots of speed. Whenever I stood up to look ahead of the boat to make sure we weren't running into someone, I got blasted by spray in the face and had to repeatedly clean my glasses. As soon as Craig came on at 3 AM, the weather moderated and we finally made some real speed in getting to Ensenada. I think we know whose side the gods are on.

Craig H: We were all very relieved when the weather and sea conditions moderated early this morning. It was a long night. Our last eight hours into Ensenada were in some of the best conditions we have seen since Cabo. In our last hour we had our closest sighting of a Finback whale, only a couple of hundred feet away from us. Fantastic! Hotel privileges at the marina are great. There is nothing like your first real standup, all the water you want shower, after two weeks of cruising - life is good.

Craig H. was glad to get to Ensenada, with all the aggressive weather behind us according to the weather forecasters (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

Jim D: I had the 2100-2400 watch and I truly got to watch a lot of water. The speed got down to 1.8-2.2 knots with the added fun of pitch, roll, and yaw. Just like flying! Got up this morning to a speed of 6.5 and gentle swell, so life is good. The marina has showers with unlimited hot water, so that was good. We're on a roll.

Jim D. during the last stretch of easy weather to Ensenada – I think he wears the dark glasses to make us think he is still awake (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

06/16/09 - Jim G: This was our second night in Marina Coral, where we have stopped a day to recuperate a bit before the last 65 miles to San Diego. As part of the recuperation I scrubbed down the boat today, rolled up and stowed the dinghy, and changed the engine oil - not exactly my definition for resting, but it had to be done so Sheilagh won’t see a trashed-out boat when we get in. Jim D. and Craig did the laundry to stay out of the way. This was handy because it's frustrating when someone wants to get into or out of the cabin during a wash-down or an oil change.

The indoor swimming pool must be 85 degrees at least, meaning there is no jolt to the body when you dive in. On the other hand it is too warm to really swim vigorously. There is almost no one staying at the hotel or using any of the facilities, leaving it very private for us. We noticed a cruise liner coming into Ensenada this morning and leaving this evening; so the swine flu scare must be over for the tourist industry.

We have only one restaurant at this hotel, which is getting a bit tiresome. However, we don't really have the energy or desire to grab a cab into town and find another place to eat. We've decided that we don't need any more groceries before making it to San Diego. We'll be leaving at twilight tomorrow and arriving in San Diego about midday - at least that's what we think. The weather is predicted to be gentle, with winds no more than 15 knots and sea states of 3-4. If that's the case, then the "bash" part of this trip may be over, but we're knocking on wood when we say that. More tomorrow!

06/17/09 – Jim G: We finally left Ensenada at about 7PM tonight and are encountering calm seas and a good forecast for more of the same. I did a little polishing of the stainless steel today, while my crew sat around being lazy. I guess I haven't been strict enough on this trip. Next time I'll bring my whip along. Actually it reminds me of my teenage years when I had to clean house but had no vested interest in the place. I can certainly understand my interest in the bright work and their lack of same.

We have been dining in the hotel for nearly every meal because we are out of fresh food and there is no easy way to go grocery shopping here. Also, there is no need to buy anything, as we will be home in San Diego by noon tomorrow (knock on wood again).

We were positioned in a slip that made it difficult to back out. So we used Craig's idea to pull the boat across the double slip to give ourselves more room before starting the engine. As we backed up, Jim D. kept the bow near the dock until it needed to swing out, when he jumped on. Craig was on shore holding the stern with a line so the boat would back around correctly. Then Craig let the line go at the right time and ran down the series of docks to get on when we passed by. It worked very well.

We had a gentle night and actually slowed down to 3 knots for the last couple of hours so as not to arrive before dawn. It was overcast most of the night with little to see except dark water and dark skies, which slowly transformed to gray on my early morning watch. As we entered the San Diego channel we were followed and passed by an aircraft carrier, which certainly fills up the sky as it passes.

The lonely outer buoy for entering the San Diego channel (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

Current Location – San Diego – Shelter Island Quarantine Station – Lat: 32°43’ N / Long: 117°14’ W

06/18/09 – Jim G: We’re finally home at last with Sheilagh there to meet us. We made it into the Shelter Island Customs dock at 8:15 AM and had to wait about one hour to see a customs agent. Customs was taking care of a cruise liner that had come in a couple of hours ahead of us. Here’s where we were checked for remnants of explosives or drugs, while we dumped out all the dairy products: milk, cheese, eggs. We also got rid of the questionable lunch meat, a dried out onion and green pepper, and some apples we hadn’t finished.

Then it was off to the Sunroads Marina on the northeast side of Harbor Island, slip A17, which turned out to be very narrow. It was the first slip we’ve been in with a dock on both sides of the boat; so the tie down is very secure. We had the celebratory beer after tying up and then had lunch at the marina restaurant to end the adventure. At lunch I presented Certificates of Completion for the Baja Bash to Jim D. and Craig H., and Sheilagh thanked them profusely for saving her from having to help bring the boat up. All in all it was a memorable and enjoyable trip for all of us.

Naturally we forgot to take an arrival picture; so just imagine us sitting around a table at the Sunroad Marina restaurant with the sun shining brightly on a deep blue bay, gazing out at a few sailboats and fishing boats criss-crossing the bay on a weekday morning, observing the gorgeous San Diego city skyline reflecting the bright flashes of sun off its many high-rise windows, and glorying in the knowledge that we would soon be at our condo where all of us could take showers, wash our clothing, and completely relax. We made about 1000 nautical miles in 18 days from Mazatlan to San Diego, and managed to end up the friends we were when we started. This marks the end of our cruising lifestyle – at least for the present time. Thanks for following our adventures over the past 20 months.

June 13th (2009) – Isla San Geronimo – Jim’s Blog #93

2009-07-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

[This is the fourth of five blogs describing our bringing the boat up from Mexico to San Diego - otherwise known as the Baja Bash, named for the bashing of the boat by contrary winds and waves all the way.]

Current Location – Isla San Geronimo – Lat: 29°47’ N / Long: 115°47’ W

06/10/09 – Jim G: We ended the previous blog having just arrived in Turtle Bay, but didn’t include any details. As we entered the bay we were met by an enterprising panga, Anabel, which offered to provide fuel immediately. All we had to do to get it was to follow them over to a mooring ball, tie up to it, and then get fuel from their fuel barge. We had heard earlier that Anabel was the boat to deal with, because they made sure to zero out the meter before fueling and used an accurate meter to fill our tanks.

As we were following Anabel over to the mooring, we were approached by a panga representing the main refueler in Turtle Bay, Enrique. Other cruisers had warned us away from this guy, who was not above cheating at the pump. That individual, representing the Enrique cartel, stayed alongside begging us to use his fueling service and letting us know that if we later needed a taxi from the boat into town, it would cost us 200 pesos ($16) if we didn’t use his fuel. We ignored him until he finally took off. We fueled up both tanks and all our jerry jugs in short order for a reasonable price that was quoted ahead of time. We were impressed with the service and convenience of the refueling we had in Turtle Bay.

Turtle Bay as seen from our anchored boat

After we anchored, we called up Anabel for a taxi ride into town – we didn’t want to inflate and launch our dinghy for such a short stay. Each of us had a bag of clean clothes and a towel for the shower we planned to take on land. We found that the hotel that offered showers was closed, along with the restaurant where we had dined on the way down. We finally found one restaurant and had a decent meal and some very cold beer. We had agreed to meet Anabel for another taxi ride out to our boat about an hour after we were ready to go back, and had no portable VHF radio to call him back earlier. That’s when we approached the Enrique taxi and were turned away because we hadn’t gotten fuel from them. The driver later relented when he saw a few pesos in our hands and took us out to the boat – indicating he was “not a happy camper” for refusing his fuel earlier – and not charging us the 200 pesos he had threatened us with.

We plan to take a rest day tomorrow, Thursday, and continue north on Friday. We are planning to festoon the deck with laundry tomorrow as we air out the boat and our clothing at the same time. The winds have shredded our Mexican courtesy flag and our Vallarta Yacht Club pennant, along with the cover on our dinghy. I'm not sure we can do much about those problems, but we can seal the forward hatch with something to prevent any more water coming aboard there. Apparently, when we forgot to latch it tightly on the first day out, it decided that it would continue to allow water into the boat, and it has.

On the way to Turtle Bay, we had a real challenge in pouring diesel fuel from our jerry jugs into the boat's fuel tanks while underway. Craig's steady hands kept the fuel flowing into the tanks and not onto the boat. Jim D has a fixation on keeping the place clean, and using up lots of paper towels to do so. We've all been sharing the cooking and dish washing, and are sorry that Sheilagh had not come along to handle those items for us. Sheilagh mentioned in a note that she was looking forward to cooking a big meal for us when we get back, and the universal response from this crew was "Well, why didn't she come along, if that's something she wanted to do? We could have kept her busy cooking - and she would have had no watches to stand either!"

Craig H: Great to get off of the boat for a bit. We went into town to check things out. We were hoping to get a shower at the local Hotel but no one was around. Had dinner at the Moroccan Cantina - couldn't figure out why that name, the food was sort of ok, and best of all we didn't have to wash our dishes. Tomorrow is laundry day and getting what food we can find. Fuel was taken care of very efficiently by a "we bring it to your boat operation" (Anabel) as soon as we entered the bay. If we get the weather window for Friday through Sunday as advertised we will get ahead of our schedule - stay tuned.

06/11/09 - Jim G: It was rest-and-recuperation-day today and we made use of it to do our laundry and get some groceries in town. Aurora looked like a derelict with two drying lines strung on both sides of the boat flying underwear, socks, and T-shirts. We all have greater respect for a washer and dryer – something that would be very nice on the next boat.

Jim D. on the left and Craig H. after hanging the laundry out to dry

The grocery store was minimal at best with the only fresh vegetables being tomatoes and avocados. The lettuce, zucchini, and onions were bedraggled, and there were no carrots or cucumbers at all. I asked about ground beef and I was taken to the back of the store where there was a cooler with various carcasses which could have been beef, and a butcher who couldn't speak English. We elected not to trust the "ground beef" we might have been given.

Two other sailors are anchored near us: one single-hander (Bob on "Kalona"), who had turned back from going north three times already, and a couple Sheilagh and I had met last summer in Agua Verde (Jim and Julie of "World Wind"). Bob decided he was not up to sailing single-handed, as he had done in his youth, and was waiting for another cruiser who offered to join him to make the trip to San Diego. Jim and Julie had battled north all day yesterday and couldn't even make it into Mag Bay because of the strong winds. I guess we've been lucky.

We are leaving in the morning to continue north, while the other two cruisers will be licking their wounds for another day or two. The weather forecast appears to us to favor going north right away; so we have decided not to hang around any longer.

We made some beef stew and mashed potatoes this evening based on a recipe Sheilagh sent us by email when she heard we were down to canned goods. Sure enough we had the requisite ingredients in the cans we had onboard, and we all loved the stew. Thanks, Sheilagh. That's it for now. We just watched the movie, "300," about the Spartans at Thermopylae, and Jim D and Craig are now in bed, probably exhausted by the battle scenes.

06/12/09 - Jim G: We were up early this morning and left Turtle Bay at 6:50 AM. We have had very light winds, although they have been on our nose; so they haven't helped us much. The seas have also been running very light, making the ride very easy. We've been running the engine solid for 13 hours now and have about 40 more hours to go. We anticipate arriving in Ensenada on Sunday, where we may stay one or two days. We have to make the rounds of the customs office and the bank to pay our exit fees and make sure we aren't transporting swine flu into the U.S.

We also anticipate arriving in San Diego at about noon on Tuesday or Wednesday, if we continue to be blessed with excellent weather. So far we have been very lucky with the weather despite predictions of difficult winds and seas. I've mentioned to Jim D and Craig that they haven't really experienced a true Baja Bash this trip; so we'll have to repeat it next year. Craig has said he would love to go south along the Baja coast, but he'd have to be senile to do another Bash. I can't imagine why he would say such a thing, since I have been very easy on the crew, even cooking most of the major dinners. Where have I gone wrong? I'll let them comment.

Craig H: Sheilagh's emailed recipe for beef stew, nicely executed by Jim was a hit two nights in a row. Amazing what can be done with limited resources! We have been really lucky today with the weather in an area that has turned back a lot of boats. Hopefully it will continue and we can get into Ensenada on Sunday. For me there has been a sufficient amount of bashing - I don't feel like I have been short changed in the least. We have a great crew - surprising how well three old Navy buddies can fall into a groove and make this all work so well. Most of the time things just get done without too much direction. Someone always seems to be ready to be on watch during the day, food gets prepared, dishes washed etc. Jim G. works the hardest with all of the additional "technical" chores like keeping the water maker working, holding tanks flushed , radio check-ins with the nets, and weather monitored. We are looking forward to ending our night watches, hopefully only two more nights of cruising left.

Jim D: I almost have the "Baja Bash" checked off from my bucket list. I told Jim G since he's the experienced one he can hire out now and pursue "Bashes" in retirement. We are taking advantage of excellent WX and making the most of it. West of Cedros Island today about 1200, what appeared to be a blue whale stayed with us for 2 dives, then left. Of course no one had a camera ready. Saw a few sea lions and dolphins, but a quiet trip so far with regard to the sea life.
06/13/09 - Jim G: I believe the gods were listening last night when we mentioned how easy we had it so far. At 8 PM last night the wind came up to 20-25 knots with a sea state of 6'+ and suddenly our forward progress was reduced from 6 knots to 3 knots. Not surprisingly, we didn't make the kind of miles we had anticipated and figured out in the morning that we couldn't make Ensenada on Sunday as we had planned. We can now say that we've been "Bashed."

Thanks to Rich and Debbie (of "Oasis") who made the trip last year. In an email we received on the trip they recommended a small island as a stopping place if we got tired. The island is Isla San Geronimo and we are anchored there tonight as we rest up and hope for more moderate winds tomorrow. We transferred the 30 gallons of diesel fuel in our jerry jugs into the boat while we have been at anchor - a much better idea than transferring the fuel on the go. Hopefully we will get a fairly smooth night's sleep tonight with an early start tomorrow in the hopes of making Ensenada before closing time on Monday afternoon.

Anchored off Isla San Geronimo, which is little more than a fish camp with a light house on top of the island (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

Thanks to Steve and Denise (of "Brendon") who recommended we stay in Marina Coral in Ensenada and let someone there do all our paperwork (another email we received on the way). We have communicated with Marina Coral through Sheilagh on the internet and they are waiting for us on Monday we think.

In naming our boat "Aurora," who is the Roman goddess of the dawn, we thought we would be getting an advantage in sailing our boat. Aurora is the mother of the four winds and the sister of the sun and moon, all of which are supposed to make sailing easier for us. So much for Roman gods!

Craig H: Nice to have a good place to anchor in a protected area. This island is not on the top list of hideaways but is working really nicely for us. It is like being in a National Geographic article. Pelicans flying by about 3 inches above the water in groups of 20, elephant seals lounging on the shore (they are not quiet), smaller seals cruising around the kelp, a small fishing camp on the island, a lighthouse on the highest point, big breakers on the rocks at the point - wow. Last night the weather was a bit crazy, but Jim and Sheilagh's boat handled it beautifully and you just know Aurora can take a whole lot more than anything that we have seen - it is a good feeling in the middle of the night.

A couple of dolphins swam with us for awhile (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

Jim D: It finally caught up with us with the bragging about the good WX. Last night was similar to an "E"ticket at Great America. No moon to speak of and the ocean, as the Hawaiians say, was "angry". Pulled in behind a small island at 29°47’N/115°47’W to have a nice meal and rest about 3:00 PM . Solved some of the world problems and will launch at 7:00 AM tomorrow to continue the "Bash".

June 10th (2009) – Turtle Bay – Jim’s Blog #92

2009-07-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

[This is the third of five blogs describing our bringing the boat up from Mexico to San Diego - otherwise known as the Baja Bash, named for the bashing of the boat by contrary winds and waves all the way.]

Current Location – Turtle Bay – Lat: 27°41’ N / Long: 114°53’ W

06/08/09 - Jim G: We pulled up the anchor and headed north up Magdalena Bay looking for fuel. We understood there was fuel at San Carlos, which was about 2 hours north, and would require that we backtrack those two hours to get back out of the bay. We spent most of the day wending our way through a very circuitous route to Puerto San Carlos to replace the fuel we used getting to Mag Bay. It took us about 5 hours and 5 gallons of fuel to get the fuel and return to the mouth of the bay. We had a challenge finding the various buoys that marked the "Z" pattern for getting to the dock.

Note the zigzag pattern to go north to San Carlos (Photo courtesy of Craig H. - enhanced by Jim G.)

There we found a fixed dock that was about 5 feet higher than our deck at that time of the tide; so we were forced to scramble up the side of the dock using the stays to assist us.

A look from the stern at the shrimp boat behind us on the same dock (Photo courtesy of Craig H.)

Then I had to go through the bureaucratic processes as follows: 1) contact the port captain to report my arrival; 2) pay a $15 fee for the one hour we would be there (although there was no fee at any other port in Mexico); 3) get a ride with the port captain to a spot outside the port to pay for the diesel I would need in advance; 4) get a ride back to the dock to pick up our jerry jugs; 5) take the jerry jugs in the back of a pickup to the diesel tank farm; 5) get the jugs filled up with diesel (I paid for more than I needed, but I decided I didn’t want to go through the bureaucratic process to get a couple of bucks back); 5) deliver the jugs back to the boat; and 6) assist Jim D. in handing them down to Craig to strap back on the starboard side of the boat.

A look up to Jim D. on the dock and down to Craig on the deck of Aurora (Photos courtesy of Craig H.)

There were no fast food places nearby; so we decided to get out of there. The last hurdle was getting away from the dock against a wind off the port forward side. After two attempts to get the bow out against the wind, I reversed the engine and used the port-walk tendency of the engine and the wind to back out and away from the larger boat immediately behind us. We were very happy to get away from there and take the zigzag trip back.

As we approached our anchorage at the mouth of Magdalena Bay at the end of our 5-hour trip, we took a look outside the bay and decided it was nice enough to continue north to Turtle Bay without spending another night at anchor. Now we are heading directly for Turtle Bay, which is about 230 nautical miles from us and about 40 hours away. This is being written on Monday afternoon at 6PM; so there is a chance that we can be in Turtle Bay by 2PM on Wednesday if the sea stays this smooth and the wind at the current 10 knots on our nose. However, it is unlikely that we will be that lucky over a period of 40 hours; so we have some spots along the way we can stop if the weather gets worse.

The freezer is now defrosted without any effort on our part, and the drinks will soon get warm. We have some cottage cheese to get rid of, as well as some lunch meat and hot dogs. Then we can start on the canned chicken, beans, and vegetables to keep from starving. Actually, without a chance to exercise, but we're not sure how much of that weight is dirt. We haven't showered for about six days now, but luckily we are all accustomed to the aroma.

06/09/09 - Jim G: We're powering up to Turtle Bay as fast as we can go while the weather is good. Although the prognosticators are promising us 20-25 knot winds every day with a sea state of 4-6', we have been enjoying 5-15 knot winds with waves no more than about 3-5 feet. Therefore we are motivated to hustle while we can. Of course the lack of a refrigerator and the scarcity of fresh foods at the moment are also strong motivators. We finished up the cottage cheese, used the last of the sour cream on some Santa Fe style soup, and are down to carrots and onions in the vegetable bag. We still have lots of canned goods and plenty of bread; so we’re not suffering yet.

Last night from midnight to 3AM I had one of the best watches I have ever stood. The moon was one day past full, but it certainly looked full last night as it cast a golden path on the water to the boat. We usually stand watches sheltered under the dodger in the cockpit, facing aft, and getting up every ten minutes or so to look forward for any other vessels or possibly UFO's. I had on my warm weather gear and was perfectly comfortable in the cockpit, gazing up at the moon, and playing Sarah Brightman soprano solos on my iPod. It doesn't get better than that.

Sunrise on the morning watch (photo courtesy of Craig H. who must have had that watch)

Today I felt so skuzzy that I took a washcloth bath, changed all my clothing, and put on deodorant over the smell to save my own nose. Then I washed out the clothing I had been wearing for a couple of days and hung it on a makeshift clothesline across the cockpit. Jim D and Craig were not pleased to have their view impaired, but I think they appreciated the fact that I had washed the trousers I have been wearing since we left Mazatlan nine days ago. Hanging the clothing anywhere else on the boat invited a salt-water rinse.

Craig at the helm – the autopilot doesn’t get all the fun

Craig H: What a treat to get such a beautiful day. It looks as though we will make Turtle Bay tomorrow for a rest and what passes for modern conveniences in this part of the world. Like Jim, I had a great watch last night with a full moon, good music in the iPod, and reasonable conditions. However between 3AM and 6PM it gets pretty cold and damp. I am glad that Jim gave us a good list of the proper clothes for the trip - I stayed dry and warm.

Jim D: It has been an exceptional day on the cruise front. We’re making good progress without a lot of chop. I had the 2100-2400 watch last night and saw just a beautiful moonrise. The color of the moon was a bright orangish-brown, similar to an early sunrise.

Our good fortune with the WX should give us an arrival at Turtle Bay tomorrow in the daylight. That of course is always a good thing. The books say there are showers available there. We plan on using those! Turtle Bay coordinates: 27°51’N/115°17’W. We plan on resupplying there with fuel and food for the last long leg of the bash.

06/10/09 - Jim G: We have made it to Turtle Bay after 54 hours of steady motor-sailing from Mag Bay. This puts us half way to San Diego from Cabo San Lucas - the official Baja Bash trip. However, we are two-thirds of the way to San Diego from Mazatlan, where we started out. We are feeling a sense of accomplishment, particularly because we headed out in weather that was predicted to be much stronger than we encountered - a weather prediction that has kept some other boats from setting out. More later . . .

June 7th (2009) – Magdalena Bay – Jim’s Blog #91

2009-07-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

[This is the second of five blogs describing our bringing the boat up from Mexico to San Diego - otherwise known as the Baja Bash, named for the bashing of the boat by contrary winds and waves all the way.]

Current Location – Magdalena Bay – Lat: 24°34’ N / Long: 112°04’ W

06/05/09 - Craig H.: We decided Thursday evening that we had enough of the good life at our luxury digs at Cabo. A small but promising weather window appeared to be opening for a morning attempt to make the dreaded "breakout" around Cabo Falso and begin our journey to our first planned stop at Magdalena Bay, approximately 182 nm Northwest of Cabo. The crew rallied around the coffee pot at 6am, and at 6:30 we followed a long line of sport-fishers out to Lands End, the famed arched cape that guards Cabo's bay.

The arches west of Cabo San Lucas – Cabo Falso is further along and a bit more south (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

As we turned the corner, it was clear that conditions were going to be ‘interesting.’ Within 30 minutes winds were gusting to 27 knots with waves to match. The ride was definitely ‘E’ ticket and we held on with both hands. Other than some unauthorized water entry due to a less than firmly secured forward hatch, all went well - won't say whose fault it was but he is writing today's note and his initials are CH.

At around 10, conditions began to ease significantly and we celebrated a successful breakout. Our start to the Baja Bash is official and we have been appropriately bashed!! For most of the day we have had 10-15 knot winds and 2-4' seas - very pleasant. We hope to be at the entrance to Mag Bay around 5pm tomorrow. With the current forecasts for heavy winds we expect that we may have to hang out there for a few days waiting for reasonable conditions.

Jim G. Postscript: Before departing the anchorage we had dressed warmly to prepare for the colder weather that we expected as we rounded Cabo Falso. I was so hot by the time we were approaching the cape that I removed my jacket and shirt in order to absorb as much of the early morning sun as I could. No sooner did my shirt come off than a cold blast of wind hit the boat, and I lost no time in getting my clothing back on. The crew blamed the subsequent cold and windy weather as punishment from the gods for my daring to bare my chest. I forgot to check on the hatches before launching into the wet stuff, and naturally the partly open hatch was the one way up front. As a result the inside of the cabin looked like a day at the laundry all day; wet cushions and clothing are still drying out everywhere. We live and learn.

We had soup and sandwiches for lunch and spilled very little soup despite the constant bouncing of the ship from side to side and up and down. Then we had home-made taquitos and cole slaw for dinner, with canned peach halves for dessert. It's almost as if we have a real cook onboard, but we've all agreed not to talk about what we can cook because our wives might get the idea that we can help in the kitchen when we get back home.

06/06/09 - Jim D's turn: Just in case you thought they threw me overboard because I didn't make any comments, I'm just shy and retiring.

All the books say what we accomplished today was the smooth part of the bash. The bruises prove otherwise. Current position is Magdalena Bay about 1/3 of the way up the Baja coast. Co-ordinates are 24°34'N/112°04'W.

A freighter passing us as it was bound for Cabo San Lucas or beyond

Planning to take a day or two and get fuel and rest. The "Iron Jenny" is reliable, but is thirsty. The weather (WX) guru has promised 20-30kt winds (don't want to be there) for the next 3-4 days and we'll fill up with fuel to be in position for a break in the WX.

We've all taken turns at being galley slaves and someday it's cereal and sandwiches and sometime eggs and surprises! We are all doing well and no one has turned into Capt. Bligh, yet!

The ‘Aurora’ is a good ship. Similar conditions throughout today. Great to remember the old times! [“Old times” refers to the two previous voyages Jim crewed for us on Aurora – once from San Francisco to San Diego, and once from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas as part of the Baja Ha Ha event.]

Jim G’s Postscript: While Jim D. maintains he is shy and retiring – that is only true with regard to the written word. As a former airline pilot and raconteur extraordinaire, Jim is without equal in the number of stories and jokes he can, and does, tell. I think it’s due to the fact that airline pilots have nothing to do for hours at a time except observe the gauges on the panel and tell stories to one another. Since a mild form of Alzheimer’s is setting in for Jim, he is never exactly sure that he hasn’t told a given story before. Luckily my own case of Alzheimer’s has removed most of his previous stories from my memory; so they are still fresh for me.

Jim D. and myself resting on the stern seats on a pleasant day – not sure if this was at anchor or steaming along on a calm day (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

06/07/09 - Jim G: We changed the oil in the engine along with the oil filter and one fuel filter today. I was personally cursing Sheilagh's absence in this operation because she is the one who usually gets her hands dirty and then cleans up the mess afterwards. In this case I was the one to get dirty, but Jim D assisted in the process and helped with the clean up. Craig poured most of the 30 gallons of diesel fuel from the jerry cans into one of the boat's fuel tanks. We hope to load up the jerry cans here in Magdalena Bay and then position ourselves for moving north as soon as we have a weather window that we think we can handle.

It is urgent that we head north quickly because the refrigeration compressor has failed and we have no way to make ice or keep anything cold. We are quickly trying to eat up the perishables in the refrigerator before we break into the canned goods. Craig says he will develop a system to keep the coke and beer cold in the water; so we won't miss out on the cold drinks in the evening. We will also attempt to buy ice along the way, if we can find a tienda in one of the villages.

Last night we had my famous hamburger stroganoff ("famous" in my own mind), and it received praise from Jim D and Craig - probably to avoid their having to take turns as chief cook and bottle washer. I have to admit that they readily volunteer for dish duty and even laundry; so the work is balanced.

More Laundry to dry while anchored inside the entrance to Magdalena Bay (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

Craig H: As you can see from Jim G's comments above, it has been a day of "rest" maintenance and repair, or in one case, disrepair. We will miss the refrigerator but attempted to soften the blow by having a final cold beer after a late lunch. Nap anyone?! The water temp even this far south is only 54 degrees so we can hang pop/beer etc. in the water in a mesh bag when at anchor to get some cooling.

Our anchorage is lonely with only a few pangas coming by and one yacht mid afternoon that came in and out of the bay briefly. San Carlos is at the North end of the bay but too far away to be visible. We will head up there tomorrow for fuel. Windy and cool with the afternoon wind peaking at 20 knots and temp at 70 degrees. More later . . .

June 4th (2009) – Cabo San Lucas – Jim’s Blog #90

2009-07-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

[This is the first of five blogs describing our bringing the boat up from Mexico to San Diego - otherwise known as the Baja Bash, named for the bashing of the boat by contrary winds and waves all the way.]

Current Location – Cabo San Lucas – Lat: 22°53.20’ N / Long: 109°53.82’ W

This log was prepared on a daily basis to send to our wives and friends as we made our journey northward. I have included the individual dates and elaborated a bit (from the original emails) on what happened along the way.

06/01/09 – Two "old" Navy buddies volunteered to help me bring the boat up from Mexico despite my warnings that it might not be a pleasant experience. Sheilagh had read the handwriting on the wall after talking with other cruisers about the trip, and was unwilling to subject herself to the pain of “bashing” north against the wind and waves.

Both buddies (Jim D. and Craig H.) showed up on Friday evening from Hawaii and Seattle respectively. We caught up on a lot of news and finished provisioning the boat by Sunday night. We also took the bus to the other side of town and climbed to the top of the lighthouse to get some exercise. However, we all forgot to bring cameras; so we have no pictures from the top. Afterward we relaxed in the El Cid swimming pool to rest up from our labors.

The El Cid Swimming pool - none of us was willing to pose for this picture.

This morning we left El Cid in Mazatlan at 7 AM and headed out for a 32-hour trip. The weather was mild with winds no greater than 10-15 knots. It was a chance to let the new crew get acclimated to the boat and to the boat systems. Jim had been with us on the way down when we had no electronic autopilot for motoring. We used the Monitor wind vane when sailing south, but it was of little use against the wind. Both crew members appreciated the opportunity to let the boat sail/motor itself.

Craig H. and Jim D. enjoying the benefits of the autopilot in the mild conditions between Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas

06/02/09 – We arrived at Cabo San Lucas at 2 PM, about an hour earlier than we had anticipated. There are anchoring areas all along the beach; so we elected a location that did not have loud music cascading down to the beach from the local Palapas. We were a bit concerned about our fuel consumption when we completely used up the fuel in what we thought was about a 39 gallon tank in only the first 22 hours of the trip – almost 2 gallons an hour. We decided to see how large the tank was when we refilled the next day.

A view of Cabo San Lucas through the front of the dodger - note the laundry drying on the safety lines (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

06/03/09 – This morning we motored into the fuel dock and filled up our two main tanks. We found that our two fuel tanks are different sizes. The one we emptied completely only holds about 31 gallons, while the other one holds approximately 46 gallons. For the past three years Sheilagh and I only ran the tanks until they were a quarter full and then switched to the other tank. We never had occasion to fill them from an empty condition to find out how much they hold. We determined that our fuel consumption was really about 1.1 gallon per hour, which was a great relief.

So far we haven’t touched the 30 gallons of fuel we have in jerry cans strapped to the starboard side deck of the boat (photo courtesy of Craig H.)

After refueling it was back into town in the dinghy to eat and do some shopping. For lunch today we had cheeseburgers at a Johnny Rockets franchise. It was great to get the taste buds activated by good old cheeseburgers fries and cokes - with a chocolate malt for me. We decided that we should eat at restaurants when we can, because we didn’t want to dig into our provisions until necessary and the crew didn’t trust the home cooking I would be doing enroute.

06/04/09 – We had to spend another lovely day in paradise here in Cabo San Lucas, waiting for the winds to moderate around the point. Tonight Craig and Jim D fixed a steak and fried egg sandwich for dinner and did fine. I got the dishes as my duty. Now I have confidence that they can survive in the galley, if I break an arm or something. Actually we work very well together and so far have not gotten on one another's nerves - as far as I know. However, I may be driving them crazy without knowing it. One problem is that things keep getting put away in places that are not where they belong – according to Sheilagh’s careful planning – and it is sometimes difficult to find the cooking tool, bowl, or pan that's needed for the next meal.

Tomorrow we've decided to get up early and try to brave the somewhat reduced winds that are forecast. If it gets too rough we’re in agreement that we’ll turn back and wait for even calmer weather. We want our wives to know that we are not just here for a lengthy vacation - we are really trying to take the boat to San Diego. That means we’ll head out into the Bash, shunning the good life at Cabo for the rigors and perils of the open sea. More later . . .

May 25th (2009) – Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #89

2009-05-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

Current Location – Mazatlan – Lat: 23°16.12’ N / Long: 106°27.85’ W

There must be someone reading these, because I have had several readers wonder why I haven’t written a blog in a month. Since the last blog I flew back into Mazatlan from Los Angeles, leaving Sheilagh back at the condo in San Diego. I went through customs with a green light, although the only questionable item was the repaired GPS receiver that didn’t fit into the computer, cell phone, or portable radio/IPod categories that are permitted. I had a story in mind about how I use it in the car, but didn’t have to employ any subterfuge. I was last in line because I first ducked into a men’s room and changed out of my jeans for shorts.

When I had signed up for the flight in early April, I had only 4 seats to choose from. About three days prior to the flight I checked on the internet to see if I could get a better seat. Imagine my surprise to see one-fourth of the 200 seats now available for seating. This was in the initial stages of the swine flu “epidemic;” so I counted my good fortune and picked a better seat with no seatmates in the row. When I finally got aboard on April 30th, the Vice President had just advised everybody not to travel in closed environments, and the plane was only one-fourth full. Naturally First Class and the exit row seats were all taken, but I got my own row completely across the plane.

The main Mazatlan Beach looking North - the volume of tourists is down so low that the beaches are nearly empty and the locals are suffering a serious economic slump

The flight path was almost directly down the Sea of Cortez, which kept me moving from one side of the plane to the other to note the places we had sailed on the eastern side of the Baja Peninsula, and the places we had skipped by on the western side of mainland Mexico. I think the other few passengers behind me might have been a little curious as to what I was doing, but they seemed more interested in taking alcoholic medication to prepare to confront the swine flu in Mazatlan.

Getting back to the boat, I found that I needed to go through all the cabinets to find out where Sheilagh had been storing everything. She did a walk-through with me before we left the boat, but my memory remains challenged. Thankfully, Sheilagh had prepared a mini-cookbook for me, made up of simple meals that “even I” was supposedly able to handle. Since we had left the refrigerator/freezer in a defrost condition, I needed to bring it back up online and then restock it, along with restocking some of the other cabinets.

Although I gave a tribute to Sheilagh (my gorgeous cruising partner) in my April 10th blog, I was only now beginning to realize the full extent of her usefulness in the past. Now it was necessary for me to do the actual shopping instead of wandering over to the wine section, while she did the real shopping. My shopping seemed to take a lot longer than it did with Sheilagh, forced as I was to wander around and find the proper sections for the various products I needed. The next item on my list always seemed to be at the other side of the store.

That night I forced myself to start using Sheilagh’s recipe book to do some actual cooking on my own. You have to appreciate the fact that I do not like to cook and have been happy to leave the galley completely under Sheilagh’s management. I tried some beef stroganoff with hamburger, managed to cook the noodles enough to chew them, and heated up a can of mixed peas, carrots, and corn for my vegetable. It all turned out pretty well, and I had enough for lunch the next day. It seemed as if this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

In the four-plus weeks since, I have decided that I was never meant to be a bachelor and certainly not a single-handed cruiser. In the past I could get away with dropping various articles of clothing around the boat, knowing that somehow they would be picked up and put somewhere more appropriate to being found. Sheilagh’s not around to find the things I’m missing, and I can no longer blame the loss on her either throwing them out or hiding them from me. I seem to be missing a lot more things with her gone than I ever did with her around.

In the past I helped with the dishes occasionally, but now they don’t seem to get done unless I do them. Whereas Sheilagh wouldn’t go to bed without the dishes being done, I usually have to do them when I have run out of the pots, pans, or dishes that I need for the next meal. Now doing dishes is a major chore because there are so many of them to do. I even have to hand dry them, rather than let them drip dry, because there isn’t enough room in the galley to pile them up and still have room to prepare the next meal. It’s a real bummer I can tell you.

One of the benefits of this new lifestyle is that I can comfortably sit on my butt and read or relax without any feeling of guilt. It was difficult to do this with Sheilagh around because she has an inherent need to be constantly busy with one thing or another. She might sit down with a book now and then, but at the end of the next chapter she would be up and about seeing what else she could get busy with. She kept assuring me that I could sit and relax while she was sweeping or mopping the cabin deck – sure!

So I would attempt to ignore her and continue relaxing, lifting my feet as necessary to avoid the broom or mop. I prefer to wait until I can feel the grit on my bare feet, and then I know there’s definitely something there to clean up. I’ve also found there aren’t many places to sit on the boat and take my ease, now that the cushions in the saloon are covered with books, navigation tools, clean clothing that hasn’t been put away, a backpack, a couple of DVD albums – and that’s just taking a quick look around the cabin.

Cooking, of course is the big problem. I can remember Sheilagh asking what I wanted for lunch or dinner, and responding that I wanted the usual “caviar a la crème,” which is my shorthand for saying that I had no idea what I wanted. I always knew that whatever she came up with would be delicious, and the unknown nature of the coming meal would be part of the attraction. Now I have to think up something on my own, a task I get around to doing at about 7 or 8 in the evening. Naturally this is too late to thaw anything from the freezer, so I don’t have a lot of choices.

Our microwave only has a high setting; so it’s not usable for defrosting anything. I have learned to immerse the packaged chicken in a hot pan of water to speed the process, after which I fry it up as thoroughly as possible to avoid getting some disease Sheilagh has warned me about with regard to partially cooked chicken. I also take the precaution of eating only the exterior meat not touching the bone just in case my cooking was not thorough enough.

I have also learned to rely on hamburger meat for a variety of dishes, such as hamburger stroganoff and hamburger sprinkled over a chef’s salad, not to mention cheeseburgers. I’ve always liked vegetables; so I sometimes boil up a packaged soup and add a cup or so of canned or frozen vegetables to it. I could survive this way, but it’s a real chore to not only think of what to have, but to thaw it out in time, cook it correctly, and then clean up the mess at the end. No, this is definitely not the way I would want to survive over any length of time.

Despite my moaning and complaining above, I have had plenty of time to go hiking, kayaking, swimming, shade bathing (I’ve had more than my share of sun bathing), and taking naps. It has been hot and muggy here over the past four weeks; so the middle of the day is not the time to be working on the boat or exercising, both of which are better done in the early morning or late afternoon. The grocery stores are quite cool, so grocery shopping is a good exercise for the middle of the afternoon, and it allows a certain amount of hiking as I look for just the right food items to avoid going back out in the heat.

At about 3 or 4 PM every afternoon I grab my beach bag and head to the El Cid pool to relax in the shade and take a dip every now and then. In the beach bag I have my latest book, a Sudoku puzzle book with pen, my IPod, my wallet, a key to the gate, a towel, and a small flask of rum. As I arrive at the pool I select one of the better chaise lounge types under an umbrella and unload everything, including my hat, shirt, glasses, sandals and watch. Then I hotfoot it over to the edge of the pool and dive into the most wonderful cool water you can imagine – helped of course by the fact that I was dripping with sweat before plunging in.

Then I dry off, order a diet coke from the bar, turn on my IPod to some classical music, and start reading my book. As soon as the diet coke arrives, I wait for the waiter to retire and slip out my flask to add some “seasoning” to the coke. Then I alternate reading, working puzzles, selecting songs, and taking dips between sips. Not a bad way to end the afternoon every day. Then it’s back to the boat to remember that I forgot to get anything out to thaw for dinner – but you’ve heard that story above.

This is how Aurora looks out of the water - I was embarrassed to show a "before" picture

Last week I had our boat lifted out of the water and taken to the boatyard to get the bottom painted. I had been having less and less success at keeping the bottom clean, and it had been over a year and a half since last we had it painted; so it was about time. The boatyard did a great job for a price about one-half of what I paid in San Diego and they did it fairly quickly. I lived on my boat as it was sitting in the yard, and that was a challenge. I had to block up the sinks and not use them, since they would have dripped dirty water over the hull that was being painted. My solution was to do the dishes in the cruisers’ lounge attached to the boatyard, and do all face and hand washing, along with teeth cleaning, over the head – allowing me to pump the residue into the holding tank until I could get the boat back in the water.

This is Aurora hanging in the straps just prior to being relaunched - they leave it in the straps overnight to let the paint dry on the very bottom of the keel

It got a bit hotter on the boat while it was in the yard, since I had to keep the portholes closed to keep out the sanding that was being done on my boat and the others nearby. During that time I took refuge in the cruisers’ lounge, where there was air-conditioning and internet access. That was where I did some very detailed trip planning and caught up on my messages every day. The boatyard did not provide cable TV, which caused me to miss the final performances of Dancing with the Stars, but I had Sheilagh tape it at home, where I can watch it when I return.

I have also had a chance to do some sightseeing, even remembering the camera on a couple of occasions. Here are some of the pictures I took:

This is the main Mazatlan Beach looking S0uth toward the communication towers on the hill

This is the Fishermen's monument in the center of the Malecon - it shows a rather flexible anchor leaning up against a lighthouse with a plump lady reclining on the anchor shaft and a fisherman around the tower preparing to throw his net

This is a typical neighborhood beauty parlor - closed on Sunday

It was easier to see the spires of the cathedral from the rear - the front of the building faces on a formal park, overgrown with trees, shrubs and flowers - and spread throughout the park are shoeshine stands everywhere - who knows why they congregate here?

On Thursday evening, Jim and Craig will be flying in from Kauai and Seattle respectively to help me take the boat back up to San Diego. It is almost 1000 nautical miles from Mazatlan to San Diego, and we hope to do it in 10 – 20 days, if the weather cooperates. I’ll be describing the trip in a future blog. More later . . .

April 24th (2009) – Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #88

2009-04-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

Current Location – Mazatlan – Lat: 23°16.12’ N / Long: 106°27.85’ W

It has been two weeks now since my last blog and most of that time has been spent in San Diego. There doesn’t seem much reason to write about the mundane aspects of being ashore in this blog, rather than the adventure of living and cruising on our boat. Nevertheless this will bring you up-to-date with what we’re doing before I head back to Mazatlan for the month of May.

We tied our boat securely to the slip in the El Cid Marina on Monday, April 13th, and notified our neighbors to keep an eye on it for us. On the morning net we offered to take flat, stamped mail to the U.S. to post it there, but another cruiser closer to the drop-off point also volunteered; so we had nothing to carry north. That courtesy allows cruisers to bypass the Mexican mail system, and there is usually someone flying north to the U.S. or Canada at least a couple of times a week.

We locked up the hatches and portholes, the lazarettes in the cockpit, and finally the main hatch – no sense inviting folks to take something that seems abandoned. We also locked the outboard motor onto the stern rail, tying down the dinghy securely on the foredeck. We have had no trouble in the two seasons we’ve been cruising, but it’s always wise to eliminate temptation.

There is no bus service to the Mazatlan Airport, so we took a cab for about $30, getting there about three hours ahead of time. We took Alaska Airlines (what are they doing down here?) with a destination of Los Angeles as the first stop. Once there we could wait about 5 hours and take a connecting flight to San Diego, but our daughter, Melissa, who lives in Newport Beach, offered to pick us up and put us up for the night. It was wonderful to see her and her three gorgeous granddaughters.

The next morning Melissa took us down to San Diego, where we started putting our condo back together after renting it to a niece for the last year and a half. We had shoe-horned all of our furniture into the second bedroom for the duration of our cruising, and it was somewhat like playing Tetris in reverse to get it all back out. The difficult part was remembering how to put the bed back together, after first locating the screws and nuts that had previously been stored in a location we thought would be self-evident. Not!

For most of the past two weeks we have been adapting to life on shore in the lap of luxury. Take the refrigerator for example. Imagine having ice cubes delivered automatically from the front of the refrigerator – instead of having to freeze water in plastic bags using an engine-driven compressor for an hour a day and then using an ice pick to break it up into usable chunks! Sheilagh is ecstatic that she can just open the door to the refrigerator instead of having to clear the counter over the refrigerator in the boat in order to get to the top-opening refrigerator and freezer and then unload the top layers to get to the item she wants.

It’s a pleasure to merely jump into a car to go shopping for groceries instead of getting into a dinghy, motoring to shore, surfing the back of the waves onto the beach, hiking to a nearby grocery store, carrying everything back to the beach, loading the dinghy, running the dinghy back through the oncoming surf, loading the groceries onto the boat from the dinghy, and transporting them down the companionway before putting them away. What was that dream about sailing into the sunset with not a care in the world?

We are now used to walking on level surfaces that don’t tip at all. No longer do we have to make sure we’re holding onto some part of the structure as we walk through a room. We can set our glasses and dishes on flat surfaces without worrying about whether they might slide off. Of course our tables no longer have raised edges to guard against losing tableware. One of the drawbacks to this stable environment is that we no longer have the gentle rocking of the bedroom as we’re sleeping.

We have made the rounds of the marine and hardware stores to collect supplies such as oil filters, replacements for broken fittings, and a new pair of sailing gloves (the old ones having worn down from all the kayaking I’ve been doing. One of our fellow cruisers asked me to pick up some bee sting kits and bring them back for use by a number of cruisers in the Sea of Cortez this summer. This kit involves the use of a hypodermic needle without the needle, used to suck out a bee stinger, as well as any fluid that may have been injected with the stinger.

The most important jobs we had were to fix our cockpit GPS and my laptop while in the States. Our GPS had suddenly quit acquiring satellites during our return trip up the coast to Barra de Navidad, and we had been carrying a useless GPS unit since then. Garmin suggested we probably needed a new software update, after their restart procedure didn’t work. We carried the GPS unit up with us to San Diego, where we met up with the software chip we had them send to our mailbox there.

We immediately took the chip and the unit to West Marine where we hoped to update the software using a power setup from one of the GPS’s they had on display. We found a comparably pinned power cord from a demo unit, and updated the software, but couldn’t get any satellite acquisition in the store. The clerk who was helping us lent us a replacement cord, and we went out to our car to use the 12 volt battery there. Soon enough we found that the unit was still not working; so we called the Garmin Support Center and learned that we could get a replacement unit for $170 plus shipping. Apparently “controlled obsolescence” worked fairly well in this case – the unit failing just about 6 months after the warranty had run out.

We sent the unit in with a check and now waiting for its return. Sheilagh and I have been using Skype quite heavily to deal with the long waits and the intricate entry of information as we deal with the Garmin customer-service telephone system, as well as the systems of other service centers we are dealing with. In one case it took me an entire hour of entering data and waiting for responses as I was 1) routed through the automated system to an actual human being, who 2) rerouted me back into the same automated loop I had been in for 10 minutes, which 3) routed me to another individual who apparently disconnected me as he was supposedly putting me on hold. I called up again and went through the same process to 4) get another human being on the phone, who 5) had to consult the next level of support, and who 6) finally got back to me with the news that the unit was being worked on and “it usually takes 5-10 working days to get the unit back.” They couldn’t be more specific.

I had also experienced some bubbles occurring across the top of my laptop screen during the past couple of weeks. The bubbles appeared to be air bubbles, which were growing in size day by day, but which remained at the top of the screen regardless of the orientation of the laptop. In this case the laptop was on warranty; so Dell sent me a box with all the padding and postage I would need. I sent it in last Tuesday and received it back today – no charge for anything. On top of that it was fairly easy to get through to the Dell service organization to get the status of the repair.

To stay in shape I dusted off my bicycle and began riding to get some exercise. I have 24 gears on the bike, with access to only about 16 gears (I can’t get one of the forward gears to work), and the need for only about 8 gears. I installed a speedometer and pacer; so I can keep my mind busy watching gauges as I do on the boat or in a car. I’ve now worked up to an average of 10 mph as I ride on fairly level ground from our condo to Mission Beach on fairly well-protected bike paths most of the way. If it weren’t for the discomfort of the bike seat, the exercise might almost be enjoyable – particularly with the ride along the beach with a close view of bikini-clad roller skaters, sunbathers, and volleyball players.

Our condo is on the San Diego River, which I ride along to get to the beach. This is a fairly shallow river unless the tide is in. I’m looking forward to getting my kayak back to San Diego and seeing if the river is navigable at high tide from my condo to the beach and back. Since the river level is affected clear up to our condo by the tide, I may have to go down the river at the top of the high tide ebb, wait about 6 hours and then return on the incoming tide near the highest level. I’m hoping there aren’t any regulations against kayaking on this river, but I intend to ask forgiveness after the fact rather than learn more than I want to know about the rules and regulations.

That’s about it from here on shore. I hope the mundane things I’ve been discussing haven’t driven you away from this blog. I’m actually looking forward to getting back on the boat next Thursday, and starting preparations for the Baja Bash back up to San Diego. Although not everything is convenient on a boat, there’s nothing like having a floating home that can be sailed anywhere I might want to go. Except for the need for diesel fuel and groceries occasionally, it’s great to be self-sufficient on one’s own boat, making our own water and electricity, and sailing off into the sunset or sunrise whenever we feel like it.

More later . . .

April 10th (2009) – Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #87

2009-04-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Current Location – Mazatlan – Lat: 23°16.12’ N / Long: 106°27.85’ W

A Tribute to the 'Best Crewperson' ever

We’ve been relaxing for the past week, as we prepare to end our cruising lifestyle. We’ll be flying up to southern California on Monday, the 13th, and that will be the end of Sheilagh’s cruising on a regular basis. Then I’ll be flying back down to Mazatlan at the end of April and sailing the boat north with two friends of mine, Jim and Craig, in June. I’m not sure about my cruising future, but I intend to look into crewing for other boats or getting crew for my boat to sail to the South Pacific and beyond. Sheilagh says she’ll be glad to visit me when I arrive someplace, but it had better be a location with commercial jet runways that can handle the larger jets – no small planes for her either.

On the bow

Since we started this experiment in October of 2007, Sheilagh has given it a good 18 months of effort to get over her fear of the ocean and of the weather as experienced from the deck of a small sailboat, but that’s not something that may be curable. She has also been the best crew someone could have for any number of reasons, not the least of which is her total command of the galley and the gourmet output from that location. She’s also a bit of a “neat freak” and has spent a lot of time keeping the boat not only clean but in very good order. I have been happy to have her keep things neat except when she puts something away that I had planned to use or wear in the next few days. Frankly I have to confess I’ve been more of a slob than I usually am during this cruising lifestyle, knowing that Sheilagh will clean up after me.

In the engine room

And I also have to confess that I’ve taken advantage of her desire for orderliness by having her keep the inventory of not only food, but boat parts, supplies – in fact whatever is not visible to the naked eye when the cabinets and drawers are closed. She keeps track of the zincs needed to keep our metal boat parts from deteriorating, as well as the schedule of when they need replacement. She tracks when the engine needs an oil change and does a lot of the work related to changing the oil, the oil filters and the fuel filters. She never has trusted the sails or her sailing ability; so the engine has become very high on her list of items to keep in tip top shape. She changes the hard-to-get-at impeller blade that insures the engine stays cooled by delicately inserting herself into the engine room and asking only for tools from me.. She calls this exercise “boat yoga,” and it’s the only “exercise” she will admit to practicing.

Holding her first tuna

In the cruising community there are generally recognized “blue” jobs for the guys and “pink” jobs for the ladies. Sheilagh never has followed that criteria, and I think she’s been considered a threat to the status quo for a lot of the cruising wives. There isn’t a male cruiser we’ve met who wouldn’t love to have her skills and talents wear off on their own crew. What she’s doing is making sure that “her” engine is going to get her back to land when the sails fail. She’s never felt that I really cared about the engine, because I would prefer to sail even if it takes a lot longer to get there. So she’s taken it upon herself to make sure the engine is in perfect shape. Her hearing immediately detects the slightest change in the sound of the engine, and she will not rest until she finds out what’s causing the problem. At times she has been quite upset to find that my knee-bouncing on the deck to a tune on my IPod has caused her to go all over the engine looking for the “engine knock.”

Relaxing for once

I can’t count the number of times Sheilagh has stopped me as I was calling for a sail change to point out that there were lines or line-stoppers that needed to be set before starting the procedure. I’ll never forget the time when we were sailing our Cal 20 in Hawaii some 30 years ago and were laid over by a freak squall. I shouted at Sheilagh to let the “rope” go. I had been lecturing her on the need to learn the proper names of items on the boat, but at that critical time, as the boat was lying on its side, I couldn’t remember the name for the jib sheet. As frightened as she must have been in the situation, she stood fully erect on the side of the boat that was being held under water and yelled “I’ll let it go when you tell me the name of the line you want me to release.” It won’t be easy to replace that kind of quality crew.

At the top of the mast

In the next few days Sheilagh will be taking me around the boat to show me where everything is located that I used to be able to ask her for. I will also have to start keeping the boat log and the maintenance log. The worst part is my having to learn to cook for myself, but even here Sheilagh is preparing me to survive. She has made a list of easy-to-cook dishes with the ingredients necessary to feed me and two crew members. Hopefully they’ll have a few dishes they can cook to offset my “cooking skills.”

Sightseeing

She has already typed out instructions for making water and emptying the holding tank and posted them where they will be easy to access for each procedure. Lately she has been reminding me to turn on the shower drain pump before getting into the shower – something she has been doing for me when I am up to my ankles in shower water and don’t want to track water through the boat to hit the switch.

Taking a cockpit shower

Although Sheilagh has had a history of being geographically challenged every place except in a mall, she has learned to navigate along the coast of Mexico, including planning trips, recording fixes, using radar, and generally questioning every navigational decision I make. She will not agree that we are anchored until she has personally determined that the anchor is well set. She also gets up in the middle of the night to check our position and make sure we’re still anchored securely.

In an internet cafe on Skype

She keeps track of all of our financial dealings and has set up automated payments where possible. When we get into an internet environment, it is Sheilagh who tracks the bills and payments, checks the declining balance of our nest egg, and insures that we have sufficient funds in our account to be able to use the ATM’s in the various localities. She runs down the best buys in health, car, and boat insurance, and makes sure we upgrade at key dates. When her business dealings are complete, she uses Skype to get in touch with each of our four daughters, where she is often called upon for personal advice and parental advice in the raising our four grandchildren and our dog, Rascalita, that she had to leave behind with our daughter, Kim, to do the cruising we wanted to do – Rascalita was not a happy cruiser.

Eating breakfast on a stern seat

When we entertain, it is Sheilagh who decides on the components of the feast, buys and prepares all the food, straightens things up in case guests may come below to look at the inside of the boat (usually we entertain in the cockpit), lays out the table, approves the music, and looks like a million dollars when the guests arrive. She prompts me to make drinks and notifies me when someone needs another drink. She monitors the discussions the guests are having and cuts off those that start to talk of politics. It may be difficult to find crew who can do all these things for future trips, and I am not holding out much hope of being able to do so.

One of her favorite positions in the cockpit

After the foregoing tribute to my lovely crew, some of you may be asking yourselves what it is that I do around the boat. In addition to taking orders from Sheilagh and making sure she is happy with my “decisions,” I’m responsible for a few things such as going topside in the middle of the night to run down any noise that Sheilagh can’t explain. My other duties are to scratch her back when it itches (nearly every morning), lift heavy loads, compliment her on all the work she does, and attempt to get her to slow down and relax. Beyond that I do very little in comparison to what Sheilagh does; so I’d rather not go into those items.

Crewpersons don't come better looking than this

This is a tribute to my gorgeous and wonderful wife of 39+ years, who has gone beyond the marriage vows to support me throughout my life and particularly with regard to this cruising experiment. It is amazing to me that she has been able to put up with me on a 24/7 basis, after years of marriage where my traveling job kept us apart during a large part of each week. She has coped remarkably with her own fears, my hard-to-handle personality on a constant basis, and the gaps of time and distance from her children and grandchildren. They don’t make crew better than Sheilagh.

Eight reasons for returning to the CLOD life (Cruisers Living On Dirt)

More later . . .

April 3rd (2009) – Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #86

2009-04-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

Current Location – Mazatlan – Lat: 23°16.12’ N / Long: 106°27.85’ W

I thought this might catch your eye. This is one of the crocodiles we encountered on our jungle cruise in San Blas. The rest of the pictures that follow were taken on that cruise

As of my last blog, we were anchored in Matanchén Bay, which is about 3 miles by bus from San Blas. We prefer to be anchored in the estuary next to the town, but it was low tide when we arrived in the area, and we didn’t want to try entering what can be a tricky and shallow entrance to the estuary. The next morning we moved into the estuary at high tide and never saw a depth of less than 11’, giving 5’ of clearance under our keel. A new marina has been set up in the estuary, and we were strongly encouraged to stay there by the management, but we elected to stay anchored and save our marina fees for the months of April and May in Mazatlan. It also meant our boat changed direction in the estuary four times a day, letting us know when the tide was going out or coming in.

Black Vulture

We made our usual trip into town for internet and lunch, but stayed inside the boat with screens covering all hatches and ports when it began to get dark. This whole area is noted for high insect activity, particularly no-see-ums, which are so small they can get through most metallic screens. We have “no-see-um-fabric” that Sheilagh created into screens for the overhead hatches, and we spray our metallic port screens with bug spray to deter these small bugs from slipping through the mesh. At least we hoped they’d take a whiff and decide to stay away, and it seemed to work.

Snowy Egret

The only bug problem we had was a squadron of them that appeared early the next morning and attacked Sheilagh as she was out swabbing the deck. I was wise enough to remain inside the boat listening to weather predictions on the single-sideband radio for our next leg north. Sheilagh was so intent in her work that it was awhile before she realized she was being bitten and ended up with dozens of bug bites on her back and an itch all over her back that wouldn’t quit. She took some Benadryl internally and some cortisone externally, but it was my careful scratching of her back that seemed to feel best to her. It’s amazing the things I do to endear myself to her and earn her eternal thanks.

Iguana

It was a year ago that I first tried surfing with my kayak at San Blas, but now I had a year of experience to help me challenge the waves that conquered me last year. I hopped in the kayak the next day and paddled it out through the entrance to the estuary and around the point to the beach east of the entrance. I waited for just the right wave, paddled furiously to be up-to-speed when it hit, used my new moves to stay ahead of the wave, and promptly got rolled so violently that I lost the kayak and watched it get pushed to shore. I had to swim a ways with my paddle in my hand to catch up to it. The kayak was so completely filled with water that I had difficulty turning it over to empty it. I tried a number of other assaults on the waves with the same results; so I retired the kayak for the day and turned to body surfing. Those memorable words returned to me “If at first you don’t succeed, try harder; if you still can’t succeed, give up – there’s no sense being a damned fool!”

Red-faced Cormorant

That night we watched an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The Jamaica Inn,” in which Maureen O’Hara was introduced to the movie-going public for the first time. It was one of the movies we have on an Alfred Hitchcock DVD collection, and Maureen O’Hara was not only gorgeous, but a good actor as well. The next day we were listening to some classical music on Sirius Radio and heard the theme song that Hitchcock used on his TV series. The name of the song is “Funeral March for a Marionette,” which was a subtlety of his sound track that I had never been aware of. You may remember that he constantly complained in that series that he was at the mercy of the advertisers every time he had to take a commercial break. Viewed in the light of the music, he might have been implying that, although he was the director, he was just a puppet, marching sadly along in step with what others were dictating. It is interesting that it was also a “funeral march.”

Green Heron

Monday we took the jungle cruise with Andre and Martine of “Coup de Soleil,” our neighbors anchored in the estuary with us. This was a repeat of the Jungle cruise that we had taken the year before, but this time we specified that we wanted to include a visit to the crocodile farm. We saw a number of smaller crocodiles along the way, but the farm itself was the highlight of the trip. There we found various large outdoor cages, each with a pond and two very large crocodiles taking life easy together. Apparently they were doing their jobs because there was one cage with dozens of small crocodiles crawling on top of one another as they “played in the back yard.” We didn’t see any actual copulation taking place, which would have been something to see based on the size of those crocodiles.

Ibis

On Wednesday we motor-sailed the 130 miles from San Blas to Mazatlan, arriving at 9AM, exactly 24 hours after leaving San Blas. As we started out from San Blas the wind was light, but within a couple of hours it had gradually increased to 15 knots with white caps on the surface. The boat began hobby-horsing over the higher and higher swells, and we jumped down below to close up all the ports and hatches to keep the boat dry inside.

Then I realized we had left some loose items on the bow that needed to be tied down or brought aft. I worked my way forward against the spray and had to hold on tight as the bow pitched up about 5’ high on the crest of the swells and then dropped about 10’ into the trough immediately behind it. It’s almost a sleight-of-hand trick to keep one hand securely grasping some part of the boat while tying things down with the other.

Tortoises

While I was up above, Sheilagh tucked hand towels in the cabinet with the plastic glasses that invariably want to jump out at us when we open the cabinet later. She also insulated the liquor cabinet with a blanket to keep the clanking down and laid the salt and pepper shakers in a bowl in the cabinet to keep them from spilling everywhere. Everything loose in the galley went into the sink to keep them from being launched across the boat.

Another crocodile - the jaws are left open to allow small animals or fish (when underwater) to enter. An automatic sensory alarm causes the jaw to close instantly when the prey enters the mouth.

As the day progressed we zigzagged up the course a bit to get the sails drawing just off the wind to increase our speed. It was a tossup as to whether we were actually increasing our overall speed to Mazatlan with this process, since the increase in speed is offset by an increase in distance as one deviates from the course directly to the destination. However, the ride was easier on the boat and on us, when we were actually doing some sailing. Another boat, “Coup de Soleil,” with Andre and Martine aboard (Canadian cruisers whom we had just met on the jungle trip), was also making the trip north at the same time. Their boat is a bit shorter, which limits their speed to something less than ours, just as we naturally go slower than nearly any boat longer than ours (a physics limitation). We kept in touch during the trip north and ended up about three hours ahead of them by the end of the trip.

A closeup of the jaws indicates no apparent throat - just a small cave that small game and fish can use as shelter.

As twilight descended on us that day the sky was clear with clouds only on the distant horizon. As it got darker, a sliver of moon created an amazing amount of light all around, particularly because we were miles from any shore lights. Near midnight we finally ran under the threatening cloud bank to the north and found that the clouds were harmless leftovers from the Pineapple Express during the day. However, the moon was completely blocked out and the only visible light sources were glows from small towns along the coast or the red or green running lights of about four boats that seemed to be heading in our same direction. Eventually the passenger liner, the Sapphire Princess, emerged from the dark with every light blazing, also headed to Mazatlan. Its speed slowed down to our speed as it dawdled its way into Mazatlan, waiting for daybreak to enter the harbor and tie up.

One of the crocodile progenitors resting up in the crocodile farm - tough life but someone's got to do it

We got in just as the fuel dock and marina opened at 9AM, which had been our plan; so we quickly got the tanks filled with diesel, had a slip assigned to us, and squeezed between another sailboat and the dock to tie down. The first order of business for me was to catch up on the sleep I had missed most of the night. Sheilagh gathered up a change of clothing and went to the marina shower to indulge in unlimited hot water running over her body. The rest of that day we “hunkered down,” as Sheilagh likes to say, and got access to six English-speaking TV channels from the local cable for the marina. Nothing like turning into a vegetable in front of the TV after seeing no TV for over three months!

The next day was spent cleaning every inch of the boat with fresh water from the dock and hosing down equipment that had been exposed to salt water for the last several months. Sheilagh did a lot of this work because my contribution to cleaning is not as thorough as she would like. I caught up on the internet and then took apart the navigation station to get to the back side of the radar to see if a critical wire might be loose – nothing found. Then it was up the mast to check on the radar connection on the scanner – still no loose wires that I could see. Since the radar manual strongly suggests that only trained service technicians go any further into troubleshooting than checking for loose wires (due to the possibility for receiving life-ending shocks from energy stored in capacitors), I was at the end of what I could do there. I sent off an email describing the problem to the Valiant discussion group, where nearly every problem ever encountered on a Valiant (or her equipment) has been experienced and solved by another Valiant owner. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to get a response.

We also conducted a shopping trip to the local Mega store for essential supplies, keeping in mind that we will want to use up everything in the refrigerator and freezer before we leave for California on the 13th of April. I also scheduled to have the boat pulled out of the water to have the bottom painted with growth-defying bottom paint in mid May, before the trip to San Diego on the first of June. I will be living on the boat while it is “on the hard” in the boatyard for about five days as the painting is being done. Nothing better for the physique than having to climb a 12’ ladder to get into and out of the boat for anything I will want to do. That and smelling bottom paint for five days!

After that we found it necessary to grab a good book, put on swimming suits, and loll by one of the two swimming pools for the rest of the afternoon. A waiter immediately came over to take our Margarita order, and we let the cares of the world drain from our bodies for the time being. When we turned down a second order of Margaritas, the waiter had the practiced answer of “you aren’t driving are you?”

That night we saw the latest James Bond movie displayed on a large white square of fabric tied to two of the straighter palm trees. The hotel staff had set out the swimming pool lounge chairs all around the grounds in front of the screen, and there was quite a crowd. The couple to my right was attempting to make out during the show, but their size precluded the use of a single lounge chair. It was an interesting sidelight to note how many different ways two people can overcome the difficulty of connecting across two lounge chairs. No, I wasn’t exactly staying focused on the movie.

More later . . .

March 27th (2009) – Matanchen Bay – Jim’s Blog #85

2009-03-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

Current Location – Matanchen Bay – Lat: 21°30.95’ N / Long: 105°14.16’ W

Always a good move to start the blog with the picture of a gorgeous woman - Sheilagh in La Cruz

I finished up my last blog describing two nights of music that Sheilagh and I had enjoyed: “open mike night” at Philo’s Restaurant on Thursday and the flamenco guitarists, Latcho and Andrea, on Friday. Saturday we continued our music fiesta with the group called Tatawari, four young men playing flamenco-like music with two lead guitars, a bass guitar and a drummer. This group exhibited a tremendous amount of energy and pure enjoyment of the music they were playing – music that was highly intricate and extremely quick. Although their songs were quite long, they kept the audience enthralled. Those who chose to eat dinner during the performance carried on very little conversation at the table.

We had heard of another restaurant, Ana Bananas, which held an “open mike night” on Sunday afternoon; so we joined other cruisers in attendance there, too. We had never been to the restaurant before and were surprised to see that all the seating was outdoors, with just the kitchen and bar housed in the building. This restaurant owner was a U.S. citizen who had married the Mexican woman, Ana, and was able to purchase the restaurant in her name. Otherwise he would have had to form a Mexican corporation in order to buy property here. Imagine if we denied property ownership in the U.S. to anyone who wasn’t a citizen unless they formed a U.S. corporation. Even the legal Mexican aliens would be out-of-luck.

We had attended the performance with no thought of eating out that night, but gradually the air was filled with the scent of roasting pork ribs, and Sheilagh began drooling down the front of her top. I was smart enough to order a slab, knowing that it was a way to win points and stop her slobbering. Then I just had to point out where she was dribbling barbecue sauce down her front. I guess I should have taken her out more often; so she could practice her manners. The music moved from folk to rock and roll, gaining in volume through the afternoon. There is probably a different “open mike night” every day of the week in the vicinity of La Cruz or the next town over, Bucerias.

We were commenting on the fact that we had been in isolated anchorages for the past several weeks, saving money by having no restaurants nearby, and suddenly we have eaten out several times and attended four music venues in less than a week. That’s what cruising is about, I guess. You learn to take advantage of opportunities when they occur, since there is no telling when other opportunities will arise. We probably should have done more of that when we were engaged in making a living and raising a family.

I still remember passing up attending the Rose Bowl when our oldest daughter, Melissa, was on the dance team for UCLA, which represented the Pac-10 one year. Then we passed up going some two years later, when our daughter, Stephanie, was attending the University of Oregon, which represented the Pac-10 that year. I’m not sure when I thought the opportunity would roll around again. Certainly not with Megan’s University of Alaska, nor Kimberley’s San Diego State, neither of which plays in the Pac-10. Maybe Sheilagh and I should just spend the money on scalper tickets and attend the Rose Bowl just for the sake of attending it.

Monday we cleaned the green, sticky fringe of seaweed growing around our boat at water level and encountered the first of several very cloudy afternoons. Although it seemed as if we could be rained on at any time, it was really just a phenomenon called the “Pineapple Express,” which is a flow of warm moist air from the south west (from the direction of Hawaii) that develops into a deep and dark overcast sky. We partially closed our hatches, fearing rain, but got no raindrops all afternoon.

The next day we went into town early to get groceries and what turned out to be a very close haircut (for me) and then pulled up our anchor to motor over to Punta de Mita, as the stepping off point for heading north to San Blas and ultimately to Mazatlan. It’s a very short 2-hour trip, but it set us up to get around the point early the next morning. Since points of land dividing two bodies of water are notorious for dubious weather when the wind has had a chance to develop, we try to pass most of the big points of land early in the morning.

We dropped anchor and read all afternoon as the sky again became dark and the air a bit cool. As the sky darkened, Sheilagh reminded me that this would be ideal weather to be dressed warmly in our condo with a fire in the fireplace and a good book to curl up with. She had the book, a warm place to curl up, and the right kind of weather, but not having a fireplace and being subject to wind and waves on a boat spoiled her feeling of security.

The next day we were up early and around the point fairly quickly. Our GPS in the cockpit had failed earlier in the trip, and our radar suddenly stopped showing contacts on our way up to La Cruz; so we had some tricky sailing to do around the point. There are two plotted sea mounts that stick up to just three feet below the water on the way around the point, and a third that is known to be 2.25 miles from the point in a southwesterly direction. When we passed it coming south we used our radar to stay just 1.5 miles off the point so as to miss all three sea mounts. This time we had no radar so we used the GPS to stay south of the three problem areas, and waited until we had crossed a line of longitude that would keep us clear on the west. We had no problems whatever in avoiding the hazards.

Just as we settled down for the northwesterly trip, I noted a black shape rise from the water almost directly in front of us. It was the back of a fin-back whale just 20’ to our right. I yelled for Sheilagh and we scrambled to get the camera out, turned on, and focused in time to get a shot of the whale. We must have gone just over his tail as he submerged directly beside our boat. Thankfully he didn’t raise his tail out of the water as he went down or our boat might have been lifted a few feet in the air. Naturally we missed the shot, but kept the camera ready for the rest of the day. Someday we’ll have the camera ready at the start of a trip to make sure we capture sights like that.

The trip to Matanchén Bay was a good 10 hours ahead, and it was unlikely that we would get there before dark. So we contacted our friends, Jim and Susan on “Windward Bound,” who told us they were anchored near a small island, Isla de Peña (Lat: 21°03.16’ N / Long: 105°16.38’ W), in Guayabitos Cove, just about 4 hours away from us on the way to San Blas. We decided to take the slight detour and found a lovely bay and the resort town of Guayabitos, which is seldom visited by cruisers. The town and beach were crowded with Canadian vacationers, who had apparently discovered it some time ago and haven’t shared the secret with us United States citizens.

A hotel entrance in Guayabitos with a weapon around the corner - to keep order?

Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” invited us and the only other boat in the anchorage to a cocktail hour on their boat; so we were able to meet Frank and Stephanie of “Endless Summer,” who came down this year on the Baja Ha Ha with dozens of other first-time cruisers, as we did last year. Like us they had retired just a short time before starting the trip, but unlike us, they were newly married at about the same time. He was a confirmed, never-married bachelor in his fifties, and she already had grown children; so it is an adventure in more ways than one for this cruising couple.

Isla de Pena - a small island that protects against the northwest wind and swells with a small beach that is covered at high tide

The small island which shielded us from the northwest swells sits a ways off the beach and is similar to Isla Isabela in that it is coated white with bird guano on the western side, has a bit of an odor, and had birds circling above it nearly all the time. In a blog from a year ago I mentioned how bad the smell was at Isla Isabela – so bad in fact that everything I tried to eat smelled like bird droppings to me and I couldn’t keep anything down. This, thankfully, was not so bad, but we did experience a lot of white and gray bird droppings suddenly coating the deck of our boat. Thank goodness for the bimini, which protected us in the cockpit.

The birds wheeling above the anchorage, depositing whitewash on the boat

We went into Guayabitos the next day with Jim and Susan, who showed us where to land on the beach – just in front of a mini-brewery, The Backstreet Brewery & Restaurant, where we introduced ourselves and tried some of the products. I had the Amber, the other Jim had the Pale Ale, and the two ladies tried the Hefewiezen. The room reserved for the making of beer had full stainless steel equipment, although on a much smaller scale than one sees in a Gordon Biersch mini-brewery. The restaurant had been recommended by another cruiser, who was friends with the owner, and the owner immediately showed us the operation and refused to take payment for the beer we drank.

A vegetable stand along the street and a Toucan in captivity - they are not native to Mexico

We wandered around the town, finding another restaurant at the other end of the beach when lunch time rolled around. After a very inexpensive lunch ($10 including drinks for two), we did some sight-seeing, noting the usual Mexican paraphernalia available in resort towns along the coast – all of it apparently manufactured inland and shipped to the various resort towns. We got the impression that some of the people who sell merchandise on the beach actually purchase their products at wholesale prices, and it is up to them to recoup their costs and profits by selling their inventory. Nothing like true capitalism keeping the sellers plying the beaches all day!

The "Blue-Footed Booby" himself - preparing to clean the boat while staying warm

While at anchor near Isla la Peña, I took the opportunity to fully clean the bottom of our boat in preparation for the last 24-hour sail to Mazatlan, where we will put the boat in a marina for a couple of months. I found mostly green fuzz all over the bottom with some hard-shelled barnacles that had managed to get a foothold (or whatever it is that joins barnacles to other objects). Since I had been getting somewhat chilled in the past after spending an hour-and-a-half under water, I decided to try my wet suit that I had purchased some 10 year ago, when I was a bit thinner. I could actually get it on and zipped up, and I am furnishing a picture to prove it.

On the long way back from the beach we ran out of fuel in our dinghy, while Jim and Susan had already returned to their boat in a much faster dinghy. As we sat there contemplating the full effort to row back to the boat, where we had a backup gas can stored, we opened the fuel tank and noted that there was still some gas in the tank, but not enough to be sucked up by the take-up hose. We found a tilted position for the tank, where gas could be kept under the take-up hose, and we were able to get the engine started again. Then it was up to Sheilagh to keep the tank tipped at just the right angle until we could make it back to the boat, which we did.

Sheilagh thinks I look like a blue-footed booby with the fins on, and I can’t exactly deny the resemblance. I also had to add an extra 10 pounds to the weight belt I wear to offset the buoyancy of the wet suit itself. Normally I wear a 40 lb. weight belt to help keep my normally buoyant body submerged. As I was peeling undergrowth from the bottom I attracted a school of fish, each about a foot-and-a-half long. They darted all around me to capture the best tidbits as soon as I scraped them off the boat. I also noticed about three yellow-tail tuna joining the crowd; so I had Sheilagh hand me my Hawaiian Sling fish spear when I was done cleaning the bottom.
I managed to get one of the three prongs into one of the regular fish, and one prong into one of the yellow-tails, but they flipped off the spear immediately. If I had managed to get all three points into a fish, it would have had a difficult time getting off the spear, because the points separate a bit, keeping the fish on. As it was, my compressor was running out of air and the fish noted the lack of fish food coming off the bottom of the boat; so hunter and hunted bid each other goodbye.

Today we left the anchorage at Isla de Peña, and motor-sailed north to Matanchén Bay, which is very near San Blas. The tide was low when we got near San Blas, which is not the time to enter the estuary next to the town. Therefore we anchored in the large bay for the afternoon to wait until high tide on Saturday. More later . . .

March 20th (2009) – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Jim’s Blog #84

2009-03-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

[Don’t forget to go back and read my blog #83 for last Friday. I posted this blog and that one on Sunday, the 22nd, because we have been away from internet access for the past 10 days or so.]

Current Location – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Lat: 20°44.89’ N / Long: 105°22.42’ W

As we left the blog last week we were in the poorly protected anchorage of Chamela – where we never did attempt a beach landing during the three days we were there. I took my kayak in to check out the waves, and was so intimidated that I backed off and spent an hour paddling around the edges of the bay, way back from any crashing waves.

Our choices for going north were to 1) spend a 10-hour day ending at Ipala and then heading around the dreaded Cabo Corrientes the next day, which is 3 hours north of Ipala and then another 6 hours to La Cruz or 2) head straight for La Cruz at dusk and get there 19 hours later. The weather forecast suggested that Cabo Corrientes would be in a “flat calm” condition, which would be a wonderful event, since the wind usually always blows from the northwest and directly opposing a boat going north. We decided to start out at dusk and plan to duck into Ipala in the morning if the weather got difficult. Otherwise we would continue on through Cabo Corrientes by 10AM in the morning to capitalize on the expected calm conditions there.

Sunrise on our way to Cabo Corrientes with a look at the sea state

As it turned out we had 2’ to 4’ waves with an occasional 6’ one coming from a variety of directions with 10-15 knots coming directly on the nose. That slowed us down quite a bit at the start, but it leveled out for about 4 hours in the middle of the night, allowing us to catch up to our planned time. Just at dawn we passed Ipala and decided to continue around the cape. The weather was back to what we started out with on the previous night and did not calm down as predicted. However, once we got beyond the cape, we were able to turn off the engine and sail across Banderas Bay at a brisk 5-6 knots, arriving at 3PM in the afternoon.

We didn’t sleep very well as we slogged north all night; so we arrived nearly exhausted. Apparently it takes about three days of continuous sailing to get acclimated to the watches and actually get some rest – at least that’s what we’re told by those heading across the Pacific to the Marquesas. Since we didn’t feel like cooking, we joined Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” and Dave and Marsha of “Juniata” for dinner at a local restaurant in La Cruz. Both of them had arrived about a week before us and we got caught up on the local news.

The next morning we rounded up all our laundry and dropped it by the “Lavanderia” in La Cruz. Then we headed to the Mega Store to resupply the boat with food. We took a bus ride from La Cruz to the Mega Store (a combination store similar to a Safeway, a Sears, and a Thrifty drug store all together. The bus ride was about 45 minutes and about 15 stops for $.75 apiece at the current conversion rate. Once we have a stack of groceries we hire a taxi for $7 to get us back to our dinghy. Then we transfer the groceries to the dinghy, motor the dinghy out to the boat, unload the dinghy onto the boat, and then transfer everything down the companionway. I have repeated this sequence before, but I just want to let any land-based readers to understand how easy it is for them to just drive to the market.

This was the week for eating out. We decided that we hadn’t been near a good restaurant in about two weeks; so we splurged a bit. Due to the conversion rate of the peso with the dollar, we are paying about 70% of what we paid last year for the same dinners. A 140-peso dinner was $14 last year, and this year it is only about $10. La Cruz is loaded with good restaurants, which almost makes it a crime not to dine out when possible.

On Thursday night we dined on pizza at Philo’s Restaurant where it was “open mike” night – meaning a number of bands showed up to take a turn in the spotlight. It’s a chance to hear some good music for a very reasonable cost of dinner and a couple of drinks. On Friday we went into Puerto Vallarta with Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” to stroll along the Malecon next to the bay and observe the locals, the tourists, and the interactions between the two. We stopped at a couple of places for appetizers and cool drinks and needed to get back by 6:30 for dinner at The Black Forest, a German that features a husband and wife flamenco guitar team.

Just as we got to the bus stop, Sheilagh noted a fabric shop nearby where she could get some sticky-backed velcro. We waited 30 minutes for her to buy 3 meters of velcro, and I decided that I hadn't mellowed as much as I thought I had in Mexico. During my early career I was an efficiency consultant, and it still drives me nuts to see time being wasted business situations. Sheilagh had to stand in line for about 10 minutes to wait her turn to have her spool of velcro cut into a 3-meter length. There were three ladies behind the customer service counter, one of whom had to go back to the rack to measure the length, since she had no measuring device behind the counter. Then Sheilagh had to leave her purchase and go to a payment location to pay $2 for the material, while another lady took her purchase from the first counter to a third counter for pickup. Naturally Sheilagh had to wait in line at each counter. She showed her payment slip at the third counter where the lady compared the actual merchandise with the merchandise listed on the receipt. I should mention that these three counters were in a sort of triangle arrangement with about 15' between each one.

I mentioned to Sheilagh that I could have reduced their labor costs by at least half and significantly improved profitability without losing security control of the process. Sheilagh suggested that maybe their goal was providing necessary jobs to people who needed them. I couldn't argue with that, but I was still frustrated because of a career spent in helping clients reduce their costs and improve their productivity. I just need to spend more time in Mexico to start seeing this work-duplication process as a normal and preferred one.

Another sunrise showing the flattened sea, the lack of wind, and our mop draped over the aft lifelines. We use the mop to swab the deck with the fresh dew we get nearly every night, which helps us remove some of the salt from a passage.

At the Black Forest German restaurant we saw Latcho and Andrea that night - the husband and wife flamenco guitar team I mentioned earlier. We invited Joel and Chris of “40-Love” to join us. Yes, they are tennis aficionados, having met on a tennis court. They are from Minneapolis, Minnesota and seem to be happy to be in Mexico for the winter. Although Chris misses the snow, Joel does not have the same fond memories. The entertainment was very good, but we had a couple of racing boat crews in the restaurant who had been drinking all afternoon. As it was there were some loud individuals from those groups who made it difficult for the rest of us to hear well.

As part of flamenco rhythm the performers do some very precise clapping at different times, usually for a very short time. On this night the more potted of the guests took that as a sign that they should start clapping in rhythm along with the performer. Not only were most of them off the rhythm, but the rhythm usually changed as soon as the performer stopped his or her clapping. Soon the clapping was completely out of synch with the performers. I can't imagine being a musician and playing for a bunch of people talking at the dinner table and generally trying to show by clapping and dancing that they have rhythm too. I guess I just hadn't had enough to drink to appreciate the talents of the audience.

I see that the seaweed is again starting to grow around the bottom of our boat; so I need to get out there with a good brush and scraper. It’s almost as bad as having to mow the lawn every week. This week I worked on shining stainless steel and lubricating the wind vane. Don’t worry, I don’t work more than about an hour a day; so I can still say I’m retired.

Sheilagh is reading about one book a day and rating them for me. Based on the number of books we have read together lately, she is very knowledgeable on what kind of writing I like. That way I don’t waste time reading books she knows I won’t like very well. I don’t read as much as she does, because I am still developing my expertise as a Sudoku Master, and that takes a certain amount of mental training every day. Sheilagh can’t imagine a more inane thing to do unless it might be Solitaire, which her mother and mine played incessantly after retirement. I think I’m a level above that.

We should be in San Blas by next Friday, where I hope to get some kayak surfing in on the famous surfing waves there. It was at San Blas where I initially started surfing with the kayak and I took a lot of spills there. Now I want to go back there with my new-found knowledge on how to surf a kayak based on a year of experience. If I survive I’ll be updating you in a week.

More later . . .

March 13th (2009) – Bahía Chamela – Jim’s Blog #83

2009-03-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

[Sorry to be so late with this. We have not had good internet access since before the 13th.]

Current Location – Pasavera Cove in Bahía Chamela – Lat: 19°33.53’ N / Long: 105°06.64’ W

Sheilagh in the cockpit on the way to Chamela

Ah, Friday the 13th, definitely a day to stay anchored! We motor-sailed north from Tenacatita to Pasavera Cove in Bahía Chamela yesterday. It was only a 30 mile distance with winds from varying directions of less than 15 knots and pleasant rolling swells of no more than 4’ in height on the nose. It was a pleasant sail in general, although we needed the engine to keep us going at a decent rate with the variable winds. The daily weather report for the Mexican Riviera (Puerto Vallarta to Acapulco) always seems to include the phrases: “Chamber of Commerce weather” and ”light winds along the coast due to differences in the temperature on the land and water.” That's it for weather here during the winter, which is why we spend time here.

We spent most of the week in the Tenacatita anchorage, relaxing as usual. On the occasion of our return to the town of Tenacatita for some groceries, I took along my snorkeling gear and did some underwater viewing in “The Aquarium.” This is a small body of water surrounded by large rocks that keep the surf out and is covered with sand and coral. This is not the scraggly pieces of coral that one sees in gift shops, but large mounds of coral that seem almost smooth on top with striations across the mounds where food either is (or was) captured by the coral for their growth. This coral is very hard to the touch; so it seems dead, but I don’t know that much about what living coral looks like versus dead coral. This “Aquarium” is protected from fishermen and contains an amazing variety of colorful fish, all of whom spend their time in the coral canyons.

The tide was going out at the time, leaving just a couple of feet of water over the top of the coral, reduced to a foot when the swells passed by. Therefore I had to find paths through the coral rather than over the top, or I might have grounded my body on sharp coral whenever a swell went past. One has to keep an exit path open to make sure to get back to deep water. Normally as I swim my eyes are focused downward. Once, as I looked up at the surface, I found I was surrounded by a school of needlefish about 2 feet long, the kind that can go airborne along the surface of the water and stay up for dozens of yards with just their tales submerged. I splashed around vigorously to get them started, but I didn’t see any reaction. Sheilagh was watching from shore and said a number of them took off above the water to escape me.

It's difficult to see the "baby" jellyfish in the first photo, but the parent is easy to see on the right

As I approached the outer end of the reef I suddenly felt a small sting on my lip and realized that I was feeling the same stings on my arms and torso. As I looked up, I saw I was in the midst of floating pieces of white strands of cotton, which were actually small jellyfish. I quickly turned around and got out of the area as quickly as possible. The stings were somewhat like being poked with a needle – an instantaneous bit of pain that didn’t endure. Nevertheless, I spent a bit more time keeping track of the surface organisms for the rest of my swim.

Sunday we took the dinghy 3 miles across the bay to La Mazanilla for some internet availability, some shopping and some visiting with Dave and Suzi of “Sidewinder” and John and Sharon of “Sunsation.” Both of those couples have hard-bottomed dinghies which can get up on plane and travel much faster than our dinghy. We started across the bay 15 minutes before they did and 30 minutes later they passed us just as we were approaching the beach. The benefit of a “soft-bottom dinghy” is that it can be rolled up and either strapped down or stuffed in the hold when large waves are expected. Most of the cruisers who have hard-bottomed dinghies also have davits on the back of their boats to hold them. We have a steering vane instead on the back of our boat; so we opted for the more compact dinghy.

When we got to the internet restaurant, the “techie” who assigns the passwords was taking a break; so we couldn’t get onto the internet just then. We took the time to walk down to the lagoon to view some of the very large crocodiles lazing about there. There’s a wire fence between the lagoon and the streets of the town to keep the crocodiles from wandering into the shopping area, but we noticed that in several places the wire fence had been bent over in the direction of town. Could it be that some of the crocodiles disregarded that flimsy fence?

We drifted off to a well-recommended restaurant and spent the next 2+ hours getting to know our new friends. The service was extremely slow, but the food was delicious and we didn’t really have a lot to do other than visit. Usually we complete lunch in half an hour and get on with errands, but this offered a unique opportunity to really get to know the other couples. Maybe this is what the Europeans are so good at doing with their long lunches and dinners.

One of the larger powerboats to sit in the anchorage with us in Tenacatita. Note the helicopter on the top deck. We got to watch it take off and land in very mild conditions.

On Monday a man and woman from the newly arrived boat, “Jake,” appeared at the palapa on the beach where I was sitting with a cold one (Sheilagh was relaxing on the boat) and stood just underneath the thatch edge as they let their eyes adjust to the shade. This was not the boat, “Jake,” owned by Jake and Sharon, whom we had gotten to know last year. I could swear I had met the man before; so I extended my hand and introduced myself as “Jim from the sailing vessel, Aurora,” hoping he would identify himself in the same way before I had to ask him his name. Instead the man said, “I know who you are. You’re Jim Goetsch and you told me once that you were trying to establish a family connection with Bill Gates and his millions, because it was rumored that some of the Goetsches [and Goetzes] who came over from Europe changed their name to Gates.”

That blew me away because I usually mention that little story only to people I have become quite familiar with. He then introduced himself as Robert, who had met me at Downwind Marine in San Diego, where he was working at the time. He had helped Sheilagh and me outfit our boat over several months’ time, and now he had finally broken away from work there and come south with his wife, Annette, to enjoy the cruising life. Robert had been cruising for several years earlier, stopping occasionally to work at marine supply stores to build up the cruising kitty. They invited Sheilagh and me over to their boat the next evening for cocktail hour to include Sheilagh in our catching up together.

We went over to their boat the next evening with our cheese and cracker offering, only to find a full layout of snacks and wine that didn’t need our paltry contribution. It turns out that Annette had been a catering manager for years with a variety of hotels, and certainly knew how to put out a spread. They had purchased a fairly inexpensive boat and outfitted it with the reduced-cost marine items that Robert got as a result of working in a marine store, with Annette working as the catering manager for Coronado Hotel in San Diego.

They had elected to carry no insurance on the boat, because the cost of insurance for ten years would exceed the cost of the boat, and the loss of the boat would not be that great a disaster on their finances. We did just the opposite – purchased a high-cost boat and can’t afford not to cover with insurance, but the alternative seems interesting. The benefit of our approach is that we very seldom have any difficulty with our boat or equipment, particularly in comparison with those cruisers who elected to follow the low-budget approach.

I spent much of the week practicing wave surfing in the kayak and managed to have many more successful rides than dumps. I have a pair of sunglasses with a strap holding them to my head, and a hat with a strap under my chin. I have sailing gloves strapped around my wrists (to avoid blisters), the paddle attached to my right wrist with bungee cord, and my swimming suit tied tightly to my middle. When the kayak rolls in a wave, I keep one hand clutching the kayak, and everything else stays attached to my body automatically.

By the end of an afternoon of kayak-surfing my sunglasses are coated with salt water, but it’s not as if I need to use them for reading. When I get back to the boat, Sheilagh passes up the soap, shampoo, and towel to allow me to wash up in fresh water on the side of the boat. This lets me wash my hat, gloves, glasses, and swimming suit in fresh water as I wash myself. One of these days I’m likely to fall off the boat as I’m washing up, but so far I’ve managed to keep my balance.

On Thursday we discovered that our holding tank had one inch of space left at the top; so we knew it was time to move on. Instead of waiting until Saturday, which had been our original plan, we hoisted the anchor and left for Chamela, dumping the holding tank as soon as we had gotten beyond three miles out. We’ve decided that 12 days is our limit for staying anywhere until we need to move on. I guess it’s similar to the way primitive people have to travel from place to place when either the game runs out or the latrines are overwhelmed.

Sunrise in Chamela

Chamela is an extremely rocky anchorage - meaning the boat rocks due to the lack of protection from the swells in the anchorage. We put out our “flopper stopper,” a device we hang from the whisker pole off the side of the boat that tends to smooth out the sideways rocking of the boat. It turns out that a storm to the south has sent very large swells north along the Mexican Riviera Coast. Chamela is one of the anchorages on this coast that is not well protected from the south. We’re watching huge swells coming in from the sea, raising our boat several feet as they pass, and then crashing onto the beach with a ferocious sound and fury. Some of the fishing pangas have been waiting over 15 minutes to find a weaker wave that will let them get clear onto the beach to unload their catch without being caught in the surf. We have elected to refrain from going ashore during our stay here because of the problems with trying to get back out through the surf.

More later . . .

March 6th (2009) – Tenacatita – Jim’s Blog #82

2009-03-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

Current Location – Tenacatita – Lat: 19°17.87’ N / Long: 104°50.35’ W

Today, March 6th, marks the 500th day that Sheilagh and I have been “on vacation,” as one of our daughters put it. That’s closer to the truth than we’d like to admit because the economic situation is causing us both to reconsider “being retired.” We will be heading up to California in April to set up our condominium for our own use, and Sheilagh will be looking for work in the area of therapy for children – to help straighten them and their parents out before bad habits are firmly established.

I will be flying back to Mazatlan to stay with the boat during the month of May. Then in June two Navy buddies, Jim and Craig, will be flying down to help me take the boat north to San Diego. When we get there I am hoping to live as a kept husband, but I may have to be a Wal-Mart greeter or a McDonald's hamburger flipper to make up for the 50% of our retirement that has disappeared in the last year. The one bright note is that I did the math for our estimated tax next year, and we will be paying less than I used to pay over 35 years ago. I wonder how the economy will handle millions of baby-boomers like us who will no longer be supporting the government with high taxes as we have been doing for many years now.

We really like Tenacatita because it is a quiet bay away from any sort of urban life, with no reason to wear anything but a swimming suit all day. We took the boat up the river on what is called “the jungle ride” to get to the small town of Tenacatita, where we had lunch with Archie and Beverly of “Sea-Tacean,” John and Patricia of “Paloma,” and Louis, Frank and Boudreaux on “Cirque.” None of us saw anything other than birds and crabs; so it was a far cry from a real ride through a jungle. Nevertheless the mangroves get quite thick, casting cool shade and a mysterious sense of being in the middle of nature as we twist our dinghies through the narrow channel cut through the mangroves.

Coming back later in the day Sheilagh decided she wanted to get out of the boat at the beach and walk to the hotel down the beach to get on the internet. I advised her that we had groceries onboard and I needed her help to get back out through the surf safely. I even offered to bring her in again afterwards. Imagine my amazement when she hopped out of the boat, despite knowing that her actions involved mutiny, a maritime offense with a penalty calling for her to be hanged from the yardarm. She said she didn’t care, and how would I find any other crew to do the cooking and other crewing duties she currently does. I was trying to figure out where there is a yardarm on the boat to carry out the sentence as she walked away.

Then I had a heck of a time getting out through the surf on my own. There was a low tide at the time, and the water at the mouth of the river was too shallow to use the engine. So I hoisted the prop out of the water and relied on the oars to get over the shallow area. For several minutes I rowed toward the surf, being bumped up into the air when it passed under, and eventually there was sufficient depth to put the prop down and start the engine. I saw a slight break in the surf, moved to the back of the boat and tried to start the engine. Just as I got it started one of the oars fell overboard; so I had to back up toward the shore to fish it out. I grabbed the oar, flipped the transmission lever to “forward,” and the engine immediately died.

By then the boat had slewed around sideways to t he surf just as a sizable wave hit the dinghy and started to tip it over. The boat nearly flipped, until I leaned on the high side, preventing a capsize but spilling about six inches of water into the boat and into the bags of groceries. I jumped back to the rowing position, cursing the lack of a crew and sending a dark glance at Sheilagh who was now watching from the beach. It was then that I decided to use the boom as the yardarm for punishing her mutiny – that is if I ever let her get back onboard. I quickly rowed through several more lines of surf, got the engine started without losing an oar this time, and powered past the next few breakers. I bailed the boat out with a cut-down bleach bottle we keep in the boat for that purpose, as I motored back to the boat. When I got there, I dumped the salt water out of the grocery bags, wiped off the bread and chips bags, and left everything out to dry.

For the next hour I went through a number of thoughts as to how to punish my crew, then how to punish my crew without losing a cook and plumber in the process, and finally how to ignore the whole thing without losing my sense of control over my crew. After a beer and a nap I realized that I had never really had any control over my crew anyway; so I gave it up.

Two sets of close cruising friends (Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” and Dave and Marsha of “Juniata”) came into the anchorage and we met another couple, Dave and Suzi of “Sidewinder” on the same day. We used the opportunity to host a cocktail party for all of them on our boat, which was a bit crowded in the cockpit. Most of the attendees brought their own drinks and snacks, along with books and movies to swap. It was a good mix of people and we had a great time swapping stories and ideas. The next day Juniata invited all of us over to their boat where we ate the fish that Dave had caught that morning. We were also entertained by Dave with his imitations of birds landing on various parts of the boat and taking the opportunity to relieve themselves in the process. He seems to have bird psychology and their thought processes down pat. Since “bird brains” are notoriously small, Dave may be giving more of his own thought processes away than he should.

On Thursday I spent the morning cleaning the green fringe from around the bottom of the boat, which is not an easy job. It’s easiest to do it in the water rather than leaning over the side of the dinghy, but it’s also pretty messy as the green stuff floats by and sticks to one’s suit and T-shirt. In the process my scraper dropped off my lanyard as I was using the brush, and I was unable to find it on the bottom, even though the bottom was only 16’ deep without any growth to hide it. I’ll have to try diving for it on a clearer day. In the afternoon I attacked the waves with my kayak with a newer technique I had developed earlier, and I found I was able to surf the larger waves quite easily, but I often got rolled over as the surf caught up to my kayak at the end. Now I have to figure out a way to handle that problem, but I did get a number of good rides and only got dumped about three times for the 15 rides I got.

We went back over to the town of Tenacatita on Friday, when the produce comes in every week, and got some great veggies and an essential case of beer. Thankfully Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” followed us over there, because our outboard refused to start for the trip home. They gave us a tow through the mangroves all the way back to the anchorage area. Sheilagh and I were using oars to keep our dinghy from running into the mangrove branches on either side of the narrow channel. At the end of the river we unhitched and finished the trip by rowing through the shallow bar and out to the boat.

Dave of “Juniata” noticed we had been rowing and came by to see what our problem might be. We were exhausted and not ready to fix anything at that moment; so he suggested we check our spark plug when we had the chance. Right after a shower and a nap we replaced the spark plug and the engine started right up. A piece of metal had connected across the gap on the old spark plug; so it hadn’t been generating a spark. Now we have to decide if we want to carry a 5/16” wrench with us everywhere we go in order to be able to check the spark plug on the fly in a similar situation in the future. That’s why cruisers often carry more and more stuff in their dinghies.

On Friday we had the weekly Tenacatita raft-up of most of the cruisers in the anchorage. The leader sets an anchor and each dinghy ties sideways bow to bow and stern to stern of the dinghy that was tied in before. Eventually the circle is closed with all bows pointing to the center. At that time the boat cards (identifying the boats and owners) along with used books are passed around clockwise. We always pass on the romance novels but usually pick up a good action or spy novel, as we unload the books we have read. When that exercise is complete, the food that everyone brought is also passed around clockwise. As the food comes by it might be dessert, or an appetizer, or a side dish, or an entree depending on the order of the boats. On Friday we had some 20 dinghies; so it was critical to eat as the food was being passed around or else one’s plate would fill up and it would be necessary to pass on some very good dishes.

Everyone brings his or her own drinks, which means there is little sharing of beverages. After the dishes make it around the circle once, they are continued on if there is any food left on the plate. Often the great-looking dish from the dinghy on your left will be empty by the time it finally reaches you. But usually everyone gets plenty to eat and there is seldom anything left over. After eating we all take turns telling a bit about ourselves, our boats, and our intentions for the next couple of weeks. Several cruisers mentioned that they would be returning to the U.S. or Canada for the summer to get temporary jobs to replace some of the losses from their “cruising kitties” occasioned by the bleak economic situation to the north of us.

Since many have sold their homes, they have to find a place to stay while they work up north, if they aren’t ready to take their boats north with them. It's against the law to work in Mexico unless you get a permit, just as its unlawful to sell anything you own to someone else for cash or any other mode of payment. A couple of cruisers mentioned in a more private discussion that they can’t afford to live outside of Mexico for the near future, because their boat is all they have to live on and they can stretch their dollars much better down here. Thankfully we kept the condominium in San Diego; so we have a lot more flexibility.

Many non-cruisers have the belief that we cruisers are living the “good life,” but they aren’t seeing the whole picture. I think a lot of people never really pursue their dreams because they suspect they’ll find that dreams are a mixture of good and not-so-good experiences (as in daily life); so it is better to maintain an unreal vision of the dream and never find out that scum actually grows on the underside of the “dreamboat.”

More later . . .

February 27th (2009) – Barra de Navidad – Jim’s Blog #81

2009-02-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Barra de Navidad – Lat: 19°11.42’ N / Long: 104°40.45’ W

When we don't have a good picture to insert we fall back on a sunset

After pulling into the Barra de Navidad lagoon, we began to realize why we don’t particularly like this destination. In the first place we had to enter the lagoon very carefully, since we were at low tide and our GPS suddenly gave up the ghost as we approached the bay. On the GPS are the four carefully plotted waypoints that help boats to stay in the channel on the way into the lagoon. Why did we enter the lagoon at low tide with an inoperative GPS? The low tide lasted all day and we had entered the lagoon many times before with no difficulty.

We came in at a very low speed; so we could back out immediately if we happened to run aground on the mud here. Two boats had run aground in the two days before we got there, and managed to get off with the help of some dinghies and pangas. As mentioned earlier, we knew the channel even without the GPS navigational points, and we got ourselves anchored without any difficulty. The depth of the lagoon is normally only about 10’, which can get down to 8’ at low tide. Our boat’s draft is 6’ (that’s the depth of the boat that sticks under water), so we are within 2’ of the bottom at low tide.

Another problem with the Barra Lagoon is the muddy bottom. Normally we would put out about 70’ of anchor chain in 10’ of water to give us a very safe holding scope of 7:1. However, because the bottom is so muddy, everyone puts out at least 100’ of chain – we elect about 120’ – in order to stay firmly embedded in the bottom when very strong winds occasionally dominate the afternoons. The real fun is cleaning off the anchor chain when it’s time to bring it up. It takes us about 10 extra minutes to brush and wash down the chain as it is brought up. Thankfully we have a hose at the front that allows us to spray salt water directly onto the chain as it comes up.

The next afternoon a very strong wind came up, and it was necessary for us to triangulate our position against some fixed landmarks on shore to help us determine if our anchor happened to drag. Soon after the wind started, we heard an urgent message on the radio informing everyone that one of the catamarans was dragging its anchor. Sure enough we looked a couple of boats over and saw the catamaran sliding downwind with its anchor chain supposedly out. The power boat behind it started up its engine and moved out of the way. We jumped in our dinghy and went over to assist the catamaran with about five other cruisers.

This boat had failed to leave the key in the ignition and access to the windlass to handle the anchor. If they had left the boat properly set up we could have started up the engine to stop its backward momentum and then we could have let out additional scope on the anchor. Thankfully the boat stopped moving backwards as we got there, and we managed to find an anchor and some anchor line in an open compartment on the boat. Immediately we had about 5 different opinions of what to do, but ended up agreeing to take the new anchor out in a dinghy and drop it as far upwind as we could to make sure at least one of the anchors would continue to hold. The owner of the catamaran had a little work to do to bring up two anchors when he got back and re-anchored, but he was happy his boat hadn’t ended up in the mangroves at the side of the lagoon.

Another reason for not particularly liking the Barra de Navidad lagoon is the prevalence of filthy water, where human waste is dropped overboard by thoughtless cruisers as well as by the sewage system in town. There is no way I would swim in this water and I carefully wash off my kayak when I go out to get some exercise. This year the number of cruisers is about half of what it was last year, so the waste is diminished somewhat. It’s amazing to me that cruisers actually dump waste where fishermen fish, oystermen raise oysters, and kids swim from the beaches. We’ve heard of one cruiser who brags that he hasn’t got a holding tank onboard; so we anchor well away from him if we happen to be in the same anchorage.

What are the good points of this anchorage? There is the French baker who delivers fresh pastries and bread to your boat each morning, if you like. We also have two panga taxi services that will take us into town and bring us back after dark, which makes the nightlife more accessible than nearly any other place. Barra de Navidad has a number of very good restaurants and nightspots for those who can stay awake beyond 10PM. Barra also has a local store owner, Maria, who goes shopping in Guadalajara every week for the items we cruisers want and both resells them and delivers them to the boat. We also have a one-day turnaround on laundry that is convenient to Maria’s store. This is where we get same-day service in recharging our propane for cooking. The fuel dock is also convenient for both diesel for the engine and gasoline for the outboard motor.

When we arrived, we connected with Dave and Marsha from “Juniata,” who invited us to lunch with them and John and Sharon of “Sunbow.” We all met at Fortino’s palapa on the edge of the lagoon, where those two couples were picking up their laundry as part of the process. We had met both couples up in the Sea of Cortez on the 4th of July where we got together with about 40 cruisers in El Burro Cove for hotdogs and whatever everyone brought in addition. It was fun to renew the acquaintances we had made. Dave and Marsha are the cruisers whose close friends we happened to meet last summer at a remote campground (Sardine Lake) in the Sierras, where we were struck by how small the world really is.

Sheilagh - dressed for breakfast in the cockpit with the cereal bowl on her lap - hope it's not too cold where you happen to be

Dave came over the next day to assist Sheilagh in hoisting me to the top of the mast to repair a wind direction indicator that had been bent by the wind. I set up the block and tackle to use the windlass to hoist me up with Dave handling the line that does the actual hauling. Sheilagh manned the backup halyard, which would supposedly save me if the other halyard broke or slipped badly. Now that neither Sheilagh nor I carry life insurance on the other one, I am a bit more willing to put my life in danger with her around. Dave helped us jury rig a brace for the wind indicator and I got hauled back up to replace it. The way Dave let out the line on the way down allowed me to rappel down the mast as mountain climbers do. I’d almost get hauled up to the top to be able to come down that way anytime.

We had dinner at a new restaurant for us, Bananas, with John and Cathy of “Batu,” where we had the most delicious filet mignon we’ve had in Mexico. The restaurant overlooks the bay and the setting sun, but we were not able to see the “green flash” due to clouds on the horizon. We were so impressed with the restaurant that we took Ed and Cornelia (from “A Cappella”) there when they stopped by in a rental car from a trip back to the U.S. As you may have ascertained from previous blogs, Sheilagh and I are not particularly fond of fish, which makes us less than self-sufficient compared to other cruisers who crave it. We have yet to find plucked chickens or butchered cows floating by the boat, so we jump at the chance to eat good meat when we can.

A picture on a day where we could use the mainsail, the jib, and the staysail to actually sail here in Mexico - this picture is courtesy of Cornelia on "A Cappella" who was buddy-boating with us that day

Today, Friday, we were planning to move to another anchorage, when we decided that we should take a look at the “head” (toilet mechanism), which was starting to pump a bit oddly. Sheilagh long ago assumed the role of plumber in the family (normally a “blue” job in the cruising community – meaning men should be doing it – as opposed to “pink” jobs); so she told me to stand back, get out of her way, and hand her tools when she asked for them. She took the flushing mechanism completely apart and found the inside cylinder coated with calcium deposits caused by the mingling of urine and salt water. She replaced the entire mechanism with a replacement part and then took the old one apart and cleaned it. I kept out of her way and spent a lot of time congratulating her on the fine, fine job she was doing. That also cleared up a not-so-pleasant smell we had been experiencing for months and which we had concealed with deodorant sticks.

We decided to spend another night here and played a movie we had borrowed from another cruiser. The movie was a bit grainy and had no warning in the front threatening prison for daring to copy a movie. Then we noticed that there were shadow figures down in front finding their seats in the theater. At that point we knew we were watching a pirated copy of the movie, taken from a movie screen, and we immediately locked the boat up tight and pretended we weren’t home in case the FBI came looking for us. We escaped without jail time and will be passing the movie off to someone else to risk his or her freedom.

More later . . .

February 20th (2009) – Barra de Navidad – Jim’s Blog #80

2009-02-24T09:30:00.001-08:00

Current Location – Barra de Navidad – Lat: 19°11.42’ N / Long: 104°40.45’ W

[Be sure to check out the new pictures added to the blog of February 13th. I also corrected the name of the drink to "Michelada" at the advice of my youngest daughter who had heard of this drink, but not the one I mentioned originally. ]

Starting to pull in the net from the water onto the sand

We left the “Santiago” anchorage for the Las Hadas anchorage (Lat: 19°06’ N / Long: 104°21’ W), which is just around the corner of the same Santiago Bay. But before we went, I took my kayak into the beach with the camera in a Ziploc bag to get some pictures of some fishermen bringing in a net from shore. They do this every few days, starting at a point just a hundred yards off our boat. They bring the net out in a panga and drop the scoop end near a buoy that stays moored to the bottom. Two divers position the net and stay with the scoop end as it is being hauled in. Eight to ten additional fisherman grab the ends of two lines that are brought to shore by the panga and begin hour-long pull of the net into the beach.

Retrieving the net and pulling it up on shore

The pullers start out pulling with their hands and bring the net in step by step in concert with the wave action. Floats along the upper edge of the net keep it suspended, and rocks on the lower edge of the net keep it dragging against the bottom. As the net is pulled closer to shore it becomes heavier with fish and the pullers lock themselves into the lines and creep slowly backwards until the last one in line unfastens himself and runs down to the edge of the water to lock in again and continue pulling backwards. It’s fascinating to watch; so a crowd usually congregates, with some of the male visitors stepping in to help pull. Usually these individuals are showing off for their girl friends and seem to cause more trouble than help.

Sorting out the fish (notice all the round spiny anemones) and the people gathered around

The end of the net is in the form of a bag and it vibrates constantly with the flapping fish trying to escape. In this case the net picked up a lot of spiky anemones that must have recently settled on the bottom; so the fishermen had to remove them carefully with their bare hands from the struggling pile of fish. Each of the fishermen grabs a bucket and helps sort the fish. At the end each of the fishermen walks away with a plastic bag of fish for his own use. I didn’t see any fish being processed and put in ice for the market; so this appears to be just a little local action, when the fish from the previous netting have been consumed.

Las Hadas hotel on the right and a condominium to the left of it (looking from the water)

On Monday we cruised the 4 miles to Las Hadas and found a spot to anchor very close to the marina and the beach. Yes, this is supposedly the same beach where Dudley Moore was swept off his feet by the slow motion running of Bo Derek in the full bloom of youth and the full bouncing figure of a male fantasy. The beach is actually quite short, which is probably why slow motion was used. Otherwise Bo would have run past Dudley in a matter of seconds.

One of our reasons for stopping here was to pick up some eyeglasses I had ordered to replace a pair of broken ones, and to do some heavy-duty shopping. The big grocery stores are nearby and afterwards a cab brings us right to the dinghy dock to transfer the heavy and bulky items directly into the dinghy without having to carry them very far, and there is no need to launch the dinghy through the surf. Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” followed us over to Las Hadas, went with us on the bus to Wal-Mart, and ended up sharing a cab with us back to the marina. I was not surprised when my eyeglasses were not ready yet, since this is Mexico where “mañana” is a way of life. I was told to come back on Wednesday afternoon, which determined that we would stay a couple more days at Las Hadas.

We spent the next several days at the swimming pool, right next to the restaurant and bar, in case we got hungry or thirsty. At the large pool the drinks were $6 apiece, while the cost was only $3 at the smaller pool. We cruisers naturally gathered at the less expensive drink location, where we played Mexican Train one day with Jim and Susan, John and Cathy of “Batu,” Terry and Michele of “Coastal Passage,” and Herb and Juliet of “Synchrony.” On another day we just swam and read books.

On Wednesday all the cruisers were invited to a party by Stan and Mary Jo of “SolMate,” who had sold their boat and settled in the town of Santiago. There was a large turnout to share snacks and drinks and get to see what can be purchased in Mexico for next to nothing by U.S. standards. Most of these houses need some rebuild, but the cost of doing that is quite inexpensive, if you can get workers to show up. Stan’s team had taken a two-week break from working on his house to go to a more lucrative temporary job that had just appeared. We met quite a few cruisers we had seen before but never had occasion to actually say “hello.”

To spice up this blog I am including a picture of the lovely Sheilagh with a first cup of coffee and before "putting on her face" as she puts it. Frankly she looks great in my opinion without a "face" or even a hairdo. Sheilagh is responsible for the large number of pictures in the last couple of blogs

After the party Sheilagh and I made a second trip to Wal-Mart to pick up my eyeglasses only to learn that they would be ready on the following day. I had the optometrist call the factory to insure they would be there on the following afternoon. I finally got them on Thursday. The reason for mentioning this is that folks ask us why we don’t plan our trip in more detail when we start out. If we did, we would be constantly revising it or getting upset that we couldn’t meet it. The ability to just add a few days to our schedule keeps our blood pressure low, our hearts beating steadily, and should prolong our lives.

While I was at Las Hadas I visited a nearby beach to check out what was causing the loud crashing sounds of the surf on the sand. It turned out that this was a very steep beach, where the waves crashed high up on the sand and then receded as an outbound wave at about the same height as the incoming waves. Where the two waves met caused a steep drop off on one side that turned into a breaking wave so you can imagine the thrill of staying just on the edge and cheating the waves that wanted to suck my kayak into the. I managed to avoid any disasters and had a great time playing in the waves.

On Friday we left Las Hadas and motor-sailed north to Barra de Navidad, where we planned to get fuel and start our gradual trip north to Mazatlan by the middle of April. More later . . .

February 13th (2009) – Bahia Santiago – Jim’s Blog #79

2009-02-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Bahia Santiago – Lat: 19°10.32’ N / Long: 104°42.45’ W

Last Saturday we were invited on a trip to the city of Colima by Stan and Mary Joe of “Solmate”, who have a car here, and Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound.” The ostensible reason was to support the local soccer team, The Manzanillo Picudos, at an away game there, but we took the opportunity to see some of the country and the city before the 4PM game.

A statue of the indian defender of Colima from the Spanish and a view of the park in front of the cathedral

Colima is the capital of the state of Colima and the largest city in the state. On the way we passed a brick-making region, where we saw temple-like structures of brick that were filled with firewood inside and plugged with mud. We saw a couple of these smoking heavily and learned that this is how they fire the bricks after they have been formed and dried. At the same time we saw long rows of bricks laid side by side drying in the sun.

Workers next to a pyramid of bricks to be fired and long rows of bricks drying in the sun before firing

As we got there the workers were taking a break, and were more than happy to show us the operation. One if them took us to the brick-making area and put down a form for making four bricks at a time. Beside him was a wheelbarrow of “mud” for the bricks and a pail of water. He picked up two handfuls of the “mud,” plopped the goop into the four open windows of the form, packed them down with his hands, wet his hands and smoothed the top, and then pulled the form off to reposition it in the next spot. In five minutes he created about 40 bricks, each of which will sell for approximately $0.15 apiece – that’s $6 of product in 5 minutes or $72 of product in an hour. Of course this doesn’t count the digging and creating of the “mud” nor the stacking and firing process. But it was interesting to see how fast a purely manual operation can take place.

The entrance to the pyramid of bricks where scrap wood is thrown in before the fire is started and the door sealed and a young worker

This particular individual had his son with him that day, a little boy of 4-5 years of age, who worked with a small shovel and a toy truck in the dirt next to his dad but out of the way. He was a bit overawed by the gringos with their cameras, but was intent on moving dirt from one position to another.

Twin girls and their father on horseback and a young boy on a burro waiting for the parade to start

When we finally got into Colima we found ourselves in the midst of the Fiestas Charrotaurinas (Cowboys/Cowgirls), which is a celebration in honor of the patron saint of Colima, San Felipe de Jesus. This lasts several days and involves rodeos, cockfights, concerts, and other activities. The cockfights don’t seem to be politically correct from our point of view, but they are viewed as a betting activity that is very popular here. In particular we walked into the town square in front of the Cathedral and found dozens of horses (later the number grew to a couple of hundred) preparing for a parade that was to proceed to the town of Villa re Alvarez, about 2-3 miles away where the rodeos would be held.

The "Mojigangos" and the lovely Sheilagh

As we waited in the square for the parade to start, we noticed two large 12’ tall figures covered with what appeared to be clown outfits. We later learned from the “Chamber of Commerce” literature that these were “the famous ‘Mojigangos,’ large effigies made of reeds and cardboard that caricature local and international public figures.” We couldn’t see that the faces on these figures looked anything like any public figures we know.

Two princesses and a model of the bull ring complete with toy animals and humans on the back of a truck

We also saw horsemen and women milling about on their horses. There were two senoritas sitting sidesaddle on their horses and dressed in full Mexican dress with large sombreros and sashes indicating that they were princesses of some sort.

Most of the riders were dressed in standard cowboy shirts and jeans, as they would dress in the U.S. Sheilagh was impressed with the beauty of some of the horses – Andalusians and Arabians, which were very well trained. One cowboy pulled his horse out of the line up and into an open space where he had the horse dance to the music that was playing. The horse was magnificent to watch, with several different prancing steps the owner put it through, and then the owner backed it into line when he was through. Sheilagh rode horses as a girl and was very impressed with the way the horses were trained.

"Tuba" vendor

We also got a chance to try the local “Tuba” drink, which is carried around in a hollowed-out gourd. It is a mild lemonade-like drink, but it is pink in color and has small chunks of apple cut up into it. After the vendor fills the glass with liquid, he drops in a tablespoon of peanuts, which float on the top. As you drink the liquid you also eat the small apple pieces and the peanuts. It was very refreshing and full of protein with the peanuts.

Jim, Susan, Sheilagh, and myself in the Amazon Bar

After the parade we walked around a few of the shops and were pulled into the Amazon bar by Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” where we were introduced to the “finest Michelada in all of Mexico,” according to the proprietor. Michelada is a local beer concoction that includes Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, Soy sauce, and some lime juice (in addition to the beer), topped with a salted rim like a Margarita. The drink was served in a large glass stein that held a liter of liquid, so Sheilagh and I split one. The bar itself was wallpapered with jungle scenes and had paper mache heads and bodies of jungle animals on the walls. Quite a colorful place and the bartender was an equally colorful older man who owns the bar and touts the world famous nature of his concoction.

Alas, the soccer team we were supporting lost the match, but it was a good game where the local team outplayed ours in the second half. We were in the minority in the bleachers, but we “visitors” made plenty of noise. I just wish I could translate some of the shouts to see how colorful they were. We made it back after dark and took it very easy the next day.

On Monday we took a little cruise beyond the 3-mile limit from land to dump our holding tank (called a “courtesy trip”), while the sailboats “Batu” and “Coastal Passage” combined their courtesy trips with a movement across the bay to Las Hadas. We stayed in our original location because of the crowded nature of Las Hadas and did the usual lying around during the week and listening to Sirius radio to see how bad the economy is doing. Our daughter, Kimberly, reminded us that we were approaching the 500th day of our “vacation,” which put our experience in a little different context.

On Wednesday we hosted a cocktail party with Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” and Lou, Lydia, and their guest, Maggie, from “Shiloh.” Now a cocktail party should be a simple event to bring off on land, but here’s what it takes on a boat. The party was to start at 5PM but all of us were a bit late in getting started. At 4PM Lou and Lydia passed by in their dinghy on the way to the store to get avocados for their promised guacamole dip. They agreed to buy some ice for us, which we were short of. After they had departed we found that we were missing the Philadelphia cream cheese required for Sheilagh’s red pepper jelly dip; so she called Susan on the radio to see if she had any. Susan did have some and promised to bring it with her.

Lou and Lydia returned from the store and together we dropped the bag of ice in the bay as we were passing it across. Thankfully the bag of ice floated and we pulled it out, dried it off, and put the contents in the ice bucket. Lou and Lydia found no avocados at the store, nor did we have any. We soon heard Lydia call Susan, who had the needed avocados. Lou made the trip to “Windward Bound” to pick up the avocados to get the guacamole dip prepared before they came to our boat. The party finally started at 5:30PM with Susan supplying most of the raw materials for two different dips and bringing along some mini pizzas that turned the cocktail party into a full dinner. I said earlier that we hosted the cocktail party, but it was really Susan who should receive the credit.

One of the problems with holding cocktail parties on boats is that it is difficult to maintain a liquor cabinet that will contain everything a guest might want. Another problem is that guests may be departing the next day and be unable to reciprocate a party of their own. So the typical approach to these parties is to bring something to drink as well as a snack to share. That way you bring what you want to drink, you don’t strain the resources of the host, and you leave no obligation in your wake. In our case we furnished margaritas, rum and cokes, beer and soft drinks, and our guests could take their choice with accepting our drinks or imbibing their own. So much for the problems associated with cruising and vacationing full time.

More later . . .

February 6th (2009) – Bahia Santiago – Jim’s Blog #78

2009-02-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Bahia Santiago – Lat: 19°10.32’ N / Long: 104°42.45’ W

We just can’t seem to leave this beach paradise at Santiago Bay. Our previous pictures of the beach showed very few people on the beach, but that was before the weekend. Since Monday was a holiday here in Mexico – Constitution Day (federal) and Candlemas Day (religious) – the crowds came out on Saturday and Sunday in droves with a smattering on Monday as folks headed for home. There was still plenty of room on the beach, but beach umbrellas sprouted everywhere and families took their ease. Children dabbled in the surf and built the necessary sand castles that children are genetically required to build when confronted with sand and water.

The difficulty for us cruisers was threading our way through the swimmers with our dinghies in order to land on the beach in the surf. Nothing like keeping the propeller away from the heads of curious swimmers – particularly the young boys asking for rides – as we gauge the swells carefully to ride in just behind the breaking waves. This is a bit of a challenge in any case, because we only have a 6 HP engine with very little oomph when we need it at the moment of catching the swell just right. Then add scantily-clad bathers all around the boat and up on the beach, and it is a real challenge to stay focused on the job at hand. We were successful and headed out to the Santiago open-air market that occurs every Saturday.

The Open Air Market in Santiago on Saturdays

There we found one of the larger temporary markets we have seen in Mexico – erected overnight and modeled on a modern mall to some extent. It was completely covered with canvas to keep out the hot sun. There were taco stands and plastic tables and chairs in one section that was equivalent to the eating area in a mall. There were booths filled with clothing, mostly jeans and T-shirts, right next to jewelry booths, DVD and CD stands (with mostly copied items, I think, based on the low prices), leather goods, clay and wood bowls and platters, musical instruments, cheap toys, and nearly everything that tourists and locals might want to buy. Fresh fruits and vegetables were sold at several booths grouped together where the delivery trucks had good access.

We assume these vendors paid for the right to set up their booths, but as we shopped we were approached by individual vendors, wandering the aisles, and offering blankets, baskets, jewelry and other items that are normally carried and sold on the beaches here. The fixed-booth operators didn’t seem to mind having the wandering vendors go through, at least we didn’t see anyone being thrown out for selling without a booth. I ended up buying a couple of T-shirts, which Sheilagh insisted not be white because she can’t get the sunscreen stain out of the collars. So I bought one yellow T-shirt that would match the sunscreen stains and an orange one that might hide the stain. I got the vendor to reduce his price from $7 to $6.50 on the first shirt, and then found the same shirts around the corner for $4.50, where I got my second shirt. So much for my ability to bargain!

The Marlin statue by Sebastián in old town Manzanilla on the waterfront - note the two figures below the end of the tail to get perspective on the size

After the open-air market we hopped a bus for the long ride around the bay to Manzanillo, one of the biggest shipping ports in Mexico. Beyond the town is the power plant that spews smoke into the sky 24/7, but that area is separated from the town by hills that keep the smoke away. We planned to meet some friends at the Club Social next to the town square for drinks and snacks. We were told to meet the group at the statue of the marlin in the town square. You can imagine that there are dozens of sculptures in the various parks around town; so we were a bit worried that we might not see it. The picture shows that the marlin statue, by Sebastián, is not something anyone could miss. We arrived just a bit before the group and joined them in the square before repairing to the bar.

The Club Social is a “bocado” style bar, where you pay for drinks and they bring things to eat at no charge. “Bocado” means a “bite” or “mouthful” from “boca,” the word for mouth. There are several bars like this locally where the food is intended to keep you drinking. After each beer or drink, the used bottle or glass is lined up on a shelf behind the table with all the other used vessels. The final bill consists of the waiter counting the bottles and glasses and submitting one bill for everyone. Then it is up to the various participants to throw in what they feel they drank and then see if that covers the bill and the tip. We joined John and Cathy of “Batu,” Terry and Michelle of “Coastal Passage,” and John and Gilly of “Destiny.” We noticed that the food was replenished as soon as we ordered a second round of drinks. Apparently they keep a balance on the food they provide against the drinks that are ordered.

Sunday was a low key affair with lunch and internet at the Oasis Beach Club, looking out over the crowds on the beach. Then I met with friends to watch the Superbowl at a local restaurant, named Juanito’s, for access to a large screen TV with a direct signal from the U.S. to allow us to see the U.S. commercials. Sheilagh has no interest in football, unless it’s in person at a high school game where she can watch the watchers; so she stayed on the boat and got some time alone. We were about evenly divided in the group between the two teams. Most of us had not been following pro football to any great degree, since it’s difficult to even get TV in most anchorages, and none of us sailboats has satellite TV onboard. It turned out to be a very good game, although the locals who came in for dinner didn’t understand what was so interesting about a game where the ball wasn’t always in motion.

We had met Lou and Lydia of “Shiloh” on the previous Friday night for dinner at a Palapa on the beach and they offered to take us in their van for shopping on Monday. It is such a pleasure to actually drive to a shopping center (instead of taking a bus) and then to have a way of carrying everything back without hailing a cab! We loaded up on some heavy items like beer and coke, and some bulky items like paper towels and toilet paper. We had lunch at a local taco stand where the whole family was involved in taking our orders, providing Coca Colas, and generally seeing that we were well taken care of. A friend of the family told us that he was from Pasco, Washington, and I mentioned that I had grown up in Walla Walla, just 60 miles down the road. Our communication was limited by our lack of fluency in each other’s language, but we said our good-byes with something in common.

That night we had “Batu” and “Coastal Passage” over for Mexican Train, using our rules as the host, and I came off the winner. A couple of days later we did the same on “Coastal Passage,” using their rules and they won. There doesn’t seem to be any firm rules with regard to playing the game. As a result the host often wins when others are playing who are not followers of the same rules.

Tuesday it was time to clean the green fringe from around the boat at water level. I used a scraper, a brush, and a Teflon pad and was still unable to get some of the green fuzz off in some places. The bottom definitely needs a scraping and cleaning before we head out again, something I will probably do next week. I loaded my IPod with a new book and went kayaking around the mouth of the bay to another anchorage, as I listened to the story of Ireland. It involved 2 hours of paddling, but the time passed swiftly as I listened to the myths and stories of Ireland, always keeping away from partially submerged rocks that could cut open the inflatable kayak.

Thursday a finback whale with an infant came very near the anchorage and appeared to be nursing within a few yards of one of the sailboats, “Hooligan,” anchored here. It was just the luck of Tom and Barbara, the owners of “Hooligan,” to be in town at that time, but the rest of us saw a lot of the activity from just a couple of hundred yards away. There was at least 20’ of the back of the mother whale showing, which means the mother was probably 50-60’ in length. Earlier I had decided to kayak across the bay – about 2.5 miles across – since the wind was out of the East and it would be an easy paddle back. I got there in about an hour and found that the wind changed suddenly to the opposite direction and the sea got a bit rough and came from my forward port side. By the time I got back I was exhausted from the paddling and wet from the waves throwing up spray as I maneuvered through them. I don’t think I’ll be trying that again soon.

We had a “tragedy” on Thursday evening as we were setting out from shore in the dinghy through the waves, and we are still feeling the repercussions of it. We usually wait for a period of low swells, wade the dinghy out to just past where the small waves are breaking on the beach, hold the bow into the waves as the water is lapping our knees (sometimes our thighs), and I start the engine before we hop in. I had just gotten the engine going and had instructed Sheilagh to hop in as I gunned it. I had misjudged the advancing wave, which was just starting to break (about two feet high), but I was confident that we could power over it. Sheilagh saw the advancing wave, screamed, and plunged into the bow of the boat – which drove the bow under the wave, rather than allowing the boat to ride over it.

As I tried to lift the bow up under Sheilagh’s weight and keep the boat in line with the wave, it swept over the bow, filling the boat with water, and supposedly throwing Sheilagh out of the boat on the other side. I say “supposedly” because I think she threw herself out of the boat to avoid getting wet from the water coming into the boat – who would guess that she would get wetter in the surf. Sheilagh came out of the water dripping all over, sputtering, fuming, and blaming me for dumping her in the drink. We both hopped in the boat, I gunned the engine, Sheilagh manned the bailing scoop, and we avoided the next wave.

The problem was that everything we had with us, groceries, pack, and purse were drenched in salt water. Thankfully we always carry our computers in a water-tight bag, but Sheilagh had her Palm Pilot in her purse, and it got so drenched it could not be resurrected. You have to realize that Sheilagh downloads books onto that device and reads them in bed without having to turn on the light. If she doesn’t have that device to go to sleep with, she is like a fish out of water, like a pig out of mud, like a mother bear away from her cubs – in short she is not a happy camper. This weekend we are planning a trip into town to see what we can do to replace it, since everything is backed up on her computer, but until then I am lying low and not discussing who was at fault in the launching process. Incidentally she has taken two showers so far and still can’t get the fine sand out of her hair – which only adds to her “sweet nature.”

Friday we took it easy and ended the day with dinner aboard “Shiloh” with Lou and Lydia. They served arachera – marinated beef that is very tender and juicy – along with baked potatoes and salad. We brought along a key lime pie that Sheilagh had prepared and we proceeded to eat the entire pie in one sitting. That said a lot for Sheilagh’s cooking.

More later . . .

January 30th (2009) – Bahia Santiago – Jim’s Blog #77

2009-02-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Bahia Santiago – Lat: 19°10.32’ N / Long: 104°42.45’ W

A view of Boquito Beach in both directions here at Santiago - this is a weekday so the crowds are down

We’re still here in Bahia Santiago surrounded by long flat beaches all around, access to stores and palapas (beach restaurants), and weather that has been warm and inviting. On Saturday and Sunday there was quite a turnout of vacationers – gringos on the patios of the beach houses and locals camped in the sand. Even with the stepped-up activity on the beach, we understand from cruisers who have been here in previous years that the population of beachgoers in general (and cruisers in particular) is down sharply. Apparently the economic situation up north has Mexico as well, and folks are deciding that a winter vacation is not in the cards for this year.

Jim at the soccer game - futbol here

On Sunday we attended a local soccer game with Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound,” hosted by a former cruiser and his wife, Stan and Mary Jo (formerly of “SolMate”), who have decided to settle here in Santiago. Stan and Mary Jo are avid soccer fans and encourage the cruisers each year to come out and support the local teams. They picked us up in their van near the beach and took us to the playing field. It was 30 pesos apiece to get in, beer was 15 pesos (at a 14:1 conversion rate that’s about a dollar a beer), and the tacos are 70 pesos apiece. That amounted to a family entertainment cost of about $20 for a family of 4 if everyone has a couple of drinks and three tacos. How does that compare with taking the family to a movie or to a minor league ball game in the states?

Sunday night we had dinner with Jim and Susan of “Windward Passage,” a great chicken/broccoli casserole followed by Sheilagh’s pressure-cooker, lemon cheesecake. Sheilagh uses the pressure cooker quite a bit in order to consume less propane and speed up the cooking process. Afterwards we learned how to play a dice game, called “Farkle,” and a card game, called “Ninety-nine” from Jim and Susan. Nothing like improving our knowledge of competitive games that require no exercise! Now we just have to find some dice at one of the stores in Mexico.

Monday we gave Jim and Susan a ride into the beach in our dinghy because they had problems with their pull rope mechanism on their outboard. We later met them at the local gathering place, the Oasis Beach Club, for a drink before taking them back to their boat. It turns out that they had to leave the mechanism in town with the mechanic to be picked up the following day; so we made the next day a shopping trip into Santiago. We discovered the local “Mercado,” which is a conglomeration of shops of various types under the same roof, where one can get hardware items right next to the fish market (not my favorite place in terms of odor), and vegetables right next to shoes and clothing. While shopping we stopped at a local palapa and had tacos and tortas for about $6 per couple including beer.

Later we met at a crossroads, known as “Hollywood and Vine,” where cruisers are known to meet. The meeting place is a wide sidewalk outside a package store with dozens of plastic chairs in stacks for the use of customers. You buy your beer or soda inside, grab a chair off the stack, and place it in a circle with other cruisers to drink and converse. As we were sitting there we ran into new cruisers (to us), Fred and Cathy of “Sonrisa,” introduced by Jim and Susan, who had met them at an earlier anchorage. They were traveling by bus from Melaque down to Santiago (about 20 miles away) to pick up a sim card for a telephone that was available in Santiago as the closest location. In the normal working environment in the U.S. a multi-hour bus trip to pick up a phone card would not have been economically feasible, but here we have the time to make any trip an adventure.

My dragon piece for Mexican Train dominoes - story below

Tuesday night we had Jim and Susan over for deep-dish pizza and margaritas. Afterwards they taught us how to play cribbage – well, they taught me because “nothing happened” when Sheilagh tried to focus on the rules. The end of a full day is not a good time to try to learn something new, I guess. So we decided to play Mexican Train dominoes and got trounced by them. I was even using a new dragon playing piece that was supposed to bring me luck, and that didn’t happen. I decided I needed to let my dragon become an observer for a couple of games before having it participate.

Washday on Aurora

Wednesday was to be the day when Sheilagh would try a new ammonia treatment on white items to get the yellowish stain out of the necks caused by sunscreen/perspiration. We had heard of cruisers soaking their whites in Oxyclean for three days straight, while ammonia was supposed to be a two-hour soak. Sheilagh decided she liked two hours rather than three days; so she dutifully followed the directions from other cruisers for using the ammonia. After soaking, washing, wringing them out in a hand-driven ringer, and hanging the items on the line to dry, she found no improvement at the end of the day. Needless to say, Sheilagh was not a “happy camper,” which caused me to contemplate slipping off the boat until she had settled down. Instead I made her a rum and coke to help her come to grips with her perceived washday “failure,” and that seemed to work. The upshot is that I am no longer allowed to wear white T-shirts and Sheilagh’s new washday miracle cleaning solution for these kinds of stains will be a blowtorch, she says.

During the week I’ve made several kayaking expeditions to the mouth of the river to try more surfing. When the tide is in, I’m able to paddle up the river hugging the sides, allowing for a casual return down river in the current as it works against a stronger tide. However, the waves are very low coming into the river; so there is very little surfing. At low tide I can’t get very far up the river, but the current and waves both are much stronger. So I now know to plan my kayaking for low tide, which is late in the afternoon at this point in the lunar cycle.

Wednesday night we entertained John and Cathy of “Batu,” who had come into the bay on the previous day. When we left them in the Barra lagoon, they had whipped me so bad at Mexican Train that I was still licking my wounds a week later. I knew not to use my new dragon until it had some more experience under its scales; so I allowed it to watch all night. Luckily my standard game piece stood me in good stead as I trounced everyone and recaptured my self esteem. Now if I can just get my dragon to understand its role, using its fire breath, I will be unbeatable.

This is actually a sunrise that I couldn't get Sheilagh out of bed to see

Thursday and Friday we did a lot of resting and I spent more time surfing the mouth of the river. You might wonder how we can be resting all the time. I figure that I have about 50 years of catching up with missed sleep as a result of 1) studying for tests and writing papers in high school and college, 2) getting up at zero-dark-thirty for all-day Navy flights, 3) working late at night for various companies to insure "critical" things got done, 4) flying on red-eye flights and preparing for early morning presentations when I got there, 5) staying up with sick kids who needed to be walked in the middle of the night (while Sheilagh got some rest), 6) waking to calls in the middle of the night from daughters with problems of various sorts, and 7) well, be aware that I could go on. As a matter of fact I need to rest up from writing this blog.

More later . . .

January 23rd (2009) – Bahia Santiago – Jim’s Blog #76

2009-01-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Bahia Santiago – Lat: 19°10.32’ N / Long: 104°42.45’ W

For the past week we have led a very boring life down here in paradise. We both got absorbed in reading and laying around doing nothing; so we have nothing to show for our non-labor. We skipped a cruisers’ pig roast put on by a businessman/mechanic who wants the cruiser business in Barra de Navidad. We just didn’t feel like putting out the energy to meet and greet dozens of people whose names we would forget until we met them one-on-one in an anchorage somewhere. So we slipped into town to a restaurant (Los Arcos) with some outdoor seating and internet service. As Sheilagh called our daughters on Skype ($.02 a minute through the computer), I caught up on the news and politics we hadn’t been up on for awhile.

It turns out that Sirius radio only advertises to cover the continental United States, and in reality we found that it doesn’t extend south much beyond Puerto Vallarta. So we don’t have much in the way of real news unless we are on the internet. As we sat there on the sidewalk we were entertained by several young children putting on a show with their skateboards for us. They were skilled, particularly with the new style that has the skateboard split into a front and back with the ability to move each separately. After awhile some older kids, noticing the audience we provided, came up and commandeered the two skateboards and did their own showing off for us. I guess every kid wants to be noticed for something.

A fishing shack in the Barra lagoon next to a fish farm

On Sunday we did more lazing around, planning to visit John and Kathy on “Batu” for some Mexican Train later that evening; so I could earn back some respect for the drubbing I suffered earlier in the week. A strong wind sprang up in the afternoon and continued until about 8:30 that night. In strong winds we’re not eager to leave the boat 1) in case the boat starts to drag the anchor and 2) because the trip in a dinghy from boat to boat can get very wet. We therefore cancelled with “Batu” and watched a movie that we had traded from them for one of ours. In fact we traded a number of movies with “Batu” and had looked forward seeing some of them.

We elected to head south on Monday morning to Bahia Santiago, which is about 20 miles southeast of Barra de Navidad. It is about a 4-hour journey and it provides access to two beautiful beaches that many visitors come to visit in the winter. We anchored off Miramar Beach and can look across at Santiago Beach. Bahia Manzanillo is the next bay to the southeast, which has the Las Hadas Hotel, where the beach scenes for the movie “10” were filmed. We visited Las Hadas last year and didn’t see a single gorgeous blonde female with corn-rowed hair running in slow motion down the beach. The resort looked like a dowager who had lost her bloom and we had no desire to return there this year. It also has a crowded anchorage, which doesn’t appeal to us.

That bay also has the large port of Manzanillo, where numerous freighters stop to drop off or pick up freight. On that side of the bay, in sight of our anchorage, we can see three large smokestacks that spew smoke and ash day and night. The prevailing winds keep the smoke at a distance, but the particles cause some cloud development that often obscures the sky in the southwest direction. Nothing like relaxing on a beautiful beach and looking across the bay to large smokestacks obliterating the sky! It points out that the third world needs its industry to build an economy as much as it needs tourist dollars. Until a country has its basic needs met, it certainly won’t be saving the quality of the air.

The nearest beach in Santiago Bay and a close up of the Oasis Beach Club with two drinks for the price of one during the 5-6PM Happy Hour

We are enjoying the beaches here in Santiago Bay. Yesterday we noticed a line of floats in the water as we dinghied into the beach. We avoided running into them and then noticed two groups of men pulling on two lines attached to each end of the floats, with a net hanging below. It took them a long time to bring in the net, hooking themselves into the line and walking backwards about one step for every wave that broke on shore. After they had backed up a ways, they would run forward and tie themselves into the lines again and continue pulling them in.

By this time a crowd was gathering on the beach and we all watched as two posts were pulled in attached to the top and bottom of the net on both sides. We later noticed rocks in the bottom of the net to keep it on the bottom; so the fish couldn’t escape. After about an hour of work they brought in a fairly large net full of fish, all of which were squirming to get away. At the same time pelicans, frigate birds, and other types were swooping down to grab a fish only to find that the net covered them up. While most of the birds stayed airborne, the pelicans landed on the sand and followed the net up the beach, constantly pecking at the net. They knew they would be rewarded with the remnants when the fish were finally cleaned.

We then walked up the beach to the main road and grabbed a bus that had a number of stores marked on its window as destinations, including Soriana, Wal-Mart, and Comercial. For 5 pesos apiece ($.40) we rode the bus to Wal-Mart and stopped at a Starbucks across the street. There the internet was free; so Sheilagh caught up on the mail while I walked five blocks to Soriana to find a barber. Later we did some shopping at Wal-Mart for some supplies and caught a bus back to Santiago. The driver of this bus must have been late for something, because he slowed down only to pick up passengers or drop them off. Regardless of the potholes he rushed along at way over the posted speed, timing the lights just right and swerving to other lanes to jump in front of vehicles who hadn’t accelerated appropriately. Sheilagh likened it to Toad’s Wild Ride from Wind in the Willows as interpreted by Walt Disney in the ride of the same name. I just called it “my kind of driving.”

On our way back down the beach we were hailed by some new cruisers who had come into the bay and were situated at the Oasis Hotel and Restaurant enjoying happy hour. We joined Roger and Di of “Di’s Dream,” Steve and Gary of “Sea Biscuit,” and Chuck and Judy of “Finale” for a couple of margaritas and felt no pain as we dinghied back to the boat as the sun was setting.

That night I finished one of the two books I want to recommend to you now. Normally we read a lot of light novels, mysteries, and spy stories, although we try to include some non-fiction, history and biographies, too. I just finished two very good books by anyone’s standards, I believe. The first is called Ship of Ghosts (by James D. Hornfischer) and is a history of the heavy cruiser USS Houston that was defeated by an armada of Japanese ships in the early days of World War II off the island of Java. The capture of the crewmen and their mistreatment by the Japanese in the jungles of Burma is the true story of the “Bridge on the River Kwai,” which movie doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. I found this book fascinating, but I must warn you that I was in the Navy; so it may have more interest for me than for most.

The other book I recommend is Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. This is a true story of Greg’s effort to build schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan with an emphasis on educating girls, not just boys. The story is remarkable and moving, and may change your thinking about how to deal with Islamic fundamentalism.

The sunset at Bahia Santiago - it never hurts to include a sunset - and the evening is warm

This evening I stole off in my kayak to the entrance of a river emptying into the bay and had a great time riding the waves into the mouth of the river and then riding the current back out – saves a lot of paddling. Apparently the water coming out of the river continues to fill the incoming wave with water; so it doesn’t break into a foamy curl. It just keeps a nice glide slope that allows my kayak to stay on a downward trajectory without causing it to turn into the wave. Now all I have to do is find a river wherever I go if I want to surf with my kayak.

More later . . .

January 16th (2009) – Barra de Navidad – Jim’s Blog #75

2009-01-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Barra de Navidad – Lat: 19°11.42’ N / Long: 104°40.45’ W

Don't miss our previous blog from last week - we've just published both today because we've been away from the internet for a couple of weeks.

We left Chamela at about 9AM with the wind very light, but eventually slightly right of our nose; so we ended up motoring the whole way to Tenacatita with a very little help from the sails. Nevertheless it was a special sail for me as I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of being entirely self-sufficient on my own craft with two separate means of propulsion and the engine making ice at the same time as it charged up our batteries. We also made about 40 gallons of fresh water from the sea during our 6 hours of motor/sailing. We made use of the single-sideband radio to collect our internet messages from the atmosphere. The autopilot (which was inoperative at this time last year) was doing all our steering for us. All we had to do was keep a lookout for other boats every few minutes as we relaxed with books in the cockpit. It was a thoroughly enjoyable trip, even if we only covered 30+ miles in the 6 hours.

Our first night at Tenacatita showing our boat on the right - courtesy of Cornelia Gould

We arrived at Tenacatita (Lat: 19°18.20’ N / Long: 104°50.00’ W) to find a number of old friends already anchored, but the number of boats in the anchorage was about half of what it was last year. We also learned that this year’s Baja Ha Ha turned out to have the lowest actual turnout in several years. We had done the Ha Ha last year with about 160 boats coming from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, and this year’s only had 136 boats. Apparently the economy is affecting the number of cruisers. In fact several cruisers we have talked to have decided to go back to work to replenish the cruising kitty that was impacted by the meltdown of the economy during the past year.

When we arrived, we immediately joined the group for Mexican Train under the shade of the local palapa on shore. These usually begin at 2PM, but the start time was put off to accommodate us and some other cruisers who had just arrived from the other direction than we had come. The Mexican Train game seems to be a reason for drinking beer, catching up with the other cruisers’ recent histories and ongoing plans, and trading gossip about those who aren’t there.

One of the discussion items was the dragging that some boats did last year while anchored in the lagoon at Barra de Navidad (our next anchorage), when the wind sprang up in the afternoon. We learned that one of the boats that was consistently anchored incorrectly, causing it to drag on the bottom, had been put up for sale and the owner wouldn’t be returning. This was a relief to everyone there, since those boats that had dragged their anchors had run into some of the other boats in the process.

Sunday we had invitations from two sets of our cruising friends – appetizers and drinks from John and Kathy of “Batu,” and dinner from Ed and Cornelia of “A Cappella.” We squeezed in both events and caught up with a lot of recent history. We were joined at dinner by Roger and Diane of “Di’s Dream, whom we had met in Paradise Village. Roger and Di are both going back to work this summer selling Catalina yachts with their previous company. They had actually planned on working awhile longer, but wanted to enjoy their boat while they were still young enough that the fun was worth the work involved.

Before the invitations I swam around the anchored fleet with my kayak tied to my waist to insure that pangas saw me. It was good exercise for 45 minutes, which is what it takes me to do a mile in the water. By swimming around the outside of the fleet I am always close to a boat, if I have some sort of trouble – such as attacking whales, crocodiles, or sharks – no, the whales aren’t known to attack and I’ve seen no sharks or crocodiles in the vicinity of the Tenacatita anchorage. I also have the kayak to use if I get tired, and I usually carry a water bottle on the kayak. I have to finally admit that I’m getting to the age where I have to take precautions to insure my continued survival – precautions I wouldn’t have dreamed of 10 years ago. Oh well, it beats the alternative!

On Monday we had another round of Mexican Train, where I had the most incredible luck of my life, winning six of eight rounds and accumulating 26 points total against several hundred for everyone else (the fewer points, the better). Needless to say I was not the most popular person at my table, and I doubt that certain individuals will ever play with me again – although I was careful not to rub it in. Two nights later Sheilagh and I played with John and Kathy of “Batu,” and I was stuck with over 600 points, a couple of hundred over anyone else. So I am now properly humbled and not interested in playing the game for a few more days.

John and Kathy of "Batu" starting the jungle ride

Tuesday we took the “jungle ride” from the anchorage up a river to the town of Tenacatita. This is a winding stream that is wide at the start but quickly changes to a channel about 10’ wide with mangroves crowding the way and arching overhead. We saw very little wildlife at 9AM in the morning, but did glimpse a small two-foot crocodile sunning itself on the way back. We had some seven or eight other couples with us, each couple in their own dinghy. We separated ourselves from the group on the way back in order to take our time and see what wildlife we could. That’s when we sighted the crocodile, which everyone else missed. Here are a couple of shots.

Croc and Crab

Thursday we pulled up our anchor and motored about 13 miles around a point to Barra de Navidad, where we refueled and pulled into the lagoon for a few days. Barra is the closest thing to a real town around here, although it’s a conglomeration of little towns side by side, including Colimilla on one end and Melaque on the other. We dinghied over to Colimilla with a large bundle of laundry and picked up some supplies at Maria’s store. Maria has a small operation where she journeys to the Costco store at Guadalajara, buys at the retail prices there, and then marks things up a bit to sell to us cruisers. The unique aspect of Maria’s wares is that they include the things that cruisers want, not the normal stuff sold in the tiendas.

Maria has the Joy cleaner that can be used to wash oneself or one’s things in salt water (with a fresh water rinse, of course). She has a freezer full of good steaks, pork chops, bacon, and other meats not normally available. She sells soft drinks and beer by the case, whereas a lot of the tiendas tear down the cases and display the cans as individual items – a real hassle getting 24 individual items back to the boat. She has the harder cheeses that we gringos prefer and crackers that are difficult to find, such as Triscuits. She offers wheat bread in addition to the Bimbo white bread with all the food value removed. It’s a pleasure to have a retailer actually listen to the clientele and respond with what is requested.

On Thursday night we joined Ed and Cornelia of “A Cappella” and John and Kathy of “Batu” for barbecue ribs at the Sea Master Restaurant, where we caught our first glimpse of the “green flash” last spring. No “green flash” this time, since the clouds were thick to the west. The ribs at this restaurant are very tasty and not-to-be-missed whenever we pass through. We showed up just at happy hour and got two drinks for the price of one. After a careful explanation to the waiter in our best Spanish/English garble that we wanted one order of two drinks to split between each of the two of us, the waiter brought two drinks apiece. We resolutely made do with the situation.

The French Baker making his rounds in the lagoon

On Friday morning we heard a familiar refrain over the radio that the French Baker was in the lagoon and had wares to sell. The French Baker is unique to the Barra anchorage, because he not only has a store in town; he also has a boat and brings croissants and breads around in the morning to individual boats for about twice the price as in the store. Despite the price difference, it’s difficult to resist the temptation to have a fresh croissant breakfast delivered to your boat as you’re sitting in the cockpit enjoying a morning cup of coffee. I had the ham and cheese croissant, and Sheilagh had a cinnamon raisin croissant. We also bought a second set for Saturday morning and a loaf of French bread for our filet mignon steaks on Friday evening. This cruising is a tough life, but we make the best of it.

More later . . .

January 9th (2009) – Bahia Chamela – Jim’s Blog #74

2009-01-17T12:27:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Bahia Chamela – Lat: 19°33.55’ N / Long: 105°06.59’ W

We’ve been away from the internet for over a week, and did not have a chance to post this until now. We thought we would be in Tenacatita by now, which is one of our favorite anchorages. However, a series of delays has put us in a temporary anchorage just 30 nautical miles from Tenacatita after several days of sailing southeast along the coast of Mexico. We had planned to leave Banderas Bay on Sunday but were delayed two days to get some business done on our computers in a local internet café. We motored west on Monday evening to Punta de Mita to knock an hour off our run south to Cabo Corrientes. Corrientes is one of those points of land that causes disruption of the seas and winds around it; so we take great care to approach it in good weather.

Sunset at Punta de Mita

On Tuesday morning we listened to the weather report from Don Anderson, a former cruiser living in Oxnard, California, who does weather on the marine high frequency radio for us cruisers for the Sea of Cortez and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Since he cruised this area for years, he can interpret the major weather reports and translate them into the micro climate along the west coast of Mexico. In this case he predicted 25 knots of wind and rough seas around Cabo Corrientes on Tuesday and most of Wednesday, which is about 10 knots over what Sheilagh is comfortable with; so we cooled our heels in Punta de Mita for a day. There was another sailboat anchored with us, whose owners decided to wait as well. Don has been right so many times that it’s foolish to take chances against his advice.

On Wednesday morning Don continued to forecast strong winds all day, but he indicated the winds would be slacking off on Thursday. Since we had strong winds all night in accordance with Don’s prediction from the previous day, we decided to sit out another day. We hadn’t intended to be at Punta de Mita for more than a day; so we had left our dinghy covered and tied up on the front of the boat, and the motor on its perch at the back of the boat. Before deciding to put it all back together to go into the beach, I took out our inflatable kayak (which was also inflated on the front of the boat) to paddle inshore and check things out.

Punta de Mita is well known for its surfing waves, which allows very little opportunity for getting into shore and back out without a protected spot to do it. I paddled into a small protected anchorage surrounded by large boulders and found wall-to-wall pangas and no place to land a dinghy. I actually had to paddle swiftly to get out of the anchorage over the incoming swells that were crowding the mouth. I also went along the beach and found nowhere to land a dinghy and be able to get back out through the surf. However, I did get a good hour of paddling exercise and a lot of respect for the surf here and the surfers who challenge the waves.

How the lovely Sheilagh deals with delay

We stayed aboard and read books for two days, interrupted by a nap or two. In the evening we began watching some “Law and Order” DVDs that we had gotten from another cruiser in exchange for several seasons of “24” that we had finished. Our Sirius radio kept us up to date with the news – which wasn’t very reassuring. It’s difficult to believe that the inmates in the Washington DC asylum are going to help us get out of the mess that most of them helped get us into. I might become an ex-patriot to Mexico, if its government wasn’t worse than ours. Not really! A trip to any foreign country helps one appreciate what we have in the United States.

The little anchorage at Ipala

On Thursday we made it south from Punta de Mita to Ipala (Lat: 20°14.17’N / Long: 105°34.36’W), a small anchorage 40 miles south along the coast. We were the only cruiser in the anchorage, which has been reduced to a very small area by dozens of pangas, and a multitude of floating Clorox bottles, Coke bottles, and other homemade buoys designating fish traps strewn throughout the bay. Ipala has a small hotel and a couple of restaurants, which may account for why the pangas aren’t pulled up on the beach as in every other fishing village. Instead they all take up moorings in front of the hotel. It’s not something to complain about, since the country is theirs, but it certainly discourages cruisers from anchoring and spending money ashore for dinner and supplies.

And on Friday we came south another 45 miles to Chamela, where we just anchored. The winds were supposed to be no more than 10 knots from the northwest (directly behind us), but by noon we had 10 knots of wind almost in our face from the south. We were able to beat against the wind for the rest of the day while using our engine to keep up our speed. We had allowed 9 hours for the trip at 5 knots an hour, but realized with the aberrant wind that we needed the help of the “iron genny” to get us here by daylight. The wind blows from the northwest approximately 80% of the time at this season. It was just our bad luck to encounter the 20% wind factor on this trip.

It was warm when we arrived; so we stripped down to bathing suits to cool off with our “anchoring beer” – the one we reward ourselves with just after anchoring. After that ritual I grabbed my fins, mask, and snorkel, but couldn’t convince Sheilagh to join me in checking out the fish along the edges of the anchorage. I got a good swim as well as a look at the exotic-looking fish that inhabit this warm water. If I had taken my fishing spear with me, I know I could have gotten dinner for us, but neither Sheilagh nor I have any interest in cleaning the darn things. It doesn’t help that the fish which are easiest to catch are also the toughest to cut into.

One of my favorite perches for observing wildlife

Tomorrow we head for Tenacatita, where we will relax for awhile and enjoy the company of several other cruisers who make that a primary destination during the winter season. Tenacatita is only about 30 miles south; so we are looking for an easy 6-hour day of sailing/motoring. We saw very little marine life on this trip so far – a couple of whales breaching a long way off, one manta ray that disappeared after showing us its white underbelly, and a tortoise that dived as we approached. The birds, on the other hand, were plentiful, particularly near the fishing pangas, where they benefit from the immediate cleaning of the fish by the fishermen. We encountered several squadrons of pelicans flying just inches over the water in a “V” formation just past our boat. One of these days we’ll grab the camera in time to get a film clip of a pelican flyby.

The pelicans are using what we call “ground effect” in aviation that comes into play when we are landing a plane. It turns out that the aircraft’s drag is reduced when it is within one wing-length distance from the surface of the runway. In other words, if a wing is 25’ long (the length of one wing of a typical sailplane), there is reduced drag on the airplane when it is within 25’ of the surface, which causes the aircraft to glide much further before touching down. This helps us do softer landings, in a sense cushioned by the air itself compressed below us. As I observe pelicans flying above the water, I notice that they descend to the point of almost touching their breasts and wingtips to the water as they use the “ground effect” to glide for very long distances, ascend slightly to flap their wings a bit, and then drop back down to the surface to continue their long glides.

We glider pilots would give a right arm to be able to fly like that over long distances, except that we would need instantaneous power in short spurts that we could depend on, an ability to land on the water safely and take off again as desired, and we would need to fly so slowly that the touching of the wing tip accidentally in the water would not cause an immediate swivel to one side. I don’t think we are even close to developing a sailplane with those characteristics.

I’ve also observed a lot of high-flying frigate birds which seem to consistently find lift over the water, never having to flap their wings. We sailplane pilots are told to avoid flying over bodies of water because the air is typically creating a downdraft to displace the rising air over warmer land masses. I have determined (after considerable study of these birds as I lie on my back on the deck of the boat) that the slow speed of the frigate birds, as well as their innate ability to discover lifting air, allows them to find and circle in very narrow thermals that we sailplane pilots could not begin to find within the area of descending air, and which we couldn’t begin to circle in with our faster speeds. You may be able to tell that my bird observations are giving me a desire to get back to soaring when we start spending time in San Diego during the summers. Sorry if I’ve bored some of you, but others of you may want to take a sailplane ride sometime to get a thrill.

More later . . .

January 2nd (2009) – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Jim’s Blog #73

2009-01-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

Current Location – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Lat: 20°44.83’ N / Long: 105°22.38’ W

A sunset while we are underway

Happy New Year to everyone who reads this blog! We spent the evening with several cruising friends, enjoying chili (on the dock) next to “Serendipity,” Alan and Rosie’s boat docked next to ours in Paradise Village. Joining us were Bill and Colleen of “Captain George Thomas,” Ralph and Helen of “Moon Wanderer,” Hank and Betsy (with daughter Jennifer) of “Equinox,” David and Betty Lou of “Decade Dance,” and Diane and Les of “Gemini.” After the chili we grabbed some bottles of champagne and light jackets, and walked to the beach side of the resort to watch the fireworks.

At midnight we got to enjoy fireworks from around the bay – from Punta de Mita (20 miles away to the northwest), from La Cruz and Bucerias (5-10 miles away to the north), overhead at Paradise Village, close at hand from other local hotels, and downtown at Puerto Vallarta (about 8 miles to the south). Since midnight is well past the time for cruisers to be in bed, it took a valiant effort to stay up past 9PM, but we gutted it out, consumed our share of champagne, and made it back to the boat by 1AM.

Earlier in the week we took a walk to look at some of the larger yachts at the larger docks. There was one large schooner, named “Selym,” which was about 100’ in length and had beautifully-maintained wood trim all around. The boat absolutely glistened in the setting sun and the marina lights. As we inspected it carefully, a young woman came to the side of the boat and invited us aboard. It turned out that Jessica, the woman who invited us aboard, and her husband, Steve, were caretakers of the boat and had been doing so for some 13 years. They sail the boat to various places around the world where the Portuguese owner joins them, bringing a retinue of family and friends.

Sheilagh in our engine room with little room to work

It has four main cabins, each with two single beds and its own bathroom with a toilet and a bidet, not to mention bookcases, night stands with lamps fastened down, and a closet. The engine room is so large one can walk around in it and have access to all the equipment – a far cry from our situation, where Sheilagh is usually chosen to perform “boat yoga” to get to a particular part of the engine, the water-maker, the inverter, the battery charger, or any of the wiring that supports all those pieces of equipment. The crew’s quarters in the front were quite a bit smaller with shared bathroom facilities. The boat was designed so the owner and his guests never have to be exposed to the crew’s quarters, the engine room, or the kitchen. Naturally the kitchen has institution-sized appliances and plenty of room to work in.

At first glance it seems as if this would definitely be the good life, but it’s not something someone could do and raise children at the same time. They also mentioned that the wood trim takes constant attention – causing them to start the sanding and varnishing process all over again as soon as they have completed all the trim on the boat. They mention having gone “around the horn” and having had to completely redo the wood trim, since the damage by wind and waves made an 18-day trip look like a 6-month voyage. They also said that they have taken the boat north to Alaska and found it not only cold, but difficult to find the right temperature to do varnishing on the boat. Imagine having your life tied to the maintenance of wood trim on a boat! Thankfully almost all of Aurora’s woodwork is on the inside of the boat and is oiled rather than varnished; so we have very little varnishing to do.

On the 1st of January we sailed out of the Paradise Village Marina and back to La Cruz to prepare the boat for going south. We had a leisurely sail to the La Cruz anchorage and found ourselves one of about 40 boats there. On the way over we saw a cluster of boats surrounding a very large whale, which was slapping its tail repeatedly on the water before finally submerging. This is prime whale-watching season in Banderas Bay, and there don’t seem to be any rules about not hassling the whales as there are in the U.S. There a motor vessel cannot get within 100 yards of a whale and is not supposed to turn towards it. Here, a sighting immediately causes wakes to appear behind all the motor boats as they try to get as close as possible for the benefit of the tourists. Thinking of that tail smacking down on the water repeatedly gives me second thoughts about approaching a whale too closely. We want to keep our boat in one piece.

The main reason for the move to the La Cruz anchorage was to clean the bottom of the boat and the propeller after a month of no sailing or motoring activity. We’re very glad we did because the barnacles were thick all over the bottom of the boat. It’s amazing that the propeller could move us at all, as there were barnacles on both faces of all three propeller blades. As I scraped the bottom, sending hundreds of barnacles to the depths, a school of medium-sized yellow-fin tuna circled below me enjoying a feast. If we still had our Mexican fishing licenses and any desire to slaughter fish, we would have had no trouble doing so.

As I was taking my nap today I flashed back on the innumerable naps I took while laboring in the business world. I am one of those individuals who needs a 20-minute nap to be sharp for the afternoon; so I made it a practice to have a half-hour lunch with my co-workers, and then steal away “on personal business” in my car for a nap during the second half hour. I would find the same shady parking spots as others of my kind – usually library, church, or empty office parking lots – lean the car seat back, and nap for 20 minutes. If I didn’t have that kind of “power nap” I would be foggy in the brain all afternoon, reading the same words over and over and writing notes that I couldn’t read later.

Since I traveled a lot, spending several months at a client site, I used to take the rental car out and find a new spot or two for napping during the duration of the project. I now have favorite spots in Toledo, Ohio, Los Angeles, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and many more locales throughout the U.S. where I could take a nap in my car in relative peace and quiet and shade. The most difficult times for me were with those clients where I had to forgo the rental car, or park the car in a valet lot downtown where I couldn’t get to the car at noon. So in San Francisco and Seattle I found shady benches where I could doze sitting up, with one arm on an arm rest and my head on that hand. That was also a favorite way to wait for airplanes in air terminals, although I once missed a connection in Dallas by sleeping through all the calls for boarding.

So here I am in a country that considers siestas an essential part of each day, with most businesses and schools closed between 1 and 3PM. Now I can take a nap without having to hide it, and that is one of the true pleasures of this retirement lifestyle for me. However, I remember as a boy watching my dad waste Saturday and Sunday afternoons napping, when he could have been enjoying the day as we kids did. So much for changing value systems!

This next week we will be heading south to Ipala, Chamela, Tenacatita, and Barra de Navidad, and we’ll update you on our progress. More later . . .

December 26th (2008) – Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta – Jim’s Blog #72

2008-12-30T11:57:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Nuevo Vallarta – Lat: 20°41.49’ N / Long: 105°17.59’ W

Here it is the day after Christmas, and we are enjoying the 80° weather outside and the 78° temperature of the water in the pool. We’ve been listening to the news of the snowstorms in Canada and the northern part of the U.S., and feeling a little guilty about our own good fortune. The ABC cable channel being shown here is from Buffalo, New York, and every evening we seem to be watching snowplows clearing the streets and listening to talk of schools being closed. You can bet we’re thankful for the opportunity to avoid the cold weather we see there. At worst we have to pull a light blanket over ourselves in the wee hours of the morning to stay warm – and that’s with all the ports and hatches open.

While Sheilagh was gone, I took the opportunity to start getting in shape before making New Year’s resolutions in that regard. I started walking about 4 miles a day on the beach every other day, and alternating that with longer and longer swims in the lap pool. At the present time I’ve worked up to a mile in the water, which is 64 lengths of the pool and a LOT of time in the swimming lane. My stroke starts out pretty well, but gets very ragged by the end. Then I pull myself out of the pool, stumble over to the lounge chair, and get my strength back with a coke and a Snickers bar – seems like a good training regimen to me!

Sheilagh got back to Puerto Vallarta on Monday evening, after waiting more than an hour for the flight to take off. That was the day it was snowing in both Victoria, British Columbia, and in Seattle – something that occurs only every 20 years or so. Her airplane was waiting in San Francisco for flights to come in from the north to connect to her flight to Mexico. In fact the majority of tourists here seem to be from Canada. While US. Citizens can travel south in the United States to get warmer, Canadians seem to grab flights to Mexico – not only for warmth but also to take advantage of the strength of the Canadian dollar against the Mexican peso.

When Sheilagh got back, the full import of her mother’s death finally hit her, and we’ve been keeping a bit of a low profile during this holiday season. However, we did attend a couple of local functions to try to get into the spirit of the season. We attended a dinner and jazz night at the Vallarta Yacht Club, only to find that the jazz was neither Blues nor Dixieland, but that kind of off-the-cuff-rambling which only true jazz cognoscente can appreciate. It hardly needs to be said that we are not of that class of connoisseur.

We also attended the 60th birthday party of Alan (from “Serendipity”) put on by his wife, Rosie, at the Britannia Pub in La Cruz. Since they are British, they felt the party should take place in a British pub. In this case it was “open mike” night, and the bands were quite a bit better than the jazz band we had heard earlier in the week. Another cruising couple, Bill and Colleen (of the sailing vessel “Captain George Thomas”) gave us a ride over and back in their car; so we didn’t have to negotiate two buses going over and a cab ride back. It was an enjoyable evening, particularly when Alan danced in a pair of Wellington sailing boots and a black top hat, along with Rosie in a gorgeous red dress, with steps out of an Irish jig or a sailor’s hornpipe.

As usual we forgot our camera; so we have no pictures of these events. We are enclosing a picture of our boat with its Shade Tree covers, to show how we are handling the warm weather. You’ll notice we have the dinghy hoisted up on the side of the boat to keep the bottom out of the water when we’re not using it. We left the dinghy in the water for about a week, and it took an hour to scrape the tiny barnacles and green algae off the bottom. In an anchorage we hoist the dinghy up to discourage would-be dinghy/outboard “borrowers.” We’ve had no trouble yet, but it always pays to be careful. To steal our dinghy someone would have to climb up on our boat, cut the halyard, find a key, and then eventually get a cable cutter to separate the outboard engine and gas tank from the dinghy itself. All we have to do is make it a bit more difficult to steal our dinghy than someone else’s dinghy, and so far it’s worked.

Speaking of the dinghy reminds me that we took it up the inlets that thread the area following the path of the jungle cruises that go by us every day loaded with tourists. We were interested in seeing what kind of wildlife exists this close to civilization, and frankly there are warnings everywhere in the estuary to beware of "cocodrillos" (crocodiles), and we thought we might get a look at one. Sheilagh was not so sure she wanted to see one, because she has no confidence in the ability of our hypalon dinghy to withstand the bite of a crocodile, nor of her ability to swim to shore faster than I could to escape. However, all we saw was the iguana pictured above, and we have seen many of those in the past year.

We spent a completely relaxed Christmas Day watching old movies, communicating with our children and grandchildren through Skype on the computer, and eating excellent prime rib with apple pie that Sheilagh made. Today we just saw “West Side Story” and are now in the middle of “The Wolf Man” with Lon Chaney. I’m not sure what any of these have to do with Christmas, but they are a great way to avoid work and lay around writing a blog.

More later . . .

December 19th (2008) – Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta – Jim’s Blog #71

2008-12-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Nuevo Vallarta – Lat: 20°41.49’ N / Long: 105°17.59’ W

[Be sure to check the newly updated pictures in the December 12th blog]

Today Sheilagh is up in San Jose for a memorial service for her mother, Kitty. All of our children are flying in to pay their respects, and they will get a chance to meet most of Sheilagh’s immediate family. Without realizing it, Kitty has brought the immediate family together this Christmas, allowing cousins to see one another who have not seen each other for years.

I’m staying here to keep an eye on the boat and to avoid the high cost of air travel, particularly when there is no bereavement allowance for sudden travel from the airlines serving Puerto Vallarta. I guess they don’t feel that folks who can vacation in Puerto Vallarta would need the advantage of emergency prices equivalent to those charged for plans made several weeks in advance.

I’ve been keeping busy learning to cook, doing laundry, waxing the boat, and raising the Shade Tree tent-like structure over the boat to keep it cooler inside. Every day I’ve been visiting the lap pool to get in some exercise and to relax with my IPod and a book. So far I’m up to two-thirds of a mile, although the last few laps are looking pretty ragged. Afterwards I read and listen to music for about half an hour before dozing off for an afternoon nap. It’s a tough way to spend time, but I’m dedicating myself to it.

A view up the mast, a closeup showing it was really me at the top, and a view looking down from the top of the mast

I also made it to the top of the mast a couple of times to install a new wind indicator and to refurbish the anemometer. I’m including some pictures looking down to show what it looks like from up there. We used the windless (anchor chain motor) to help lift me up; so we didn’t have to use any muscles to get me up there. We use an REI climbing harness connected to two separate halyards, using one as a backup in case the other fails.

This week I accompanied Alan and Rosie of “Serendipity” to the Britannia Pub in La Cruz to check it out for Alan’s birthday next Tuesday. Alan and Rosie have a Jaguar, which was so much better than a bus to get around, although the large speed bumps here in Mexico make it difficult for the Jag to get over without scraping. There are no “low riders” in Mexico, or they would get nowhere. There was an “open mike” night there and several made-up bands performed for the group. I believe there is an “open mike” night for volunteer musicians nearly every night of the week at one bar or another. There are a large number of cruisers with musical skills and musical instruments, who find places and times to get together, whether on a boat, in a pub, or on the beach.

I also accompanied Ed and Cornelia (of “A Cappella”) and Hank and Betsy (of “Equinox”) to a local symphony and choir presentation in Puerto Vallarta. Most of the musicians and choir members were gringos who spend their winters here, with a smattering of locals. I would think that most of the local musicians are more interested in making money with their music, than to commit the time to a volunteer symphony orchestra that plays music completely foreign to the local genres. To my unprofessional ears the instrumental music sounded very good, and the choir flashed me back to my own choir days.

As a freshman in high school I had the dubious honor (for a guy) of having the highest soprano voice in the boys’ choir, although it certainly was not of a quality that rated any solo performances. I elected to let my voice change, rather than have the surgery to keep it a soprano (as I hear has been done in the Vatican boys’/men’s choir). By the time I was a junior in high school my voice was in a bass register for the high school glee club. In between those two years I tried not to speak too often in order to avoid the embarrassment of having my voice suddenly change octaves without warning.

All of this thought process was prompted by simply watching the local choir perform Christmas songs. It also reminded me that I tried for years to get my daughters to join a choir in high school, since all have very good voices and good ears for the right pitch. However, my urging fell on deaf ears because “the cool kids aren’t in the choir.” Nothing like being told by your daughters that you must not have been cool in high school! And to think of the money we might have made with an all-girl band, except that none of them is too keen on playing musical instruments – the band was not “cool” either.

Last week I responded to a blood drive request for a local blood bank. Apparently there is very little blood on hand because the Mexican community doesn’t need to store it up. If a Mexican needs blood, the call goes out to his/her family and friends and there is suddenly plenty of blood available. In this case I believe the blood bank is trying to emulate the U.S. so as to have blood on hand for those without large families to draw on – like gringos. Most of the evaluation procedures were similar to those in the U.S. except that they required no I.D. from me and never did ask my blood type. The interrogation questions were very few, and the interviewer had to have me read them from the questionnaire, since her English was very poor.

After my blood was drawn, I was given free coupons for a breakfast from a local restaurant, a Bloody Mary from the Vallarta Yacht Club (to be used the following day to deter the intake of alcohol directly after donating), and a T-shirt. All the T-shirts were mediums, which may suit the body sizes of the locals, but didn’t begin to fit most of us overweight gringos. Interestingly enough the Mexican rules for blood donations forbid any alcohol for 48 hours prior and require that we be younger than 65. You can imagine that those two conditions seriously impacted the number of donors – most of whom are either retired or can’t remember what they may have imbibed within the past 48 hours. I learned later that there were perhaps 9 total donors in the three hours that the clinic was open.

Not much more to write for the moment. By next week Sheilagh will have returned and perhaps I can get her to write something for the first time this season. More later . . .

December 12th (2008) – Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta – Jim’s Blog #70

2008-12-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Nuevo Vallarta – Lat: 20°41.49’ N / Long: 105°17.59’ W

Sad to say, Sheilagh’s mother, Kitty Dwan, died this morning (Friday, December 12th) and Sheilagh has gone up to Sebastopol to be there with her family. Kitty was 96 years old, and she was very upbeat when we had a birthday luncheon with her along with her brother, Kevin, and his wife, Rebecca, in October. Kitty had a very bad stroke on Wednesday, with very little hope of recovery, so Sheilagh hopped a United Airlines flight to San Francisco on Thursday afternoon. Sadly Kitty never regained consciousness, as far as anyone could tell, and died in her sleep on Friday morning, before Sheilagh was able to arrive there. The immediate family will get together this week to remember her.

Meanwhile, I’m staying with the boat in Paradise Village and having to fend for myself as if I were a bachelor. It’s amazing how much stuff Sheilagh does around here, and it’s only been one day since she left. I hope I can last a week without her. I will definitely appreciate her contribution to our pursuit-of-happiness agenda in the future.

A young girl and boy in the roles of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Indian Juan Diego

Yesterday I accompanied our friends, Ed and Cornelia, to a procession of the faithful to the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe to commemorate the December 12th celebration of “"La Reina de México" (the Queen of Mexico). As we got to the church at 9:30 AM we found Mass going on while the streets were full of worshippers stretching some twelve blocks or more. They were waiting for Mass to be finished in order to enter the church to pay their respects. At 10 AM the doors were thrown open and the procession entered the church with worshippers carrying candles and flowers to present to the image of the Virgin. At the altar a couple of priests and other helpers were blessing the people and accepting the flowers and other gifts and placing them around the altars.

Some of the Mariachis in the procession

At the beginning everyone was singing a Mexican hymn as they entered, but soon it was overtaken by a loud song accompanied by a variety of instruments. As the music grew in volume some 200+ Mariachis entered in their charro outfits in ranks by musical instrument being played, starting with small high-pitched guitars, called vihuelas, then Mexican guitars, then guitarróns (small-scaled acoustic bass), followed by violins, and finally trumpets. Since each Mariachi group has its own unique outfit, and since each group was split up by the instrument played, there was no uniformity of look to the players other than a preponderance of black outfits, form-fitting trousers with silver chains down the outer seams, and a lack of the large sombreros they usually wear while performing (because they were entering the church). The mass of players were dotted with several tan and white outfits and colorful scarves everywhere. It turns out the Mariachi form and style of music emerged from the Mexican State of Jalisco, where Puerto Vallarta is located, so this was the real thing.

The Mariachis assembling on the main altar

The Mariachis installed themselves around the main altar and two side altars and continued to play for three or four additional numbers. It was a very moving experience to hear that many musicians – all male, incidentally – bringing their professional expertise to church to acknowledge their religious connection. The music resounded off the high ceiling and naves in the church while people continued to enter with flowers and other gifts in a continuing procession. I counted some 42 people passing one spot in one minute, which meant some 1200 worshippers in half an hour. Soon I heard another band outside, and suddenly the Mariachis started winding out of the church to make room for the next group.

The loud group with all the horns and drums

This group had about six large bass drums along with snare drums and brass. In this case it appeared that loudness was more important to them than the musical nature of the tune. They took up the places vacated by the Mariachis and the procession continued, while it felt as if the roof would come tumbling down with the sound. It seemed the parents with small boys in the procession had dressed them up as Juan Diego, the peasant Indian to whom the Virgin appeared (and who has been sainted by the church), including painted-on mustaches, small serapes, and equally small straw hats. The small girls were dressed up as peasant women generally, with a few girls dressed up to resemble the Virgin Mary. At the side doors to the church were several tableau pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe where parents could have their children photographed with the Virgin. One of these tableaus had one of those automated horses one finds in front of grocery stores; apparently so male children would be motivated to have their pictures taken.

The start of the multi-hour "Favoritos" procession

The crowd thinned out after about 45 minutes, and we thought the procession was finished. Stepping outside the doors of the church we found additional people lined up to start their procession at 11 AM. We learned that these were the “Favoritos,” those who had been “favored” by Our Lady of Guadalupe in the past year by having their prayers answered. This crowd was more numerous than the first group and kept coming and coming when 11 o’clock rolled around. We found a restaurant along the procession, had lunch, and finally walked to the start of the procession, and people were still progressing toward the church. At the start of the procession were flower vendors and candle merchants who supplied the faithful with the necessary items for the procession. The parents carried flowers and the kids preferred the burning candles. People were still lining up for the one-mile procession to the church as we left at about 2 PM.

One of the Aztec groups in the procession

One interesting phenomenon for me was the presence of three different sets of Aztec dancers, in one case made up of small boys and girls, and in the other two cases made up of small girls and then teenage girls. How the Aztecs figure into the worship of Our Lady of Guadalupe is beyond me. I did a little research and learned that the Aztecs were into human sacrifice in a big way, offering 20,000 men, women, and children annually to their gods. Further research revealed that Guadalupe is in Spain, not Mexico. One source suggests that the name came about because of a mistranslation from Nahuatl (the language spoken by the Virgin to Juan Diego) to Spanish. I quote: “It is believed that Our Lady used the Aztec Nahuatl word of coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "quatlasupe" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe. Coa meaning serpent, tla being the noun ending which can be interpreted as "the", while xopeuh means to crush or stamp out. So Our Lady must have called herself the one "who crushes the serpent." The serpent-god was Quetzalcoatl. Apparently the Aztec dancers symbolize the roots of the Mexican people and reference a religion that was demolished by the Virgin and her legions of Spanish missionaries.

I find it interesting that Sheilagh’s mom, Kitty, died on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Kitty was very religious her whole life, and it seems appropriate to me that she is now associated with Our Lady. If the truth be known, Sheilagh’s first name is Mary, in honor of Christ’s mother, and Sheilagh was born on December the 8th, which is the day that Catholics commemorate Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

My apologies if this blog carries too much of a religious connotation for you. Raised a Catholic myself, and having studied for the Priesthood for six years, I’m impressed with the simple faith of the people I’ve found in Mexico. There’s a trait we could all emulate. More later . . .

December 5th (2008) – Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta – Jim’s Blog #69

2008-12-08T11:10:00.001-08:00

Current Location – Nuevo Vallarta – Lat: 20°41.49’ N / Long: 105°17.59’ W

After my last blog Sheilagh and I loafed about in La Cruz for the weekend, not even venturing off our boat on Saturday. Actually I did get off the boat and into the water with my fins and snorkel gear to make sure there was no line still caught in our prop from the trip down from San Blas, and to check on the state of barnacle and plant growth on the bottom. There was no line tangled in the prop, and the bottom was amazingly clean for having been in the water for a month since our last cleaning. Maybe it was because the boat been moving pretty actively during this past month.

On Sunday we took a local bus to the neighboring town of Bucerias, the one I had kayaked to on Thursday, and wandered around town for awhile. The street vendors were out in force with things that every tourist should want – sling shots, very tiny bikinis (no, Sheilagh wasn’t interested) and other beach wear, jewelry of all sorts, serapes, blankets, table cloths, sombreros, sunglasses, etc. Since we didn’t need anything, we were a disappointment to the vendors generally. One vendor asked us how many blankets we wanted to buy (not “do you want to buy”), a closing tool I had employed in the past to sell software to large corporations – “How many users shall I sign you up for?” Others used very good English to try to get us involved in a conversation as “friends” before trying the hard sell.

We had lunch at a table overlooking the beach, and managed to catch a bus ride back sitting on the rear axle, since there was no other room in the bus. We had learned long ago to avoid that area of the buses down here because they usually have no suspension, causing the passengers to rise out of their seats at the numerous speed bumps in the road. We levitated several times on the way back, and not in a spiritual manner. We stopped at the local marina and yacht club at La Cruz to find it much improved over its condition last year, with a bar under the thatched-roof second story and a beautiful view of the northeastern part of the bay. We’re sorry to say that the margaritas were small and expensive; so we had just the one drink apiece and retired to the boat for our afternoon naps.

On Monday morning we were due to enter the marina at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta, where we are now. We got some fuel at the La Cruz fuel dock, which turned out to be a lot easier than getting fuel in the main Puerto Vallarta fuel dock, where formerly we had to wait our turn after the fishing boats, pangas, and wave-riders. La Cruz has put two lovely young ladies in charge of the fuel dock with attractive white uniforms – a great marketing ploy. It turns out that there are enough male hangers-on at the fuel dock that the young women don’t have to do much handling of the hoses themselves; so the white uniforms are kept spotless.

We motored over to the eastern side of the bay about five miles away and came through the channel at high tide, keeping just to the right of the dredger that has been operating every time we’ve been here. It was very relaxing to finally tie up to a dock after a week of anchoring out, and being able to sleep on a calm surface. We immediately sprayed off the salty deck with fresh water, and in this case did not reward ourselves with a beer, since we had expended very little effort in tying up.

Here is where I mention that for the price of a couple of nights in the local hotel, we have the run of the place for a month, along with fresh water, electricity, cable TV, showers, and swimming pools. On the first of January we plan to head south to some other ports of call, as we did last year, but for now we are just being tourists, although tourists with some task list items to accomplish before going south.

We have some work to do at the top of our mast to replace a wind indicator that a large bird bent beyond usefulness, and to fix our anemometer. Sheilagh and I have decided that it’s my turn to go up this time; so I’m delaying as long as possible. In fact I got a bad sore throat a couple of days ago and have been medicating with aspirin, rest, and the hot-water-honey-and-alcohol drink that has proven effective in the past.

So far we’ve been to the marine supply store twice, involving bus rides to and from and some walking in between to get to the correct bus station. Here there are some bus stations that only serve longer range buses, and some that serve more local ones. Even if a long-range bus is stopped in front of a “local” bus station for a red light, the drivers will not pick you up. Luckily there is usually someone at the bus stop who will explain which bus we should catch at that particular station.

We heard that we could get a 15% discount at the local marine supply store if we pay in cash (5%) and if we are members of the Vallarta Yacht Club (10%). We satisfied both conditions, but only received a 5% discount. When I approached the owner about this, he admitted he should be giving us a 15% discount, but the inflation of the peso in Mexico has stopped his practice at the present time. At the moment a U.S. dollar is worth 13 pesos, 30% higher than the 10 pesos it used to convert to. It’s hard to argue with a storekeeper who has to buy many of his products from the U.S.

Sheilagh and I have both spent some time lying around the pool, reading more and more books, and appreciating the warmth of the weather here compared to the weather anywhere else. Our ABC station being broadcast here in English in Puerto Vallarta is from Buffalo, New York, for some reason – rather than from California as one would expect. Therefore we get weather reports that sound horrendously cold and nasty. Those reports make us feel even better about being down here in the warmth.

I’ve been lying low and doing as little as possible while trying to beat this sore throat problem. There’s a big party in the Vallarta Yacht Club this evening to celebrate the end of The Banderas Bay Blast (sailing, eating, and drinking to support some charity or other), and I’m too tired to even walk one block to the club. There was a sailing event and party on Wednesday and Thursday, too, at a couple of outlying locations, but neither of us had enough energy to go to those either. We like to think that we’re getting more selective in our entertainment rather than simply lazier as we get older.

Being sick is no one’s idea of a good time, but I remember it being a lot worse when the work-a-day world required that certain tasks be done anyway. Now I can just take the time to be sick and use it as an excuse to put off doing things I wasn’t in the mood to do anyway. I know I’ll be feeling a lot better just about the time that Sheilagh comes down with what I’ve got. Then it will be my turn to take care of her. I hope everyone who reads this is enjoying good health during this pre-holiday season.

Sheilagh will be a year older next Monday, and we’ll have a quiet dinner with friends to celebrate. With Sheilagh’s preference for meat we’re thinking of a Brazilian restaurant to satisfy her cravings. At a place like that she won’t have to eat any vegetables or salad, which she still pushes around her plate without touching much of it as she did in her youth. While I usually take a bite of food from each of the food groups on my plate, insuring that everything gets eaten in a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion (yes, it’s a bit anal retentive I admit), Sheilagh is less logical and always attacks the meat first. After she eats the meat on her plate, she goes for seconds on the meat, before tasting the veggies or whatever else remains from her first plateload. However, if desert is available, there’s nothing that could cause her to finish anything but the meat. I’m not sure how we got our daughters to eat responsibly with Sheilagh as their mother and model.

Nevertheless she turned out well, and our kids and their kids are thriving as can be seen to the left: Daughters from the left are Kimberly, Megan, Stephanie, and Melissa. Granddaughters from left to right are Melissa's children Delaney, Riley, and Paige. The grandson is Evan James, sitting in his mom's lap. More later . . .

November 28th (2008) – La Cruz – Jim’s Blog #68

2008-11-29T06:28:00.000-08:00

Current Location – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Lat: 20°44.83’ N / Long: 105°22.38’ W

We’ve landed in Banderas Bay, the mouth of which is at least 25 miles across from north to south and the bay extends east about 20 miles from the opening to the eastern shore. At the moment we are in an anchorage in the northeast corner of the bay, as we await our reservation in the Paradise Village Marina starting on December 1st. We plan to reward ourselves with five-star living for a month and then get back into the anchoring business and the use of a dinghy to get around.

We left Mazatlan for San Blas last Saturday, just after I published my last blog. Since we knew it was a 20-hour trip at least, and since we didn’t want to show up in the middle of the night, we left at 2 in the afternoon and headed out for an overnight sail. The channel is being dredged every day from the marina area out to the sea, and the dredging equipment takes up most of the channel. However, they shut down and pull the equipment to the side of the channel from 10-11AM and from 2-3PM to allow boats to enter and leave. The large sight-seeing catamarans leave at 10AM and return at 2PM along with the fishing boats that left before dawn; so we take advantage of those times as well. It’s a good thing they’re dredging because we only showed about 3 feet of water under our keel at one point as we went out with the tide up.

Notice the birds waiting for handouts on a typical shrimp boat.

We had a very enjoyable sail until 11PM, when the wind died, and stayed to seaward of the area where fishing boats were showing lights and fishing all night. This whole coast seems crawling with shrimp boats, nets being pulled along the bottom and periodically raised and dumped on deck. I can’t believe there is much growth on the bottom as often as the nets are pulled across the entire area. It’s a wonder that there is any food left for the shrimp. We saw very little sea life on this stretch, but much of our time was spent at night. We arrived at San Blas (lat: 21°32.47’ N / long: 105°17.61’ W) at 9AM and found that the entrance to the estuary had been filled with sand over the very rainy summer. We called and found that we needed to hug the right side of the channel going in, and managed to avoid running aground (although we showed just 6” of water beneath our hull at one point).

Another couple, Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” left on the morning we did, and ended up in San Blas about the same time frame. They elected to avoid the shallow estuary and anchor in Matanchén Bay around the corner, which meant that to get into town they had to take a dinghy into the beach and grab a bus or cab to town. We later met in town for a couple of beers at the San Blas Social Club run by a former New York restaurant owner, who claimed he was in the witness protection program and would have to kill us if we learned his real name. Actually he goes back to New York during the hot summers here, apparently to get back in touch with his roots. We later had dinner at MacDonald’s – not the fast food franchise, but an upscale restaurant in town.

The next day we sat around the boat, reading and listening to news and music on our Sirius radio. All of a sudden we heard our names called from outside the boat, and found Les and Diane of “Gemini” in a dinghy at the side of our boat. Since we were the only sailboat in the estuary, we were surprised to see another dinghy. Les and Diane had anchored in Matanchén Bay and brought their dinghy around to the estuary to do some bird watching. We invited them aboard and found them to be a very interesting couple who have been cruising for about 10 years. Les was in the mortgage loan industry, but retired just as the “lying” loans (as he calls them) were coming into play. Those are the loans that are afflicting us now, where loan applications were written with imaginative personal income numbers designed to satisfy the loan criteria. Diane worked in the computer industry attached to geology.

I was told to include more pictures of Sheilagh in order to keep our readers' interest.

We never did get the energy to dinghy into town, nor did we have to because we didn’t need any supplies; so we just stayed on the hook in the estuary and watched the fishing pangas go back and forth from the fishing grounds. Since the tide changes twice a day, we were pirouetted by the current every six hours toward the mouth and then away from the mouth. Sheilagh started and finished a novel that day and keeps reading a lot faster than I do. I prefer to take breaks and work puzzles to “keep the mind sharp” I tell myself. Sheilagh doesn’t do puzzles and seems about as sharp witted, but then she’s two years younger; so she has more active brain cells.

Nevertheless, I still win all the Scrabble matches we have, except one a few months ago when I must have been half asleep. I usually make points when Sheilagh challenges me unsuccessfully on words that are valid in crossword puzzles and in the dictionary, that she has never heard of. I keep suggesting she might want to start doing crosswords to build her vocabulary, but she retaliates that she needs to let me win something or I’ll be difficult to live with. Maybe she’s been throwing these Scrabble games on purpose all this time!

On Tuesday we got up early in order to pull up the anchor and leave on the high tide at 7:30 in the morning. We did just that and managed to avoid any chance of running aground as we exited the estuary. The GPS unit that we use for navigation shows our track wherever we go; so it’s a fairly easy process to follow the incoming track as we go out to make sure we stay clear of shallow water. Once outside the estuary, the sea outside San Blas must be a level 40’ deep for miles, and everywhere there are shrimp boats going back and forth over the bottom. We maneuvered between them and set a course for Punta de Mita, which is the northern tip of Banderas Bay. On the way we played with several dolphins, saw a couple of turtles lazing on the surface, and had a good sail south for several hours.

At one point we noticed some painted coke bottles and white liquid soap bottles strung across our path, indicating a “long line” with several fishing lines extending down along the full length of the buoyed bottles. We aimed between two bottle-buoys, as we have done in the past, knowing that the line sags between them and allows us to cross without tangling our prop. Alas, these fishermen were using polypro lines (like water ski lines) that floated on the surface, which I saw at the last minute. I immediately switched to neutral on the engine, but we still got the line tangled in our prop. Normally I would not want to cut a fisherman’s long line, but if he’s going to float it on the surface, then too bad for him.

We grabbed the boat hook, pulled up the two lines streaming behind us, and cut both of them with our ever-ready fish knife (that we leave in the cockpit for cutting lines in an emergency). It appeared that the line on the prop dropped away, and we continued without problems. I can just imagine the problem we’d have had if we had encountered that line at night. We probably would have had to sit there the rest of the night waiting for daylight in order to go overboard and cut a lot of rope off the propeller, assuming we hadn’t had the propeller or prop shaft damaged in the process. Just another reason to avoid night sails except far off the coast!

Things got a bit tight as we neared the point, because there are three sea mounts that rise up from the bottom to within three feet of the surface. Two of these have been plotted on the charts, but the third has done some damage but can’t be exactly located. The guides say that if we stayed within one mile of the point as we rounded it, we would miss the unknown seamount, since it is 2.25 miles out. Sheilagh got down below on the radar and helped keep us on that one-mile arc, although it is still a heart-in-the-mouth process to think of our boat running onto a seamount and possibly being destroyed in the process. We made it fine, and set our sails for La Cruz, where we anchored that night just at dusk.

The next day we went into Philo’s Restaurant and Bar, the local cruiser hangout, and for the price of a beer were able to get onto the internet. Sheilagh made Skype calls (computer-assisted and cheap) to a couple of our daughters, while I caught up on sailing-related and political websites. We grabbed some lunch at Philo’s and let him know that we would be back on Thanksgiving with a potluck dish to share with the other cruisers for Thanksgiving Day dinner. Philo provides the turkeys and generates a lot of liquor sales as folks arrive up to two hours early for dinner. As each cruiser arrives, he/she is handed a playing card that determines his/her position in the eating line. He has about three decks of cards and hands out 12 aces first, then 12 deuces, and on down to kings. He and his band entertain the guests as each number is called.

A man's work is never done, though we work from sun to sun.

We showed up two hours early and got one ace and one deuce. Philo needed some turkey carvers; so Ed of “A Cappella” and I volunteered for the duty – nothing like being close to the turkey even before the aces are called. We each grabbed an apron and with little more than our fingers, began stripping two turkeys apiece. We shared a cleaver to slice the white meat, and a fork to strip some of the hotter pieces of meat. Naturally we carvers got the sweet breads and a few other tastes of both white and dark meat “to make sure the turkeys were fully cooked.” Since I was still stripping turkeys when the eating lines started, Sheilagh grabbed the ace and got in line first. I finished my job about the time the “fours” were joining the eating line, so I got right in with my deuce.

The salad and vegetable table at the Thanksgiving dinner at Philo's Restaurant

Since every cruiser couple attending had brought a salad, a vegetable, a potato dish, or a dessert, there had to be some 50 dishes and the attached picture doesn't even show the turkey, the potatoes and gravy and some 30 pies and cakes for desert. Since the plates only held so much, it was necessary to pick out what would be the most popular items and grab the first plate-load with those, knowing that other dishes could be tasted on a later trip after the “kings” had been served. Sheilagh brought a key lime pie that went quickly, but there was definitely food left over. We had a good time meeting other cruisers and had dinner with Ed and Cornelia of “A Cappella” with friends of theirs who have a winter vacation home nearby.

I’m afraid we’re too old for the loud music that began punctuating the limited space of the restaurant after dinner; so we didn’t stay long. I was also beginning to hurt from the kayak trip I had taken earlier that morning to the town of Bucerias, several miles away. My idea had been to paddle into the wind for about 40 minutes and then back downwind for an easy 20-minute paddle back. I hadn’t reckoned with a 180° change of wind direction when I got there in 45 minutes. My one-hour paddle turned into an hour-and-a-half paddle with no assistance from the wind. It took three aspirin to tone down the pain enough to let me get some sleep. I’ve got to take it a bit easier as I try to get back into shape.

Today is Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and we are sitting around on the boat and getting tasks done. We give thanks for all of you whom we count as our friends and family. It’s too bad we can’t all be together, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking of you.

More later . . .

November 21st (2008) – Mazatlan – Jim’s Blog #67

2008-11-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

Current Location – Mazatlan – Lat: 23°16.29’ N / Long: 106°27.28’ W

We will begin including our latitude and longitude position on each blog in response to one of our readers, Mike Federwisch, who would like to follow our progress on Google Earth. Maybe others of you would be interested as well.

Just another sunset in Mazatlan

Last Saturday we continued our mission to get down to the tip of the Baja Peninsula and jump across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. Doing it in daylight hours was a priority, which put Puerto Balandra as our next stop. We accomplished this easily in about six hours, with a fairly strong wind pushing us the last couple of hours. At Balandra we had to turn into this strong wind to lower our mainsail, and then turn back around to motor into the anchorage. In this case there were several sailboats already anchored, so we had to tip-toe around them to find a spot that wouldn’t be too close to anyone. Naturally the folks on the other boats are keeping a close eye on the process to insure we don’t anchor too close to them, which makes it important to look sharp and stay well clear.

Sheilagh and I donned our walkie-talkie headsets to communicate during the process, and we brought it off very smoothly, as we have dozens of times before. The headsets keep us from having to shout at each other to be heard as Sheilagh runs the windlass that drops the anchor at the bow of the boat, while I steer the boat at the other end. It is not cool to be shouting at one another, even if the reason is just to be heard over the sound of the engine and the windlass. Occasionally we have heard couples who have gone beyond shouting-to-be-heard to shouting-to-show-exasperation with the other – which is a very good reason to use headsets.

Because the weather report that night didn’t sound too good for the next day, we decided it might be a good day to sit tight and wait for better weather. The next morning we received a new weather report that predicted light winds for the next leg of the trip, so we shoved off. The day turned out to have very light winds and we ended up in Puerto Los Muertos, which is the jumping off point for Mazatlan. It’s always a good sign when the actual weather corresponds with the predicted weather. Los Muertos was really crowded, this time with a number of rookies who had come down to Mexico on this year’s Baja Ha Ha, as we had done the year before. They carry pennants announcing themselves as participants, much as freshmen used to wear beanies in college to identify them as rookies. Now that we are the proverbial “sophomores,” we know not to give ourselves away as rookies, although we certainly did last year.

Los Muertos has a good restaurant, known as the Giggling Marlin, but our outboard engine was still on the fritz and we were not eager to row over and back. We settled down to a delicious home-cooked meal of fried chicken with potatoes and country gravy. This woman really knows how to cook. I ate as much as possible because I knew she wouldn’t be cooking the next evening when we would be plowing our way across the Sea of Cortez all night. Sheilagh does not like cooking when the boat is heeled over on its side, even though the stove stays level by swinging with the boat on a pivot. She has some sort of objection to being thrown around the galley. I even agreed to create a harness for her and tie her to a couple of fixed eye-bolts in the galley for just that purpose. Alas, she was not impressed with my idea and suggested I tie myself to the galley with my head over the gas, if I got hungry.

The weather report for Monday predicted a tail wind and fairly low swells all through the Sea of Cortez at our crossing point, so we were off to the races again at about 7:30 in the morning. The first half of the day was very pleasant, but then higher winds and swells kicked in to give us a bit of a herky-jerky ride. We made good time and kept the engine on to make sure we maintained a rate of speed that would get us to Mazatlan by at least 2PM the following day. Both Sheilagh and I got out our IPods and listened to books for several hours as we relaxed in the cockpit or down below in the cabin. I say “relaxed,” but it is difficult to truly relax when the varying winds and waves set up a kind of repeating pattern for awhile and then suddenly throw in a larger wave every now and then. The larger wave causes the boat to twist into the wind and then plunge down the side of the swell, heeling over a bit more than usual. The boat always corrects herself, but in the meantime the changed pattern threatens the braces we have established with our feet and hands, and causes us to grab onto something else to keep from sliding off the seat.

I usually sit on one of the seats we had installed on the back rail, where I can hold onto the radar arch and keep an eye on the wave patterns from fairly high up. That perch also avoids the occasional spray that is cast up into the cockpit by an overly exuberant wave. Sheilagh ensconces herself under the dodger on the lee side of the cockpit (the protected side) and stays well clear of any spray. The real challenge is the occasional trip to the head, where it requires both elbows and knees to help keep one centered on the main appliance.

As night came on we heaved-to for some dinner. That’s a maneuver that pits the jib against the rudder, causing the boat to sit on the swells in a fairly consistent manner as the boat is blown downwind at a very slow pace. Even with the benefit of settling the boat down, Sheilagh’s cooking consisted of warming up some hot dogs, cutting them up into pieces, and throwing them into a can of baked beans. She handed me the cooking pot to eat from and said she wasn’t hungry. I thought it tasted great! That night the moon came up at about 10:30PM, at which time Sheilagh took the watch for about three hours while I got some rest.

I was back on duty from 2AM on, making use of a timer to wake me up every 15 minutes if I happened to doze off – which I did. The theory is that we should be able to see the lights of an approaching boat on the horizon from about 10-12 miles away. If we are doing 5 knots and a tanker is doing 15 knots, then we could close in a half hour or less – thus the use of a 15-minute interval to check for lights bearing down. It’s frustrating to keep getting up every 15 minutes to see if there are any other boats, and finding nothing on the horizon in any direction. A UFO would at least be an interesting change from nothing but night. That got me wondering if a UFO could suck up a complete sailboat with a 58’ mast, or whether they would just transport me from the cockpit, leaving Sheilagh sleeping below. Yeah, those thoughts do occur in the middle-of-the-night watch.

The next morning dawned bright and clear and within a couple of hours the sea state diminished and we turned the engine up higher to make the same speed we had been making with the wind helping us. At one point we were surrounded by dozens of smaller dolphins showing off their jumping skills and playing in our bow wave. One particular dolphin jumped several times and did about 3-4 twists in the air before entering the water again. These were not somersaults, but twists, and we wondered if he might be a refugee from a water park. We both were feeling pretty muggy and dirty; so we both took showers (separately, in case you were wondering) and cleaned up before getting to Mazatlan. The reduced sea state allowed us to do that without being thrown out of the shower in the process.

We got into the fuel dock at about 2PM just as the fishing boats were arriving with their catches for the day. As we waited for our turn for fuel, the first fishing boat, showing one red flag with a sailfish design on it, brought out a 5’ sailfish and hoisted it on a rope gallows to allow the fisherman to have his picture taken with the fish. Counting the cost of the trip down, the stay in the local hotel, the cost of the boat and crew for a day, and the requirement to bring the wife along, each picture was probably worth a couple of thousand dollars. Two more fishing boats unloaded larger sailfish and hoisted them up for the same picture-taking rite as the first one. It was about then that I grabbed the camera, positioned Sheilagh with her back to the fish, and snapped the attached picture. This picture didn’t cost us anything, although we really don’t have any bragging rights.

The fuel dock was having mechanical problems with the pumps; so we pulled away and found our slip in the marina. We had been here before, which means we knew the ropes for checking in and getting on with our preparations for heading further south. We first washed off the dried salt and bird poop on the deck – apparently a couple of birds had perched on the top of the mast during the night and showered the deck underneath with the same material that has produced a number of “White Rock” guideposts in the Sea of Cortez.

In the course of the next couple of days we got the laundry done, got the outboard engine fixed, did a grocery resupply, met several friends for drinks and gab, and did our best to get mail sent down from the states. This year we are buying our prescription medications in three-month increments over the internet and having them shipped to our mail stop, where we had planned to have them forwarded on. We arrived in Mazatlan to find that the mail delivery service won’t send them on without a document from the Mexican government that allows them to be brought in. We hadn’t known anything about this, so we indicated the problem on the cruisers’ net and found that one cruiser had run into the same problem. Doing further research we learned that we needed to take a bus ride to the other side of town, find a hospital there, and get a doctor to sign off on our need to transport our medications from San Diego to Mexico.

We set out on Thursday to get this done, but found that our bus had to detour around a parade that was celebrating the Revolución of 1910. This turned out to be a four-hour parade (from 10AM to 2PM) that delayed us going and coming, but it was a chance to see the cream of Mexico’s youth attired in band costumes, Tae Kwon Do outfits, drill team uniforms, and military camouflage clothing. It also included pauses for full-on demonstrations of putting out fires in the middle of the street by the kids in the civil defense force and a multi-unit gymnastics team made up of young men in training for the Mexican Navy. Although we were somewhat inconvenienced by the celebration, it was another case of treating the experience as an “adventure” rather than an “ordeal.”

What was interesting was trying to find someone in the hospital who knew what we wanted. We had to wait in line for a doctor who seemed to think we wanted him to prescribe the medications we had listed for the form. He couldn’t understand what we needed so he went looking for a translator. Luckily we had a copy of someone else’s document and we were finally able to convey to the translator what we wanted. We were then moved to an administrative office, where a harried secretary typed up the documents we needed in between dozens of phone calls and a number of visitors, including some family members who had arrived to have lunch with her.

When we finally got back that afternoon from a slow bus crawl (air-conditioned, thankfully) through the heart of the area where the parade had finished, we went right to happy hour, where an 80-year-old cruiser gave us a better solution. He told us it was easier to have a family member stuff cotton in the prescription bottles to keep the pills from rattling, and then send them in a priority packet with Federal Express. Apparently that bypasses the usual hassle. In his words, “If you want to survive in Mexico, you need to learn how to bypass the Mexican laws in the same way the Mexicans do.” After 20+ years in Mexico he was convinced that it was impossible to do business in the same way we would do it in the United States. We bought him a beer for his advice.

Today we spent five hours on the boat in front of our laptops as a 14-year-old boy, named Casey, cleaned up our computers, added security features, and eliminated a lot of the problems we had been having. He is the son of a cruising couple and a whiz at computers. We hadn’t planned on this task, but the raves we heard about him from other cruisers resulted in our signing him up for a few hours of consulting work. We thoroughly enjoyed working with him and “donated” toward his college fund (since he is not allowed to make money in Mexico without a license).

Tonight we ended our stay in Mazatlan over dinner with Barry and Pat of “Pacific Voyager” and Chuck and Joan of “Tender Spirit.” Both of those couples will be staying here longer to get some more extensive work done on their boats before proceeding south. Barry and Pat are from Hawaii, and Chuck and Joan are from Alaska, so the conversation was very wide-ranging. Barry had just caught a 7’ sailfish off the back of his sailboat as he was coming across from La Paz (about 10 hours ahead of us), and had already passed around about 90% of it to other cruisers since our iceboxes can only hold so much. It was a very enjoyable way to end our stay. Tomorrow we head south for San Blas; another overnight sail will get us there at about noon we think. More later . . .

November 14th (2008) – Isla San Francisco – Jim’s Blog #66

2008-11-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

We left San Carlos last Sunday and took the longer route across the Sea of Cortez and down the Baja Peninsula. We are now a couple of days from jumping back across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. The northern crossing, which we made last Sunday, is about 75 nautical miles across, while the upcoming southern crossing is 190 nautical miles. We have made this southern crossing twice, and it will take about 30+ hours. We’ll start early in the morning on Monday from Bahia de los Muertos and arrive in the afternoon on Tuesday, if the weather permits. This is the season for “northers,” strong winds from the north that blow straight down the center of the Sea of Cortez. What we hope for is a “lighter northerly” that will help propel us across without raising large waves or Sheilagh’s anxiety. So far we have made this crossing twice under heavier winds in both instances.

Last Sunday we had a great sail across the Sea of Cortez with warm southerly winds, although northerly winds had been predicted. We saw flying rays – the ones that look like wet washcloths flipped like Frisbees across the water. We saw no whales, and only a couple of leaping dolphins from a distance. We pulled into a small bay at Punta Chivato that would protect us from the southerly winds we had been experiencing all day and tucked in for the night.

Just as darkness hit, the wind began blowing from the north and the little cove did nothing to protect us from the swells that resulted. It’s not a small thing to raise the anchor, motor around a dangerously rocky point, and resettle into a new cove – all in the dark. So we decided to stay there and endure the rocking and rolling. In order to keep from being thrown back and forth, I slept crossways to the length of the boat in the front berth, letting my head and feet go up and down with no rolling of the body. Sheilagh backed up to one side of the aft quarter-berth and wedged blankets on the exposed side to keep from being rolled out of bed. As it was, neither of us got very good sleep that night and were both in agreement to pull up anchor as soon as light dawned on Monday.

The next day was an easy motor/sail south to the larger protected bay called San Juanico. I caught a nap to make up for some lost sleep from the night before, but Sheilagh tried twice to catch some Z’s with no luck. We passed by the very large Bahía Concepción, where we had celebrated the 4th of July with some 40+ other cruisers on at least 20 cruising sailboats and power boats last summer. San Juanico is known as the location for the “Cruisers’ Shrine,” where cruisers leave something to identify themselves and their boats hanging on a scraggly tree on the north shore of the bay. We avoided stopping in this bay going north last spring because it didn’t protect us from the southerlies blowing at the time. This year we were moving fast and didn’t want to inflate our dinghy or go through the hassle of using the block and tackle to drop the outboard motor onto the dinghy – all just to leave our mark on a straggly tree. We enjoyed a blessedly calm night in flat water and woke up feeling much more rested.

We continued south to the hurricane hole, called Puerto Escondido, on Tuesday, where we caught a mooring for that night and the following night to give us a day of rest on Wednesday. Last spring we had to hike half a mile down a dirt road to a crossroads hotel and small store to get a good meal and some supplies – and then hike back. This time we found a small store in the marina along with a cruiser hangout that included a very nice restaurant. Apparently a young man, called Pedro, had made such a success of a restaurant further north in the town of Loreto that a jealous owner had fired him to save the money she had agreed to pay him for making the restaurant a success. So much for success! Now he is drawing customers from that location to his new spot at Puerto Escondido. The food was very good, but the service was even more so. We plugged into the internet to pick up messages, but had no blog created to take advantage of the opportunity.

We had to row our dinghy into the marina, because the outboard motor refused to work. I developed a blister on my right finger as I pulled the starting cable at least a hundred times to try to get it working. We discovered that the carburetor was spewing gas everywhere but into the cylinder, and we were not prepared to fix it at that time. Luckily Ray from “Emerald Star” gave us a tow back to our boat with his dinghy – luckily because the wind was blowing directly against us to get back to our boat, and I would have had blisters on both rowing hands if I had been forced to row against that 20-knot wind. Sheilagh, of course, pleaded her femininity as a reason for not taking her turn at rowing. When that didn’t fly, she threatened to stop cooking, and I gave in very quickly. The wind blew at 20-knots during the entire time we were in the hurricane hole, but the boat stayed nice and level in the protected water and we got a good rest.

Thursday we set out for the next stop at Puerto Los Gatos on a beautiful day that saw the end of the 20-knot wind that had been blowing for two days. We motored south for a day to get there and pulled into a pretty bay in the afternoon. There we found three other boats, several pangas, and about 30 kayakers with tents strung along the beach. I got energetic and inflated my kayak and took a turn around the bay to get the arm muscles back into shape. In the course of doing that I talked with some of the kayakers and found they were in two separate groups – Mary Aventura and Baja Expeditions. Both groups had very modern-looking two-person kayaks, one set was using pangas for support and the other group, a large motor vessel providing logistics support for the tents and food. Apparently kayaking expeditions are a big tourist-dollar-generator in this area of the Baja Peninsula. Those I talked with were quite envious of the life style Sheilagh and I are living, since they had only a week or two to have an adventure and then return to work.

As we were first anchoring, we were approached by a dilapidated panga driven by a rotund and jolly Mexican, named Manuel. We had heard stories last year of Manuel, the fisherman, who patrolled the Los Gatos area ready to sell fish and lobster to cruisers. We had bypassed this bay last spring, but as he approached we immediately remembered his name and occupation. He had a couple of fish he was selling, but we asked for lobster. He said he could get them, how many did we want, and he quoted us a price – all in Spanish. He asked if we had a beer we could give him, since he had a ways to go to get the lobster and he was thirsty. We gave him the beer and he motored south around the point to get our lobster. We had our doubts that we would ever see him again, but he was back in half an hour or so with three lobsters for the price of two and a second request for a beer.

The next problem was finding a pot big enough to boil three lobsters, each of which was probably below the legal size, but each with fairly long feelers. As we were discussing our options we were approached by the owner of a large fishing boat anchored next to us. He turned out to be an almond farmer from Modesto, who had bought the boat as a tax shelter and was about to head back to San Francisco where he kept his boat. Sheilagh mentioned our quandary as we talked with him and he told us just to chop off the tails, throw the bodies overboard, and barbecue the tails in our outdoor barbecue grill that we keep attached to the rail at the rear of the boat. That’s what we did, and the lobster tails were delicious. I did the dirty deed of cutting off the tails because Sheilagh couldn’t stand to look them in the eyes and do it. I just refused to look them in the eyes!

While we were coming down the coast we got in touch with some friends from the previous year, Dave and Merry of “AirOps” on the ship-to-ship radio. They were heading up the Baja Peninsula as we were heading down, so we made a date and place to meet here in Isla San Francisco. We had favoring winds all day and pulled in next to them at about 3PM. They immediately came over in their dinghy to give us a ride back to their boat, since they were aware of our outboard motor problem. It’s one of the pleasures of the cruising lifestyle to run into friends nearly anywhere we go, especially now that we are in our second year. We had particularly enjoyed Dave and Merry’s company when we were in Zihuatanejo last year, and it took us a couple of hours to catch up with what we had both been doing since then.

Later in the evening we hosted dinner on our boat. We provided the Arachera beef on the grill, while they provided the fresh salad and green beans. Both of us contributed wine, and both couples thoroughly enjoyed catching up on all the other cruisers we happened to know about as we went through both bottles of wine. We finally had to end our get-together so both of us could get some sleep before heading out in the morning. Naturally we cruisers were in bed by 10PM at the latest.

More later . . .

November 7th (2008) – San Carlos, Mexico – Jim’s Blog #65

2008-11-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

It’s now a week after my first blog for this season and we’re still in our slip in Marina Real in San Carlos. Why are we still here? Batteries – or rather the lack of good ones that I mentioned in the earlier blog! That led to our renting a car on Tuesday, driving the eight-and-a-half hour trip to Phoenix, staying the night, and then driving the same distance back on Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, while the tide was in, I worried each of the seven 72 lb. batteries from the car > down the ramp > to the pier > to the boat > onto the boat > down the gangway > and into the back berth. I did it at high tide to reduce the angle of the ramp down to the pier. I could use a hand truck from the car to the boat, but after that it was shear lifting, making sure my legs were bent and my back straight.

It was then we found that the new batteries are just slightly larger in length than the ones we had, so our battery footprint plate had to be enlarged. Since we couldn’t find any premade plates for the new batteries, we followed the path of several referrals to find a carpenter who sold us some Starboard strips to make our own footprints. It took me a couple of hours to accomplish that, and then we found out that the difference in terminal types and distances between the terminals ruled out the use of five of our terminal cables. It was good that we still had the rental car that day, or it would have taken us umpteen days by bus to accomplish what we did in a few hours by car.

We managed to find a supplier of cables and helped the supplier put together the cable-end-connectors to the cables we needed. With that fixed we found that the new batteries were lower in height that the older batteries, which prevented our hold-down brackets from actually holding down the batteries. We took care of that problem, turned on the DC panel and everything worked well. It only took us about eight additional hours of work and errands to actually install the new batteries – all due to infinitesimal differences in size. I went into this process just to show how each task on a boat leads to other tasks. Thank goodness we encountered this battery problem in a civilized area that just happens to be the closest port in the region to the U.S.

Now we need to get up to the top of the mast to repair some bird damage and maybe set a sharp spike to keep the birds from wanting to land there. We also need to lubricate our anemometer cups up there and get the wind speed indicator working correctly again. We still need to fill our extra diesel fuel cans, load our water tanks, test our water maker, and wait for good weather. We noticed 25-knot winds yesterday outside the marina which resulted in at least one sailboat limping in to take refuge from the rough conditions. Since a common mariner’s superstition is never to start a voyage on a Friday, we will probably go out tomorrow or Sunday. Although we don’t believe in superstitions generally, we have heard so many stories of bad luck heaped on vessels that dare to depart on Friday that we are reluctant to tempt the storm gods.

We have two options to take when we set out. The first is a three-day sail directly south to Mazatlan, some 425 miles south. With the northern winds we have been having it could be a shorter ride, but probably a lot bumpier. There are only a couple of ports we could pull into on this side of the Sea of Cortez, which would leave us few outs if the weather gets bad. The other option is to cross back to the Baja Peninsula side and make a series of day-sails down the eastern coast of the Baja until we get to the tip, and then jump across to Mazatlan. This latter plan would take 10 days and add 100 miles to the trip. It would offer safer passage if there is any question with regard to the weather; so we are staying tuned to the weather reports.

Our objective is to spend the month of December in the Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta. We had a very relaxing time there last spring and would like to repeat the experience. We belong to the Vallarta Yacht Club there, and should run into a lot of the friends we made during our cruising last year. At the moment we are holed up in our boat waiting for the weather report at 6PM and having our evening rum and coke. So much for the good life! More later . . .

October 31st – San Carlos, Mexico – Jim’s Blog #64

2008-11-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

The adventure continues! We just returned to San Carlos, Mexico to put our boat back together after three months of living a nomadic life in the states. From August through October we camped in some national parks, visited all the relatives in Washington and California (we have no relatives in Oregon), and even sponged off my brother, Ken (and Mavis), in the Seattle area and my sister, Lisa (and Bob), in the Los Angeles area – for at least two weeks in each place. We also stopped in on our daughters, Melissa (with Tim, Delaney, Riley, and Paige) in Newport Beach, and Stephanie (with Hayden and Evan) in San Jose. We were also given the run of our previous neighbors’ house, Sue and Larry, in Sunnyvale for a week as they went on a cruise. Everyone was very gracious in allowing us to experience the benefits of the settled life – certainly a better life than camping in cold weather in a tent.

We took the opportunity on this trip to do a volcano tour of Lassen, Crater Lake, and Mount Rainier during some of the best weather ever in California, Oregon, and Washington. The only real problem was a cold snap at Crater Lake that resulted in frozen water pipes in the campgrounds and two very cold campers in sleeping bags that were rated to 50°F. Since we couldn’t sleep, we got up early, started a big fire to get warm, piled everything back in the car, and left the park a day early. We hustled off to Bend, Oregon where we got a motel room and got warm. After our earlier experience in San Carlos with the intense heat in late July, we thought we could never be cold enough again – so much for thinking.

One of the benefits of camping in national parks is that, at 62, I am allowed into all national parks free of charge for a one-time $10 payment, and the cost to camp there is one-half the going rate. After Labor Day there was no difficulty in finding space in any campsite, even without reservations. So there is a benefit to being retired and not having any family members tied to school or work.

On Monday, October 27th, we set out from San Diego in a Greyhound bus at about 2PM, switched to a Mexican bus line in Tijuana and arrived in Guaymas at 9:30AM the next morning. We had four big bags of clothing and boat equipment, but were fortunate enough to get the green light at customs to avoid a complete inspection. We were feeling good about that, but were later rousted out at 2AM in the morning by another checkpoint, where we had to unload all our bags, drag them into an inspection building, got a red light (along with everyone else), and had an inspector go through two of our bags without comment. We assume they were looking for drugs, arms, or something else we didn’t have.

Our boat was covered in dust, but everything else seemed to be in good shape. We immediately sprayed it off, but had no food and no room in the boat to sleep on it Tuesday night. Our friends Ed and Cornelia of “A Cappella” suggested we stay at a motel in town where they were located, and offered to drive us in their rental car. It was a wonderful feeling to hit the bed and sleep for about 12 hours straight. This was right after we had a great dinner with Ed and Cornelia, Ron and Karen of “Aegean Odyssey,” and Ted and Joan of “Pangaea.” These are all cruisers we met during the past year; so it was like “old home week.”

On Wednesday we replaced all our halyards with new ones that we had purchased in California, and we put up all our sails – a tough job since the sails are so large. We have also had the bottom cleaned, the stainless steel shined up, and are getting the hull waxed tomorrow for the season. We have now set up the bimini to provide some needed shade, reattached the life raft to the top of the deck (as a last resort someday), and reattached the life preservers and man-overboard pole to the aft rail to allow one of us to save the other if someone goes overboard. We also reinstalled the barbecue grill on the aft rail.

After all this we noticed that our batteries were not charging fully; so we investigated. It turns out that these batteries were at the end their lives, and there are no comparable batteries sold in Mexico. We have now located a distributor in Arizona who can sell us the batteries we need. All we have to do is load up our 7 batteries in a rental car (each weighs about 70 lbs. for a total of nearly 500 lbs.), drive up to Arizona, offload the old batteries, load up the new batteries, and make the 300 mile trek back to Mexico. Why take the old batteries to the U.S.? To avoid customs payments for the new batteries!

Even though Mexico can’t supply the batteries we need, they want to charge us 17% for the privilege of bringing them into the country to put on our boat. So we will simply take the batteries to the U.S. “to be repaired” and return with the “repaired” batteries. We have yet to see how the NAFTA agreement has been helpful to those of us trying to operate between the U.S. and Mexico. This whole process will delay our departure about a week – something every cruiser has experienced or will experience. Friends of ours discovered the same problem while anchored in an out-of-the-way cove and had barely enough power to start the engine. In this case they kept the engine going for two days until they reached San Carlos to do what we’re doing.

Our current plans are to cross over to the Baja Peninsula, work our way down the eastern edge to the tip, and then hop back across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. We plan on this because there are no safe anchorages to speak of between San Carlos and Mazatlan; so it would require a two- or three-night trip down. We prefer daily trips or single over-night trips; so it’s worth it to do the over-and-back routine. In addition to the lack of decent protected coves between here and Mazatlan on the mainland coast, other cruisers have reported a prevalence of crime in those locations. Friends of ours lost a dinghy and an outboard motor in one of those anchorages and warned the entire fleet before anyone else got ripped off.

We got plenty of exposure to the presidential election process during our trip to the States, and are happy to have voted by absentee ballot while we were there. Now we are no longer bombarded with television ads and news programs. However, we do have Sirius radio, which keeps us up with what’s going on when we want to know. It appears that most of the news organizations have finally been exposed for their lack of objectivity in reporting on the candidates. Hopefully this will lead to some improvement in the way news is reported in the future.

I’ll be back to you in a few days. This year Sheilagh has promised to contribute to this blog much more than she has in the past. This means you should be getting a different slant on things from her. The primary complaint of readers over the past year has to do with the length of my blogs; so I will be attempting to shorten them significantly. Please note that I have compressed three months into two pages for this kickoff message for the new cruising year. More later . . .

August 4th – San Diego – Jim’s Blog #63

2008-08-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

We had just settled into our air-conditioned seats in the bus on our way to Tijuana from Guaymas at the end of my last blog. The total trip would be about 14 hours and just the air-conditioned nature of the trip was a godsend for us. We pulled out books and IPods, had a couple of diet cokes to sip on, and indulged in some snacks as the sun set in the west to our left as we headed north. We found we could lean back in the seats and put our feet up to be completely relaxed and comfortable.

About two hours later Sheilagh began shifting in the seat to find a more comfortable position, and she continued this practice for the next twelve hours. Having traveled by bus for up to 48 hours at a time when I commuted to high school from Walla Walla, Washington to Columbus, Ohio in the fall and back in the spring, I learned that there is no position in a bus seat that can ever bring comfort over a long period of time. The only thing to do is to assume a single position, move one’s feet a few inches occasionally, and make one’s mind fixate on something other than one’s bodily comfort. This did not fall willingly on Sheilagh’s ears. Instead she continued to swivel her hips onto the edge of my seat, then reverse herself in the other direction with her head and shoulders overlapping. Later on in the trip she found another seat that allowed her to drape herself over two seats together. Needless to say she never achieved the comfort she sought.

Every three hours we came to a stop for a 15-minute break, where a few of us got up and walked around. If you’ve never ridden a long-distance bus you wouldn’t know that these stops always coincide with REM sleep, and they are announced by turning on the overhead lights in the bus and waking everyone. The food was the same as that found in train stations, namely pre-wrapped cold turkey and ham sandwiches, and burritos that could be warmed up. This was offered along with all the cold soft drinks one might find anywhere and candy and snack treats. Over time the bus became littered with the packaging of all these items after they were consumed by the riders.

Sometime around midnight we were stopped at a military checkpoint and everyone was herded out of the bus to stand around as our bags were opened and searched. Some military types also searched the seating area in the bus while we were disembarked. It appears nothing was found of any significance and no one was escorted off the bus. We were loaded back up and the trip continued. We found nothing missing from our checked bags when we had a chance to look through them later.

I actually got some good sleep despite the conditions, but Sheilagh developed a bug of some sort during the trip and was miserable. The bus climbed over a very high pass to get to Tijuana from the east in the early morning. The pass seemed higher than the 7,000’ Donner Pass I’m familiar with, and I have never seen so many boulders piled on one another. I was surprised there weren’t more rock falls on the steep faces of the hills. For that matter I couldn’t see how anyone could have built a road over what appeared to be loose boulders everywhere. In the case of Donner Pass in California the road was carved out of granite and there are no apparent rocks hanging over the highway ready to fall. In the case of this pass in Mexico it would appear that any slight earthquake tremor would cover the highway in very large boulders. I kept my eyes on the situation; so I could brace myself and Sheilagh when a boulder rolled down and tipped the bus off the edge of the steep road!

We arrived almost 14 hours to the minute after we left the bus station at Guaymas. That means we were about 45 minutes late at every stop (based on our 45-minute late departure), but that didn’t bother us nor the other passengers who got on and off at various stops along the way. We retrieved our bags and decided that they were too heavy to take on a local bus to the border. We hired a cab which took us to the back of a long line of people entering the U.S. that Saturday. We were immediately met by a couple of entrepreneurs who suggested we take their bus through the checkpoint, so we wouldn’t have to carry our bags in a long line for at least a quarter of a mile. We took them up on it and spent the next 30 minutes or so sitting on a very slowly moving bus that saved us a lot of wear and tear.

Getting through the final checkpoint required that we carry our bags a few paces, and then we spilled out in front of a San Diego McDonald’s, where we had good old American Sausage McMuffins with Eggs. We had planned to load our bags on the trolley and disembark about a block from our condo, but the number and weight of the bags, along with Sheilagh’s not feeling well, caused us to decide in favor of a taxi. This 20-minute cab ride cost about half as much as the total cost of the 14-hour bus trip. Furthermore, adding up all the taxi rides from the marina to the Guaymas bus station and the three cab rides at this end of the trip, we paid $5 less for cabs than we did for the entire bus trip. So we got off with a tab of about $250 plus snacks and drinks to get from Guaymas to our condo in San Diego – cheaper than an airplane ticket for both of us by about half.

We got into our condo where our niece (who is renting it from us) had previously purchased a battery for our car. We quickly installed it, got an oil change and fluids checked at a Jiffy Lube, pumped up the tires, got a car wash, and checked into a local motel at about 4 times the price of the rental we receive on our condo. We crashed for the night and then spent the next two days ordering new halyards for the boat and buying a few other items that we have needed for some time on the boat. We also called Rich and Debbie of ‘Oasis’ who had sailed back to San Diego a few weeks before. They invited us over for pizza on their boat and offered us nearly a ringside seat to a Pat Benatar concert scheduled for the same night beside their marina. We had a great time catching up on their travels and comparing notes.

Today we are setting out to visit relatives up and down the west coast and will discontinue this blog until we start back to the boat in late September, or maybe even late October. We will be doing car camping on the way up the coast, and plan to loop back inland a bit to catch some National Parks going both ways. The climate in California has been wonderful, compared to what we just left in San Carlos, Mexico, and we are very appreciative. Hopefully we will be ready to return to the warmth after spending some cool nights camping in the mountains.

We hope you have enjoyed some of our experiences and musings as we have vacationed for the past nine months in the waters of Mexico. We’ll be back in the fall. More later . . .

August 1st – San Carlos – Jim’s Blog #62

2008-08-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

We actually had a lot more nights like the hot and muggy one we had at the end of the last blog. A little breeze would come up at about 5PM and last about an hour or so, which made that time a good one for getting some chores done outside despite the sun shining down on us at that time. In the morning we could work reasonably comfortably from 6AM until the sun began shining down on us at 8AM, but those two hours in the morning and one hour in the evening were not enough time to get everything done. We just got used to being covered in sweat (or “glow” in Sheilagh’s case), and continued working as we looked forward to the shower in the evening. When things got too hot we would wear our bathing suits to the shower, wash off, and walk back to the boat with fresh water versus salty water all over our bodies.

New sailors might ask what needs to be done to put a boat up for a couple of months in potential hurricane conditions. Here is a smattering of the tasks we performed:
1) Changed the oil in the engine, replaced the oil filter and cleaned out the dual fuel filters,
2) Removed the raw water impeller to keep it from developing a weird shape (and discovered that one of the impeller blades had broken off),
3) Added biocide to the fuel tanks and topped them off,
4) Emptied all water tanks, including the hot water tank,
5) Pickled the water maker with a special chemical to preserve it for two months with no activity,
6) Took down all the sails and rolled them up for storage in the cabin – this involved disconnecting the reefing lines and the furling,
7) Cut the fittings off four of our halyards to be used for new halyards, and tied off the old halyards to keep them from flogging the mast in a strong wind,
8) Took down the bimini and the canvas-supported flexible plastic windows around the dodger – effectively eliminating our shade on top of the boat,
9) Cleaned out the head and holding tank and filled with water to keep the smell down,
10) Defrosted and cleaned the freezer and refrigerator, throwing out some food that had gone bad and donating the good stuff to the gals in the front office,
11) Filled up the shower, the sinks, and a bucket with fresh water to allow for some moisture in the cabin during the hot days to come
12) Placed an elastic stretch band (Shockles) tied into each of the dock lines to allow for some boat movement with the dock in the event of high winds and waves.

Generally, sailors pull their boats completely out of the water in hurricane territory and store them on dry land in braces to keep them standing in the strong wind of a hurricane. We saw hundreds of boats put up that way and it is an economical way to do it. One of the problems with this approach is that the boats suffer from being out of the water, causing the hulls and thru-hulls to dry out and crack to some degree. We wanted to avoid the problems with dry storage, and we reasoned that leaving the boat in the water would be appropriate based on the sheltered nature of the marina we were using and the history of hurricanes in this area.

Marina Real is a well protected marina from both the winds and the surge of high waves that can damage most in-the-water boats during a hurricane. We learned that hurricanes had seldom reached as far north in the Sea of Cortez as San Carlos in the past, and the ones that did reach here were winding down in force. We stripped the boat of anything that could blow away in a strong wind, and tied the boat to a good solid dock with strong lines that had some elastic tied in to provide some flexibility. We will be back in October at the end of the hurricane season and will reverse everything we’ve done to prepare to go south for the winter.

We had a marina worker drop by with his son on a particularly hot day offering to wash the boat and shine up all the stainless steel for a very good price. We left the boat in his hands and took the shuttle to the San Carlos Marina to do our laundry. When we returned he and his son had done a great job, and one that saved us at least 4-6 hours of work in the hot sun. I think this shaved a day off of the time needed to perform all the tasks we wanted to accomplish.

Marina Real offers a shuttle to San Carlos three times a day, of which we availed ourselves nearly every day – once to get marine supplies, once to get bus tickets to Tijuana, and once to get the laundry done. This shuttle is handy because the marina provides very few services other than a safe place to tie up, along with electricity and non-potable water. I should mention that the showers are adequate and there is internet availability in the office, which is air-conditioned (but only open from 8AM to 5PM.

To get the bus tickets to Tijuana we had to grab a local bus from San Carlos, after the shuttle, to Guaymas (where the long range bus stations originate), a trip of about 12 miles. Afterwards we visited an auto supply store where we picked up a DC fan for the boat (to replace one that had quit working) and some silvered windshield covers that we later cut up for covers to our hatches and portholes. We also discovered a LEY department/grocery store (similar to a Kmart) where we got some cleaning supplies, and then it was back to the boat.

Finally Friday rolled around, the day of our departure, and we could finally put the sails and dinghy down below where we had been sleeping and cooking. The night before leaving we had a marathon of the last 6 hours of the sixth season of the TV program, “24.” Sadly, we were so tired that we stopped with the last hour to go, planning to watch it on Friday before we left. Yeah, we forgot all about it until we were in the bus later and realized that it would be another two months before we could see the wrap-up of all the plots for the sixth season. Oh well!

The shuttle had broken down; so we took a cab to the San Carlos Marina, where we planned to have lunch and play with our laptops in air-conditioned spaces while waiting for the bus departure at 6PM. We hadn’t realized that the little restaurant we were using closed down at 2PM, which ended our air-conditioned plans. We grabbed a cab to the TAP Bus Station to wait the four hours and found that they were having difficulty with the air conditioning there. As a result, we waited in the shade until nearly 7PM for our bus to finally arrive. We hadn’t expected that the buses would run on time based on our previous 9 months in the country, so the late departure of the 6PM bus was just another part of the experience.

We finally got off at 7PM and were very happy to be sitting in an air-conditioned bus, knowing that we would be in Tijuana early the next morning and in San Diego soon after that. More later . . .

July 28th – San Carlos – Jim’s Blog #61

2008-07-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

After arriving in Santa Rosalía, we got the boat tied up and had our celebratory beers, even though we had arrived at 9AM. It’s a tradition with us to have a beer to relax after the anxiety of anchoring the boat or carefully inserting it into a slip. We opened up the hatches and got the air flowing through and then took a long snooze to catch up on the sleep we both miss when we travel all night.

We had originally paid for a week at the marina in Santa Rosalía, although we had used only four nights on our previous stay. In this case we were given credit for three additional nights, and used them to work on some boat items that we wanted to finish before putting the boat up for two months.

One of the problems we had encountered earlier was a slipping belt on the engine that drives the alternator and water pump. In that case we tightened it up, but realized that we couldn’t change the belt unless we drained the cooling system and removed the two water hoses connecting the hot water heater to the engine through the plane of the belt. If we had broken a belt in rough weather we couldn’t replace it easily and we would be in real trouble without the use of the engine. I believe in prevention, but every time I try to improve something relating to the boat, I usually run into more problems than I had anticipated – and this was no exception.

We mentioned this to a fellow cruiser, Dave from ‘Juniata,’ who had been faced with this before, and he offered to help us. The idea was to replace the current belt and add a second one on the inside loop of the water hoses to be used as a quick replacement in the event of a problem with the primary belt. We pulled out all the manuals and learned how to drain the coolant from the engine using a combination of a piece of hose, a funnel, a small jar, and a larger bucket. Then we removed the hoses only to find that we needed to remove the belt from the refrigeration system. In doing this, we found that the mounting bracket for the refrigeration pump had cracked and the replacement belts we had were not quite large enough to fit over the pulleys.

Naturally we discovered these problems at 1PM on Friday in the middle of the siesta period (12-2). On Fridays some businesses don’t bother to return to work after the siesta; so we were concerned that we might have to wait until Monday to get things fixed. We got directions for a welding shop in town, and an auto parts supply store and hot-footed it into town. The guys at the welding shop were eating lunch and resting, but two of them got up to help us. In a matter of minutes we got the part welded back together for 50 pesos ($5), and found the belts we needed at the auto supply store and were back at the boat by 2PM.

Dave ended up doing a lot of the hands-on work for us because he was familiar with the activity, while Sheilagh and I handed him tools, asked questions, and learned a lot about our engine from him. That night we treated Dave and his wife, Marsha, to a chicken dinner at the cruiser-recommended chicken restaurant in Santa Rosalía. Dave and Marsha are from Colfax (near Lake of the Pines, north of Sacramento, where we were living most recently). They have been cruising for six years so far and have a lot of knowledge and experience to share.

On one of the evenings in Santa Rosalía all the cruisers (some 20 people) gathered together near the marina swimming pool and listened to a husband and wife (guitar and harp) perform while we had pizza delivered. Carrying a harp onboard has got to take up a lot of room, but they have a 50’ boat; so perhaps that’s where they get the extra room. We disbanded and all went to bed at about 10PM, just when the rock band began playing in the marina cantina. If the music doesn’t start before 10PM, we cruisers aren’t going to hear it – at least we older cruisers.

We didn’t need to provision during this visit, because we are trying to use up all the food we have before leaving the boat here in San Carlos. It will take us some time to take all the sails down, remove anything that could blow away in a hurricane from the top of the boat, empty the water tanks, and generally set up the boat to be left for two months. If Santa Rosalía were a recognized hurricane hole, we could leave the boat here and take a bus north to San Diego from here – a 14-hour trip. We noticed that a ferry comes over from San Carlos twice a week to Santa Rosalía; so suddenly we realized we could take the ferry back to Santa Rosalía and then take the bus north to San Diego. Our original plans had us taking the bus to Tucson and then a plane to San Diego, which would have cost more and taken longer.

We had planned to leave Santa Rosalía on Saturday evening for a night-time trip across the Sea of Cortez to arrive on Sunday morning. However, the weather report on Saturday morning recommended against making the crossing that day due to high winds. Rather than pay for another day at the marina, we motored over to a nearby island, San Marcos, where we anchored in the clearest water we have seen yet. We could see our anchor embedded in the sand 30’ below us. I went snorkeling along the shore and saw all sorts of fish including schools of Sergeant Majors with yellow and black stripes around their bodies, several King Angelfish with bright yellow fins and tail on dark bodies with orange tips flowing back from their dorsal fins, a school of dozens of needlefish with long snouts and a blue and silver body – just to name a few.

As I swam over a rock with lots of holes in it, a small moray eel poked its head out of one of the holes, which caused me to keep my distance from the rocks after that. The sandy part of the bottom was dotted everywhere with small stingrays settling down in the sand and periodically moving to new locations. I didn’t see any fish large enough to catch and eat, but I wasn’t hunting anyway, since we need to eat what we have in the next few days. When I got back I looked up the various fish I had seen in my Reef Fish Identification book. A Rainbow Wrasse really caught my eye because it had all the colors of the rainbow on its body. I also saw several tiny blue fish feeding on the bottom, thinking at first that they were small blue gems. The fish identification book didn’t indicate these at all.

We ran into Jim and Susan of ‘Windward Bound’ anchored near us at San Marcos and had them over for dinner before heading out to San Carlos that same night. We left the anchorage at 8PM and headed across the Sea of Cortez. As we started out the seas were a bit rough with a 15-knot wind just off the nose. We partially raised the mainsail (to the second reef points) to keep the boat stable in the waves and ended up motoring the entire distance of 70+ nautical miles. Throughout the night we had clear sky overhead and stars shining brightly. However, ahead of us were dark clouds that obscured the sky and lightning playing on the horizon all night. By 4AM we were within 25 miles of the mainland, and thankfully the clouds and lightning moved off to the east, and the waves and wind had settled down.

We arrived at 8AM Mountain Daylight Time, an hour before the marina opened; so we tied up to the fuel dock to await a slip assignment. At 9AM our time, the marina opened and we got a slip next to a motor vessel that dwarfed us in size. We slipped carefully into the slot between the overgrown power boat and the dock, and opened the morning beer just prior to sleeping for several hours. We found that San Carlos is actually on Pacific Daylight Time, even though it is further east than Santa Rosalía, so we are now on California time as we prepare the boat to leave it for two months.

The night of the 28th, the day we got in, turned out to be one of the hottest, most humid nights this marina had seen in awhile (we are told). Sheilagh and I stripped to almost nothing and slept with two fans blowing air on us all night in an attempt to keep the sweat from running off our bodies. Have you ever tried sleeping in a position that kept all members of your body from touching any other members? Believe me, it’s difficult, but necessary to insure that a layer of moisture doesn’t develop between touching body parts – and that applies to one’s own body. Heaven help me if I dared touch Sheilagh in any way; or her, me.

We had planned to take a week to get the boat ready, but after that night we are motivated to get the job done as soon as possible. We think four days should be enough, allowing us to take an air-conditioned bus north to San Diego by the 1st of August. We’ll see if we make it. We certainly don’t want any more nights like this one. More later . . .

July 23th – Santa Rosalía – Jim’s Blog #60

2008-07-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

We’re back in Santa Rosalía after three days of travel back down the eastern side of the Baja peninsula. Some cruising friends had brought some mail down to Santa Rosalía for us from San Diego and we needed to pick it up before crossing the Sea of Cortez to San Carlos on the mainland side. We will cross the sea in the next few days and put our boat in a slip in San Carlos while we head up to the United States for two months.

On the way down the coast we saw the usual birds and dolphins, but had a unique experience seeing the incoming tide meet the outgoing one in the space of an hour. We were motor-sailing (using both the motor and the sails) south from Puerto Don Juan to Bahia San Francisquito on Monday. At the start of the trip we had a one-knot current caused by the outgoing tide carrying us down the coast for the first six hours of our trip on perfectly smooth water. Then all of a sudden we encountered swells and rough seas for about half an hour, followed by perfectly smooth seas again. But this time we had a one-knot current opposing our progress. Because the negative current only affected an hour and a half of our eight-hour trip, the loss of speed only cost us about an extra half hour over what we had anticipated. It’s a bit weird to experience a sudden transition like that between two masses of water, and see the smooth water on both sides at the same time.

On Monday evening I was the net controller for the Southbound Net, a job I had volunteered for on Monday evenings during the month of July, while the normal net controller was back in the States. It is not a job I particularly like, because it is difficult to hear folks on high-frequency radio, particularly with all the moisture in the air causing static in the signal. Working with the net reminds me of my junior-high school days, when I collected old radios and got them working in the basement of our house in Walla Walla. I strung a long antenna between a large elm tree in the back yard and the house, and used to spend hours twiddling the dials to pull in what stations I could. The longer-range signals were always full of static, and it was a real challenge to hear anything comprehensible.

Now that I am much older and have lost quite a bit of high-frequency hearing from my exposure to the high-pitched turbine engines on our P3 Orion Navy aircraft; so it is even more difficult to detect voices in the static. I had Sheilagh as my cheer leader during the net, copying stuff I couldn’t hear and periodically fanning me with a hand fan to help keep me from melting at the navigation table. When operating the high-frequency (HAM) radio, it is critical to turn off all appliances that could cause disruption of the signal. That includes all fans in the cabin, the inverter that powers 110 volt current, and all 110 volt appliances. Even the engine needs to be off to keep the noise down; so we made sure to be anchored before the net takes place at 5:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time.

Part of the job of the net controller is to record the location, local weather, and people-on-board from all the cruisers who desire to check in to the net. This helps us keep track of one another for safety’s sake, gives us an idea of the local weather in each of the anchorages, and offers us an opportunity to communicate with friends at a specific time each day, when we are quite far apart.

We also get a twice-daily weather report from Don Anderson, a cruiser of many years in his sailboat, ‘Summer Passage,’ who now lives in Oxnard, California. Don is a volunteer weather forecaster who keeps an eye on the weather on the Pacific side of Mexico and communicates the weather that we cruisers can expect in the next few days. It is the job of the net controller to copy down this weather report and be prepared to pass it on to cruisers on the net who are unable to hear Don’s report. This involves specific weather for the outside of the Baja peninsula (for cruisers coming down from, or going back to, California), the Sea of Cortez north and south, the north and south crossings from the Baja peninsula to mainland Mexico, and the mainland of Mexico from Mazatlan down to Acapulco and beyond. You can imagine what a job it is to copy all that information as I try to understand Don’s words through a screen of static.

The experience of trying to understand words buried in static has given me no desire to be a HAM radio operator in my free time, although Sheilagh and I both have licenses to allow us to use it. I much prefer being on the internet and being able to communicate clearly and distinctly in both words and pictures to anywhere in the world. I am surprised that HAM radio is still so popular with so many people, now that the internet provides a much better way of communicating between people around the world – at least in my opinion. Having said that, I have to admit that we use the HAM radio to connect to the internet when we are away from an internet location; so we have the best of both worlds when we need it.

On Tuesday we were roused from our beds by the buzzing of bees at our portholes with a few in the cabin. We have screens in each of the portholes (side-mounted windows) and screens on the hatches (mounted overhead), but we usually don’t screen the companionway entrance unless we have a bug problem. In this case we definitely had a problem. We closed up the companionway with net screening and were held hostage by the bees as they searched for fresh water on our boat. We had been advised in the past not to leave fresh water standing anywhere on the boat and we don’t, but we think they were attracted to the dew that had formed on the deck overnight.

Later we decided there were some things we needed to get done to prepare for our overnight trip that evening down to Santa Rosalía. When we got into the cockpit, we were swarmed by dozens (thankfully not hundreds) of bees. I sat down and bent over to put on my sandals (to avoid being stung by stepping on a bee barefooted) and suddenly felt a pain in my stomach. I had trapped a bee there and got a good sting that proceeded to swell up to unusual proportions over the next day. I am currently taking Benadryl to fight the swelling, but for a while I can blame the small roll above my belt on the bee sting. I had been stung only twice before in my life, and was surprised to find such a strong reaction with this sting. I had always expected that one would develop immunity from bee stings after the first few.

Talking to other cruisers, I’ve found that my body now knows when it has been stung by a bee and supposedly sends in the white blood cells en masse to take care of the problem. This is what causes the swelling, and it can be dangerous if the swelling happens in the throat. That’s why a number of cruisers take along an Epi-Pen (Epinephrine) kit to provide immediate treatment of the swelling symptom. We’ll be getting one in the future you can bet. I can stand the pain of the sting, but apparently my body can’t handle the swelling side effects. So much for getting old!

The bees kept demanding fresh water; so we sprayed the entire deck of the boat with salt water. Other cruisers found this effective, but our bees were convinced we had something they wanted down below; so they hung around. We then tried squirting them with some Windex window cleaner because the alcohol in the mixture is supposed to turn them off. I think we only improved their eyesight. We also tried Raid bug spray, but the bees just laughed at that. So we discontinued our tasks for the day, descended back into the cabin, covered up the companionway with screening material, and spent the afternoon watching two hour-long segments of the TV show “24,” the 6th season.

Yesterday we left Bahia San Francisquito at about 7:30 in the evening, expecting a 15-hour trip and an arrival at about 10:30 in the morning at Bahia Santa Rosalía. After we were on course and had the autopilot set up, we noticed the steering wheel spinning back and forth more aggressively than we had ever seen before. Looking out over the water we saw some six or more large whirlpools scattered about the surface of the water and spinning around counterclockwise about three boat lengths in diameter. As we entered a whirlpool the bow tended to turn to the right, which the autopilot corrected for. In the middle of the whirlpool the stern began tracking to the right while the bow was pushed left. This required the autopilot to correct back to the right, and so on. We assumed the whirlpools indicated where the incoming and outgoing tides were meeting, but we encountered the same whirlpools later on. I hasten to add that these were flat whirlpools, not the deep holes threatening to spin the boat to the bottom that one sees in pictures of Odysseus challenging the whirlpools of Charybdis.

We had a calm night until about midnight with just a shortened mainsail up to help the engine. The wind was just off our nose, so we couldn’t really sail the course without deviating significantly from our course and adding hours to our schedule. I was trying to catch a nap in the cabin while Sheilagh had the watch, when I was awakened by the boat plunging up and down in the waves. Within minutes we went from calm conditions to 4-6’ seas and wind speeds of 20-25 knots. We had to alter course a bit to keep the waves from broad-siding the boat. Our boat was handling the waves and wind in fine fashion, and I was enjoying the ride. Sheilagh, on the other hand, was becoming a basket case, curling up in the fetal position under the dodger in the cockpit and groaning whenever we received spray over the deck. I ordered her below and it was an order she was happy to obey. For the next two hours we rode like that, and then within a few minutes after 2 o’clock we were back to the calm conditions we had before.

From previous experience we had learned to batten down the hatches and dog down the covers on the side windows (called “port lights”) regardless of the current conditions we were in starting out in. In this case we also had the dinghy tied down well on deck and were ready for the storm. We understand that we may have been in an “elefante,” which is a blast of wind coming off the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez due to the cooling of the water and the heated nature of the land. These can be quite strong, as we found out, and they are unpredictable as well. The boat held up well, but the contents of some of our storage cabinets were in complete disarray. Most noticeable is the cabinet over the sink where we keep our plastic glasses. As soon as we open that cabinet after a blow we can expect glasses to fall out into the sink, which they did on this occasion. The rest of our trip was uneventful.

Now we are in Santa Rosalía once again and preparing the boat and ourselves for the 15-hour trip across the Sea of Cortez to San Carlos. More later . . .

July 18th – Isla la Ventana – Jim’s Blog #59

2008-07-24T15:07:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, July 14th, we left the anchorage in Bahia las Ánimas and went up around the corner to a well-known hurricane hole known as Puerto Don Juan. We weren’t planning to stay there, but we wanted to get an idea of the anchorage in case we needed to get there quickly. Puerto Don Juan looks exactly like a smallish volcano with steep sides nearly all the way around and a narrow entrance from the East. In previous hurricanes there have been up to 100 boats anchored there with little damage, although hurricanes are nearly always winding down significantly by the time they reach this far north. We couldn’t see how 100 boats could be shoe-horned into this smallish bay. We took a look around, measured the depths completely around the anchorage, and decided which of several locations we might prefer if we had the choice. Then we sailed on into Bahia de Los Angeles, anchoring in the roadstead opposite the town.

We had been advised that the tide ranges were quite high in this bay, up to 10’ from low tide to high tide, so we made sure to anchor in deeper water than the 20’ depth we usually look for. At a 20’ depth we need only about 100’ of chain to give us a safe 5:1 ratio of scope to depth. In this case we anchored at high tide in 30’ of water and let out 150’ of chain to give us the same ratio. By early the next morning we noted that our depth at low tide was about 20’; so we’re glad we gave ourselves some added depth.

We had no wind the entire day, just sweltering heat, which we kept at bay by the use of several fans in the boat. In the evening we went into the small town of Bahia de Los Angeles for dinner with Ed and Cornelia of ‘A Cappella’ (yes, I know we spend a lot of time with them) at Guillermo’s Restaurant and Bar on the beach. The prices were above average due to the fact that this is a tourist town, just 386 miles south of San Diego or approximately a 10-hour drive, with several air strips and a reputation for good fishing in the local waters. The food was fairly good, and then we found that tax had been added on top of the prices we thought we were paying – most of the restaurants where we have dined usually include the tax in the price of the meals. We had forgotten that the added tax is fairly common for tourist-oriented restaurants.

We did a little grocery shopping and returned to the boat for a completely windless night of sweltering heat. The next day we went back into town for internet work and some lunch and then decided to get away from the roadstead and find a cozier anchorage with a bit of a breeze. We motored about four miles to Isla la Ventana (the Window Isle) and found another volcano center to anchor in. That night we had a good warm breeze that helped dissipate the humidity. We were the only boat around, and it was extremely calm and peaceful. The almost-full moon came up just over the top of a peak, looking like the eyeball at the top of the pyramid on the back of the U.S. one-dollar bill. The entire anchorage was illuminated by the moon, as we rocked lazily at anchor and slept out on the cockpit lazarettes.

We woke up to find that the tide was down at least 10’ and it appeared that we were a lot closer to shore than we had thought. The sides of this volcano are at about a 45° bank; so a 10’ loss in depth brings the edge of the volcano 10’ closer. We got in the dinghy and went to shore, where Sheilagh did some shell hunting along the edge, while I followed a trail up onto one of the hills that defined the volcano top. This anchorage is about as devoid of life as I have ever experienced, and I have done a lot of travel in the Nevada desert as part of flying gliders there. Here there was a lot of rock, several varieties of dried-up-looking cacti, and a few lizards. I kept my eye out for rattlesnakes, since several of these islands are supposed to have them, but saw none, nor did I see any small rodents, rabbits, or prairie dogs that might have fed a snake population.

The climb was a steep one on rough rocks that had a tendency to want to slide down the hill. This was not your classic volcano with a rim around the top. Instead it had a number of hills of various sizes that surrounded it, and the peak I had chosen to climb turned out to have higher peaks around it; so I did not have a view of much when I got to the top. The one moment of excitement I had was almost stepping on a foot-long lizard lying right on the path. As I jumped back the lizard didn’t move a muscle. Its skin was in the process of peeling off, its body was a dull black and brown, and it appeared to be dead to me. Then it blinked its eyes, and I decided to give it a wide berth in case it was hungry enough to take a bite out of a human leg.

‘A Cappella’ followed us into this anchorage that same day, and we got together for Mexican Train dominoes that evening on our boat. Once again Ed and Cornelia killed Sheilagh and me at the game, and Sheilagh was definitely responsible for my running up the largest score (large scores are bad) just to make sure she wasn’t the big loser. One would think after all these years that my own wife would help me out, but she seemed inclined to care only about her own score. She maintains she isn’t smart enough to cheat or to know what domino she should play to assist me, but I think that’s just an excuse. She is definitely getting back at me for some wrong she thinks I have inflicted on her in the past. In the future I’ll make sure she doesn’t sit to my right, where she can sabotage me with a move immediately prior to mine. And to think I have devoted myself to this woman for over 38 years! Where is the justice?

That night we had very strong winds and waves coming at us from the Baja peninsula nearly all night through the entrance to the cove. In these conditions we are always worried that our anchor may not hold. Therefore we leave the GPS and depth sounder on all night, and periodically get up to check on our position and our depth. I don’t think Sheilagh got much sleep, but I just woke up at the usual times to relieve myself and found that we hadn’t moved at all and that our depth was still good. So there IS a benefit in having to visit the head several times a night.

This morning we woke up to see what appeared to be a dead and bloated sea creature drifting into the anchorage with the tide, while a dolphin kept trying to push it back out of the anchorage. We finally decided that the dead creature was probably the mate or offspring of the active dolphin, which was unwilling to let it go. The carcass was in such bad shape that it must have been dead for several days, but the mate kept pushing it back against the incoming tide for several hours until the tide turned and the carcass floated out of the anchorage. It was sad to see this scenario play out, suspecting as we did that the active dolphin was doing its best to stay connected to its mate or child.

Russ and Debbie brought their boat, ‘Zephyra,’ into the anchorage today, and we got together with them, Ed, and Cornelia for a BYOBAA (Bring Your Own Booze and Appetizer) cocktail party that we might have had in a dinghy raft-up if it weren’t for the strong winds and swell that started up in the late afternoon. As it was, we had the party on Zephyra, and had to fight our way in our dinghy through some strong swells and spray to get there. The strong winds are continuing, as is usually the case here during the summer. As the land cools off in the evening the air on the hills rushes down to the warmer sea and can bring winds of up to 60 knots. So far we have only experienced 25-knot winds and are not eager to experience the higher speed winds.

In the middle of the night we had our first thunderstorm with a lot of lightning and thunder, but only a few drops of rain. It appears that it is so hot here that the moisture evaporates before it hits the ground. This marks at least 9 months without rain since we started cruising. When we first saw the lightning we quickly put our two portable GPS navigation units in our oven, along with a hand-held VHF radio and Sheilagh’s portable computer. We’ve been told that the stove oven (or a microwave oven) is the best place to protect the electronics on a boat in the case of a lightning strike. It may or may not be true, but the items we were trying to protect are essential to both navigation and safety. With GPS and the radio we could get by even if all the other electronics on the boat get fried.

We will be starting our trip over to the mainland side early next week to park our boat for a two-month visit back to the U.S. during August and September. Now, if we can just find enough relatives to visit during that time, we can forego the need for our condo in San Diego, which is still being rented to one of our nieces. The secret is to visit a lot of relatives and friends for only a few days each in order to maintain good family and friend relationships that could disintegrate if we stay longer than the three-day limit – the time it takes for visitors and fish to start smelling bad. More later . . .

July 13th – Bahía las Ánimas – Jim’s Blog #58

2008-07-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

We’re now about two-thirds of the way up the inside eastern edge of the Baja Peninsula. Our log says that we have now cruised for about 3,400 nautical miles (approximately 3,800 statute miles). At an average speed of 5-6 knots, that amounts to approximately 620 hours of sailing/motoring during the 8.5 months that we have been cruising since the beginning of November. If we assume that an average day of travel lasts about 9 hours to get from one anchorage to another, we have spent nearly 70 days (out of the 250 that we have been cruising) actually getting from place to place. So generally we’ve been relaxing in anchorages over 70% of the time that we’ve been out. And of the 70 days that we have been sailing/motoring, we have encountered only a handful of days that have been uncomfortable. Not bad for an eight-month vacation!

We left Santa Rosalía on Thursday, July 10th and motor-sailed to Ensenada la Trinidad, a small dent in the coastline about 10 hours north. The next real bay was about 80 nautical miles north, but would have required that we leave in the afternoon and sail all night to get there in daylight. We prefer anchoring at night and getting a good night’s sleep, rather than stand 3-hour watches all night where we never really get the rest we need. Ensenada la Trinidad, however, turned out to be a rockin’ and rollin’ anchorage with little protection from the easterly swells, so we had to wedge ourselves into our bunks and ignore the constant rolling motion of the boat. We left early the next morning to get out of the constant rolling of the boat and to make sure we would get into Bahía San Francisquito early in the afternoon.

On the way up to Trinidad we were able to sail a bit, and were enjoying the quiet, when we heard the sound of a very large snort. Looking around, we saw a very large whale about 3 boat lengths away from us on the port (left) side (probably 120’ away), expelling breath through his blowhole, and paralleling our course. The distance from the back of his dorsal fin to the front of the body that could be seen above the water was at least 30’ long. It was not a Gray Whale, since Grays don’t have a dorsal fin. So we went to our sea life identification book, and decided the beast was a Fin Whale. Checking out the diagram of the whale in the book to determine the size, we found that we had been viewing about one-third the length of the entire whale. That means we had about a 90’ whale taking a look at us.

We did the whale look-up later to determine the full size, but at the time we were more than aware that we had a monster following us, and our thoughts immediately turned to what a whale that size could do to our boat if we were mistaken for a whale of the opposite sex. We held our breath, grabbed a handhold, and attempted to get a picture of the whale. We were too flustered to get a good photo and just at that time the whale went down, the wind died, the sails started flapping, and we became absorbed in getting the sails furled. After we started the engine and handled the sails, we noted the whale now on our starboard side about twice as far away and it soon disappeared. Apparently he/she passed under our stern while we were otherwise engaged.

Reading further about Fin Whales, we found that there are several sedentary populations of these whales in the Gulf of California (our name for the Sea of Cortez) and that they occasionally make close approaches to divers as they pass – almost as if they are curious. We assume this whale was simply observing us and had no other plans for us or our boat. It was certainly an eye-opening experience, and I couldn’t help but think that we were awfully close to harpoon distance, if we had been whalers.

Later that same day we were approached by three dolphins that played around our bow for at least 10 minutes. We got some movie footage of the dolphins, but they didn´t show up very well. Here´s a still of two of them that we got.

On Friday, due to a lack of wind, we motored up to Bahía San Francisquito where we ran into ‘A Cappella’ and ‘Zephyra’ waiting for us in the anchorage there. ‘A Cappella’ had left two days previously in the afternoon and went straight to this bay. ‘Zephyra’ left a day ahead of us and also stopped off at Ensenada de Trinidad. Also in Bahia San Francisquito were several large, rusty fishing boats that were anchored during the day to let their crews sleep; so they could catch and process squid all night. When we first showed up we were invited to cocktails with Ed and Cornelia on ‘A Cappella’ along with Russ and Debbie from ‘Zephyra.’ It was wonderful to sleep on a boat that was steady in the water.

We stayed an extra day, and invited the other two crews to cocktails on our boat that afternoon. After two days of sailing/motoring, it was enjoyable to sit and do nothing all day. I got hot at one point in the afternoon and stepped off the side of the boat into what I expected would be the 80° water I had experienced in Conception Bay. Not so! The water was about 70° and a shock to my body that I didn’t expect. It reminded me of my pre-teen summer ritual at the local swimming pool, where I used to dawdle around the edge of the pool dreading the moment of contact with the water, even though I knew my body would get used to it almost immediately. I must have wasted hours getting up the nerve to get wet, and I still have that initial reluctance to get wet unless the temperature of the water is at least 80°.

That night the fishing boats did their nightly processing so close to our boats that we could smell the squid, hear the Mexican music on the boats, and even observe the assembly line on a couple of the boats. It was definitely time to leave. As we departed at about 8AM the next day, we couldn’t help but notice the tin cans, food wrappers, plastic bottles, and other trash floating in the bay from the fishing boats. It occurred to us that these decrepit boats probably didn’t have holding tanks; so swimming in their vicinity was not an option.

All three sailboats brought up our anchors within a few minutes of each other today, and headed north to Bahía las Animas. The water was absolutely flat most of the day, not a breath of wind until about 2PM. Sheilagh and I kept cool by watering each other down with the fresh-water hose in the cockpit. In the course of the day all three boats encountered large groups of dolphins playing together and possibly feeding in a couple of locations. Several of the dolphins split off and rode our bow wave, while we saw several baby dolphins playing in the group. We saw no whales in the last two days, but we did see a seal lying on its back in the water with its flippers extended up out of the water and lacking only a good novel and an umbrella drink to be totally content (at least from our perspective).

This is one of my favorite seats - on the bow pulpit facing back toward the boat - from which I can see the wildlife, particularly dolphins swimming below

Tonight the cocktails were on ‘Zephyra,’ a very roomy ketch with a center cockpit, whose original home was Lake Tahoe. Russ and Debbie bought the boat there, did some chartering with visitors to the lake, and eventually transported it down to the San Francisco Bay Area to prepare it for cruising. Russ entertained us with a description of the geology of the area that he had learned about thirty years ago, and had retained an amazing amount of information from the course. We can see a perfectly shaped volcano a bit north of us with an absolutely flat top. We are anchored near some lava cones that show evidence of having expelled gas some years ago, forming caves in the rock. We may do some exploring tomorrow. More later . .