Category: Latest News

*****Pictures have been added to the previous entry. Enjoy!*****

 

Monday morning found us ready to make our way back to civilization and see if we could fix our fridge problem.   As we approached BLA I was surprised to see it was quite a bit larger than I expected. We’d been hearing stories for so long about how little there is here and how much we need to do without. We were not expecting very much. Only Dazzler and Linger Longer were in the bay. We were happy to catch up with those guys again. As it turned out, Dazzler Dan had the same fridge as us (but six years old) and was also experiencing problems – albeit of a different sort. He had bought what we assumed were the last 2 cans of refrigerant in town and he had a hose that fit the cans. Unfortunately the other end of the hose did not fit our refrigeration systems and he wasn’t sure lack of refrigerant was his problem anyway – so he didn’t bother using any of it. He sold us (at cost) one can of refrigerant and the halfway useful hose. We figured maybe we could find either the proper hose with both fittings or at least part of a hose with the fitting for our compressor and splice it to the other.

We got a bit of local knowledge about places to check and we headed ashore, determined to get this thing sorted out. The first store we went to was sort of a strange mix of things – dry foodstuffs, some fresh vegetables, bicycle parts, gay porn magazines, automotive, mechanical parts and a mix of dusty, random parts in a dimly lit building. We looked around a bit and tried to explain what we were looking for. The woman turned on some lights for us and didn’t think she had what we needed. On a dusty plexiglass shelving unit, under some other things, Jonny spied some sort of hose in a package. We pulled it out and it appeared to have the correct fitting for our compressor! It was not cheap and, we assumed, not returnable, so we wanted to be sure before we bought it. We trudged back across the salt flat/basura strewn, abandoned campground area to the beach where we landed the dingy and went back to get calipers to measure. When we returned to the store, a man was working there and he helped us to measure and be sure the hose was going to fit our needs. We were also able to get a brass fitting to attach the 2 different sized hoses together and a couple of tiny hose clamps. Jonny went to work cutting our 2 brand new hoses and fitting them together. He then attempted to fill up the compressor with refrigerant. The compressor took an entire can of refrigerant (which is half the total volume it needs!). All we could do now was to wait and see if it got colder in the ice box and then turned itself off. Amazingly enough, it did! We were cautiously relieved (afterall, we did not actually find or fix any obvious leaks).

Jonny tightened the suspect fittings a little bit (they would not go far) and we are just continuing to check on that and see what happens. At least now we have some extra cans of refrigerant and a hose that works like a charm if we need to do this again! We loaned the hose to Dan, as he was still struggling with his system and wanted to give the refrigerant a try now that it was possible. He offered to split the cost of the entire fix (which, btw, was about 25% of our budget for the month!), but that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to us, since we were keeping the hose – so instead he gave Jonny an 8 pack of Pacifico when he returned the hose (he knew that would not be turned down!).   So, we don’t know what’s going to happen to us with this, we remain vigilant and for now the beer. Poor Dan had to go back to Santa Rosalia for parts, and we heard on the radio that he actually ended up taking a bomber mission up to San Diego to get what he needed. What a bummer for him, and made us feel even more grateful we still have cold drinks, frozen food and didn’t have to take a very expensive trip anywhere!

Now that we could breathe a little easier, we began reconnaissance of Bahia de los Angeles. I was pretty blown away at how much was available in the markets – I really was not expecting so much. No, it’s nothing like Santa Rosalia, but quite a lot more than expected. I even found my “sin azucar” yogurt! And Challenge butter. I was starting to feel pretty good about having this place as our ‘home base’ for a few months. The biggest market in town had recently burned down, but they were in the process of getting it back up and running. We managed to find the house where they can refill our propane tanks and even do our laundry. Given that there is no free water here, we have to pay around $1/5 gallons ($20 to fill our tanks, which lasts up to 3 weeks) – we decided that using that water to wash clothes by hand didn’t make a lot of sense. For just a bit more, we can have our clothes properly laundered and folded for us. Yolanda took our huge bag of laundry (mostly towels and sheets – we really haven’t been wearing clothes much to speak of!) and said it would be ready the next afternoon.

In the midst of ‘fixing our boat in paradise’ we could not avoid noticing the whale sharks in the bay. In fact, two of them greeted us as we were anchoring. What huge and amazing creatures! I had not yet gotten to see one and was VERY anxious to jump in and swim with them – GoPro in hand of course!

Two mornings in a row I was able to do just that. At first I was quite scared – even though I KNOW they are completely docile, non-flesh eating creatures. I’ve just never been so close, in a bikini, to something that huge…coming at me with its mouth open. The first time in, I had Jonny bring me out in the dingy and we got close to them. You can see their telltale fins (mid and tail) sticking up in the water as they lazily zoom around with their mouths open, hoovering tiny bits of plankton. When we were close, I jumped in and started paddling towards one. The water was quite murky and not as clear as I’d hoped. I knew I was close as I could see the fin on the surface, but still no whale shark in view under water. I kept swimming and suddenly I was right on top of it! It was maybe about 15 feet long and I was over its middle fin and tail area, which moved powerfully and slowly around as they swam. I was a bit hesitant to get up near its mouth still.

Seeing them from the dinghy is also quite impressive. Every time we went ashore we saw at least 3 of them! Once, one was swimming right towards us and its mouth was as wide as the dinghy! It was probably close to 30 feet long. They often have little fish attached to them, going along for the ride. Seeing them never gets old.

On my second day of swimming with the sharks, Jonny was again running the dinghy for me (why didn’t he jump in too? No, I’m sure he wasn’t scared of them…or WAS he?!) and I jumped in and was getting courageous enough to swim up and try to get video of the mouth/head. I heard Jonny saying something about another one, but I had a nice big one and I was swimming with it, so I didn’t pay too much attention. Next thing I know, I look over my shoulder and there’s a whale shark about twice the size of my big one, and it’s got it’s ginormous mouth open a couple feet from me. As you can see, I thrashed around for a bit and finally got hold of myself and tried to get video.   What an amazing experience! We enjoyed seeing them for several days, and then the bay filled up with a bunch more of our floating friends and we didn’t see so many of them anymore. I’m sure we’ll find them again one of these days.

There is no cell service anywhere around here, which makes the rumor that Carlos Slim has a house in BLA seem ridiculous (he is one of the richest men in the world and owns Telcel). Would he really have a house somewhere he couldn’t use his cell phone? And if so, does he know something we don’t know? Hmmm Anyway there are lots of rumors about Mr. Slim floating around – this mega yacht or that resort belong to him, etc etc.   There are several phone services in town, and calls to the US range from 6 pesos per minute to 12 pesos per minute (around 40 cents – 75 cents) NOT cheap! Unfortunately before I found the 6 peso place, I had a brief chat with my parents at the 12 peso place. Oops. And I have serious doubts about the possibility of uploading a blog entry in BLA, but maybe one day I will give it a try. Until then, I just keep on writing– downloading my brain as it gets too full.

When we went get our laundry, Yolanda was not there, but her husband Andres was. We got our huge bag of laundry and asked him if he also ran the raspados stand down by the road in front of their house. He did and we finally got to try our first raspados (deliciously icy fruit slushies). We both ordered mango and enjoyed them in the shade and chatted for quite a while with Andres. He doesn’t speak much English so it was a great opportunity for us to work on our Spanish. We really hit it off and by the end we had invited he and Yolanda to come out to Summer. He admitted he’d never been out on the water or seen the whale sharks and that he can’t swim. He said he would check with Yolanda to see if she was interested in visiting with us and maybe even sailing.

The next day we went to get our fuel supplies topped off. Jonny had 2 five gallon diesel jugs and I had the 5 gallon gas container. There are 2 Pemexes in town, one just sells gas and the other sells gas and diesel. You can see the diesel one just up the road from the gas one. Both are a good walk from where the dinghy lands. It was quite hot and I was not looking forward to lugging a heavy gas container all that way, but there are no other options. I opted to stop at the first Pemex and get the gas rather than go the extra distance to the diesel station and have to lug it that much farther and let the big, strong man forge ahead without me to the diesel station. Well, I didn’t get but 20 feet down the road from the Pemex and Andres drives up in his truck and takes the gas out of my hands and puts it in the back and ushers me into the front seat. Donde Juan?? He asks. I pointed to the diesel station and Andres drove on and picked Jonny up, who was still walking to the station. We filled the diesel cans and Andres drove us all the way back to the dinghy. What a lucky break! He also confirmed that Yolanda was interested in coming out on the boat and that Tuesday might be the day. We figured we’d confirm for sure again on Saturday when we went over to their snack stand to get a pollo asada (BBQ chicken) – which Yolanda cooks up every Saturday (she was off buying 28 chickens for the occasion).

Sunday was the Full Moon Party at La Gringa – an anchorage just up from BLA. There is an estuary there where the tides flow in and out in a big curving, riverlike fashion. At the full moon, the tides are strongest/biggest and the water really rips out of the estuary as the tide goes down. You can ride swiftly along on floaties and then swim ashore, climb over, and do it again.

 

The above was written on time, as we were about to enjoy our first full moon party. As I am writing this current sentence, it is the day after our SECOND full moon party. It appears I have let an entire month lapse without doing any writing. We’ve just been so…busy. And uh, it’s been HOT. And we’ve had power issues so I can’t always run the computer for a long time. And…and…and… Well, I think ultimately knowing I have no way to actually POST a blog entry has kind of taken the wind out of my sails, so to speak.

I actually had to go to our ship’s log to remember where-all we’ve been in the past 29 days. As it turns out, we HAVE been busy!

So that first full moon party was loads of fun. Everyone that is in the northern sea on their sailboat converged on La Gringa. At that time it was 9 boats – 17 people total. There is one other boat – a trimaran, also up here, but it is a solo guy and he is apparently not interested in making friends (I’ve gotten him to wave a few times). We arrived a day early, along with Lunasea, and had the pleasure of checking out the estuary by ourselves, along with a few locals. When the tide is ripping out around the u-turn, it’s like a river and just gets faster and faster until it’s just too shallow to ride it any longer (when you scrape your butt on a rock, it’s all over!). The next day the whole gang was there. We finally got to meet Jay and Janice (and their puffball dog Buster) from Ceilidh (pronounced KayLee – must be Gaelic?). Jay and Janice are the net managers and run the SSB Ham net that we listen to every morning at 6:30am to get our weather and find out where all our friends are and what they’ve been up to. Fun to meet them finally- they have a palapa house in southern BLA and have been around here for years and years.

We all had a variety of flotation devices, hats, sunglasses, beverages, etc. You ride a few times, stop to chat on the rocky spit and watch others go zooming by.   It was a fun and relaxing day and as the tide dropped, so did we, dinghy by dinghy back to our boats to regroup. We all met up onshore for a pizza/potluck dinner. Jay and Janice had arranged for a local pizza place to drive all the way out there to deliver some pizzas! They were actually quite good! It was a rather mellow evening as we ate, chatted and admired the moon.

I think we spent one more day in La Gringa and then went back to Village. Being in the village pretty much means the same thing every time, and I’m sure you don’t need to hear over and over again how we trudge through the heat to find groceries, struggle to use inconsistent and frustrating wifi, and suffer through the extreme tide dinghy landings (which usually means getting wet and sandy/muddy when you get there and having to drag the dinghy quite far to get away) and lug jug after jug of water out to fill up our tanks. We found the village to always be hotter than anywhere else, and the water temperature is also warmer than other places. We ended up making trips to the village on Saturdays, as that is just after all the fresh fruits and veggies are delivered, and staying as briefly as possible- just long enough to get all our chores done, before heading out to a better locale.

There are a string of islands just east and north of the Bahia village. We decided to sail around the outside of them and head up to an area called Alcatraz, to catch up with Lunasea and others. We sailed off anchor for the first time. Not starting the motor not only saves on fuel of course, but it also keeps the main cabin much cooler. It heats up quite a bit and takes forever to cool down after we motor for any length of time. Also, the motor is right next to our refrigerator, which can’t be good for the efficiency factor there, so, lots of incentive not to crank up that motor! It was a calm and simple process and before we knew it we were lazily sailing out of the bahia. To make it outside the islands, we had to cut through a narrow-ish passage way, and with the wind not being in our favor, we had to tack back and forth many times to get through. Our track on the ipad looks like a bunch of zig zags. The wind was quite light and before long we realized at that rate we were going to take forever to get to our destination. Easy solution – change your destination! We ended up stopping at a little anchorage between Isla Coronado/Smith and Mitlan. It was a windy little slot with nice cool water. We did some fishing, spotted a large shark (suddenly swimming lost it’s appeal), took a ride around Isla Mitlan (which is nothing but rocks, but somehow seems to put off a surprising number of jejenes) and we went ashore on the nice beach below the volcano on Isla Coronado. Jonny has a strong urge to hike up to the top of that 1500 foot volcano – so a return is imminent. We couldn’t stand the bugs for long, though and we headed on up to Alcatraz after just 2 nights.

Alcatraz is just beautiful. A huge sweeping white sand beach, with a white sandy ‘dune’ over the mountain, there’s also a little island that shows great promise for snorkeling. We were happy to see Lunasea and Azul as we were anchoring. We had a fun potluck evening with those guys – Naomi made inspiring fish cakes and an amazing cheesecake. We hung out for a few days after everyone left. We hiked up to the top of the sand dune and got a great view of Lunasea sailing south. We snorkeled and enjoyed the beach for a bit. The wind died and the jejenes started to get bad. But we got good at putting our screens up and burning a toxic coil of death (Fumakila) disguised at incense, outside the boat before sundown.

We stayed perhaps a day too long…the weather got a bit rough and we ended up sailing south with 20-30 knot winds on the nose. It was not the most pleasant of sails, and our plan to sail only, around the outside of the islands down to the Don Juan hurricane hole, was quickly changed. We realized it was just going to get rougher, and given the wind direction we might end up sailing twice as far as we had to to get down there. We changed direction just in time to skirt behind Isla Coronados and go down between the island and the Baja.   It was supposedly not as rough (and if that was the case, I’m sure glad we weren’t on the outside). Summer got extremely clean! All the waves we took over the bow washed everything down nicely. I got pretty salty myself. We were really hoping rains were coming to complete the cleaning by washing away all the salt!   Later on, when people discovered it was us sailing that day, we heard “aaah, we were wondering who was crazy enough to be out in that!”. Yep, that’s us.   Sneaking around the corner into Don Juan was wonderful. There’s just a narrow entryway and you are inside a huge bay of tranquility. There is still quite a bit of wind, but there is no fetch at all inside, so it’s almost like being on a lake.   Manta, Azul and Lunasea were already hunkered down in there. To insure we would get rain, I took a spray bottle and washed off much of Summer’s stainless. Worked like a charm! We had some nice rains that night.

We managed to get over to Manta to celebrate Nia’s birthday with everyone, in between rains. Nia’s parents were visiting from Colorado, so it was fun to meet them as well. I asked Nia’s Mom if she worried about those guys a lot – and she said “Oh! You have NO idea! And thank you so much for acknowledging that!”. She’s just like my mom – even though Mike and Nia have been cruising for four years already (sorry Mom, I guess it doesn’t get any easier!). We had delicious cake that Dawn made and had a nice visit until the rain drove us all back to our boats to close the hatches.

There are apparently a lot of little fish called golbies in this area. How do we know this? Because these little fish like to hang out near rocks, where there’s growth, or near the through hulls of boats whose bottoms haven’t been cleaned in a while… When tiny little fish hang out near the hole in the bottom of the boat where sea water is sucked in for the toilet flush, they get sucked right up in there! And when they get to the valve that opens and closes the seawater inlet, they get stuck. On the inside of the boat, this means you are happily flushing the toilet one second and then suddenly the handle won’t pump anymore. It is then necessary to remove everything from under the sink in the head, take up the floor board, shut off the through hull, dismantle the dry/flush knob on the toilet, remove the spring and ball and pull the little fishy out with a pair of tweezers. Usually the fishy loses it’s life as it’s squished in the valve, or happens to sit there overnight because you don’t feel like doing that whole process just before bedtime. Miraculously, we had never gotten any fish stuck in our toilet, since the beginning of boat ownership. And, somehow in span of 4 days we got FIVE fish. One of them actually made it out alive. We had just gotten finished clearing one out, put everything back together and away, and pumped the head to test it out and IMMEDIATELY got another fish. We took everything out again and managed to get the little guy out from the hose before he got stuck in the valve. I had him swimming around in a container, and planned to release him as far from the boat as I could.

As I was rowing the dinghy away to dump the toilet fish, I see Naomi riding a surfboard like a wakeboard, being towed behind Manta’s dinghy (they have a huge dinghy motor). She dropped into the water just near me and said “Hey Jenn!! You wanna try?!?!”   Ummmm. YES! Of course I did! So I give Naomi the dinghy and she gives me a life vest, and next thing I know I’m on my knees on a surfboard, holding a tow bar and trying to stand up behind a pretty fast dinghy. It was SO much fun! I got a few tries in, and wiped out every time I tried to stand up. I was exhausted, and so I gave Alex a turn – and took his place as spotter in Manta’s dinghy with Terry. Soon Jonny and Naomi are coming out in our dinghy and Nia and Mike are chomping at the bit for their turns. The day became known as “The International Dorkboarding Competition”. At one point, Alex, Naomi and Mike were all three standing up on a longboard. Jonny was quietly enjoying the show, laughing and hooting with the rest of us. I finally yelled out “Jonny needs a turn!!!!” and we eventually got him out there. He surprised the hell out of everyone (except me). He biffed it on his first try, but he was on his feet in no time and surfing like a pro. Funny thing is, surfing is quite different from wakeboarding – which he has never done. But he was definitely surfing. At one point Naomi said “Wait! You can’t DO that on a wakeboard…but he IS!”. I think the fact that the dinghy wasn’t as powerful as a wakeboard boat, and Jonny is more powerful than a mere human, meant that he could lean forward and still hold on without falling on his face (when wakeboarding, you lean back, not forward). I don’t think anyone had seen him smile that much. That boy sure misses surfing (he just has to hang on a few more months and we’ll be back in Chacala!). He did a 10 point dismount right in front of everyone at the end.

We headed back to the village to refill our water and the other usual chores. Everyone was there and had gotten to the easiest water before us. The store was fresh out. They claimed they would be getting more in 2 days. Water comes from Mulege and is kept in a big cistern for this one place closest to the beach. We figured we could go a few more days without, rather than having to lug heavy 5 gallon jerry cans repeatedly over long distances. A group of people were heading north to Refugio – which I was really hoping to join. Supposed to be really clear water and great snorkeling up there at the northern tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda. But instead we headed just a short way south in BLA to La Mona, to check it out for a few days and wait for water.

La Mona turned out to be a beautiful stop. It had a lovely white sand beach with estuary behind and a sweeping mountain view across the bay. Scott and his dog Trox aboard Angry Seagull were anchored there. We had met Scott at the Full Moon Party and were happy to see him again. He came over with Trox and had dinner with us. Fun to have a big black dog on board!! We stayed for 5 or 6 days in La Mona. We enjoyed the beach, hiking up rocks, snorkeling with silly bullseye trigger fish (they are super curious but like to pretend they aren’t looking at you and when you look away they follow you).

 

But the ultimate highlight was my first day going ashore. I rowed the dinghy in by myself to have a look around. As I was leaving, I noticed some movement down the beach – it looked like a seal rolling around, but it was way too far up the sand. I rowed over for a closer look and realized it was a giant Sea turtle mama laying eggs! I watched from the water and even up on the beach a bit. She didn’t notice me at all. She was working hard, bearing down in the hole she’d dug and then flipping out sand with her hind flippers. I probably could’ve gotten right up close, but I kept a distance of about 20 feet and tried to zoom in with my camera. I was kind of frying in the sun as I watched her, but I couldn’t tear myself away. She finally seemed to finish and was just laying there, exhausted. I was hoping to watch her cover up the hole and make her way back to the water. But she seemed to have fallen asleep. I wasn’t sure how long she’d be there and I was getting awfully hot. I decided to row back to the boat and see if I could get Jonny and bring him back to see her. As I was halfway back to the boat I saw her moving again and eventually slip back down the sand into the water. I felt VERY lucky to have witnessed all that. I’m trying to figure out how long it takes for them to hatch, maybe we can be back there to watch all the baby turtles come along?

Back in the Village, after six days, still no water! At this point we were pretty much out of water and couldn’t wait for what may or may not appear. Jonny rose to the occasion and made 7 trips with heavy jerry cans to nearly fill us up with 70 gallons. I did all the other usual running around. We had another rough weather patch coming. Unfortunately we were a little behind on this one as well. Our final trip back to the boat was a wild and wet dinghy ride. Summer was hobby-horsing wildly and getting the dinghy motor hoisted was a special treat. I knew it was going to be a wet ride back out to Don Juan, so I just changed into a bikini. I had a moment to stop and appreciate that – thinking how rough weather used to mean putting on MORE clothing. As we were getting ready to go, we got a call on the radio from Linger Longer, who had left much earlier than us. They were already in Don Juan and experiencing high winds (and tranquil seas) and were wondering if we were (stupid enough to be) still at the village. I assured them we were on our way over! Of course the wind was exactly on our nose and even motoring full throttle we could make very little headway. It was going to take us about 6 hours to go 9 miles, in horribly uncomfortable conditions. We ended up pulling out the jib and tacking off wind, which calmed the boat down and more than doubled our speed (still motoring, too). After just a couple tacks we were safely tucked into Don Juan again. This storm promised to be much more eventful than the last. Even the 85 foot mega yacht that is always moored at the village scooted into Don Juan (there seems to be a full time crew looking after that yacht, but never any owners visiting).   After another salty ride, Summer got another freshwater bath for a couple days! I took advantage of the indoor time to finally take care of organizing our boat manuals and our personal files. It was fun – I got to use my label maker again! Apparently, you can take the girl out of organizing., but you can’t take organizing out of the girl.

When the storm passed, we decided to go and check out El Pescador – a couple anchorages to the south. There is a nice island there and a mysteriously deserted resort looking place on shore. Linger Longer departed Don Juan just before us and said they were also planning to go there. Anchoring between the island and shore was just a beautiful spot. Linger Longer called to say the winds seemed wrong and they were heading to Quemado (on the other side of the land), which is also a great spot. We said we were going to give it a go at Pescador and see if the wind switches or not and if not, then maybe go to Quemado. In the end. Linger Longer came in and we all stayed at Pescador.

We went ashore to explore this mysterious collection of building and palapas. We’d heard a lot of rumors about it (including that Carlos Slim owns it now…) – nothing is locked up and it’s full of expensive furniture and appliances. We wandered through all the buildings, at first full of awe and wonder, which slowly turned to confusion and sadness. Who on earth would spend SO much money to build this place (and clearly it wasn’t even completed) and simply desert it and leave it unlocked!? Two of the smaller buildings looked like people were living there, and had left expecting to return, but never did. There was a calendar showing Sept/Oct 2014. We wondered what impact Hurricane Odile had at that time last year. When we had our fill exploring the mysteries, we rested in an unfinished palapa and waited for the sun to stop shining directly in the cockpit of our boat.

We celebrated the first day of Fall with Kris and Kirk – having a “We survived Summer in BLA” party on board Summer. Kris and Kirk brought amazing margaritas complete with ICE, and Kris let me borrow her heirloom antique meat grinder to make fish cakes.

I also made a cheese cake (Naomi inspired me). I now desperately want an antique food grinder!! Oh the things I could do with that! And it’s so simple and uses no power, save for my muscles (which could use more to do).  The next day we went over to Linger Longer and had a ‘media swap’ – which seems to be a common things cruisers do – sharing movies, music and books whenever we can.

The day before we were planning to leave Pescador, we spotted a sailboat on the horizon coming from the south. The south? Who could possibly be coming from the south?? I wondered if it could be our friends on Resolute. Meaghan had emailed me a few weeks before saying they were considering coming to BLA in a week, but then nothing. As they got closer, we spied the telltale orange dinghy on the deck, sure enough! It was Resolute! I called them on the radio to welcome them in. They were surprised to learn they had randomly chosen the anchorage we happened to be in. It was a fun reunion. They had just sailed for 3 days straight over from Guaymas. We had plenty of fish, so I invited them to come and have dinner with us. It was great to catch up and hear about their summer adventures and get a lot of info about Guaymas, which is where we are headed in a few weeks. We made sure to tell them about the upcoming Full Moon Party in La Gringa and left them to catch up on their rest.

We headed to the village for the usual chores. We were hoping to catch a sierra on the way, but instead we ended up with a blue footed boobie! Poor thing got snagged through his webby blue foot and we had to drag him backwards through the water to reel him in. Luckily it was just a small hole through the webbing and Jonny was able to slip the hook out and he swam off and flew away, seemed to be just fine. He sure had a story for his friends, though!

We anchored in the village near Angry Seagull and Scott and Trox came out to say Hi. One of Trox’s friends from the village also swam out to the anchorage to visit everyone! I was afraid we were going to have to rescue him in the dinghy, but he just kept swimming and swimming and even went out to Angry Seagull after Scott had left. But he made it back to shore afterall.  Turns out he’s sort of the ‘top dog’ of the street dogs in town.

Back to La Gringa for Full Moon. Seems like the month went by fast, but it also took forever! Only 7 boats this time – Slipper had left the area, Scott’s motor wasn’t working and the wind was wrong for him to sail up here, and Scoots is exploring up north, but we gained Resolute. We had a fun afternoon riding the tide around and went back to our boats to have some dinner and prepare for the full moon and eclipse which came up just after sundown. There were a lot of hyjinx going on in the anchorage. Manta has a potato cannon and was shooting limes at Lunasea and Azul. Apparently those guys have been messing with each other quite a lot – there were stories about stealthy night boardings to shut off Manta’s generator and all kinds of crazy things going on between those guys. Funny stuff – sorry to have missed their last gathering in Don Juan, but I’m glad we aren’t lime targets, yet! People were howling as the moon came up and Manta got on the radio and invited everyone to byob and come hang out on their huge trimaran deck. Everyone went and we had a great time watching the moon turn red and then back to super bright again (14% brighter than usual). A few of us brought snacks so there were munchies and plenty of space to hang out (trimarans are pretty cool boats! Manta is wider than Summer is long I think!).

Just two days after the Full Moon Party, was the End of Summer party and Dart Tournement at “Duffy’s Tavern”, which is what Jay and Janice call their land base (it’s a couple of trailers with shady deck area and an outdoor shower and all kinds of useful land luxuries, including a great, shaded dart playing area!). Jay and Janice were cooking up bacon wrapped hot dogs for everyone (who knew I’d have another so soon?!) and we all brought dishes to share. It was our first time down in Gecko, or Southern BLA, or SO-BLA as they call it. It was not so blah afterall! Just across from La Mona, nice views and plenty of room for everyone. 19 people entered the dart tournament, so we played in rounds. I came in 2^nd in my round, so did not make it to the finals. The finals round was a rousing game and fun to watch. Nia kicked the other 4 guys’ butts! She was awesome! J&J had prizes for the first 4 place winners – so everyone got a little something to remember the game. I had a great time hanging out with everyone – what a wonderful group of folks! I even got to use the shower there, which was a HUGE and luxurious treat! Jay and Janice had been offering it up to everyone, but only Nia and I took advantage. As we happily returned to Summer at sundown, we realized that had been our longest time on shore in many months. Nearly 8 hours on land, we were!

 

The following day we intended to go to Puerto Refugio and see this place once and for all. Linger Longer also had the same plan, but as usual, they weighed anchor and were off long before we were. We still had to go to the village to get our laundry and some more supplies before an extended trip up into the remote and wild unknown.

It’s been over 2 months since I posted – and I got entries comin’ out my ears!!! But unfortunately the force of wifi is not with me down here.  Uploading pictures is not an option.  I debated whether to wait or post this without photos…I will go back and add them when I can – but for now here’s at least one long update.  I’ll send a message out to everyone when photos are added, in the event this is just too boring to read without photos (so many good photos!):

Our time in Santa Rosalia was fun and productive despite the extreme heat. We stocked Summer with all the provisions we could get our hands on. Even though there were quite a few stores plus the big Super Ley, there were still things we had trouble finding. We did get a hot tip that one smaller store stocked things from Costco, so we hunted that one down. I never shopped at Costco in the States, but now, finding things like a big block of cheddar cheese that actually has flavor, and Challenge butter, which is nothing but sweet cream and salt, and even canned tuna that contains nothing but tuna and water seems miraculous. It’s sad and scary how hard it is to find food products that don’t contain chemicals, fillers and other nasty, non-real-food-stuff. Mexico has already surpassed the US in obesity rates and I fear in another ten years, the sickness and diseases here will reach epidemic proportions. Unfortunately it isn’t simply a matter of poverty, either, since the ‘real’ food here (meats, chicken, fish, fruits and veggies) are far less expensive than the processed packaged foods and heavily marketed junk foods. People chug down coca cola in vast quantities (floating plastic bottles are evident in even the seemingly most remote locations) – but a bottle of coke cost at least twice as much as the same quantity of Jumex pineapple juice, which contains nothing but pineapple juice (and is ridiculously delicious).   Alas – I will refrain from making this a food blog! But for someone as obsessed with food and nutrition as I am, it’s hard not to notice these things and have troubling thoughts and feelings about them…

As will happen from time to time, or rather, frequently, when you’re at the docks, you succumb to what is known as “dock suck” – which can either be staying way longer than you’d planned at the marina, or getting sucked in to talking with folks for hours on end.   We were taking a breather after our day of laundry and we got invited over to Scoots for a drink. Eric and Vandy are from the Bay Area and we had fun getting to know them. Turns out they know how to turn vodka into gin (which basically makes them gods). I’m not kidding. Apparently there’s a kit and ingredients for this sort of thing. Seeing as gin is my favorite alcoholic beverage, and they offered me a sample, how could I say no? It was darn tasty!! They brought out snacks and Kris and Kirk from Linger Longer came over and it was a regular party. We had really just planned to be a little social and then get back to our shopping expedition and visit to the ice cream parlor.

It started getting kind of late and I waved off Jonny’s attempts to get me to leave a few times. Finally I realized we were in danger of missing the ice cream store (hey, I have my priorities!). We motivated and got up into town. The store we were told of that sold Costco stuff had just closed, but we managed to make it to Splash in time for a cone. That was a close one.

OK just a little bit more on food…We heard from several people about this ice cream parlor we just ‘had’ to try. Splash was the name and whatever it was called, I’m always down for some ice cream. Turned out to be the best ice cream I’ve had in all of Mexico! Even better than the gelato place in La Paz. I think they made it all there and it was delicious. AND the shop was air-conditioned. Eating a huge waffle cone while sitting under an air conditioner is the ultimate indulgence when it’s 100 + degrees outside. I vowed I would get an ice cream the next day as well -since it was fairly certain I would never see ice cream again. Well, not for 3 or 4 months at any rate.

Unfortunately we had forgotten to have dinner. The ice cream was great, but I was still hungry and we really didn’t want to spend the money to eat out and cooking in this heat is so not going to happen. Right across the street from Splash was the cart selling bacon wrapped hot dogs. I know, gross, right? I NEVER eat hot dogs. Who KNOWS what is in them?!? But this cart is renowned all over town and we’d heard about it several times. And it DID smell good. And I WAS really, really hungry and these were really, really cheap. Yes, I did it. I ate a bacon wrapped hot dog with a variety of trimmings in a nice spongy bun from a street vendor. And I liked it. But I probably wouldn’t do it again. Well, not for 3 or 4 months, at any rate! My food standards continue to plummet.

On our second day at the marina, our water pump finally bit the dust. It has been giving us warnings for some time – the pump would run and run and eventually get enough suction going and start working again, but every time we turned it on it would have to start again. Finally the pump just wouldn’t quit running. It was done, it wasn’t holding suction anymore. Jonny had to tear everything apart and hope we had the parts needed to get the pump working again. That was a perfect day for me to leave the boat and work on blogs before I had to go up to my follow up appointment with the ear doctor.

My doctor visit went well, he put the scope in my ear and the horror show from the last visit was gone. My ear was looking pretty normal. Very relieved about that. A few more days on meds and then I was clear to go under water again. There was no charge for the follow up visit, and Dr. Lopez had some silicone ear plugs I could use for swimming and he had gotten the anti-fungal pills I had wanted in case I had issues with the antibiotics. The pills cost less than $3.00.

I thought I would be clever on my way back and stop and say hi to the good folks at Splash. And maybe pick up a milkshake or something refreshing for midday.   They had Frappes on the menu, but unfortunately a frappe here is a coffee drink only (who knew?) and I couldn’t convince the woman to make me a vanilla ice cream one. I was too hot to be difficult, so I just got a lime popsicle instead. It was possibly the best popsicle I ever had. I picked up a sandwich for my hardworking boat mechanic and went to see if we would have running water again.

Luckily we had a kit of spare parts (thanks, Piff!) with just the diaphragm we needed to replace. There was still a bit of work to be done, and since my mechanic works so much better without my well-intentioned assistance, I made myself scarce and went back to the air conditioned office to finish blogging and take care of business ( managed to renew our USCG boat certification documentation online, that was handy, since we may not see wifi again before ours expires).

Our final shopping trip to Ley was in the heat of the day. We took our time walking there and wandered through the ruins of the old mining operation, which is partially turned into a park. All of the machinery and smelters and old structures were fascinating to me. Also the fact we could just wander around (much of it clearly dangerous to climb on or get too close to) with no restrictions was fun (such a non-US thing to be able to do – roam freely, at our will and leisure, responsible for our own safety…). We trudged the last hot few blocks along the dusty highway – and we very much appreciated the air conditioning in the big store. We efficiently loaded our cart with what seemed like a ridiculous amount of stuff (but of course we were following our list with pre-calculated amounts of what we’d need for the next three months). At check out we spent quite a bit more than I’d hoped. I had to pull out the credit card to cover a bit of it. There was some confusion, and the cashier took my wad of cash and immediately gave some it to someone else changing out some other cash drawer and it seemed to me we were being charged too much. But the cashier showed me the receipt with the cash amount and the charge amount. With my cash gone and the language barrier slowing me down, I just accepted what I saw. Later I realized we had lost 200 pesos (about $12) in the transaction – she had miscounted the cash I gave her and even had I pointed that out, it was all disbursed and unavailable to recount anyway! We were very sad about that. Also, after getting everything bagged up and distributed into our bags and back packs, I realized UH OH…I just spent ALL our cash…we have nothing left for the cab ride home!! There was far, far too much to carry. We got a cab anyway and had the guy bring us back to the marina. When we arrived, I ran (with a few bags of groceries) as fast as I could down to the boat to get our cab fare and gave the guy a little extra for having to wait. A jog in that heat was not the most fun I’ve ever had.

I spent considerable time distributing, stowing and preparing our food for storage. Somehow I managed to make (most) of what needed to be refrigerated fit into the refrigerator. This was by far the most packed I’ve had it though. We plugged away at preparing for our departure.   Given that we had about a 16 hour journey ahead of us, we planned to leave at midnight – thinking more of a convenient arrival time than anything. Jonny wanted to get in late in the next day so that we wouldn’t be anchoring and trying to sleep in the hottest part of the day. Seemed like a good enough plan. Linger Longer was also planning to depart, but they left in the early evening. We went out to wave them off along with Eric and Vandy. After they left, we got to chatting on the docks and somehow a couple hours went by (dock suck!). It was late and we were not ready to go! We had to cut short what almost turned into a fun party and got back to work.

We readied the boat – which involved getting the dinghy secured on deck, stowing everything safely, taking our shade down, canvas off, topping off the water tanks and giving Summer a final wash down and then giving ourselves a final wash down (goodbye free-wheeling water!). We were pulling out just before 1:00am, and I realized, having been up since 6:30am for a busy nonstop all day, I was actually quite exhausted. Hmmmm, whose idea WAS this??

It was a bit cooler and nice to be out on the water. It had been a very long time since we’d sailed at night. I had to get used to a lot of things again, remembering I couldn’t see the digital compass at night, and that the light in our pedestal compass doesn’t work and our chartplotter, which was bright and easy to ready, is completely inaccurate in Mexico (we mostly use it for speed and distance now, and for entertainment at how often it shows us sailing across land). I got a little panicky until we rigged a headlamp to shine on the pedestal compass and I was able to keep us on course as we got away from land. There wasn’t a lot of wind at first and we motor sailed along fairly comfortably for a few hours.

I was half comatose in the cockpit just before 4:30am, when Jonny put the motor in neutral and said “I think that’s a panga right next to us!” I peered out into the darkness and sure enough, less than 100 feet away was a big dark mass. All of a sudden, Summer slowed waaaaaay down, almost to a halt. Jonny blew the mainsail and we realized that we were caught up in a fishing net from the panga! We tried to free ourselves with the boat hook, and Jonny went up on deck and whistled and yelled to the panga. It was pitch dark, but soon a light came on and a guy woke up. I quickly learned how to say “net” and “rudder” in Spanish (neto y timon) and the panguero understood. He pulled on the net and that brought the nose of the panga right into Summer. Jonny fended off and I shined our bright spotlight down into the water so we could all see what was going on. We were not getting freed. Finally another guy woke up on the panga, annoyed by the lights, and then a third guy crawled out from under the bow (three guys sound asleep on a small, open boat, without a single nav light on…). I somehow made it clear that pulling it was not working and we needed to go backwards – which was dumb, and impossible…but he got the picture and they started up their motor and went forward and around us. The net came free and we popped the motor in gear and got the heck out of there. If Jonny hadn’t instinctively put the motor in neutral at the start, this could have been a much different story – one where we our propeller wound up the fishing net- possibly destroying it along with the fishermans’ livelihood. Also, had we been 60 feet to starboard on our course, we could have crashed right into their boat! All in all we felt very lucky for how it turned out.

After the adrenaline eased up a bit from that incident, the wind picked up and we were able to shut off the motor and have a bit of a nice sail. For a little while anyway. The waves and swell got pretty crazy, coming straight at us and we were bashing hard. The combination of darkness (no horizon in view), my still-healing inner ear trouble, exhaustion and iffy guts from antibiotics was “the perfect storm” as they say…yep, you guessed it – I got horribly seasick for the first time in 9 months. It was quite unpleasant. The boat was pitching around so much that I couldn’t keep going up and down to the head (even from inside the cabin), so I ended up just wedging myself and my water into the head. I spent about 5 hours in there. Jonny was not enjoying himself very much either. I heard him in the cockpit at one point, pleading with (Neptune?) “Pleeeaasseee! Stooooop!”. It was a most uncomfortable trip. He hove-to and was considering that maybe we should just turn around and go back to Santa Rosalia. It would have been a fast, easy sail in the right direction for the weather.   As sick as I was, I was horrified at that thought – wasting the progress (25 miles) we’d made, getting sick and still having to do it all over again? And go back to that dirty anchorage with no swimming? No…I was not at all for this plan. I did think maybe we should stay hove-to for a few hours so Jonny could get some sleep. While Jonny agreed we should continue on, he was not about to get any sleep and he went up to get the boat moving again. I went back to continuing to empty my long-since emptied stomach. Very soon afterwards, the swell calmed down a bit and we were able to have a more normal sail. I eventually turned the corner out of sickville and dozed off in the bathroom.   In the morning Jonny came to get me up and out of there, thinking I’d be more comfortable in the cockpit. I spent the rest of the day feeling like a large man in heavy boots had kicked me in the stomach all night. This trip was awarded the title of Second Worst Passage Ever (to be reminded of Worst Passage Ever, go back and read the Mag Bay to Cabo entry).

We arrived in San Francisquito Bay in the afternoon. We anchored not far from Linger Longer and did all our chores, got the boat situated and then snoozed. It seemed a bit cooler and the water temps were definitely more refreshing – down to about 86 degrees! It was heavenly. On the second day I went ashore with Kris and we discovered the pretty white sand beach was far prettier from the boats. It was windy, rough water, full of organic debris. We gave it a good try but concluded it was “meh”. We had all had a particularly rolly night and we decided to try the anchorage just south – it seemed to have more protection from the swell.   By the time we moved, all the swell had calmed down and Linger Longer decided to stay put. They departed the next day and we spent the rest of the week by ourselves in that anchorage and also moved up to Mujeres just a bit north (I think the whole area is considered Bahia San Francisquito though?).   Mujeres was a truly beautiful white sand beach with lovely water, plenty of rays and dolphins and invisible little underwater things that sting you.  We’ve gotten the little stings in various places, and I likened them to a bee sting. But, after getting stung twice in one day by bees, I can now safely say bee stings hurt a LOT worse. Bees were an ongoing battle in all three anchorages we had there. My thinking was if we shooed them out and made it a hostile environment, they’d tell their friends and not come back. But, spending an entire day shooing bees out of the cabin is not a sustainable life. They eventually start swarming on something – a wet bathing suit hung on a line, or they try to find the faucets. At first I was having romantic ideas of sharing water with the bees, and when some got on me as I was rinsing off on deck, I thought it would be wonderfully charitable of me to let them drink some water, afterall, what’s a few drops to me? And the poor bees, they are having an awfully hard time these days. The day before we left, my tune changed considerably. I got stung twice for no reason and my delicate fly-swatter turned shoo-er became a battle axe of death. Sorry bees. My patience apparently DOES have a limit.  I was very ready to leave SF bay – aside from the bees, I’d had a grasshopper on my pillow, a moth in my toilet and bed, and never-ending flies. I was getting pretty sick of feeling like I was camping and Jonny was having less and less patience for my screams and yells every time some critter surprised me.

On the day we decided to depart, we went ashore just after the morning net (6:30am-ish – where we get weather and hear where everyone else is and what they’re up to). We hiked up to the peak overlooking the anchorage. Jonny said he’d been looking up at it for days and determined the best path, but unfortunately once on shore he just couldn’t see it. I took that to mean he didn’t know where he was going, and when I protested that it didn’t look like a good direction, he suggested maybe I should go wherever I wanted.   That sounded like a fine idea, so I made my way up to the peak, in what seemed like a very direct and efficient route. Direct it was, but easy it was not. I was climbing up loose rocks and heaving myself up and over the steep parts. By the time I met up with Jonny at the top, I was red-faced, dripping sweat and not feeling my best. We did get some great views and rested a bit. Jonny informed me that I misinterpreted his words and should have followed him because he in fact had known where he was going all along. Hmmm. At any rate, I was too scared to go down the way I came up, so I followed him back. His route was at least twice as long as mine, and if you subtracted the long, easy parts, probably not much less work. But at least I had someone on the downside to catch me if I fell. All I wanted for the majority of the hike – up and down, was to be neck deep in the water down below. As soon as we got to the beach, I did just that.   I find more and more that I’m far happier in and on water than on land.

The cooling off only lasts as long as you are in the water. I was dripping sweat again before we weighed anchor. At least sailing we get a nice breeze. Our trip was relatively painless. We did have a bit of a rough time going through Canal Salsipuedes (which translates to Leave if You Can Channel) – the tides and currents through this somewhat narrow passage can get really crazy in opposition to each other, making big standing waves and weird whirlpools, and then, the wind can just die on you. We made it out OK and avoided hitting the imaginary island that our iPad nav software created (very strange – it showed us crossing over a smooth, egg shaped island – all other islands were mostly in the right place and had detailed coastlines). Not sure what that was all about, but it may have caused a moment of panic in the captain, who assumed that now we could never again trust our one and only accurate navigation program.

We anchored at Isla Partida, which was mostly where it was supposed to be on our chart. A rugged, beach-less black and white sort of island with a nice crescent shaped bay. Dan on Dazzler was the only boat there and we tucked in nearer to the shore. Dan brought us a yellowtail he had just caught as a ‘welcome to the anchorage’ present. What a nice guy! He and Jonny had a lot of fishing to discuss, for sure.   We were finishing up a mahi mahi, so I saved the yellowtail to make sushi for lunch the next day.

We had a chubasco predicted for our first night there. It didn’t quite get to chubasco proportions (winds were only in the mid to high 20’s – people call them Chewbacas ), but we had a seriously windy and rainy and rocky night. I stood out in the rain for a bit and it was nice to get chilly. But I was SO tired that I missed most of the lightning show. I was barely functional for whatever it was we had to do at 3:00am.   The next day we tried to explore in the dinghy, there was a small sort of beach on the back side of the island, but not really a place you’d want to spend a lot of time. Jonny fished a bit and we were just too sleep-deprived to do much else.

We had an unpredicted chubasco/chewbaca the 2^nd night, and got even less sleep. We had to start the motor to relieve the strain on our anchor, as we were being blown right back towards the rocks. Our anchor held like a champ, as it always has so far – but better safe than sorry! The wind and swell were whipping and at one point, during a flash of lightning, I noticed that poor Peugeot was upside down! She had flipped over and I was sure we’d lost the paddles and maybe even had the seat ripped out. After a bit more jostling, she flipped back upright again. After looking hard and waiting for flashes of lightning, I ascertained we did in fact still have both paddles! Miraculous! In the morning we discovered we also still had the t-shirt we keep over the fuel tank (which was strapped in and not lost either) and a nice strap of webbing we use to hang fish on. Amazing! The only loss was a nice stainless knife, and that was a bummer, but we still feel we got away pretty lucky on that whole deal. When you lose or break something here, if you can’t find or fix it, it’s just gone, you live without. Interesting thing to get used to. Instant gratification is such a distant, hazy memory.

When I got up at 2:00 am to batten down the hatches and whatnot, I thought I saw something fly into the cabin. I assumed it was one of the gigantic moths we often see (we call them Mothra) and I tried not to make a big deal of it because I get a lot of grief for being too girly about bugs and such. But when things calmed down a bit and Jonny suggested I could go back to bed if I wanted I said “No! Mothra is down there!”. I had a good look with the lights and didn’t see mothra, so I tried to go to sleep on the pitching and rolling bed. Not long after Jonny came down he yelled and turned on the lights. He thought Mothra was flitting around his head. Turns out we had an adorable black bird in our bed! Poor thing just sat there blinking on the sheets. Jonny carefully grabbed it and set it out in the cockpit. It had probably come in to avoid the storm (which was kind of ironic as we later discovered it was a “storm petrel”), and we didn’t want to throw it back out there, but I didn’t want it in our bed, either. So it had a nice cozy towel to sit on under the dodger. By morning it had flown the coop.

Two sleep deprived nights really diminishes your desire to do much. Luckily, after visiting Dan’s boat, Jonny had inspiration for how to hang my beloved Jungle Hammock in the cockpit. It’s hard to believe it’s taken this long to figure out how to use my hammock, given how much I adore that thing, but better late than never. It’s so comfortable! The day was cloudy and cool all day – it was a very nice change of pace. After a third sleepless night – due to a ‘wind event’ we decided to give up on Isla Partida for the time being.

We tried out a couple anchorages just south of Bahia de los Angeles and ended up spending five days in Quemado, which had a very long, beautiful white sand beach and red hills and mountains surrounding it. Coyotes would often come down and visit the beach and start howling and barking to each other. We were running quite low on fresh food and we knew Bay of LA was just around the corner, but somehow we were in no rush to get there. Bit by bit we kept hearing this and that about what you can get in BLA and it started to gain legendary proportions in my mind. I tried not to get my hopes up too much.

Somewhere in there we began to notice our refrigerator was running pretty much non-stop. In a home, this can be a minor annoyance, but on a boat, this was a critical situation – not just because something was clearly wrong with our fridge and we could lose all our frozen and long term supplies in there, but also because it was sucking our battery bank dry. We can only make so many amps with our solar panels running at full bore, and with the fridge running nonstop we could not keep up with the amps being consumed. We had to turn it off several times a day, which was not boding well for the goods inside. It seemed to get worse and worse. I used our SSB radio Ham email to contact the company we bought the compressor and cold plate from (it’s a Technautics Cool Blue – only installed 14 months ago and one of the most efficient (and expensive) systems out there. We had been pretty much enamored of the system to date. We got immediate response and helpful information. The system was dangerously low in refrigerant, which could only happen if it leaked out somewhere. We examined the system and discovered that a leak appeared to be happening in the connections near the compressor (which is housed under the aft portion of the boat and accessed through a panel at the end of our quarter berth). The leak was not very obvious and we were thinking maybe it had been leaking slowly ever since we installed it? Our new task was to go to BLA and try to find refrigerant and hoses to get it into our system. A few people told us we could probably find it in town. We were holding our breath. We figured we should get in there right away and try to fix this situation. But it was Friday and we realized the weekend might not be the best time to try to find things in town. And besides, Lunasea and Manta showed up at the anchorage and we were looking forward to hanging out with them. We were limping along, turning the fridge on and off and things seemed to be holding their own in there.

In parallel to the fridge issue, I also was suffering from thrush – which is basically a yeast infection in the mouth. Thanks to the antibiotics I took for my ear infection, I was now in excruciating pain inside my entire mouth. I had a bad taste in my mouth for days and white coating on my tongue, but I had assumed maybe I was just detoxing from the antibiotics. It soon became very apparent it was thrush. Thanks to information my Mom sent me via the ham radio email, I was able to identify for sure what was going on and also start taking the pills I had gotten ‘just in case’ I got a yeast infection (I had forgotten all about thrush, which I’ve only had once before). I really only had 2 or 3 days where it was hard to eat and I was in constant pain. Luckily the pills started to do their job and I did not end up with the side effect of liver failure. I was careful not to drink alcohol for the 10 day duration of the pills. I don’t drink much as it is, and often go far longer than 10 days without a drink, but when you CAN’T have a drink, it’s amazing just how badly you want one!

Jonny and Alex got to go fishing together and Naomi and I got to catch up on a lot of backlogged girl talk. We also got to share a great lunch of smoked sierra sandwiches on Naomi’s homemade bread (which I would have enjoyed far more if my mouth had been healed up). She ended up giving me some of her sourdough starter and instructions for making bread. Life will never be the same now – this is some seriously good bread and I have lots of plans to trick it out with all kinds of fancy ingredients (cinnamon raisin? Molasses/walnut? Garlic/onion? Pizza dough?). If I can just avoid killing the sourdough starter… (first day I accidentally spilled Jamaica water into it, but it appears to have survived). We finally got to meet Terry and Dawn on Manta – a huge tri-maran that’s been roaming the sea for many years. They take folks out for trips and are big into Scuba diving. They have lots of great stories (including how they just had a 17 year old kid on board who’d never been in a world without wifi, he was baffled and simply could not get his head around why his phone wouldn’t work).

We enjoyed our weekend, with the dark cloud of “what if we have no fridge for the rest of the summer??” looming over us. Come Monday morning we were ready to get on task and head in to civilization. Stay tuned to hear the tales!

 

 

 

The wind was right so we blew on northward again. We radioed our friends to say goodbye and headed to San Juanico, a supposedly lovely and popular anchorage for cruisers. For some reason I didn’t have high hopes – and thought maybe we’d stay a night or 2 there before moving on. I was really looking forward to Bahia Concepcion – where we used to camp and loved very much.

ASIDE – I thought I had learned a long time ago not to have expectations. You are never disappointed when you have no expectations about something – be it a day, a place, a person, etc. But between San Juanico and Bahia Concepcion I re-learned this lesson. And I also realized that we really shouldn’t beat ourselves up when re-learning something we thought we already had down. Life actually requires a certain number of Continuing Education Credits in order to maintain Human Being status. So, next time you find yourself re-learning a lesson you thought you had down years ago, just chalk it up to earning your CEC units and continue on with being human.

OK that wasn’t a spoiler, was it?!

The sail, while not all that far (20 ish miles?) had a little bit of everything. We started out with the wind failing us and ended up double reefed, holding on for dear life, hoping to get in before the thunderstorm. We also caught a fish at the most inopportune moment, the boat was pitching wildly and Jonny accidently cut the fish wrong and blood sprayed everywhere. Summer looked like a crime scene, which I suppose it WAS…

San Juanico was absolutely amazing. It looked sort of beautiful from our anchor spot, some pretty white sand beaches, rock formations that looked interesting and it was a very large bay with many areas to explore. We took the dinghy out to explore the nearest point and as we got closer to it all, I was just blown away at how incredible it all was! The colors and formations of the rocks were far different from what we’d seen so far. We explored caves, rock spires and finally beached the dinghy and checked out the multicolored rocks on shore. It was far too hot to spend any time looking at rocks on shore – we probably could’ve cooked lunch on them though. So we jumped in with our snorkels and I spent a ridiculous amount of time in the shallows examining rocks and shells. So many agates and things looking like the insides of geodes, multi-layered, multi-colored… I ended up with several handfuls of special treasures that needed examining out of the water. Jonny about had a heart attack when he saw my collection. I assured him I would not take it back to the boat. Well, not ALL of it.

   

After a rollier night than we’d hoped for, the next day we tried to move to the other side of the bay but didn’t find anything to our liking – 2 other boats were in good spots over there. We got another spot near a beach and some interesting caves. We spent an afternoon snorkeling from one beach to another. It was far too hot to be out of the water and being in the water, in the shade of the rocks and caves was the best place we could be. We waited till almost sundown to go back to the boat. The afternoons are the worst because the sun often comes in the back of the boat and no matter what we do, putting up shades and sarongs, it always seems to find your eyes through some hole somewhere. We call it “the blinding hours”.   That night, after being in the water so much, I had a bit of water in my ear I just couldn’t seem to shake out.

That night was horribly rolly, and some crazy wind event got us up in the middle of the night. I was so delirious that I don’t even actually remember what I had to get up to do out there – maybe take a shade down. The wind switched directions and the anchorage was not at all protected anymore. We got very little sleep and the next morning we couldn’t get out of there fast enough – with the boat pitching and rolling the entire time. Just around to the north there is an anchorage called Ramada, which offered better protection for the winds and predicted winds. We got in there pretty quickly and it was a lovely, tiny little spot that could just barely hold 2 boats, and it was much less rolly. A little while later the other 2 boats from San Juanico came in to the Ramada as well. Linger Longer and Rain Dancer were our new neighbors. Rain Dancer anchored a bit too close for our comfort, but we didn’t have time to say anything because the skies got black and a lightning show ensued. Soon after the intro, a huge rainstorm came on. The wind was not at all coming from the direction predicted so we were blowing back on a lee shore and almost hitting Rain Dancer. We hollered to them to put out some more scope and we started our motor to keep ourselves in place.   It was wonderfully cool and I managed to get myself and my hair soaked in fresh water.   We even half heartedly put out a bucket to collect water running off our shade. The lightning show was spectacular. When the winds stopped howling so much and it was just raining, we celebrated being chilly by having some soup. The water that had gotten stuck in my ear still hadn’t come out and it was starting to feel a little funny in there…

 

That afternoon when it stopped raining, we met Kris on Linger Longer. The next morning she invited us to an afternoon “noodle party”, which sounded like a lot of cooking in the hottest part of the day and I wasn’t too keen. But turns out a noodle party is where you get your pool noodles and other floaties and just all hang out in the water together, keeping cool, maybe having a drink or two set on a paddle board. How have we not thought of this??

We checked out the beach and met Rainie, Don and their three dogs from Rain Dancer and then also Kirk on Linger Longer. Kris and Kirk were off to try to find the trail from the beach back across to San Juanico where there is a “Cruiser’s Shrine” to visit. We decided we should make the trek too before it got too hot. We went back to the boat to get shoes, hats and water. By the time we got back to shore, Kris and Kirk were already back; the path they took wasn’t the right one and ended at someone’s house. Unfortunate for them, but helpful to us – we knew to try to the other path.   It was a hot but pretty hike through the desert landscape. Not long before we came to the other side and headed left along a rocky shoreline with gorgeous views of the turquoise waters and rock formations on the side of San Juanico bay we had not explored. I was skeptical about this shrine – it looked like a tree surrounded by trash from the distance and I wasn’t sure it was going to be worth the trek down the rocky beach. But we finally made it and it’s a pretty good sized tree completely covered and surrounded by “offerings” from all the cruisers that have visited over the years. People made all kinds of creative signs and memorabilia with their boat names and years they visited- it was quite extensive and hard to photograph. The oldest we saw was a rock from 1989 with Wind Walker on it – which made us think of our friend Van and his beautiful Islander 28 Wind Walker that we did some of our first sailing on (we know it wasn’t the same one though!). We had fun looking through everything and started to get inspired about what we were going to contribute.  We figured this is our summer project – to create something that will stand the weather and test of time at the cruiser’s shrine. We will definitely be stopping in San Juanico on the way back south at the end of the year.

We had a lovely noodle party and got to know Kris and Kirk better. I kept my head out of the water to keep my ear issue from getting worse. It was nice to float around in my hat and sunglasses and stay cool!

The next morning we headed out just after light to Santo Domingo bay at the top of Bahia Concepcion – about a 45 mile sail – a bigger day than we’ve had in some time. Rain Dancer and then Linger Longer also headed out, quite a ways behind us.   Between us catching fish (and losing 3 of the 4…) and being the little slow guys, both of them passed us before too long. But we sailed once the wind came up and it was a lovely and semi-fast day. I got some carrot cake muffins made before it got too crazy rolly in the afternoon.

When we finally sailed around the corner to the stopover anchorage of Santo Domingo (we planned to go farther down into the bay), Linger Longer and Rain Dancer were already there. But apparently we were only about an hour behind (and they both motored the whole way). It was a pretty little spot with a big beach and nothing much around save for a fish camp on the point. Water was clear and relatively refresing. We had a beautiful sunset and enjoyed our mahi mahi for dinner. We had a nice chat with Kris and Kirk the next morning and Rainie and Don on the beach before we hiked out to check out the rocks at the end of the beach. We planned to leave that afternoon to go down to Coyote Bay or El Burro Cove – both places we always drove by and loved to see on our camping trips. By the time we got back to the boat, it was later than expected and the wind wasn’t right anyway for sailing south. There was going to be north wind the next day, which was perfect, so we decided to spend one more night there. My ear was clearly not getting better – up and down with a lot of discomfort. I was keeping it out of the water and half heartedly attempting some remedies (not entirely sure what the cause was, I wasn’t sure what to do – viral or bacterial?).

The next day Linger Longer and Rain Dancer both headed out to the north. Kirk is a fishing enthusiast like Jonny – but he hadn’t had a lot of luck lately. Jonny gave him one of our lucky lures just as they were leaving. It wasn’t long before Kirk called us on the radio to say they were having fish for the next two nights! Those dorado sure like the pink lures.

I was really excited about seeing some of our old haunts as we made our way into the bay. We wove between little islands and checked out El Burro Cove. Every morning we listen to a net on the SSB Radio – cruisers check in and share information and then at 7:45 Geary the weather guy gives us all a report for conditions all around Baja and mainland Mexico – he does this out of the kindness of his heart, and he’s very reliable. It’s extremely helpful and we never miss a report. We know that Geary lives in El Burro Cove, so we thought we’d try to find him and let him know how much we appreciate his weather reports. We did a ‘drive by’ of El Burro and the beach is lined with palapa beach homes – we guessed that the one with the most antennas on it had to be Geary’s. We continued on to Coyote Bay, just around the corner, as it seemed to have more protection for the winds we were getting.

My ear was definitely a problem and I was pretty uncomfortable – continuing to keep my head out of the water until it was better. In the heat, this was a miserable prospect. We decided to go ashore – there was supposed to be a small market and we wanted to scope out the prospects for getting water and we had some really stinky trash we wanted to offload.   The beach was wall-to-wall beach houses and compounds. We landed the dinghy under a shady palm tree and tried to walk out to the road. We were locked in by a very secure gate. We went back to the beach and walked down a ways and found another path that looked like it went out between houses. It led to another locked gate. By this time we were REALLY hot and more than a little annoyed. We ended up jumping over a wood slat and metal fence across from the mini market. I was able to dump the trash in a bin and went in to see what goodies we could glean from the market. We were nearly completely out of fresh stuff. Avocados? Tomatoes? Cucumbers? Perhaps a freezer case with ice creams? I had high hopes. Jonny was only hoping to find a beer. One of us got what we were looking for and it wasn’t me. Now I was really sweaty, sticky and dejected. And I had to climb up a metal wire fence and try to get to the other side. A few cuts and bruises, but I made it OK and we trudged on back to the dinghy. Jonny jumped overboard for a swim and got out immediately. Not only was the water not very clear or pretty, but it was 93 degrees – not very refreshing. Crystal clear island water has really spoiled us! I of course didn’t even bother going in, I was just feeling hot and miserable and my ear was annoying and worrying me. I just kept spritzing off with our fresh water sprayer and hoping for a breeze. It was a most uncomfortable night.

In the morning we made our pilgrimage by dinghy over to El Burro to find Geary. I was not at my best – ear was really bugging me now. We interrupted Geary’s siesta, but he kindly got out of his hammock and had a nice chat with us. I wish I’d been feeling better, I would have had a lot more questions for him! He’s been living on this beach for over 20 years and has a wonderful place with all kinds of fun and entertaining décor. We left him with a couple of carrot cake muffins (which Jonny so generously sacrificed – they’re his favorite) and headed out to find the little restaurant there.

We spotted all these crazy little crabs on the way – tiny little guys with one giant claw – sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left (why is that?). It was hotter and more humid than we’ve seen. How is it no one ever told us how humid it is down here? We knew it was hot, yes, but the humidity was never mentioned. There really is something to be said for “but it’s a DRY heat”. I totally get it now. It was 102 in the shade at JC’s Restaurant, and we were the only ones there. It was a cute little place and the folks there were very friendly and wanted to serve us. They maybe just didn’t think anyone was going to show up that day, as it took over 45 minutes to get a couple tacos. I couldn’t get a fresh orange juice, but I got the green light on the limonada. I think they had to run over to the other store for ice as it took quite some time for that to arrive. But it was the real deal and it was huge and delicious. The tacos were also extremely good, and I’d almost say worth the wait. As soon as the food came, we were inundated with black flies. They swarmed our food and the condiment platter. I had to eat with one had shooing away flies. It was so bad I just started to laugh and thought maybe we were on one of those hidden camera shows: “This couple came in for a quick taco lunch, but we cranked the heat up to 102 and made the humidity off the charts, then we made them wait for nearly an hour, and then, when their food finally came, we released 800 starving black flies right over their table. Let’s watch to see how they react!” We were far too hungry, hot and sticky to react in any way but to wolf down our tacos, wave away the flies and get on out of there (which is probably why they won’t be airing our episode). It was nice to get a meal out for a change, though! Cooking in this heat is not a pleasant task. We had another hot and sticky night – trying to cool off by spraying with water and standing naked in the breeze. Clothing optional? No, clothing is not an option in this heat. And no, it’s not nearly as sexy as you might think; touching is not an option either. I can’t even stand it when the back of my calf touches the back of my thigh. I’ve been experimenting with ‘foot hammocks’ so I can lay around with as little of me as possible touching anything.

We nixed all our plans intentions to see any more of Bahia Concepcion – it could wait till the cooler winter months when we head back by. The next morning we got out of there pretty quickly and headed up to Punta Chivato, which we hoped would be a bit cooler. As we were nearing the end of the bay, there were lots of dolphins playing around.  Some of them rode Summer’s bow for a while.

Otherwise, it was a sweatshop of a sail for me – I spent most of the time down below trying to sew some leather onto our giant shade structure as it had ripped where it goes around the backstay.  I couldn’t sew it while at anchor because we cannot survive without it up!!

We camped once on Punta Chivato for New Year’s Eve.   It was a terrible night for a variety of reasons (it was quite cold and windy in the winter time to boot). But I hoped this time would be much different. And it was. Except it was far worse.  I awoke shortly after midnight in excruciating pain – my ear was howling. And humidity seemed to be around 90%. Our bed was damp, the floors and decks and cockpit were all just soaked with humidity. At least there was a breeze outside, so I crawled into the cockpit and tried to sleep on my good ear. Not long afterwards, Jonny woke up and took up the other side of the cockpit. We must have both fallen asleep, because at 4:45 am we both sat bolt upright as we felt the boat spinning around. Inside of a minute the wind switched direction 180 degrees. This meant the boat also changed direction 180 degrees. This was not a usual motion and that didn’t escape either one of us however soundly we were asleep. With the switch we ended up being in extremely rolly conditions and we didn’t really get any more sleep. In the morning we got out as quickly as possible, with the boat pitching and rolling the whole time. We even waited to take the sail cover off until we were underway, figuring it couldn’t be much worse to do it when we were moving, maybe it would calm down? Nope. It was worse. But we survived and had a decent sail. At least when you’re sailing you’re always feeling some sort of breeze!

Next stop Isla San Marcos – an island that has a small village and a gypsum mine. We went to the uninhabited north end of the island to Sweet Pea Cove. There was a small fishing camp on the beach, interesting looking caves and we anchored in very pretty waters. The water was a bit more refreshing – down to 90 degrees. I did some floating and we had a more pleasant and cooler afternoon and evening. We watched two fishermen land on the beach in a panga. One of them jumped off the boat empty handed and ran into a cave on the beach. Just moments before this, Jonny noticed that cave and through binoculars spotted a chair inside of it. The second fisherman ran into the cave and they tried to put a big tarp up over the opening. The second guy ran out and sprinted across the beach and got something (a stick?) and back to the cave where the two men secured themselves inside with the tarp blocking them in. After about 15 minutes they came out, put the tarp away and zoomed off in the panga. You can just imagine the speculation we had going on as to what happened in there. Any guesses are welcome!

We were only about 10 miles from the town of Santa Rosalia – where we’d planned to stop for provisions before making a big leap to the north. I was really looking forward to exploring the beaches and caves on Isla San Marcos and we planned to do that the next morning before heading to Santa Rosalia. And we were both really interested to go have a look inside that one cave and see if we could find clues of what our mysterious fishermen were doing in there. My ear was hurting pretty badly and I was hoping it would be a little better in the morning. Unfortunately it was not and I had another sleepless night in excruciating pain. Ibuprofen helped a bit, but it was helping less and less. In the morning the entire right side of my face was in agony, it hurt to chew and it hurt to put sunglasses on. I realized I would not enjoy exploring the caves even if I could tough it out. I said I wanted to go straight to Santa Rosalia and find a doctor. Ten days of this was about my limit, I guess.

It was very rolly and there wasn’t enough wind to sail. We motored along with a favorable current and made it into the harbor around 11:00 am. We got anchored and immediately went ashore to find a clinic I’d looked up online. We stopped in the Fonatur office and they told us we were not allowed to use their dock for our dinghy if we were not staying there. That was very sad, as there wasn’t really any place else safe and secure (and free of loads of disgusting trash) to land. We did get a map and they suggested a doctor to visit. No name or address, but they put a dot on the map. We headed out to try and find that (and yes, we just left our dinghy where it was…were they going to give us a parking ticket? We weren’t sure but we didn’t care too much at that point). We ran into Rainie and Don and mentioned where we were going. They said they knew a Dr. Pepys who spoke English and was absolutely wonderful. They attempted to give us directions and finally pointed to a white cross on the hill and said it was up there, just across from that.

Santa Rosalia is unlike any other place in Baja. It’s an old mining town and the copper mine was run by a French company for quite some time. The town was built up with a lot wooden buildings (impractical for Baja) and Mr. Eiffel, of tower fame, designed the church here.   There’s a bakery that’s been operating in the same location for 100 years. There aren’t a lot of gringos here and it isn’t very touristy. We’ve always stopped here on the way home after our driving/camping trips and it’s always had a soft spot in my heart. It is built on some hilly terrain and there are a lot of steep stair cases, roads and walking bridges to and from the high sides. A main town area is in the flatter arroyo in the middle. We hiked up a steep staircase to a lookout – and could see Summer waiting patiently for us in the anchorage. We wandered through some streets at the top, trying to find the right place. We asked several people and got re-directed a few times.

 

We finally ended up at a Doctor’s office, in line with the big white cross a few streets down. It was not Dr. Pepy’s office, it was Dr. Lopez’s office. Doctor Lopez greeted us and said he could give me a consultation right away. He did not speak a word of English. Between Jonny and I we were able to communicate and understand just fine. Jonny studied Spanish in school and can often say the more complicated things properly, whereas I just have been learning through my travels in Spanish speaking countries – I sometimes know more obscure vocabulary words and can often understand what is being said to us a bit better than Jonny, so between the two of us we do OK.

Dr. Lopez had a scope with a bright light and he put it inside my ear – and it was projected on a big screen. What I saw will live in my nightmares for days to come. “MMMMM…Muy infeccion” said Dr. Lopez.   He came up with a list of things he wanted to give me – an antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory and ear drops. He explained how many and for how long I should take them. I can’t remember the last time I ingested antibiotics and I sure didn’t want to, but without access to my alternatives, and knowing how bad these ear infections can go, I decided to go ahead with this course of treatment. I was very worried about the very likely possibility of a yeast infection caused by the antibiotics and wanted him to add something for that to my prescriptions. I had a hard time trying to explain that to the doctor. Jonny jumped in with his fancy Spanish class education and pointed to his crotch with both hands and said “INFECCION indentro!” and the doctor looked horrified for a second and then said “ahhh! La vagine?” to which Jonny enthusiastically said “SI! SI! SI!” I wish I had that on video.

On the other side of the waiting room was a farmacia – how convenient! The doctor is apparently also a pharmacist and he pulled down all the drugs for me. I vaguely wondered if there was some sort of conflict of interest there. He said he wanted me to come back in four days so he could check on me and we made an appointment. The entire visit including all the drugs came to about $62 and took less than a half hour, no paperwork, no health history. I took the pills and ear drops right in the (comfortable, air conditioned) office and the drops, containing lidocaine, gave me some instant relief. A day later it was quite a bit better (although my hearing is questionable).

We scoped out a few grocery spots in town and splurged on a nice, very late lunch, in a nice, very air-conditioned restaurant. We recalled eating at the same restaurant on one of our driving trips heading north after New Year’s. We remembered being freezing cold and ducking into this restaurant and enjoying their heat. It was quite the opposite this time. When we left the restaurant our sunglasses were so cold they fogged up.

On our way back, we stopped to visit with Linger Longer, as they were staying in the Fonatur marina there. They had just gotten their share of a collective beer run delivery and had several cases piled in their cockpit. They kindly offered us cold ones, and who are we to refuse such kindness? We had a nice time chatting with them – they are really enjoyable folks to hang out with. We finally realized we should probably get our yogurt and other groceries back to the fridge and we headed back to Summer.

After the blinding hour and the sun going down, we planned to go ashore and try to use the showers and then find this ice cream place everyone is raving about. Well, we got our showers, blissful freshwater pouring from above washing away nearly 6 weeks of “the new clean”. Unfortunately we got busted for using the Fonatur dock, by the night guard. Don’t they have any idea how much we’ve spent at other Fonaturs? Anyway we had to hustle back to the boat, no ice cream. Very sad.

It was a relatively cool night. And by that I mean it was down to about 93 all night and it felt quite pleasant, and being clean on top of that? Well, it doesn’t get much better. Slept very well, with no ear agony and no rolliness in the harbor. The pleasant feeling lasted until almost 9:00am, when the sticky encasement of hot goo settled in for the day. It’s really just plain gross.

Jonny had to go up the mast to figure out why our super expensive, power-sipping LED “lifetime” anchor light stopped working after only 10 months. We don’t have an answer still, but we did replace it with our old bulb which uses a lot of energy but works just fine. My job was to inventory all our food supplies so we could get at least 3 months worth of provisions stocked up before leaving Santa Rosalia.

For a few weeks now, I’ve been finding these little black bugs everywhere. Slow moving, hard, tiny beetle-like things. I’ve had the vague thought in the back of my head that they must be coming from SOMEWHERE and aren’t just dropping into the boat at our various anchorages. I was afraid of finding their headquarters at some point and mostly just tried not think about it too much. Well, in doing inventory, I found headquarters. They actually operated out of multiple locations, namely our two stashes of pastas. I believe they were grain weevils that were present inside some of the pastas boxes or bags when we bought them and spread to all the rest. All our bags of pasta were just crawling with these guys. I had to throw away all of it (except for the gluten free, which they apparently don’t like). It doesn’t appear they got any sugar or flour, still on alert for them though. I had to remove everything from our lowest, largest storage locker, which involved laying on the floor and using a flashlight. I thoroughly cleaned both food lockers where they were found and all the surrounding areas. Sad to lose all that pasta and now I’m afraid to buy more! Fingers crossed I got them all.

By late morning we were ready to try our luck landing the dinghy at the nearby panga beach and walk over to the Ley supermarket that we could see just up the highway. The beach was covered with very black, shiny sand, probably some sort of residual from the mining history of this place. The beach and water leading up to it was fairly disgusting – covered in trash and whatnot. With the whole ear infection thing, I was feeling less than impervious to potential who-knows-what you could get by stepping in that water…Jonny took one for the team and jumped out of the dinghy and pulled it up on shore so I could step out onto dry(ish) beach. We secured Peugeot and hiked up the sketchy staircase to the street. There were trash bins right there so that was nice to ditch a few bags of trash we’d brought. It was a very short walk to Ley, but in the heat it was almost unbearable. We passed by a park built in the ruins of an old mining site. I wandered in to take pictures but Jonny hurried me along, anxious to get into the air-conditioned Ley. We were both dripping sweat after only a block of walking. Jonny’s shirt was so soaked when we got into the blissfully icy Ley, people were pointing and laughing at him.   We probably spent about three hours scoping out what was available, getting some things, taking a break to eat a rotisserie chicken in the small deli area and then continuing our shopping expedition. I was not looking forward to the hot, heavily laden trek back, but Jonny had not a single doubt that we needed to take a taxi. Small miracles do happen! We had about half of the provisions we needed, so it was far too much to carry, anyway.

    

We got back to the panga area and were grateful to see that Peugeot hadn’t exploded (we let air out of it before we left her baking on that hot black sand, and she wasn’t the least bit soft when we got back). I again got in the dinghy without touching the water. We noticed the panga fishermen wearing high rubber boots to get into their boats. Watching Jonny walk in that water almost made me nauseous. He washed his feet off as soon as we got back to Summer.

We had a hotter, less comfortable night. No showers, but we did rinse off with as much water as we wanted, knowing that the next day we were headed for water galore at the marina. Water, laundry, propane and more provisions were on our task list.

We are VERY VERY VERY grateful to our dear friend Amy, who sent us a generous donation via the blog. We decided to splurge on 2 nights at the marina…and Jonny is finally getting a new pair of gloves for heaving anchor!

The Fonatur is pretty relaxed (except, apparently when you use their dock and you aren’t staying. Most places allow you to do so for a fee or free, which we would have been happy to pay, but they just flat out said no). We picked out a slip and Kris and Kirk caught our lines as we came in. We realized our dock finger was disgusting, covered in guano and other unrecognizably gross stuff. We got a bunch of fenders and rigged some longer lines and pulled Summer over to the next slip over, which was a bit cleaner. There is no water metering, so we went hog wild! Gave Summer a quick rinse down, put up our sun shades and proceeded to do a huge amount of laundry in a Rubbermaid bin. It took most of the day, but being in our shaded cockpit, playing with cool-ish fresh water, wasn’t the worst way to spend a day.   When someone finally came in to the office, I checked in for 2 nights and got some laundry tokens –as we realized there was no way we could fit all our laundry on lines on the boat. We got sheets done first and they actually dried before we got other things done, so we were able to dry a lot on the lines, and only brought 1 load to dry in the dryer.

Isabel in the office offered that I could come and sit in the waiting room to use wifi or read books anytime I wanted. Yes, the office is air-conditioned and yes I am blogging in relative comfort.

You’ll have to wait till my next wifi interlude to see how the rest of Santa Rosalia went for us. Until then…stay cool.

 

We had only planned to stay a couple nights in Candeleros. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that we stayed for an entire week.   We recently heard a cruiser on the VHF radio say “I plan to…wait, no, I’m trying never to use the word “plan” again….my INTENTION is to…”. I like that and will try to use “intention” instead of “plan” from now on.   Forget about that whole “Failing to plan is planning to fail” saying. That only works for goal oriented people who drink a lot of coffee and have bosses. [Luckily you can always find a saying or a meme to fit whatever it is you want to believe… (for example: “out of sight, out of mind vs. absence makes the heart grow fonder. Choose your own adventure)].

Right. Candeleros or Villa Del Palmar or whatever that monstrosity of a resort was called. We were told that the resort gladly allowed cruisers to take their free shuttle into Loreto. What nice folks! We put off doing it for a few days – content to mooch their wifi and visit with our friends. We all spent quite a bit of time holed up in our boats, voraciously consuming wifi. Meagan and Megan each said things I was thinking though – “I hate trying to post blog entries when there’s internet. I keep getting distracted with “Oh I should look this or that up” and it takes FOREVER. When there’s no wifi I can just focus on WRITING.” and “I’m kind of looking forward to getting out of here and not having internet again, it’s so all consuming!”. Yes, it’s a blessing and a curse.

We finally did take the shuttle to Loreto when our grocery situation got a little more dire. We went with Megan and Jonah and we were the only ones in the shuttle.   The driver was great, stopping to show us views and talking about the area. When he dropped us off, he said we could come back on the 3pm or 5pm shuttle, it was our choice and we could just let them know. What a great service! We meandered through town, checking out all the grocery places, deciding we would have lunch and then go back to get our groceries at the end. We scoped out the waterfront area to see if there was a dinghy landing and what anchoring looked like for future supply runs. Loreto is not considered a safe anchorage, but you can stop for a few hours to run ashore for shopping. There is a panga harbor and a little stony area you could leave a dinghy.

We had a great lunch at a restaurant I remembered from one of our previous stopovers when we used to drive through Baja. It was around 2pm and we realized we’d never get our groceries and make the 3pm shuttle. Jonah called and said we wanted to take the 5pm and it all seemed just fine. We headed out and loaded up on all the essentials we could carry.   There was a great little shop that sold all kind of bulk, organic goods that the owner drove down from California on a regular basis when he went back and forth to visit family.   It put me a little over budget for that shopping run, but I got an awful lot of good stuff for making granola bars!

We got to the sister hotel in time to have a rest before the shuttle came. We sat and chatted happily, until we realized how much time had passed. There was no shuttle. Megan went to the front desk and came back some time later and said they weren’t coming for us. Jonah took a crack at calling them, too, but still, no dice. Apparently they decided that they didn’t want to come back for us since there were no other paying guests signed up for the service.   That, and we may have called a little too late, because apparently someone was there for us at 3pm and left empty. They had made it sound like no big deal which shuttle we took, but apparently it was a big deal. We weighed our options – should we try to get out to the main road and hitchhike back the 40 minute drive? We were all really overloaded with bags and backpacks and it was hot and we were pretty tired already. If we didn’t get a ride, I didn’t think my feet would hold out for any amount of extensive walking while carrying a heavy pack and bags. A taxi was supposed to cost 650 pesos (over $50) which none of us had budgeted for (and we were all out of cash). In the end, the hotel clerk negotiated a taxi for 500 pesos and we bit the bullet (and went to an ATM) and got back. At the resort, we were told that the resort policy on transporting non-paying guests had changed between the time we left and the time we came back. Lovely.

It was good to be home and loaded up with food again, at any rate. We started to get back into our groove and focusing on where we were intending to go next. We enjoyed fish and potlucks and hikes with our friends. We enjoyed going ashore after dark to take showers with soap and shampoo at the open air showers on the beach made for resort guests to rinse off. We were always a little worried about getting caught and “in trouble”, but it sure was nice to have fresh water just pouring down on us and using plenty of soap and all. We even rinsed some clothes. Simply washing the salt out of things is what now passes for “clean”.

I did so some boat laundry with soap and about 7 gallons of water. The water never rinsed totally clear, and I’m not entirely sure I got all the soap out, but again, it’s “The New Clean”. It sure smelled good!

Chores can make you awful sweaty down here. In fact, just standing still can make you awful sweaty. I spent some time floating with Pierre in the shade to cool off.

One morning I decided to make the rounds rowing the dinghy. I stopped at Sang Vind to deliver some dorado (mahi mahi) Jonny had promised and next on to Resolute with a little more fish. There wasn’t enough for Orion as well, but we figured they had some of the marlin we’d brought and besides, Jonah is such a great fisherman (yeah, it felt a little weird & awkward…) but I stopped at Orion to bring some pesos for the cab ride home they covered. I went aboard to chat with Megan and it wasn’t long before Meagan showed up on her paddle board. We had some good girl time chatting. We realized the wind was really coming up and the bay was very choppy. Meagan didn’t think she could paddle back to Resolute and I surely wasn’t going to row. Luckily I had the motor. This was a good exercise for me to start the motor while the dinghy was pitching around and then maneuver it so I could pick up Meagan and tow her paddle board back to Resolute. I could not for the life of me make the dinghy turn to starboard – up into the wind and waves and back towards Orion. I ended up making a few loops to port until I got in position. I thought something was wrong with the motor, but Jonny later told me that it had to do with my weight being on the port side. In those rough conditions, it was important to stay centered or to the side you want to turn. I had not known this! I don’t get much dinghy driving time. I managed to get Meagan home and I only rammed Resolute a little bit (bumper dinghy!). It was good experience for me – it was a little bit outside my comfort zone, but I was doing it in inside the circle of all our boats, so I felt very safe – any number of people would come to rescue us if need be! Now I feel a bit more confident with the dinghy.

We did finally get our act together to take a trip out to one of the smaller islands and do some snorkeling. The water was amazingly clear and we spent quite a while kicking around the islands. So. Many. Fish! Jonny took out the spear gun that our friends Sharleen and Jon had given us. He attempted his first shot (and miss). I had the realization that I will not enjoy spearfishing. There I was, floating in womblike bliss, watching beautiful fish living their peaceful lives. I waved to Jonny and pointed out a huge, colorful parrotfish to share its beauty. He started after it with his speargun and I realized in horror that he thought I was pointing it out so he could try to kill it! I screamed “Nooooooooo” through my snorkel. I am definitely not cut out for this “hunter” role. I realize that animals eat other animals, and human beings are simply animals, and I do love eating me some animals on a regular basis. But the thrill of the chase? The excitement fighting with a reel and pole? The adrenaline that comes with aiming and firing of a weapon? No. No thank you. I even have to look away, while pitifully crying “thank you, poor fish, sorry for ruining your day” whenever I’m present for the catching and clubbing portion of fishing. I think I am much happier gathering nuts and berries from a bulk store and cooking up whatever the hunter brings home. I’m very thankful we don’t ever have to reel in a cow.

 

As will often happen with us gatherer types, I finally had to admit it was time for a haircut. Typically, I get a haircut once per year, whether I need it or not.   Having long hair is not a lot of work, as some people may think. I have long hair mainly because I neglect it and short, stylish cuts require maintenance and frequent cutting, to keep them short and stylish. I rarely even brush my hair, which wasn’t so much of a problem when I had a shower and water came down from above and kept it all going in the same direction. When trying to be a professional, I would spend maybe 5 minutes blowdrying before I lost interest, and on many occasions I would realize in horror when driving to a client, that I had forgotten to brush it. I would frantically claw my hands through it in the car, and more than once I even cranked up the blower fan in an attempt to get it dry. I think you get the idea. I have little patience for primping.   Having been mostly ignored and devoid of harsh chemicals or styling products, my hair is ridiculously thick and healthy. Sort of like weeds getting out of control, you can ignore them until they start choking out more important things. When my hair is long enough to start choking ME out, that’s when I know it’s time for a cut. It starts wrapping around my neck when I sleep, getting caught under my armpits when I swim. Generally making itself a nuisance. With this extreme heat, I rarely will have it down, it’s just too heavy and suffocating. But given how long it was getting, putting it in a bun was like having a grapefruit on top of my head. Made it very hard to wear hats. I finally got a hat with a hole in the back for hair to stick through – best thing ever, and I promptly lost it. I’m heartbroken. Anyway. Meagan on Resolute was mentioning how she bought a very nice set of hair cutting shears with thinning shears (she has thick hair, too). I was very excited about the idea of her cutting my hair. She, not so much. She said she’d watched a YouTube video and cut her own hair. Erik told her she looked like she’d given herself a mullet. She was very hesitant to take on my locks. I had to work very hard to convince her that I truly didn’t care how badly it turned out. I started to tell her the story about the time I almost killed my cousin with a pair of scissors, but look of horror on her face quickly told me that was not going to win me a haircut. I really just wanted it gone and thinner and didn’t care if it looked terrible for a while (it always grows back). I knew that if I tried to do it myself and messed it up, I’d forever beat myself up about it, but if someone else messed it up I wouldn’t mind a bit. I’m not sure she believed, me but I finally got her to agree anyway. I picked her (and Nikka) up in the dinghy (my first time with a dog passenger) and we went out to the shady side of a rocky beach. She worked diligently and nervously for nearly two hours. She was surprised to find my hair was even thicker than hers. About six inches and ten pounds later, I felt GREAT! I was so grateful to Megan and she was still worried I wasn’t going to like it. I didn’t need to see it; I already loved it! In the end, she did a great job. Now I can go on ignoring it until it starts strangling me again. Even though it feels so much lighter, there’s still WAY too much.

On our last day there, we did a ‘girls-only’ paddle. Resolute had a spare SUP I could borrow and Sylvia borrowed one from Orion. I have never been on a stand up paddle board before. It doesn’t look difficult, but it’s not something I’ve ever been that interested to try. Standing up isn’t one of my favorite passtimes. Given my back and hips, I do much better biking, swimming or napping. But I was excited to give it a try and see what all the fuss was about, and looking forward to more girl time before we said our goodbyes the next day. Meagan kindly gave me the more stable of their boards, while she persevered on the wobblier inflatable. It wasn’t as stable as I imagined, but I managed not to fall over. The paddling part was fun, giving me flashbacks to my 400+ mile paddle through the Amazon rainforest in a dugout canoe. I really liked the paddling part. Not so much the stand up part. I paddled on my knees for a bit and that was nice, too. We saw rays and fish and ended up on one of the rocky islands just outside the bay. We snorkeled and hung out in the water and had some nice chill time. We paddled back as the sun was setting. Meagan said she’d come back for the board later with their dinghy – or we would bring it to them when we went ashore for our last shower. Well, the wind started piping up and it got awfully rough out. Neither of us ended up going ashore, so we secured the board for the night to return in the morning. No last shower for us, but I wasn’t too upset – it would have been no fun to get a shower and then get soaked with salt water on the ride back in the dark.

We got up early, as intended and prepared to set off for Puerto Escondido for fuel and water, and then maybe on to one of the anchorages on Isla Danzante or Carmen.   Puerto Escondido is considered to be one of the safe hurricane holes – although several boats sunk there in Hurricane Odile last year. A lot of cruisers spend a lot of time there, though. There is no town, and we heard it’s a pretty expensive cab ride into Loreto for supplies, we did not intend to stay in there unless we had to run in for bad weather protection.

I rowed Resolute’s board back and said “adios” to our friends. We were off for a new adventure! It was a hot but gorgeous day. As we approached Puerto Escondido, we could also see Honeymoon Cove just across the way. We decided to just go there and check it out and then maybe dinghy the few miles across to Escondido to scope that out for a later stop. We had enough water to last a few more days at least. We went to 3 different coves at Honeymoon before we found one that was just right. It was just big enough for Summer to fit comfortably and the water was gorgeous. We settled in and then dinghied over to Escondido to scope out the entrance and fuel dock situation, and to see of the rumors of a market there were true. When we passed the anchorage known as The Waiting Room, I counted over 20 boats in there. There was a market, but no fresh food – which is all we were hoping for. The owner said she could take a list and pick up whatever we wanted from town and deliver it next day. What a great service – we thought we might take advantage at some point?   Fuel dock looked easy enough. As we were getting ready to leave, we spotted Resolute coming in.

We had a couple blissful days in Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante. It felt very remote and private (aside from a powerboat or 2 hanging out in the tiny cove 2 up from us). We did a couple hikes and a lot of snorkeling. When we were up on a peak we spotted Sang Vind coming in, towing their whole fleet (sailing dinghy, inflatable, SUP…). They checked out the coves and ended up in 2 down from where we were. They stopped to say Hi the next day.

 

We finally went over to Escondido to fill up with water and fuel. The fuel dock was full (Resolute was there!) so we went to a different dock to get water. The Fonatur there charges for the water, so they came and read the meter and told us it was ten cents per liter (cents being 1/10 of a peso, not dollar – which ends up being roughly 6 cents US for 2.5 gallons). We went to town – we gave Summer a good rinse, we got out a bin and washed some clothes and towels, we topped off our tanks and every container we had. We used about 147 gallons of water -which came to 56 pesos (less than $4USD). Such a deal! Meagan and Erik came over with Nikka to say Hi. They were planning to stay in The Waiting Room (the anchorage inside Puerto Escondido area) for a bit.  We went over to the fuel dock and topped off our gas cans and diesel tank (which came to around $44USD). Full up, clean and ready! We headed out to find Balandra Bay, on the northern part of Isla Carmen.

We had the most wind and roughest seas we’ve seen in the Sea of Cortez. It was great fun! We sailed SO fast – I saw our knotmeter pegged at 8 a few times (our hull speed is around 6). As we were racing along we saw a boat coming the other way, about to pass close by to us. We realized it was Mike and Nia aboard Azul. We all waved enthusiastically at each other as we flew past. They are hard workers that help a lot of other cruisers (Nia made our great mid-boat shade)– so they were probably headed back to Escondido.

We made it into the very protected cove of Balandra. It immediately did nothing for me. Maybe I’ve been spoiled, but I couldn’t help thinking “Meh!”. My feet were killing me from all the hiking and feet related activities of the past week, so I was happy to just hang out and swim and snorkel for a few days. We had a nice dorado to eat for three days and eeked out what we could with our remaining veggies. Sang Vind came in the day before we left and it was nice to visit with them for a bit.  There was also a lovely sunset and a refreshing rainstorm – so all in all a nice little interlude.

We got up at the crack of dawn and motored across the 8 miles to Loreto. Getting in early meant anchoring and getting out before it got too crazy. Loreto is called a “road stead anchorage” which doesn’t make any sense to me in the wording, but I guess it somehow means “not a safe place to spend the night”. There is no protection or bay, you just anchor right there in the open and hope for the best. There was a tiny beach to land the dinghy and off we went to get our supplies. It was nice knowing exactly where we were going. We hit the two major stores and came in under budget enough to stop at an El Segundo on the way back (that’s second hand store). I wanted to get a swim skirt or something of material to make one – I need to cover my big ol’ butt when snorkeling so it doesn’t burn. I found just the thing, and a tank top and a very nice button down shirt for Jonny (Wearing light shirts is the most comfortable in this heat – haven’t seen the guy in a t-shirt in months!). Stuff was just piled on tables and I had to dig through for the treasures. Turns out they were 3 items for 100 pesos ($7.50) not bad!

We even stopped for an ice cream on the way back and had a nice chat with some people who were Mexicans living in California but were visiting Loreto. It’s a very popular destination for tourists of all kinds.

It was of course blazing hot and we got back to the boat and had some lunch (yes, the ice cream was actually breakfast for me…) before heading off to our next adventure. We got out of there just as the winds were starting and the boat was starting to roll. Perfect timing.

It was a quick sail, and then motor (the wind died) out to Isla Coronados. Beautiful spot, several white sand beaches and gorgeous aqua water.

It was populated by 4 large mega yachts when we arrived. We found our place over on the other side of the tracks and dropped the hook. One of the biggest yachts had a giant inflatable slide, 3 stories high, coming off the side of it. I was really hoping they’d invite us over to try it out. We even tried to wave when we dinghied past to the beach, but they ignored us. I guess it’s like people in mansions not wanting to wave at the folks living in the trailer park… One of them did anchor a very cool inflatable pyramid with a slide out at one of the beaches. It was very far from all the boats and no one was ever playing on it…so we decided to keep it company for a little bit.

We had a very exciting thunder and lightning storm on our first afternoon.  I think I’ve become obsessed with trying to capture lightning bolts on video:

We enjoyed a dinghy ride around the island to see really neat rock formations, which we decided to name. They may have already had names, but I’m partial to mine. We caught a bonito tuna on our tour as well, so that was a nice couple nights of dinner.

 

On our third day, we heard that the wind was going to switch from south to north for a day or so, so we hopped over to the other side of the island for a protected anchorage from that wind. It was beautiful and “wilder” on that side and it was nice to be all by ourselves. The water was incredibly clear – we could easily see details of the bottom 20 feet down.  Later in the afternoon, the winds blew as predicted, and along came the fleet of mega yachts to descend upon our peaceful paradise. Apparently no matter how big your boat and how many toys you have, you are not immune to the effects of the weather and it got too uncomfortable for them to stay in the other anchorage. They must have all been together as they zipped around between each other’s boats constantly. Each boat had jet skis, dinghies and smaller boats, a larger fishing boat and a cigarette boat were all part of the entourage (any one of which easily cost 2x what Summer cost).   Speaking of cost, I was doing some figuring based on the smaller mega yacht I got info about, and estimated that it cost a minimum of $50,000 just to fill the fuel tank on the largest mega yacht there. Jonny and I could live in luxury and take good care of Summer for two years with that much money!! You might be guessing I am a little bit biased to our lifestyle.

 

The wind settled down the next day, which also happened to be my 45^th birthday. There had been talk of Sang Vind and Resolute meeting up with us to celebrate. They called on the radio and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me – which was pretty sweet. They were all in Balandra and enjoying it very much. They were trying to get us to come back up there to hang out with them that night. The last thing I wanted to do on my birthday was sail for a few hours in the wrong direction back to a place I didn’t like as much as the place I was in… so we all agreed to get together the next day. That was perfect – Jonny and I had a very nice day. I baked a chocolate cake and marinated a steak to have for dinner. Jonny gave me the best present ever- a comprehensive foot massage! Normally I couldn’t pay him to devote that much attention, but on my birthday he always goes over and above in giving me what I want. It must be exhausting for him (or so I can assume; as he had to spend most of the next day away from me – he went on a hike to the top of the island peak and then came back and went out fishing for hours).

Resolute and Sang Vind showed up the next afternoon and we all planned to meet on the beach in the evening for dinner and cake (Dillon had made a chocolate peanut butter brownie cake!). The white sand beach and the palapas with tables and benches were the perfect spot for us all to hang out. Erik had caught a dorado on the way over and we had a snapper that day, so we BBQ’d fish on Resolute’s portable BBQ and everyone brought other goodies. Meagan had made a banana bread and I had some of my chocolate cake left, so it was a real dessert-fest! Everyone who had beers had to watch out for the alcoholic wasps that kept getting inside the cans. At the end of the night there were quite a few dead wasps inside beer cans – but luckily no one got stung!

 

We had a nice last night in Coronados and prepared to take off the next morning, if conditions looked good. Little did we know this was to be the end of cooler, more comfortable evenings… (that’s foreshadowing, people!).

 

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!

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.

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).

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

 

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Our trip to New Hampshire and the subsequent three weeks are not much to write about, in terms of a fun and exciting cruising blog.  Hopefully a lot of pictures will distract you from the uninspired lameness of this entry.

In brief, my father was very sick and our entire visit was consumed with worry and trying to help as treatment was established. I left there not knowing if treatment would be successful or not – very tough to go. It was actually quite good that we were there to help out and be with them through the beginning of this difficult time..  As of now, my Dad seems to be responding to his treatment and heading for a cure.

We were also returning to La Paz with a hurricane coming straight for us.

We had much work to do to prepare Summer. Luckily hurricane Blanca did not have much punch here (just a lot of wind that covered everything with dirt, inside and out). My friend Meagan wrote a great description of our hurricane experience here at the marina – I won’t even try to improve upon this:

http://www.westernlens.com/2015/hurricane-blanca

Here’s my little video from hurricane day:

 

Once we survived Blanca, Jonny headed up to be with his family to attend to some unexpected family business. I stayed behind at the marina in La Paz.

 

When we were away, our friend Rob passed away. I’ve mentioned Rob and Lynne on Aldebaran, who we met in Chacala and Mazatlan. We last visited with them in La Paz before we went away. This was very sad news in our overabundance of times. I was glad to be able to see Lynne and share some cries and laughs. She is an amazing and courageous woman and I hope we run into her again after hurricane season.

Twelve days on my own in La Paz weren’t so bad. I got to hang out with some friends, find a new taco shop, do a bunch of boat projects (yes I still love organizing!), begin provisioning (once we leave here, provisions will be slim pickins’) and have a daily exercise routine in the nice clean lap pool at the marina.

Jonny has returned and we have been preparing for our trek up north.  Much to do in terms of shading the boat properly (it makes a huge difference!) and provisioning (not much available where we’re goin). Seems to be a busy hurricane season, so we are hoping to be able to dodge them along the way. Stay tuned for more real adventures soon!!!

I don’t know why this continues to surprise me, but somehow we spent six nights a Bahia de los Muertos. The first 2 days there we didn’t even leave the boat. Big wind was predicted and happened. For once, listening to the weather worked out for us! Winds over 25 knots blew both nights, or so I was told. I slept right through it. I had six blissful nights of sleep with wild and crazy dreams, as only Baja seems to provide me. No cell service or internet around there – I wonder if there’s some connection?

The water color is so beautiful there I just wanted to cry, or somehow become part of it. I did swim on the 2^nd day, and it was a bit of a shock, being about 10 degrees cooler than what we were used to on mainland. But so clear and clean, and the white sand beach with so little built on it was a very welcome sight. When we finally ventured ashore, we walked down to the unobtrusive ‘resort’ buildings. We walked up the steps to one place and everyone there was acting like they owned the place, I just got a vibe…turns out they kinda did. The whole place was rented out for a wedding that night. Nice folks – one woman told us about the Train Restaurant that was just up the way; she said we must check it out. Who are we to pass up seeing a giant train set in the middle of a deserted desert beach? The restaurant was a little ways back up into an arroyo. We were barefoot and the sand was SO HOT. Luckily by the time we arrived (out of breath from running and pain) we dipped our feet into the really cool pools in front. The place was truly deserted except for a bored waiter texting on his phone. The restaurant/bar downstairs was open, airy and beautifully furnished and had a pool table and one of those shuffleboard sand games. It definitely looked like a place we couldn’t afford. Upstairs was just a balcony that wrapped around and overlooked the restaurant. Aside from the Ms. PacMan game and Terminator pinball machine, the entire balcony was a giant train-set. It almost seemed like some extremely wealthy gringo’s wife left him and he said “Oh YEAH? Well I can TO have a giant train set” or maybe he’s still married and his wife said “no more goddamn trains in this house!” And he said “Well, I’m going to buy a huge place in Mexico to support my train set habit, and I’m going to spent hours upon hours arranging tiny people and hotels and restaurants and train yards, and there’s going to be THREE McDonald’s”. It was pretty amazing, and really kind of bizarre – out there in the middle of the desert, just a flaming death run away from a gorgeous white sand beach and nothing else around.

 

On the run back to have our feet sizzle in the water, I realized that hot sand should be the next fitness craze trend. Drop a bunch of people off a couple miles into some flaming sand and tell them there’s a pool of water at the other side. Trust me they will NOT stop running at top speed till they get to it, and they will pick their feet up really high, too. Mental note: Do not wander off on a beach without flip-flops again.

We walked all the way to the far opposite end of the beach, which is where there is one restaurant next to the area where all the fishermen come and launch their pangas (it’s only about a 20 mile drive to La Paz from there, so it’s a good fishing tour destination. We had decided to splurge on lunch at this (more affordable than Los Trenes, but still pricey – no competition!). I decided it was high time I had a cheeseburger in paradise. Which led to some Jimmy Buffet discussion and to the bet regarding lyrics to “Margaritaville”, in which I lost heavily and had to do the dishes for 2 weeks. It turns out I really have no idea HOW he blew out his flip flop. I don’t want to talk about it.

We had an idyllic beach day with our new beach umbrella (such a good purchase!).   I met Sherry and Ken from Cake (I love that boat name, and have yet to find out how it came to be), who were walking on the beach (Jonny was passed out under the umbrella). They are also part of the “Summer in the Cortez” crew, so we’ll be seeing them again and again (already have…). We also spotted Orion, which we were pretty sure was our neighbor in Moss Landing (we met Megan on the docks a couple times), but they left before we got to confirm.

We had an amazing snorkel day, too. The water is SO much clearer in the Sea of Cortez (just north of Muertos is considered the beginning of entering the Sea). It was so mesmermizing and I could snorkel forever – but remember how cold the water was? We snorkeled until I was shivering.

 

We and the wind were finally ready make our way North. It was an easy/slow-ish sail. Cake passed us (we caught a fish which slowed us down a bit) and we were about to catch up to them when we caught ANOTHER fish (neither was edible and got returned to swim another day).   We decided to spend the night at Balandra Bay, just before La Paz. We’d been to Balandra twice on our driving trips to Baja. I’ve had a picture of the bay as my desktop on my computer for 3 years. I’ve even tried to Photoshop an image of Summer into it. I have been waiting for the day when Summer would actually be anchored in that amazingly gorgeous water – I could hardly believe we were there!       We anchored just off from the iconic El Hongo (Mushroom) rock and hurriedly got the dinghy ready to go ashore. We hiked up 2 different peaks and stared slack-jawed at the beauty.   Back at the boat we swam and got ready to make dinner. There was a huge, fancy ketch with it’s mainsail up, but not sailing and a bunch of support boats taking people here and there. They then moved to the other side of the bay and we could see groups of people here and there that appeared to be filming something. At one point a smaller boat came up to us and we were looking forward ot chatting with them. The guy on the bow was not very friendly and asked us (I think) if we could just move back a little. Apparently we were messing up their scene? The thought of heaving up 150 feet of anchor chain, starting the motor and trying to re-anchor someplace we didn’t want to be wasn’t very appealing. And this guy wasn’t nice OR flashing any pesos at us, so we said “No, es muy difficile” and they went away without another word. Very strange.

Balandra is not known for being a very tranquil place to spend the night, but, you know us, we’re hard core. It was NOT a very tranquil night and the Captain didn’t sleep well, I even woke up in the middle of the night and crankily thought “what is this all about?!” before I fell back asleep. We planned to get out of there early and head to La Paz. But first, we should check out the other side of the bay – there are two beaches I never got to go to, and probably some good snorkeling. Well, the snorkeling was ALL TIME! We swam in and around a little reef island and it was just magical. I spotted a shell of one of the puffy sand dollars and wanted to get it. It was my first real motivation to try to dive down to the bottom, fighting against the buoyancy of my own bottom. I actually touched it, but it was between coral and I chickened out and/or lost breath. Jonny ended up getting it for me. It’s not quite as amazing as the one I found a few years ago at Punta Chivato (camping trip) – that one looks like a turtle shell and was my prized piece in my extensive shell collection (which now belongs to my nephew). We checked out the beaches and hiked up a huge white sand dune and marveled at the view from this side.

We left quite a bit later than planned, but we did actually leave. It had been about eight days since groceries with only one meal out, so we were pretty well out of food. Plus, it was Wednesday and we had it on good authority that there was a good pizza place that had two for one pizzas on Wednesdays (I texted Jon from Prism for the name). It was just a couple hours to get to La Paz.   Entering La Paz was far more exciting than I imagined it would be. It feels like such a familiar place to me, we’ve driven all the coastal roads and I recognized everything. We passed by the ferry docks, the super expensive marina Costa Baja (aka Costa Lotta), the crazy water slide I’ve never gotten to go on, the Chinese hotel we used to stay in and the Malecon. We ended up anchoring far out near the navy facility. There were lots of boats and a variety of places to anchor between the Magote (the weird strip of land that runs along the outside of La Paz Harbor and La Paz itself). We spotted a few boats we recognized as we buttoned up Summer and made our way to the dinghy dock at Marina La Paz. We were at what we used to consider “the way far end” of La Paz. We had a lovely walk along the Malecon, it felt so nice to be some place familiar that I also happened to love. We were so happy to have a rooftop table overlooking the water (I know, we aren’t sick of it yet, how weird is that?). The pizza was an incredible surprise- hands down the best pizza I’ve ever had in Mexico. OK I know that isn’t saying much as the worst pizzas I’ve ever had have been in Mexico (hotdogs on pizza? No thank you), let’s say it rivals pizza places in California. As if that weren’t enough to thrill me, it turns out they also had CRAFT BEER. I kid you not. We each ordered a pint and then a flight of samples to go with our two pizzas. We finished every drop and crumb and floated back down the Malecon, not missing the gelato place I took mental note of on the way there. Pizza, beer and gelato. I’d say that was a perfect trifecta.

Thursday happened to be organic farmer’s market day not far from the marina. It was tiny and there was only one table with veggies, but what a table it was! Apparently there’s the farmer comes in from near Santiago (mid-Baja – near Agua Caliente, where we’ve also camped). We scored a pile of veggies and some sausages, eggs and bread. We spent a couple more days stocking up on food, visiting our favorite pastry shop and restaurant. We were disappointed to see that half of La Fonda, our favorite restaurant, had been sold out to an OXXO (like a 7-Eleven – and like 7-Elevens in the US, they seem to be on every corner around here (I once looked up how many 7-Elevens there were in Chula Vista. Seventeen. For real. Who needs that much crap food?!?). Anyway, our favorite seating area was all that remained. We were the only diners for dinner. We told the waitress how we loved the place and how sorry we were to see the OXXO – she nodded sadly and said it had been almost a year since it arrived. She then brought us complimentary shots of tequila. We were surprised and grateful, thinking she must really like us and we were very special customers. It wasn’t till we left when I noticed the sandwich board outside advertising “Free Tequila with each meal”. Oh well, it felt good to think we were special for a little while!

We began sorting things out for our upcoming trip to the States. In lieu of my parents sorting out a big expensive trip to Mexico, they are giving us a trip to New Hampshire, which coincides nicely with our need to renew our tourist visas by leaving the country and returning. We had to figure out which marina was going to be graced with a long visit by Summer. It’s all about price and security. As suspected, we opted for the Fonatur – the cookie-cutter government-run marina. They always have the worst locations. This one is 2 miles away from all the other marinas, back in a ditch at the far end of the bay. But oh boy is it cheap! Not only is is now “off season” rates, but if you stay for a month, you get a 25% discount. So, it would cost the same to stay for 3 weeks as a month. So we opted to sign up for a month, giving us time before the trip to take care of a list of projects, and a few days to recover and re-supply before heading out into the Sea when we return.

With that all settled, we decided to leave La Paz for a few days. The La Paz anchorage is notorious for “The La Paz Waltz”. Weird wind and currents often have boats dancing around in a variety of directions. Normally boats at anchor will all point into the wind, and swing around together and usually avoid knocking into each other. Not so in La Paz. Things being kind of crazy at anchor, coupled with the fact every time we go ashore money just evaporates from our purse (15 pesos to dock the dinghy, 15 pesos for a shower, and that’s just after going 10 feet onto shore! etc.), made us ready for a little quiet island time. We decided to check out Bonanza anchorage at Isla Espiritu Santo. It is just over twenty miles from La Paz, so we figured we’d get a couple nights in and then head back to hang out with Alex and Naomi from Lunasea.

Bonanza has turquoise waters and a 2 mile long white sand beach backed by pristine desert landscape. Epiritu Santo (like all islands in the Sea) is a national park. There are ton of anchorages on the other side of the island, too, which I hope to visit in June on our way north. Poor Jonny had a sore neck (bad nap?) and wasn’t up for doing much. We managed to get ashore and set him up on the beach under an umbrella. I took off to explore the desert and beach. I had forgotten how complex and beautiful – and QUIET – the desert is. I found myself wandering in and around the cactus and spiky shrubs that want to stab you. I saw a long eared rabbit hopping away from me, cactus bones and beautiful orange flowers. I walked through the desert all the way to one end of the beach where there was a giant rock point. That end of the beach was just gorgeous. The sand was so white and covered in perfect coral specimens and white shells. You could clearly see how they make white sand! The water was crystal clear and black crabs were scampering all over the rocks. I was just in awe of it all.   The tranquility and beauty was soon shattered by angry seagulls trying to peck my eyes out. They made loud barking noises and swooped directly at my head. The first time it happened I ended up throwing myself onto the sand and tossing handfuls of sand upwards. It was rather terrifying. But I soon figured out that they weren’t really going to make contact with me, they were clearly warning me, though.

 

 

There was a long row of these territorial, Hitchcock-like seagulls. I had to go way up the dune towards the desert to get by them all. When I got back to the umbrella, Jonny was sorry he missed out on watching my attacks – but luckily I had a video. I accidentally forgot to turn off the camera, so this video actually went on and on for minutes, very “Blair Witch Project”, but this shorter clip will give you the idea.

 

We had a bit of a wind event and Jonny needed to let more anchor chain out. It was kind of rough and he ended up hurting his neck a lot more. There was no way we were going to leave on the 3^rd day. I made him a neck brace out of rolled towels and he spent an entire day holed up watching movies. It was a good opportunity for me to get some confidence taking the dinghy ashore by myself (yes, that’s what it was, it definitely wasn’t payback for all the times he’s left me alone, flat on my back in pain…).

I went to the other end of the beach and dragged the dinghy as far up as I could by myself. I found two huge pieces of coral to put the dinghy line around, just in case the tide came up. I set up the umbrella and felt pretty satisfied with my solo beach landing skills. I did a long hike on the dunes between the beach and desert. So much I wanted to explore! Mounts to summit, critters to see, shells to sift through. I could spent a full week at this place! As I was heading back towards my umbrella, I noticed it had blown over. So I ran along to save it, figuring I could come back for shell-peeping after. After I got everything settled, a mega-yacht pulled in an anchored right across from me. It spilled out a dinghy and a jet ski. A guy started zipping back and forth on a jet ski. Peace and quiet ended by the rich and famous, I grumbled. But the guy gave me a big smile and wave as he passed by – he looked so happy I couldn’t help but smile and wave back. Next thing I know, he comes back with another guy. They land right next to Peugeot walk up to me. My “woman alone, wearing only a bikini, far, far from anyone or anything” instincts give a little jolt: hyper-analyze these guys and don’t mention your husband is incapacitated!! But I was immediately disarmed by a handsome guy holding two beers and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. He offered me a beer and the cookies – which their chef had just made. Apparently if you give me beer and cookies, I’ll be your best friend. Who knew? Turns out these guys were not 1%-ers on a romp – they were five hard working guys enjoying a perk from their vendor on a company yacht. I’m terrible with names and I forgot my camera that day…but (Jim?) the vendor in charge of making sure these guys had a good time, was the one who brought me the beer and cookies and he looked vaguely familiar to me (never figured out why)- easy going guy who used to be a yacht broker. The other four guys who came ashore were obviously having the time of their lives on this trip. They were all so happy and relaxed –it was their last day before they had to go back to the grind. They invited me to bring Jonny over later in the evening for drinks and to see the boat. I REALLY was dying to see the inside of one of those boats – but unfortunately poor Jonny’s neck was too messed up –and I wasn’t going to leave him to fend for himself in the evening, too.

The next day we managed to pull anchor and head back in to La Paz. We anchored at the beginning of the harbor to avoid anyone doing the La Paz Waltz. Alex and Naomi were up for dinner, so we went ashore to shower and meet them. On the way we ran into Aldebaran and stopped to visit with Lynne and Rob and their friends (Chris and ? – see, I’m terrible!).  There really are no ‘quick visits’ in the cruising world – but we just roll with it and managed to drag ourselves away before it got too late.

We shared arrachera (yummy marinated/grilled meat with all the fixin’s) for dinner and then I dragged them all out to the gelato place. We love hanging out with those guys – and happy that was about as wild as our nights ashore get.

We had one more day in La Paz to load up on groceries, have breakfast at La Fonda – our favorite restaurant-turned-half-OXXO and we headed up to the marina. Marina time always means “work your ass off”. We had a list of projects to do to prepare for the summer and for our two week trip to the States to visit my folks. “Summerizing” the boat, as it were (that makes me laugh almost as much as “our solar system”) is quite a bit different than winterizing. It gets HOT – and so far we haven’t experienced nearly the temperatures we will find in the northern Sea. Our teak work was over-due for a maintenance coat of Cetol – and the sun/UV is really harsh on that so we didn’t want to let it go. We put in SO much work getting it that way, we’re not ready to give it up yet. But we do know eventually we will let it go, strip it off and just do an oil on bare teak thing – this Cetol stuff is SO much work!. We did some of the maintenance coats in San Diego, but ran out of time and figured we’d finish down here. We spent an entire day taping and scuffing up the toe rail and cockpit coaming. At 5:00pm a guy from the marina came down and informed us we were not allowed to sand, paint or varnish by ourselves at the marina (environmental reasons, they claim, but we saw some pretty harsh-to-the-environment stuff going on in their boatyard…). We HAD to put a coat on because we’d already scuffed it all up. So the next morning we left the marina and made our way out the long narrow/shallow channel and anchored. We got our teak coated in just over an hour and then we had to wait all day for it to dry and for high tide so we could get back down the channel. We kept ourselves busy with plenty of other projects. Jonny got the oil changed and I went through all our supplies and took inventory and reorganized and cleaned (yes, I still love doing that stuff!). We were thinking of maybe getting up at dawn and putting the 2^nd coat on the next morning, before marina admin came in. But that evening, the guy from the office came to the boat with a clipboard. He went on and on for quite some time about gathering signatures, and a boat in slip C-2 that caused a great deal of problems and on and on. I had NO idea what he was talking about; I thought he wanted me to sign a petition of some sort to save the world. Finally he handed me the clipboard and there was a piece of paper stating in both English and Spanish, that I solemnly swear not to sand, paint or varnish my boat in the marina (or something along those lines) and it had a signature line with both my and Jonny’s name. Very odd timing! Jonny was off hunting down a beer so I signed it and waited to tell him I think our plans had just been foiled. We didn’t dare do anything to piss off the folks who were going to watch Summer for two weeks while we skip town!

 

The next morning we motored out again to anchor and put on the last coat. We had too much work to do that involved being off the boat or using Internet – so we could not afford to spend an entire day out there again. But we also couldn’t just wait an hour or 2 for it to tack up because the tide was dropping out and it wouldn’t be possible to get back in until late in the day. So we hurriedly did our last coat and decided to risk getting back and not messing it up. The tide was already dropping out and we knew it was going to be sketchy getting back down that shallow channel. We picked our route as carefully as we could with what we’d observed the past couple times. The shallowest spot was right between the first 2 channel markers. With some anxiety we watched the depth sounder like hawks. There it goes, 4 feet, 3 feet, 1 foot, under 1 foot…WHOOOAAAA! I felt Summer’s keel dragging through some heavy mud, Jonny yelled “Rev it up!!” so I “floored it” and Summer powered through into slightly deeper waters. That sure got my heart rate up!! We are still debating as to whether this truly constituted “running aground”. We’ve had the saying stuck in our heads for quite some time: “There are two kinds of sailors, those who have run aground and those who haven’t yet”. I believe it counts (based on hearing other people’s stories when they said they’ve “run aground” – I used to think it meant simply crashing into a beach or onto rocks and being stuck there). We managed to dock without messing up our handiwork. Whew. But a poor fly did not fare so well and got his little feet stuck in the wet cetol. Glad to have that task overwith!

Our next task was to work on more shade possibilities. Our teal cockpit cushions already get so hot in the sun that we can’t stand on them barefoot. Shading the boat can also mean up to a 10 degree difference in temperature inside the cabin. Our dodger has zippers sewn into the front of it to allow for an additional bimini to zip onto it and shade the cockpit. We have enough Sunbrella fabric left to make such a shade. We decided to mock up a template with some cheap fabric ($1.50 from the fabric store!) and bring it all home and try to make it with my Mom’s help on her sewing machine.

The farther we get into the Sea of Cortez, the safer we will be from hurricanes, but also the more remote it is and less access to food and water. In order to make our fresh water supply last as long as possible, it’s a good idea to wash dishes in salt water (with a fresh rinse at the end). Heaving buckets of salt water on board gets old really fast (been there, done that). We decided to convert our hand pump faucet into a salt water faucet. We have three faucets on our sink – the ‘normal’ one that gives water from our tanks using the 12 volt water pump, the hand pump, which as you may guess, you pump by hand to get water from the tanks, and our drinking water faucet that purifies our tank water through a charcoal block filter and a UV purifier (killing EVERYTHING – we drink hose water and it hasn’t sickened us yet!). Jonny made a T from one of the salt water intake lines and  ran it to the hand pump. Now we can do dishes with salt water without heaving buckets! With this we can pretty easily go 3 weeks with our 100 gallon tank.

 

Laundry, arranging airport transportation, placing orders for stuff we want to bring back from the US, cleaning/stowing the dinghy and cleaning/defrosting the fridge and otherwise preparing the boat to be left alone are a few of the other things on our list.

 

We also made time to go into ‘town’ (back where the other marinas are), to check out the nautical flea market going on. Our friends Alex and Naomi on Lunasea met us there and had offered to take our propane tank for us and bring it ashore to get filled. There’s a service at the marina there where a guy takes everyone’s tanks out to the propane place and gets them filled and back by the afternoon. Jonny locked our tank into their dinghy and we hung out for a bit. Naomi was telling me how she’s just met Megan and Jonah and they were also from Moss Landing. As I was saying we’d met Megan briefly and thought we saw them on Orion down in Muertos – Megan walks up to us and says “I think I heard my name!”. So we finally got to talk with Megan and Jonah- they’re awesome! They will be up in the sea with us this summer as well.   Later in the week we all met up for 2 for 1 pizza night. Megan and Jonah had 3 friends along, too – from Santa Cruz (Chris, Chris and Matt. One Chris had come down to buy a boat in La Paz and his friends were there to help him bring it home. That made 9 of us for pizza night – we got 8 pizzas for the price of 4 (and lots of beer), which seems like a much better deal than 2 for 1! We had a lot of fun and we’re so looking forward to spending more time with this crew (and really happy to have “girl-time”).

We leave Monday morning at 6:00 in the morning, if the taxi we arranged actually shows up at 4:30am. Fingers crossed!!

 

 

 

I think I last left you languishing in Punta de Mita. Somehow we spent a week there – although not entirely by choice.

After Naoma left us (sniff, sniff) we moved over to the other side of the anchorage where it was (we thought) going to be a little less rolly and it was closer to Lunasea (friends we met in San Blas) and we were looking forward to hanging out with them and Mike and Nia from Azul (who we’d just met in Yelapa – and are also friends with Naomi and Alex on Lunasea! It’s a small ocean). We had an early dinner and headed over to Lunasea for a fun night of socializing and Cards Against Humanity.

Our plan was to head out to the Marietas in the afternoon and spend the night on one of the moorings, so that we’d have the place to ourselves before the tour boats showed up in the morning. Seemed like a brilliant plan and I was looking forward to finally swimming under the rock arch into the cave-beach. It was only about an hour to get out there. Unfortunately there was a weird current or something going on – because when we attached to the mooring (which was a giant metal tank) we did not spin into the wind. Normally the boat will always spin nose first into the wind when at anchor or a mooring. At a mooring this is critical so that you are always pulling back from the mooring ball. In this case we were smacking up into the mooring ball (which, as I said, was a giant metal tank…smacking the boat into a giant metal tank is no bueno). There was nothing we could really do but abandon the plan and head back to Punta Mita. Very disappointing on many levels.

Neither the town, nor the anchorage is at all appealing to me there. It’s always rough and rolly, so swimming is no fun. We scoured the town for chicken or meat and had no luck at that, either. We stocked up on a few things and were doing OK for food. Since we had a whole day to kill before we could leave again, we decided to check on what that bothersome squeak was in the steering wheel. There are 2 metal cables that go from the wheel down to pulleys and back to the rudder – to control steering in either direction. As it turns out, the metal pin through one of the pulleys was missing cotter pins and was hanging half out! Had this pin fallen out we would’ve lost the ability to turn to port and underway this could’ve been disastrous. Sticking some cotter pins in the ends seemed a simple enough thing to do, right? We tried to brush off the nagging question of “where did they go in the first place?!” and even more troublesome “what if they were never there in the first place?”. The two pulleys are set in a sort of V shape to each other right on top of the metal fuel tank, with the wide part of the V being aft – meaning to get to the inside of the pin you have to reach above the fuel tank, around to the back of the pulleys and turn your hand back 180 degrees (while laying down in the quarter berth with your head stuck inside the little opening of the engine compartment, careful not to rip out any hoses and hoping the headlamp doesn’t fall down. This task was a complete impossibility for Jonny, with his giant hands. So I crawled in there and gave it a go. I got very close, but the angle was very hard. I almost had it by using pliers to hold the pin – in fact I’m pretty sure I could’ve done it. But Jonny got impatient and said we just needed to loosen the wire to release the pulley and do it that way. So he went into the aft lazarette to loosen the cable. When he was taking the pulley down, he accidentally dropped it. It rolled back along the top of the fuel tank and fell down behind it. Loud and angry swearing ensued. There was no way we could initially find to retrieve the pulley. Emptying the starboard lazarette (which is large and contains many, many items, including our 70 lb. life raft) and removing the wall panels to see if we could get behind the fuel tank somehow seemed to be our only option. It was getting dark, so we had to call it a night to return our garage back into our home so we could have some dinner and resume this fun and exciting project in the morning. We did pull up old pictures of Summer and were able to see the possibility of getting under the fuel tank (there were 3 baffles to go over and it was too long of a distance for my arm and possible too small of a distance for Jonny’s arm. It was a fretful night.

 

I thought perhaps I could squeeze myself into the aft lazarette (which was already emptied) and try to reach through a circular hole in the wall that separated the lazarette from the fuel tank area. There was simply no way for me to squeeze in there without potentially destroying the disks and cables of the back of the steering system. So empty the starboard lazarette we did. When Jonny removed the vertical wood panels he discovered that there was just enough room to reach around the backside of the fuel tank (not having to go under) and he retrieved that pesky pulley.

We spent the rest of the day putting the boat back together and preparing to make our escape from Banderas Bay once and for all. I gave up on the swimming through the cave fantasy – the Curse of the Marietas won. Maybe next season??

 

It felt good to get moving back out to the open ocean again. We’d made plenty of tracks all around Banderas Bay and were ready for something new. It was a calm and slow sail north. So calm that I was able to bake a chocolate almond bread and defrost the ice box. I was feeling motivated! Our destination was Jaltemba – a big beach destination for local tourists. It was Semana Santa, “Holy Week” for Mexico – which as we later discovered should’ve been called Dos Semanas Santa (it went on for 2 holy weeks!). There were islands and 2 different anchorage spots near shore, we weren’t sure where we were going to end up. As we got closer we saw that the beaches on shore were simply packed with people and umbrellas. We decided to do a ‘drive by’ and check out the entire shoreline. Banana boats zipped around us and the festive vibe emanated from the shores. People were having a blast. Thousands of them. It was fun to see, but we decided that maybe heading out to Isla La Peña, just off shore, might be more our style. The water at the island was gorgeous and there was a small beach filled with holiday cheer. We knew everyone would be taking pangas back to mainland at dark, so we enjoyed the loud music and the people watching on the beautiful island for the afternoon.

The swimming was excellent and I couldn’t wait to go snorkeling near shore in the morning. We had a beautiful night and next morning. I took the dinghy out by myself and snorkeled off of it (holding the line so as not to lose it – Peugeot followed me around like a giant loyal dog). Jonny joined me and we covered quite a lot of ground. Lots of fishes and I even saw a small-ish sea turtle! The shore started filling up with vacationers and the music started in earnest. We’ve discovered that loud music is acceptable at any time, day or night and starting to blast it at 7 or 8 in the morning is the norm in many places. We were ready to move on the short distance up to Chacala – not new, but well loved. We realized it might be crowded there, too, but we didn’t fully comprehend just how crowded it could possibly be until we pulled in to the bay. The umbrellas and people packed on the beach and in the water was mind-boggling. It was a pretty tiny beach – maybe ½ mile long? There was not a single sailboat in the anchorage, though, so we took our pick of spots. I estimated there were at least 1500 people on the beach when we arrived. We figured we wouldn’t be staying long – just to re-provision and wait for a good weather window to head out to Isla Isabella.

 

Well, you know how that goes. Another week in Chacala! After a few days we had to swim ashore and throw ourselves into the fray, just to see what was really going on there. The crowds were cheerful and everyone was having a great time. We were only 2 of about 6 gringos I saw the whole time. People here are not afraid of sand. People were rolling, sitting, burying themselves, walking around completely covered in sand. It was almost universal. Some people didn’t even bring chairs, but sculpted comfy sand holes to sit in.   We walked the length of the beach just taking in the scene. There were at least 3 bands playing at all time. When on the beach, as you walked you heard one band at a time. Some were really great! Out in the anchorage we were lucky enough to be able to hear all three of them AT ONCE. Grateful for my large jar of earplugs!

 

There were so many people everywhere that we didn’t feel it would be safe to leave the dinghy ashore. We were not afraid of theft so much, but more just how attractive our little Peugeot is to children. Such a temptation for climbing, bouncing and jumping…and the teeny beach at the dinghy landing area was always packed with kids. So Jonny dropped me off and I made a solo trip to Las Varas for re-provisioning. It was Saturday and I was afraid everything might be shut down for the holidays. But it was business as usual, and I was able to load up on chicken, meat and veggies (and TelCel). Everyone in Las Varas is so friendly and I kind of like that no one speaks any English. I went to the same carniceria we went to last time and the same woman selling chickens was also there. I got the feeling she remembered me. She was very sweet and helped me remember the correct Spanish for all the chicken parts. I told her I didn’t want the feet and she was quite certain I would like to make a delicious soup with them. I explained I lived on a small boat and cooking soup in this heat was not going to happen. That was much easier for me to say in Spanish than “chicken feet soup sounds totally gross to this gringa”.   It was hot and carrying all the stuff myself was hard, but it was overall quite an enjoyable outing. I managed to catch a collectivo that was just about to leave. It was full up but they managed to squeeze me and all my bags onto the corner of a seat.

More boats started showing up in the anchorage and we met some really great folks. One afternoon I dropped Jonny off on shore and rowed around in the dinghy to wait for him. That’s when I met Lynne and Rob on Aldebaran. They invited me aboard to hang out while I waited for Jonny. They are retired and have been out for 2 seasons already – they have things figured out and are enjoying livin’ the dream. I saw them again on shore when I was using internet at Chac Mool (the uber gringo restaurant that has bad food, loud music and high prices…but they don’t care if I sit there for hours and have just one drink). They were with another couple from one of the other boats. This is when I met Rob and Becky from Manatee- who are just a little bit older than us (always fun to find people our age to play with!). We had a great chat and they invited us over for drinks with Rob and Lynne that evening. (yeah I know, 2 Robs). Rob and Becky had never set foot on a sailboat until January of this year – when they took Manatee out for a sea trial!! To buy a sailboat and take off with no experience is pretty brave and ballsy. And a little bit crazy. Rob and Becky are all of the above. We had so much fun hanging out with them! A dinghy went by as we were all hanging out in their cockpit and Becky called to them and insisted they stop by. They came up for a short visit – and we got to meet three Polish people who live in Germany. I wish I could guess at how to spell their names – a man named Machek (? )And two women – one was Machek’s (?) wife and the other was named Maria. They were wonderful and I even got to learn a little Polish. We kept them from getting their dinner long enough to have a drink with us and then they went on their way.

 

Rob and Becky have exactly the right attitude to make this life work. They sold their house and all their stuff, made sure their 19 year old son was ok on his own (a little bewildered, but ok) and they bailed! Rob retired from the military, which was a huge part of both their lives. Quite a different set of stories than we’re used to hearing–fascinating.

They had been planning to boogie down the coast, go through the Panama Canal and head out to the Caribbean. We kind of convinced them to scrap that plan. They realized they were in no hurry, why rush and miss so much good stuff? They decided to continue down to Banderas Bay and take care of some projects, and then head up to spend the summer in the Sea of Cortez. Then work their way down to Panama next season, at a more leisurely pace. We are looking forward to catching up with them again somewhere in the Sea- they are good people and a whole lot of fun!

While online I learned that we got yet another donation!!!! THANKS goes out to Peggy in Aptos – a wonderful woman that both Jonny and I have worked with. We are so grateful that the people we know and love haven’t forgotten about us and are supportive of this out-of-the-ordinary life we’ve chosen.

We finally got our weather window to head out to Isla Isabela. Or so we thought. It’s a tricky island to anchor at and unless conditions are just so, it’s not really safe or comfortable. We headed out at night, so to arrive in the morning. In the event it wasn’t favorable we’d just continue on to Mazatlan. We had an epic sail that night. Summer was pushing beyond her top speeds and it was comfortable and warm. Fun and fast! It was a little gloomy and the wind was still too south when we arrived at Isabela. It looked gorgeous and we very much wanted to stay and explore. But there was not another boat in sight, the south swell was no good for the south facing anchorage and the winds seemed to be favoring “keep going”.

We had a good long look as we sailed around the island and sadly tacked away towards Mazatlan. Not far away, the wind died. It was so hot, rolly and slow that we decided to heave-to and go for a swim. I threw a line over for us to hold on to so that Summer couldn’t get away from us. There’s nothing like swimming in 500 feet of the most gorgeous color blue water without a bit of land in sight. The swell was pretty crazy though, so we had to be careful when trying to catch the swim ladder –which bobbed 4-5 feet up and down over our heads.

 

Refreshed, we motor-sailed along for the next 24 hours. In the afternoon, a bird landed on the foredeck. It was a pigeon. It looked very tired and maybe a little bit lost. It was at least 50 miles from land. He walked around cautiously, watching us and looking for a place to relax. He ended up in our cockpit. I gave him some. He would not drink on his own when I left it out for him, but everytime I held it up, he’d thirstily swallow it down.   He had bands on both legs and we guessed he was some sort of carrier pigeon. He ended up roosting on top of our solar panels and was gone by morning. Not sure where he went, but assuming he’s OK and where he belongs now!

 

I was not seasick, but the night watches and disjointed and lack of sleep kind of kicked my butt. I was SO tired during this 2 day trip. I was bleary-eyed as we approached Mazatlan at dawn. We entered the old harbor and anchored in the crowded, protected anchorage. It was SO calm. We hadn’t felt that calm since being at the dock in La Cruz. We slept most of the first day. We noticed Aldebaran nearby and were looking forward to catching up with Lynne and Rob again.   We also anchored near Tacman – a catamaran we remembered seeing way back in San Simeon – our first ‘new’ anchorage. I remembered the name and boat, as that was when I thought it would be clever to keep track of all the boats we saw and where they were from. I still think it’s a great idea. Maybe someday I’ll start doing that. 😉

 

The old harbor and only anchorage in Mazatlan is near the ferry and cruise ship port, and on shore is “Club Nautico”, a place that was at one time very nice and happening, so I’ve been told. Now it’s run down and neglected – but there is wifi and showers and a floating dock to tie the dinghy to – as well as 24 hour security and a gate. It’s directly across from the sewage treatment plant for all 500,000 people in Mazatlan. Most days, the wind was often just right to afford us the luxury of enjoying the fragrances wafting from the plant. One night it was so awful it actually woke me up. I ended up spraying a handkerchief with jasmine water and tying it around my face. I woke up looking like a disheveled bandito.   But other than that one thing, we had a lovely week in the free anchorage!

We visited with Rob and Lynne a few times, I chatted with John on Tacman and got his story and we met Alain on Blue Lagoon whose wife had just returned to their home in Tucson, Arizona.

Our first day exploring we decided to walk into Old Town Mazatlan. We went up over the rock hill and down into the Malecon and off into the town. We saw the old church and Machado Square.      There’s a lot of history there – and cultural arts abound. There’s even an opera house/theater. It is a very clean and friendly city. We went into the Central Mercado – a huge market that sells anything and everything in individual stalls. We scoped everything out for a future food shopping trip (and no, I would not be buying an entire pig head – not that I couldn’t if I wanted to). We walked back home around the backside of the hill. It was a LOT of walking on hard city streets. We vowed to take the bus, and maybe even splurge on a pulmonia in the future. The pulmonias are ‘open air’ taxis (actual translation is pneumonia) that were invented by a guy here in the 60’s when he transformed a golf cart. They are everywhere now –cheaper than a taxi, more expensive than a bus and a fun and exciting way to take your life in your hands.

 

 

Jonny decided to figure out what was wrong with our motor mount – he had noticed that one of them looked a little loose when we arrived and he wanted to get in there and figure out what needed to be done. I went ashore for a bit while he tore about the boat and got into it. When I went back to the boat he said it looked ok, it had just come loose and he wanted to put another lock washer on it to tighten it down really well. We went ashore and asked at the office if there was a ferreteria nearby (hardware store). We got directions to walk to one not too far away. So we were set for a little adventure. We ran into Alain as we were coming in and got talking to him about what we needed – he said he thought he might have one. He also introduced us to Jesus (aka Chuy) who was very helpful and said he’d look, too. We decided to hang out for a bit on the cement benches under the dilapidated palapa and see what was going to happen. We learned a bit more Spanish with Chuy and then he went off to look for a lock washer. As we were sitting there, a small power boat came in and tied up at the dinghy dock. A few tourists came off and 2 guys hauled a big cooler up to the palapa. We got to chatting with them – they spoke excellent English and run the little tour boat. They offered us beer leftover in their cooler. They told us about Moto Week – which we just missed (darnit!) the week earlier – thousands of motorcycles descend upon Mazatlan. He said he rode a bike down from Arizona to La Paz and then took the ferry over with the bike. Sounds like a good time, but really, not sorry to have missed it. We enjoyed our beers and Alain came back with a lock washer just the right size for us. Chuy came back and said unfortunately he couldn’t find one. But we were all set. Jonny went back to put the boat back together and I stayed ashore to nurse the rest of my beer and have a shower. Not the adventure out we had expected, but all in all a pretty great afternoon.

Rob and Lynne raved about La Tramoya – a restaurant on the square. We decided that this would be the place we finally got to enjoy our fancy night out on Van and Susan. We were not disappointed! I had a delicious fresh mango margarita (Jonny had a regular one). The queso fundido appetizer was so huge that I could’ve stopped there and been fine. What’s not to love about a huge skillet of broiled cheese and peppers? I had a chicken with Oaxacan mole, stuffed with these delicate black mushrooms that apparently grow on corn, and a little whipped mountain of squash. Jonny had a delicious mahi-mahi covered in a bunch of shrimp and other sea treasures. I was enjoying it all so much that it was too late when I realized I was way too full to consider dessert. I even had to take a small bit of my chicken home with me (it was too good to leave it!).

 

We had considered leaving from the anchorage, or perhaps one of the islands just to the west of the city. We figured we really didn’t need to go into a marina. But after a while we changed our minds. We decided to take the bus up to the Zona Dorada (Gold Zone) about 7 miles from old town – where all the hotels, marinas and touristy crap is – and have a look-see. Armed with a lot of inside info from Rob and Lynne we set off. We somehow managed to get on a bus that went right up the Malecon – along the ocean the entire way. We got to pass right through all the hotels and stuff – and seeing it quickly on a comfortable, air conditioned bus was exactly the way I wanted to see that. I had no need to wander on food through all that garbage! The marinas are kind of up and away from everything. We got off the bus and hoofed it back down and over a bridge to the Fonatur marina – the one we hoped would be cheapest. Fonatur is the Mexican tourism board, and they build a number if identical marinas through out Mexico. We stayed in one in San Blas – it was super inexpensive and good enough for our needs. The Fonatur in Mazatlan was a tiny bit more expensive than San Blas – but it was far superior in most every way. It was cleaner, the showers actually had hot water, and the walls separating the shower stalls were actually bolted down, so there was no danger of collapsing the entire shower area if you accidentally bumped one. The laundry room had working washers AND dryers. There was also a lounge area with desks, couch and books and a decent wifi signal. The docks were made of some plastic squares that appear to snap together – solid enough, but the dock fingers were extremely narrow. It ended up not being as terrifying as I thought it would be though, to jump off the boat onto them. We were going to reserve one night, but then we ended up reserving 2. It just made more sense for all the work we had to do before an early morning jump across back to Baja.

We enjoyed our visits in and around Mazatlan, but even with the buses and pulmonias, we still did a lot more walking than my crooked old back likes. My feet were pretty much throbbing the whole time. We had a few days of overcast/cooler weather, which was not unwelcome. But when the sun finally came out it was really beautiful. On Saturday I insisted on hunting down the organic farmer’s market. At the bus stop we ran into Alain, who was also heading to the market and knew just where to go. It was great to have a guide – he even brought us to a great shop near the market that makes home-made yogurt. The market itself was a bit of a disappointment – it was only about a dozen tables barely filling the square. But I got some great scores – basil, honey, kale, arugula, steak, tapioca and yucca, yucca chips, green beans, eggplant and more. Not bad. Alain took us to another part of town where there was a great bakery and Jonny loaded up on some great bolillos (and I found another organic market in the same building and got a few more goodies).

 

After one last stinky night at the free anchorage and said good bye to Lynne and Rob (maybe we’ll see them in La Paz?). It was an easy motor up around the islands and into the marina – just a couple of hours. It was fun to see Mazatlan from the boat and recognize all the buildings and places we’d visited by land. We were a bit far out when we passed the Valentino – the night club that used to be a church. Now that’s what I call progress!

Fonatur only had 30 foot slips available, so we squeezed Summer in and immediately got to work. She was a pretty filthy girl, so it was good to give her a nice bath. Basically, everything on the entire boat – including us and all our clothes and bedding got a thorough washing. Jonny got the dinghy washed and broken down/deflated – we did not want it strapped to the deck for our 200 mile crossing and we certainly wouldn’t tow it all that way. Jonny went up the mast and fixed the spreader boots and untangled the lazy jacks (the lines that keep the sail in place when we drop it). I did four loads of laundry and used the wait time in between to utilize the couch and wifi in the breezy lounge room. It had been over 3 weeks since I had a real shower, too (yes, there were showers at the anchorage, but they were the kind where you don’t let yourself or any of your belongings touch anything – I hung my soap and shampoo in a bag over the water handle and there was no place to hang or set anything else. Not the most pleasant experience, but you come out feeling pretty clean. These showers were nice tile, clean wooden benches, privacy door, hooks and lots of pressurized hot water. I was in heaven.

 

I prepped a bunch of food for our crossing so I wouldn’t have to cook as much. I pre-cooked some chicken breasts, made pesto with basil from the organic farmer’s market, cooked a whole pot of black beans, chopped up pineapple, kale, cabbage, etc. Our fridge was packed to the gills. It’s a great feeling to be fully provisioned, but it is a pain in the ass to get anything in and out of the top-down fridge set up – you have to take 10 things out to get to one and then put it all back, then you remember something else and have to take 9 things out…but it’s a price I’m willing to pay for the security of abundant eats! I also know where everything is – Jonny doesn’t ever dare go deep in there and I always make sure his coffee creamer is right on top.

We got everything done in enough time to take a field trip to Mega. We didn’t need that much, but we saw one on shore behind the big white church/disco –so we knew it was there and there were a few things we wanted (ok, it was pretty much just granola and pinguinos – chocolate cupcakes that look like hostess cupcakes, only “bakery fresh”). We caught the right bus – along with 5,000 other people…it was packed. We barely got on. Jonny had to stand in the doorway and I was right next to the driver. I squatted down as that seemed safer than standing right in front of the windshield. Although I’m sure the driver was plenty skilled to send all the texts he was sending and fussing with the coin tray while also driving the bus, I was a bit nervous. [Side note about busses: It finally occurred to me that a huge difference in the busses here compared to the states – you always have to have exact change for US busses (right?) here, they have a big open tray full of coins in rows and will give you change, no problem. I realized I always had a bit of anxiety when boarding a bus, not being sure exactly how much it cost and always trying to have a handful of coins to be able to pay the exact amount. It finally hit me, it didn’t matter – they make change! What a concept. They are trusted, as well as everyone on the bus, with a big, open tray of money just sitting right there].

It kept getting more and more packed and we ended up standing in the middle, unsure of where we were or when to get off. Luckily I spotted the Valentino and we turned left at it and next thing we knew we were at Mega.

Somehow our basket started filling up, but not too bad! OK maybe we overdid it a little on the pastries (they aren’t always as good as they look, but boy are they cheap. Many ended up as offerings to Neptune). When we were almost finished we ran into John from Synergy. He is from Moss Landing and had his boat just up from us for years – but we never actually met him until San Blas. We got to chatting with him. He had hurt his back and was stuck as Isla Isabela for a while, but finally managed to get himself to a marina the same day we came to Mazatlan. His back was still recovering, so he had rented a car to easily get around. He offered to give us a lift back to the marina. What a guy! He was done before us and even waited while we checked out. We were beyond grateful with the door to door service. He is planning to bash back home to his worried wife as soon as his back will oblige – we wished him well and hope to hear news that he made it (Larry and Amber – keep an eye out for him, will you?).

It was a beautiful sunny morning when we said ‘adios’ to mainland. Palm trees, lush greenery, bountiful fruits and vegetables. I really liked it there and was feeling a little sad about the goodbye. But I knew we’d be back next season, so it wasn’t too bad. We made our way out of the narrow channel, past the marinas that cost twice as much as Fonatur and into the open ocean. I was actually really looking forward to not walking for a couple of days. My feet needed a rest from that big, hard city!

 

The wind did exactly as it was predicted to do – which was turn Southwest by the evening of our first night. Seas were flat and calm and we had a great passage. It did start to get chillier in the evenings. Unfortunately the first night I was feeling pretty gross – sort of on the verge of seasick-ish. I was bummed not to be able to enjoy the chicken pesto gnocci and the kale blue cheese salad I‘d made It was not long after I had to put on sweatpants and a fleece. This was the first time I had to put on long pants since ?? Mag Bay? Our last 2 day passage was warm day and night and I felt just fine. So I’ve come to the conclusion that seasickness is directly proportional to the amount of clothing I’m wearing. Foul weather gear is guaranteed to make me barf. Sweatpants? I felt just a little gross. After a few hours nap I was fine.

We took turns sleeping in 3-4 hour shifts and had to motor in the night when the wind died.   I plowed through a few books on watch. A good book will really keep me awake. I had to give up on Flaubert – puts me right to sleep. David Sedaris on the other hand, got me through a 12-4am watch like it was nothing (as did the leftover pesto gnocchi I was finally starving for). I think this was our best passage so far – we ate well, we slept well, got some good sailing and motored when we had to.

We arrived at Bahia de los Muertos (Bay of the Dead) as the sun was rising. We chose to anchor in front of the white sand dunes. I immediately noticed the lack of palm trees and the abundance of cactus. Being in Baja is kind of like “coming home” but after all the time on mainland I definitely know what I’m missing now.   The trade off with Baja/Sea of Cortez to Mainland is the water vs. land/food We will enjoy gorgeous, crystal clear waters, abundant fishing and very few people during our summer here, but we will miss out on lush landscapes and vegetable variety. Mainland doesn’t have the greatest of waters (from what we’ve seen so far) but land scenery is spectacular and the abundance of food to buy is great. Given how hot it’s going to be all summer, I’m looking forward to being someplace where we will be happy to spend most of every day in the water!

It’s windy and grey as I write this from the anchorage. We’ve spent most of the day napping after a big breakfast of French toast with blueberries, strawberries and pineapple. There are several other boats here. We can see, even in the gloomy weather, that the water here is amazing. Gorgeous green color all the way to the white sand beach. Our anchor chain is visible all the way to the bottom. This blustery north wind was also what was predicted – we arrived just in time and hopefully this will blow out soon and another south will come along to blow us up to La Paz.