July 2015 – Summer Adventures

Day(s) in The Life

DISCLAIMER: I realized I could schedule blog posts to go live at some future date. So, you may be reading this new blog post, but it does not in fact mean that right now I am somewhere with Internet access posting it (just wanted to prevent possible disappointment for some…not mentioning any names, Mom).

Time for a “Special Topic” (AKA more words, less pictures) on what it’s like to live on our boat day to day (Thanks for the idea on this one, Anne). This is for everyone who is still wondering what the heck we are doing when not frolicking in paradisiacal locations. I struggled to sort this piece out, until I realized that our day to day boat life is wholly dependent on the state of the boat. For instance, life at anchor is completely different from life at a dock and both different from life underway. Therefore, “A Day in the Life” will need to be in three parts, cross pollinated and loosely organized as it may be.

Also, writing this piece made me think of this funny article that is also very similar to boat life. To quote Mrs Yardley : “I just love that I can be scrubbing the bathroom, look out the window, and see the tide coming in”. Yes we are in amazing places and seeing really cool stuff, but we still have our house and all the associated chores and maintenance (Jonny claims to have spent half of his day doing dishes yesterday and no, I’m not allowed to make eggs benedict again, although my hollandaise was divine).

Life at Anchor

Living “on the hook”, as we say, is much a more relaxed life and yet also requires much more diligence in many departments. Keeping a close eye on the anchor chain, wind and currents is extremely important. The number one goal for being at anchor is to STAY at anchor. As a rule, the nose of the boat should always be pointed into the wind – that’s her ‘natural’ state of being. If that is not happening, then something is going on – either a funky current down below is turning us around or the anchor maybe came dislodged and we’re heading off against our will (aka “dragging anchor”). Taking references points of things around us is a good idea and keeping an eye periodically is important. As the wind changes, the boat will swing around to remain pointed into it. This means that if we were to put out 150 feet of anchor chain, we could swing around in a circle with a 300 foot diameter. It’s very important to keep this in mind when choosing where we anchor. The depth of the water we are anchoring in will determine the scope (length of chain) we put out. Generally we try to do 7 to 1 – meaning if we are in 20 feet of water, we would put out 140 feet of chain. That is an extremely safe (and often overkill) ratio. We need to be aware of our surroundings – the depth, the obstacles, the other boats – in the entire area in which we could possibly swing. We have been extremely lucky never to have dragged anchor or swung around into another boat, etc. Once anchored, we put on snubbers – chains that reduce the wear and tear on the boat and act as a shock absorber when we bounce around. All of this needs to be checked regularly and more frequently if there is a lot of weather or current – to make sure it’s all still in place and we aren’t dragging anchor, chafing the boat, etc.

Water Consumption

It’s extremely important thing we pay attention to how much water we have while anchored (or underway). We have 100 gallons in our tanks and 10 gallons in jerry cans. We do not own a watermaker. We have a device called “The Water Fixer”, which is about 10x less expensive than a watermaker and filters our tank water with a charcoal filter and a UV light (it kills everything – we can safely drink Mexican hose water). We are extremely frugal in our usage at all times. We do not have a meter or gauge to see how much water we have, but we do have two tanks connected via a shut off valve and we can open portals in each and look in at each one. Both the galley and head sinks draw water from our lower water tank. So when that one is empty, we open a valve to fill it up from the upper tank. This gives us an idea when we’re halfway through our supplies. We often will make several trips ashore with our jerry cans to refill our upper tank (“We” usually means Jonny). We have just installed the salt water line so that our manual hand pump faucet on the sink will give us salt water. This will allow us to wash dishes in salt water, thereby making our freshwater reserves last a whole lot longer– and reduce the frequency of the often difficult task of finding and fetching water. We do give everything a freshwater rinse at the end.

Our toilet (called a ‘head’ on a boat – originating from old timey days when you would just literally go to the head of the boat and pee off the bow) sucks in salt water for flushing, so that does not waste our freshwater. It would be really sad if we had to limit how many times we could go in a day, especially after sketchy Mexican food… It either pumps overboard – under the boat, or it pumps into a holding tank (20 gallons) when we are in places that prohibit overboard pumping. Those places will then have pumpout stations to pump out the holding tank contents. What fun that is! All our toilet paper goes into a bin and has to be disposed of when we get access to onshore trash. Luckily we’ve always been able to empty it when full, and have not yet had to store tied up bags of used toilet paper. That’s disgusting.

Bathing

Bathing happens a little less frequently and with a little less attention to detail while at anchor. Soap and shampoo is stored in the cockpit cubby for easy access. It mostly goes like this: Undo swim ladder from stowed on rail position, and clip it into the brackets on the side of the boat. Make sure to have a towel or sarong handy. Jump overboard, play around in the water. Come out, maybe soap up or shampoo hair (maybe) and then jump back in the water. When you’re done, rinse off with the bug sprayer. We have one of those plastic pressurized tanks with a wand – you pump it up to make pressure and then nicely spray yourself off –only with fresh water, instead of pesticide. Dry off (or not) and hang towel or sarong out to dry (remove if it gets too windy). Our 2 gallons of fresh water can last through 3-4 showers for each of us (6-8 total) and we feel refreshed and ‘clean enough’. How’s that for water efficiency?!

Energy Usage

Another thing we need to monitor and be aware of at anchor is how much energy we consume. We have 3 large flooded deep cycle batteries (they look similar to car batteries but bigger and heavier) that provide the 12 volt power supply that runs everything electrical on the boat – lights, pumps, computers, radios, blender, etc. The batteries can be charged either from our two 140 watt solar panels, or by the alternator when we run our engine. We have an 800 watt power inverter – that takes the 12 volt power and converts it to DC power. This allows me to plug normal things in – such as my blender, mini food processor, my electric toothbrush charger, our dustbuster charger, etc. As long as it draws under 800 watts, we can plug it in and use it like normal (hairdryers are out- but who cares?). Using the inverter is great, but it is the least efficient way to use our energy – a lot of energy is lost in the conversion from 12 volt to DC. Our batteries rely upon the solar panels for charging. Normally this is not a problem – we almost always make up energy in the day time and have plenty to run our lights and watch our movies at night. If it’s rainy or cloudy for a day or two, we might be in trouble. If it looks like we are running the batteries down, we may have to run the motor for an hour or two to fully charge our batteries.

Shade

It isn’t just nice to have, but as summer it becomes critically important. We have our cockpit shade structure – a plastic-y-canvas piece that drapes over our boom and secures around the mast and to the lifelines. We have phifertex (sort of a mesh/see through screen plastic-y-fabric) sides that can be put on or removed for each side of the boat. These block 75% of the sun, but not so much our views- making things MUCH cooler and more pleasant in the cockpit on hot, sunny days. Without these shades, our teal cockpit cushions become so hot we cannot walk barefoot on them. We now also have a rectangle canvas shade we can put over the boom forward of the cockpit shade and secure to lifelines with lines. We have a third shade which hangs over our whisker pole (which slides down from the mast and sticks out like a boom – it’s purpose is to pole out our jib in light wind, but these days it’s just a very expensive shade holder). Shading the boat can make about a 10 degree temperature difference down below. When it’s 104 out, this is quite nice.

Dinghy Safety and Security

Our dinghy (perhaps you know her as Peugeot) is our car, our only mode of transport from the boat to shore or any other places we’d like to visit without docks. It’s also handy for fishing trips. We are extremely cautious with Peugeot at all times. For example, where ever we are, we always pull the motor off and lock it to the back of the boat. Our motor is old and not very nice, but if someone were to steal it, it would be devastating for us financially and logistically. So we don’t take any chances, even if others in the anchorage leave their motors on overnight. There have been times we were tempted to leave it on (it’s late, we’re tired, everyone else is doing it…) but then we both have to think for just a second of how awful it would be to lose it, and we do the chore. The chore involves Jonny in the dinghy, loosening the clamps that hold it on, me on the boat undoing a clip and lowering the clip and line, which attaches to the motor, and is connected to lines and a pulley hoist system on our stainless solar arch. I then hoist the motor up to the boat and we clamp it onto the bracket on our stern rail – then lock it with a padlock. A bit more involved than pulling your car into a garage for the night. Taking it out in the morning is the same thing in reverse. When that is done, we either leave the dinghy attached to the back of the boat, if we are someplace we feel very secure, or, we have to hoist the dinghy up onto the bow of the boat. Another involved process using lines and blocks and hoisting and sometimes toe stubbing, swearing or arguing.

Life Dockside

Being tied up to the docks at marinas often sounds like the easiest way to go. There’s a water spigot for unlimited water use (often free or extremely inexpensive metering), there’s shore power to plug into if we need to – which will then allow us to use all the AC outlets in the boat (there are 3 which we cannot use unless plugged in at the dock) which can be handy (it means I can run my blender in the galley instead of on top of the chart table, we can plug the dust buster into the bathroom and we can plug in computers in the main cabin (although our 12v plugs are numerous and very convenient as well). You can also just step off the boat and walk someplace to get food or…away. There are usually real showers to use – unlimited fresh water pouring down on you whenever you want can be heavenly. And often there is access to wifi nearby or even on board. After a long stint at sea, being dockside can sound pretty enticing.

Then, usually after about 3 days, you are kind of over it and ready to get back out to the anchorages. It starts to feel oppressive and there are pressures to do things – like food shopping and taking a shower every day. getting absorbed into the internet. I find myself missing the joy of jumping overboard for swimming hassle free bathing and having a slower pace in general.

Bathing

Shampoo and soap are moved from cockpit cubby to a backpack, ready to transport to the shower facilities (don’t forget flip flops and towel). Walk to wherever the shower is and shower just like a normal person, Except wear flip flops and try not to get your stuff all wet or let your towel fall on the floor and hope there aren’t any giant dead cockroaches in the shower… Remember to take wet towel out of backpack and hang it up to dry when you get back to the boat. I know this sounds silly, but given the way my mind wanders, sometimes the walk from the shower back to the boat can make one forget such things.

Water Consumption

Use with wild abandon. This means we actually wash our hands till they are fully clean and use more than a trickle when doing dishes. Clothing can be washed. The hose comes out and Summer gets a nice bath. Or two. It’s always very exciting. Sometimes it’s even “free” (included in the price of the dock), sometimes there’s a meter, but it’s not usually that expensive.

Propane

Our galley stove runs on propane and we can only carry 2 tanks (about a month each). Getting a tank filled is not usually the easiest task because propane gas facilities are not usually located near to populated areas (probably due to the possibility of them blowing up). Some marinas offer services where someone will take your tank, have it filled and return it. Other times it’s an expensive cab ride to a facility, or a bus ride, lugging a tank (or once, a bike ride with a tank strapped on the back). Each time has been different so far. Who knows what will happen next time we run out?! (We try to fill one tank at a time so we don’t run out entirely). They often don’t get filled properly because for some reason no one ever knows they need to use a screwdriver in the bleeder valve to get it full up. It’s frustrating to pay for a full tank, send it off and only get ½ back. We’re thinking of writing instructions in Spanish and attaching them with a screwdriver to the tank.

Projects and Maintenance

When we are at a marina, we are paying to be there, so we try to make the most of that time by doing projects and maintenance that cannot be done or done easily while at anchor (or underway). So, dockside life is rarely the most relaxing – it’s usually more of a GO GO GO sort of life. We make project lists and have specific things we want to accomplish each day. There’s always something to fix or improve on a boat (especially when that boat is your 24/7 home). On a side note – I have to say all the improvements we have made have a significant impact on our day to day lives. I don’t ever remember so much satisfaction from making changes to my homes in the past.

Life Underway

Sailing

I know, right?!?!? We live on a SAIL boat. Some of our time is actually spent sailing. Someone always needs to be in the cockpit, keeping watch, making sure we’re on course, adjusting the sail trim, avoiding collisions with other boats, etc. If it’s more than a 24 hour passage, we take shifts (3-4 hours each) so that we can sleep. Otherwise we just sort of do it naturally. Jonny loves to tweak on the sails, I prefer to be at the helm, or napping and reading. Of course I do attempt to improve my sailing skills from time to time as well.

Depending on the conditions, it can be fun and gorgeous, it can be excruciatingly slow, it can be wild and exciting. We watch the weather and hope to get somewhere between fun and gorgeous and wild and exciting. If there’s not enough wind, we will often have to use the motor. Then it’s loud and slurping diesel, but we don’t have any sails to mind (unless we’re motorsailing, then we leave the main up).

Bathing

Yeah. Not so much.

Cooking

When underway, cooking is often a much greater challenge. Pots need to be fitted with special tongs that them from sliding around, the stove needs to be unhooked to allow it to gimbal – and stay level while the boat moves around it (unfortunately our gimbal doesn’t work so well, but we do keep using it, hoping it will magically heal itself one day…). Things roll around the counter, stuff tips over, it’s hard to stand upright sometimes. Sometimes you just need to brace yourself and hold on to everything until a rough patch passes. All very exciting challenges that tend to make for much simpler meals. I usually like to prepare a lot of food and meals ahead of time to avoid having to do a lot of cooking while underway, but some is always inevitable.

One of the best parts of being underway or at anchor is tossing food waste overboard. It makes our tiny trash can last forever and it’s somehow a joyous feeling to toss an avocado pit or end of an onion out the companionway and over the side – it’s like “cooking with wild abandon” (while also clearing the small workspace).

Water

(see water consumption above – it’s the same except there’s no way to get more till we’re anchored or docked).

Energy Usage

Energy is usually not a problem when underway. If the solar panels aren’t able to do their job, we typically run the motor for at least some time (if / when the wind dies) during the trip. Our alternator will recharge the batteries in a very short amount of time. We also don’t use that much energy while underway since we’re mostly just sailing the boat or sleeping – not watching movies or making blender concoctions.

Sleeping

At dock or at anchor, we build our bed every night. Since we don’t have a normal V-berth, and we don’t like sleeping in separate bunks in the main cabin, we devised a new bed. When both bunks are pulled out (and are each twin sized) we put a board in between and cushion on top and then instead of sleeping front to back in the boat, we sleep crosswise on a gigantic (king sized-ish with some extra bits on the ends) bed. It’s a bit of a process to make every single night, but we have it down and can do it in just a few minutes. And of course we have to un-build it every morning so we can walk through the cabin. When we are underway, however, we just make up one of the twin sized settee bunks and take turns sleeping on that (since we can’t both go to sleep at the same time while sailing).

Conclusion

Each of these modes of living has advantages and disadvantages. The upside is that none of them last all that long before they turn into one of the others. But if we didn’t need to resupply with fuel and water, I think I’d love to be mostly at anchor or underway all the time. I would rank being at anchor as my favorite way to live. My ideal world would be anchoring somewhere that’s appealing enough to jump in for a swim every day, that’s safe enough to leave the dinghy in the water at night and a has a spot on shore to land our dinghy and leave it safely while we shop for food (and it’s easy to get someplace to shop for food). Oh and not too rolly. And so we go, from place to place in search of the perfect anchorage, or getting a marina when necessary, traveling with our home in between – adapting to each stage as we go.

As for a pattern of our ‘daily life’, I think the pattern can only be viewed from much higher up, as every day is so different and unpredictable in so many ways.

Perhaps I’ll just go with the Gatsby ending here: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Or the Jean Baptiste Alphonse Karr ending: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose [the more that things change, the more they stay the same]

Or the Rush ending “Constant change is here to stay”.

Choose your own adventure.

La Paz to Los Candeleros

Preparing to leave La Paz felt like we were preparing to go to the moon. Not in the sense of learning to live with weightlessness or anything like that, but rather feeling like we were heading off into oblivion of nothingness and we had to bring EVERYTHING we could ever want with us. We kept hearing so much about how there’s pretty much NOTHING north of La Paz in terms of food variety and supplies. I know there’s Loreto and Santa Rosalia to look forward to for food basics, but we had no idea how long it would take to get there – not because we don’t have charts, but there’s no way to chart how long we are going to stay in any given place. We’ve given up trying to predict that sort of thing. So, the best we can do is pack Summer with as much as she’ll carry and head off into the wild blue yonder–parts of which actually do look like the moon.

We had to put Summer back in order after her hurricane preparations – putting the windvane back on top of the mast, putting the radar reflector and flag back up, unwrapping the jib, and of course washing the new found dirt repositories we kept discovering.

We did some provisioning while still in the marina. “Running to the store for groceries” is quite a different project when you have no car and much of the day is well over 90 degrees. We were getting pretty used to walking out to the 4 lane road and crossing over to catch the #4 colectivo to most anywhere we needed to go. There isn’t really a “one stop shop” – even the big grocery stores vary in what you can get, so it becomes necessary to visit ALL the stores to get the most comprehensive collection of supplies. For example, a huge store with good prices –Chedraui, has most of an entire aisle devoted to mayonnaise, mostly one brand, and then all the apparently less popular brands (none of which are without soy or canola, but that’s a different story). There are also three separate locations in which you can find mustard in this one store. The very small Aramburo grocery store had an entire aisle devoted to deodorant. You just never know what you’re going to find, but when you find what you want, you best get all there is, because next time it may not be there.

The heat was so extreme during the day that it was difficult to get much done, but we persevered (my slave driver kept me from wandering off to the pool before I accomplished my task list for the day, but I could usually drag the slavedriver to the pool by 5pm when it was the most sweltering). We ended up at the grocery store late in the evening (lugging heavy groceries in the hot daytime sounded like a bad idea). We ran into Nia and Mike from Azul and it was fun to catch up with them and compare cart contents. We also got to talking about our need for a middle shade over the boom of Summer. We have a cockpit shade and a bow shade, but the middle is left exposed. We discovered that shading the boat makes a huge difference in comfort level down below. Azul had a random supply of canvas, and a sewing machine – so we decided to meet up with them when we got out to the anchorage and see what we could do. It’s amazing how much time and effort we now spend avoiding the sun, after spending so much time and effort to get to this sunny place in life!

Forward Shade — The new forward shade scored for a deal at Minney’s Yacht Surplus

We methodically checked off tasks from our “Get out of La Paz” list. I got Peugeot inflated and ready to use. Jonny brought our propane tank on the bus out to Marina de La Paz for the fill service, stocked up on boat and fishing supplies, found places to stow every new load of provisions and we finally paid our marina water and electricity bill and threw off the dock lines to escape land life. Our neighbor Ted was there to cast off our bowline and wave goodbye. Ted was a good pal at the marina, afternoon pool buddy and saved my butt at least once when Jonny was away (and the bilge pump wouldn’t shut off…). Hopefully we’ll see him out there aboard Forté one of these days.

Night Heron — A night heron welcomed us to the anchorage

Once we made the short trip and anchored out near the Magote, we breathed half a sigh of relief. So nice to be out on the water again!! But all the discomforts of land were still just a dinghy ride away. We did a LOT of walking with heavy packs on hard pavement. My dogs were barking! I developed painful plantar faciitis just in time to leave the city.

We had one last “Twofer” pizza night, I couldn’t even eat a whole pie and I wasn’t in the mood for a beer. We took our leftovers and hiked up the for a late night shopping trip to the Aramburo – another supermarket that is small but has a great selection of things you can’t find anywhere else (like real butter that has nothing but butter in it, parchment paper, snapware containers, a large selection of ground coffee, etc).

Luckily we didn’t have to hoof it all over the city scoping out canvas shade options. The canvas pieces Nia and Mike had were not quite the sizes we needed, but Nia offered to sew it up to exactly what we wanted. We were so happy to be able to give them some business and have it happen all right there in the anchorage. Nia did an amazing job in no time flat and brought us our new shade canvas the night before we were ready to head out. All we needed to do was put some grommets in it with our special grommet tool and it’s ready to go. We are hoping to catch up with those guys again up in the Sea – and be able to hang out when we aren’t in “Get Stuff Done” mode – they are really fun people who have been making the cruising life work for the past four years.

On our last run to the central market – the one where they have stalls for every category of food – I was at the butcher trying to get a few steaks and ground beef. I never know what cuts of meat are what and my Spanish isn’t good enough yet to find out, so I just try to get them to cut me something from a chunk that looks fresh and tasty. As I was awkwardly negotiating, a woman behind me says “You don’t want that, it’ll be too tough” and she starts speaking to the butcher in perfect Spanish. She gets him to make a few cuts to the center of a huge piece of cow and then I say how thick I want the steaks. Turns out the woman is Italian, is a master chef and ran a restaurant in La Paz for eighteen years. Simply meeting a master chef was very exciting for me – but then it got even better! She no longer has her restaurant, but she does have a kitchen and makes her own Italian sausages and often makes meals for cruisers. AND her kitchen was just a couple blocks away and she’d was happy to take us there and sell us some of her sausages!! Anything else we might have needed could wait till our last Mega trip. I was on my way to get some real Italian sausages, made by a real Italian master chef. I felt like the luckiest person on earth! Silvia is just wonderful – I wish I could have spent a day (or more) talking with her. She speaks perfect English, Italian, Spanish and I think French and maybe some other languages. She also had sailed on a 24 foot sailboat and even wrote an cookbook for cooking on a small boat. It’s in Italian, but maybe my Mom can get her Italian class to translate for me? (here’s her blog, but it’s all in Spanish – I really need to get fluent! http://silvia-bernardini.blogspot.mx/ ). We got a few packs of sausage from her freezer and went away with a promise to reconnect when we pass through La Paz again. Why couldn’t I have met her two weeks earlier? Probably for the best or I might have spent too much of our cruising kitty on guided food shopping expeditions with Silvia.

We were finally ready beyond ready to head up into the Sea of Cortez. We were later than we wanted and therefore felt the need to hurry up to the North to avoid getting caught in hurricanes. At the time there was nothing even brewing in the hurricane pot, so we felt like we could make a few stops along the way and not have very long passage days (and no overnights).

Underway Shade — Our new “underway” shade that Jonny sewed up in NH has proven to be a life saver. We wouldn’t survive sailing in this sun/heat without it!

Our first stop was Caleta Partida – the spot between Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida. There are so many anchorages in this area but we had to just pick one, otherwise a month would go by before we knew it. The water was gorgeous and the surrounding islands were par for the course – desert-y moonscapes with cactus. It was nice but felt a little “meh”. But we were glad to be at anchor far from ‘stuff’ and we had a nice evening swimming and eating dinner. The next morning we set off in the dinghy to traverse the narrow, shallow waterway between the islands and see if we could find ourselves some sea caves to explore.

The geologic wonders were awesome and oh did we find caves! All of it gorgeous and breathtaking. The best part was when we anchored the dinghy and set off to snorkel in and around and through some caves. I was a little scared at first, swimming the tight channel between 2 cave walls into what I knew not. Jonny chose to swim in through another opening and we met in the middle of the cave. The underwater views were amazing – looking out through cave openings into the clear turquoise waters. And the fish and coral! Much of the same we’ve seen all over, but it never gets old.

We spent the afternoon back at Summer and exploring the nearby beach where we anchored. It was kind of gross, the water was full of plant growth parts floating here and there and the beach was not all that picturesque. But the wildlife was the draw there. I saw this bird take off as we landed, and soon after I spotted a large rabbit scampering away. I wandered through the desert wilderness and spotted a chipmunk, all kinds of lizards and after diligently searching, I finally spotted another rabbit – and even got some video proof.

That night I cooked up some of Silvia’s sausages with some of my homemade spaghetti sauce (my Italian grandma’s recipe) – it was delicious! I was transported to Italy for sure – it really tasted like something you’d get at one of those amazing hole in the wall restaurants in Rome. Very glad we have 2 more meals worth of these babies packed up against our freezer plate.

Is SF Jonny agate beach — Final descent into agate beach

Is SF bay ridge hike — We started at the far end of the beach and hiked up and across this entire ridgeline

Is SF red rocks summer peak — Yes, that’s Summer out there

Is SF boulders Jenn — Totally comfortable hanging out atop these rocks…just let me hold on to something

IS SF Bays all — The South and North bays of Isla San Francisco. Summer is the smallest one at the top of the picture

The next morning we headed out for our next destination – Isla San Francisco. Supposedly gorgeous and so picturesque that it’s photo graces the cover of our main guidebook. We had some wind and then not so much. We motored past these 2 small islands which are a breeding ground for sea lions. Tourists come out from La Paz on boat trips to see and swim with the sea lions. Seemed like a very strange concept to us – given that sea lions were more of a scourge and often aggressive on the docks in Moss Landing. But there were baby ones, very cute and all making the signature sea lion barking noises. It was hard not to hear the barking and not feel a little bit annoyed, as was the old habit. The islands were really unique looking and we ended up doing a lap around to check them all out. Then we were on our way again for a rather slow sail out to Isla San Francisco. We picked a spot to anchor well behind the other boats there – then 2 left which put us really far away from the remaining boats. That’s kind of how we roll, I guess. We had a bit of a rolly night and decided there would not be another. Perhaps we’d anchor on the north side of the island or move on? At any rate we saw hiking trails and the potential for the guide book cover shot views. We landed on the beach before 8:30 am when there was shade. We made our way along the beach to the trail head and up along the ridge. Very rocky and much loose shale, but it wasn’t long before we had some lovely views. As often happens to us, we decided to “just go up to that next peak”. It was mostly a moderate hike, except for the part at the tippy top where I found myself belly down on top of a boulder that dropped off into oblivion on either side, inching my way across in hopes of finding a way to get to more trail on the other side. Luckily I didn’t panic and freeze up as occasionally will happen in elevated situations. We just kept going and going and going some more. We finally had crossed the entire ridgeline of the Southern portion of the island. We saw the north anchorage and the rocky beach that was supposedly filled with agates. I wasn’t entire sure what an agate looked like, but I found 2 rocks that I suspected might be (and turns out I was right). Not many of them there, but piqued my interest in agate-hunting. From that beach we hiked across the flat middle portion of the island where salt ponds lay evaporating their liquid in pinky crystalline pools. The salt flats were sticky and soft and we kept waiting to sink up to our necks. But instead I found myself getting taller and taller as I walked along. The sticky sand was building up on the bottom of my sneakers! We stopped for a shoe cleaning break on the white sand beach facing Summer. Then we hoofed it back and decided to get the heck out of there – after watching Summer’s mast swaying steadily back and forth. Too rolly to even have a chill afternoon after all that hiking. We decided to head to San Evaristo, just 8 miles away. It’s a small fishing village with an anchorage, and possibly a tienda (more avocados??). It’s also where our friend Rob passed away last month and we thought it would be nice to pay our respects.

We had a decent sail and it was even a bit blustery (if a windy 95 degrees can be called blustery?) as we entered the anchorage. It was a cute little spot, but given the wind direction and anchoring options, we decided to leave the main village and head around the north side for a possibly more peaceful spot. We got it. The northern anchorage was calm, private and had dramatic views of the steep, jagged and very green mounts of the Sierra Gigante mountain range. There was a rocky beach (the smooth, round kind of rocks) and some caves under the cliff point. We happily anchored here and had a nice swim and enjoyed the views. The next day we went ashore to check out the beach and give Jonny a hair cut. We found the last little patch of shade with a good rock for sitting and I masterfully created a new and very short ‘do for the captain. Some of my best work yet.

N Evaristo Summer — The northern anchorage at San Evaristo. That tiny white spot in the water is Summer – hard to capture the gigantic-ness of the Gigantes

Just on the other side of the beach, past a rickety cemetery, was a huge salt farm. Large pools in various states of evaporation and pyramids of salt filled this area between the beach and a homestead oasis. There was also a road that led back to the village. We snorkeled the point and sat on the smooth rocks in the shallow, cool water. This beach was also crawling with agates! You could hardly turn around without tripping over them. I was in geologic heaven. Living in such a small space, I obviously cannot collect beach finds as I once used to, so, uh, I may or may not have a bag of agates hoarded away somewhere. Later in the afternoon we did the hike into town. We checked it out, not much but some simple homes of fishermen and their families. There was a restaurant at the farthest end of the beach, but we didn’t go that far. We searched for the little market but didn’t find that either. It would have been nice to get a few fresh veg items, but we were still fine without. We had a hot, sweaty hike back over the pass and threw ourselves down in the lovely smooth stone bottom waters for a bit. I may or may not have pocketed more agates when the captain wasn’t looking.

Granola bars, midway through cutting process

We had our last up close look at the dramatic Gigantes and cast off the next morning. We were headed for Puerto Los Gatos – a place that sounded just amazing with rock formations and very remote. We were in the stretch where there were no road – the road ended in San Evaristo and did not begin again until Loreto. It was a bit of a slow sail/ motor sail, but the views were gorgeous and I used much of the time to prepare some foods to keep us going. I have been experimenting with making granola bars, full of healthy, yummy bits. Easy to grab snacks and additions to our simple meals. I’ve also been making tabbouleh with cauliflower instead of wheat (if I ever find cauliflower again…) and black bean salads with garbanzos and the most common veggies – cucumbers, carrots, red onion. Things that will fill us up and not require cooking are high on my list these days! No longer are the nights cooler and good for cooking up a storm. The nights are hot and running the stove makes the cabin almost unbearable. Our two little fans are working overtime, for sure. Baking the granola bars underway was a good idea – we are not down below much and the breezes flow through and normalize it again quickly.

Unfortunately we had not caught any fish. I REALLY wanted fish that night in Los Gatos. As we navigated the scary rock shoals into the good anchoring spot, a panga racing down the coast came up to us. They were holding up langostas (lobsters!!) – did we want to buy some?? Hell yes we did! We got a large and a small for a total of 100 pesos (about $6.50). Finally I was to have my first Mexican lobster! It is illegal for non-Mexicans to hunt/trap lobster, but fine for us to buy them. Unlike the Maine lobsters I am used to, these guys don’t have giant front claws. You pretty much just eat the tails. So I steamed them up and melted some of the good real butter from Aramburo. We had a mix of zucchini and eggplant on the side. Delicious!

Shortly after we had anchored, a power boat a little bigger than Summer came on in and anchored right next to us. In the most remote anchorage. So far from anything. So peaceful. Right. On. Top. There they were. Seemed like a group of guys on a fishing trip. They played music until 5:00 am. They were well behaved and seemed to be having a good time, so we just had to laugh at our situation. The next morning Jonny went off fishing after dropping me off on shore. I hiked the beach out to the famous ‘red rocks’ , which honestly didn’t look like all that to me. But close up, holy moly! These rocks were really something. They looked like cake batter that had been poured down the side of a mountain. Big, round dollops of red-brown. It was hard to get photos that captured how impressive they were. I hiked up a ways and got some good views. I spotted a few people snorkeling – they had swum over from a large catamaran charter boat. On my hike down I met the father and 2 sons from the cat. They were on a two week vacation from Mexico City. On their way to Loreto to pick up the wife and daughter, who were only interested in spending 1 week on the boat. They said the snorkeling was great and they seemed to be really enjoying their vacation. They are planning to buy a boat in France next year and sail it across to leave it in La Paz for their future vacation enjoyment. I asked how they liked sailing on such a big cat – and as I suspected (and the true reason I’ve never been on one)- he said “it’s wonderful, so big, stable and roomy – if you ever go on one, you will never go on anything else again”. Yep, I will avoid them at all costs, they are just WAY too nice, I think!

Jonny picked me up at the beach and we got our snorkel gear and checked out the point. It was amazing, all kinds of rock formations and underwater caves and so so so many fish. I even got to study an octopus trying to conceal himself in a crevice, while changing pinky and purply colors. I spent a little more time practicing my free diving. I’m really bad at it. Aside from my very buoyant butt that fights to shoot me to the surface, I also lack decent skills and techniques for diving down. I’m working on it. Jonny kindly took videos of me and my struggles to help me see what I’m doing wrong. No, you can’t see them. A graceful whale I am not.

Despite our musical powerboat friends, we decided to stay put one more night. We were grateful for peace and quiet (they were not young guys, I think the first night tired them out a bit!). The next morning we set off yet again (can you say whirlwind trip?) for Agua Verde. Another 20 mile trip. We had some wind and another hot slog ever northward. Agua Verde had really neat rock formation, pointy rock islands and beautiful waters. However, I’m not quite convinced there was enough “verde” (green) in the agua. It looks pretty much the same color as most of the other waters, so I’m not sure how they got to corner the Agua Verde title…I want my dinero back! As we were anchoring, huge black storm clouds were rumbling over the mountain tops. We were preparing for a deluge soon. I was pretty excited, Jonny was scared (as is our way). We got Summer buttoned up pretty quickly, and realized the storm was blowing on ahead north without visiting us. No rain to wash down Summer, just more hot stickiness. I had to throw myself overboard and was pleased to discover the water seemed a bit cooler there than Los Gatos.

The first year Jonny and I met, he took a trip down to Baja without met. I hadn’t yet proven myself as hardy enough for such extreme conditions as the Baja doles out (“You don’t bring girls to Baja” I believe is what was said… ha. I proved that one wrong!). Anyway, point is, he spent a few nights camping in Agua Verde and noticed some sailboats anchored out. He even met some cruisers. It was the first inkling he had that this kind of life might be pretty interesting. Now, all these years later, here we are, cruisers anchored in Agua Verde.

Jonny wanted to go fish, so he dropped me on shore to scope out the town and see if I could find the tienda. The ‘town’ was more of a large multi-family farmyard. I saw pigs roaming about, goats, chickens, turkeys, cows. I was getting really hungry!! I walked on out past all the homes and up towards the mountains. It was very green and almost forest-like out there, I saw some quail scurrying across the dirt road that followed a dried up river bed. I nearly forgot I was in the desert (except for that I was encased in the sweaty slime I am so getting used to these days). I didn’t see a tienda, but on the way back through town, some women sitting outside a house called to me. I realized the little building next to them was probably the tienda. I asked if it was open and one woman got up and let me in. It was about an 8 x 8 little room, no refrigeration. A rag tag pack of dogs and children were running amok all around. Giant sacks of flour and rice, a rack full of junk food (mostly chips) and a wall with a low shelf of bananas, avocados, onions, zucchini-like things – etc. It all looked quite good, too – must have been a recent delivery. What luck. I loaded up and on the way out I spotted a crate full of mangos. There was also some sort of melon (“que tipo melon?” what type? She just shrugged and said “melon”). It smelled amazing, so I bought it. Turns out it’s like a really juicy, thin skinned, yellow cantaloupe. What a treat! Our power boat buddies showed up and anchored right on top of us again, this time in a much tinier anchorage. Sigh. So much for bathing privacy.

AV power buddies — Our powerboat buddies finally got a little farther away after almost drifting into us

At some point along this trip we heard a strange noise and discovered that our little bamboo shelf we had screwed up under the sink in the head, had fallen apart. I had really packed it full of stuff and it was an excellent use of all that space…but alas, I packed it too well. The little cheaply made bamboo case designed for CD cases, gave up the ghost. Out here, when things break, you can’t just run out to Bed, Bath and Beyond or place a two day Amazon prime order. Nope, you either gotta fix it, or do without (reminds me of my favorite old timey New England saying “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”). There was no place else for all that stuff to live (6mos-1yr supply of things); we needed that shelf! Lucky for me I have my very own handyman on board who knew just want to do. If you can’t fix it with duct tape, it’s not worth fixing!

handyman box fix — You wouldn’t believe how much stuff fits in this shelf!

In the morning, our neighbors kayaked by and said a friendly ‘good morning’ but we were preparing the dinghy and didn’t get much of a chat in. We took the dinghy across to the other side of the bay, where Jonny assured me the “Verde” part came from. Still not convinced. We hiked up to the top of one side and got our views. Maybe the water was a liiiiittle greener than usual. I’m starting to feel like I have a sickness growing in me, the need to “summit” and look down on all the places I go. Hopefully I will get over this before destroying my feet and ankles… (flashback to my travels in New Zealand – every place I went, people took me up a mountain or hill to look back down on where we just were…maybe all Kiwis suffer from this summit sickness, too?). It was gorgeous though and after making it back down without too much incident, I was rewarded with a snorkel/swim off the northern beach.

AV summit — We can make it up to the top, right?

We thought maybe we’d stay another night, but possibly we’d probably leave that day to head up to Candeleros. When we got back to Summer, the powerboat was dragging anchor and dangerously close to Summer. The captain was trying to pull the boat away using the small runabout boat they were towing. Why he didn’t just start up the boat and move it is a mystery…but they managed to move it and secure it. Just after that, another power boat, much larger (mini-mega yacht style) came in and wedged themselves right up against us in the tiny anchorage. We were definitely leaving! As we were pulling up anchor, the captain of our powerboat friends (we guessed the 4 guys hired the boat and there was a captain and 1 crew serving them) came up on the runabout and said the guys on the boat wanted us to have some marlin they had caught! It must have been 5 lbs of fish. We were happy to have it (and it had been flash frozen). We waved our thanks as we extracted our anchor from between the 2 boats and raced off out of the bay. And I do mean raced – it was WINDY!!! Most wind we’ve had in a while. And waves, too! It was mostly a fast, wild ride all the way to Los Candeleros.

AV leaving view — Flying away from Agua Verde

We squeezed our way between a huge rock island and the Baja shore (one chart said it was unpassable, one source said it was safe to do so, and it was! Whew.) and came around the corner to this bay that has a huge resort in it. I knew it had, but it was still a shock to see this giant building after so so so much of nothingness. But even more surprising was seeing 3 other boats in the anchorage and beginning to recognize them as we got closer. It was Sangvind, Orion and Resolute! An anchorage full of friends! We had not expected to catch up with those guys for quite some time still. But they have been sticking together and taking their time making their way north. As we were buttoning up Summer, Megan came by on a paddle board to greet us, Jonah stopped in the dinghy and Meagan, Erik and Nikka came out in their dinghy. It was so exciting to see everyone! They had all just shown up the day before, after spending an entire week in Agua Verde. They gave us the scoop on the resort – we were allowed to go hang out in the facilities and order food in the restaurants (even tho it’s one of those “all inclusive” places). They also have a free shuttle into Loreto (40 minutes away) – which is AMAZING! We know that Loreto is the only place to get more food, but there is no good anchorage in front of it, and the nearest anchorage is Puerto Escondido (a good hurricane hole), but a very expensive cab ride from there and no buses to get into Loreto. I’m really glad we decided not to skip this place! We will spend several days and then do a stock up in Loreto and then head out to various other islands that are worth seeing. Hopefully we will get to ‘buddy boat’ a bit and hang out with everyone.

Candeleros anchorage — We think the resort should give us sailboats more perks for providing beautiful views from their shores

We spent our first day trying to relax. We went ashore and scoped out the resort. Pretty swanky place. The menu prices were very reasonable, but still a bit out of our comfort crange, so we will not be eating out. We wandered through it all feeling a mixture of “oooh” and “iiiccchh”. Some very comfy, airy spots to hang out and sit in cushiony chairs and use the unlocked wifi.

Orion invited everyone over for a potluck. Orion is only 5 ft longer than Summer, but it is just gigantic. Great boat for socializing! I was low on supplies for making anything impressive to bring (which causes me more stress than I care to admit). We did have that marlin to share, and I made some deviled eggs, which seemed disastrous (they were too small and not a single yolk was centered) and also some chocolate coconut truffles, which also seemed disastrous. In this heat, coconut oil is very runny and my patience tends to get runny as well. I chilled them and hoped they wouldn’t be a goopy disaster. After a few hours in Orion’s freezer, they were totally edible. Jonah had speared several fish that day and with the marlin, he breaded and fried up mountains of deliciousness. Meagan and Erik brought a tasty bean and cabbage salad and Sylvia and Frans (and their adorable if rambunctious boys –Dillon and Jaden) brought a great Indonesian rice dish. Perfect mix of things and everything got eaten up. It was great to feel stuffed for a change. It was also great to hang out with everyone – not just people other than Jonny, but people I already knew and like quite a bit. What a treat! I love talking with other cruising women – discovering that I’m not alone in the day to day issues that still seem foreign and all my own.

Orion potluck girls — Megan, Syliva and Meagan

Orion Johan Jaden Dillon — Jonah, Dillon and Jaden learning some cool computer stuff

Not sure how long we’ll stay here, but planning to head out to explore more islands as we continue our trek northward.