As I sit here tucked into a marina on the other side of the world, ready to celebrate New Years Eve almost a full day ahead of our friends and family, I can’t help but think what an amazing year 2024 has been. We have been to so many amazing places, while facing big challenges. In 2024, we sailed roughly 9000 miles, starting with some further exploration of Mexico before crossing the Pacific Ocean to explore French Polynesia, Tonga and now Fiji.
When we started making this big plan to go sailing years ago, we had a direct plan as far as Mexico – the rest – an ocean crossing and exploring distant islands – really seemed so far out of reach it didn’t seem real. Somehow, we did make it real.
The following is a brief recap of the highlights of 2024.
1. Cruising the Baja – we started this year by cruising down the Baja peninsula, after nearly 3 months in the boat yard in Puerto Penasco. Truly, being free of the yard was a gift in of itself, but our favorite stops on the way down the peninsula this time were probably Santa Rosalia, Isla Coronado and Isla San Francisco. Having already explored Santa Rosalia on our way up the peninsula last year, we still managed to find lots of new spots to explore and enjoyed our time getting back into the cruising mentality. Isla San Francisco gave us the opportunity for some hiking and some visiting and Isla Coronado gave us some excellent anchorages and the chance to explore an abandoned salt mine. While it wasn’t always warm in winter on the Baja, the ever-changing beauty makes it some of our favorite cruising.
2. Seeing the Blue Footed Boobies at Isla Isabella – seeing the blue footed boobies has always been such a dream for me and in all of our bouncing back and forth across the sea, we were not able to stop in at Isla Isabella until this last crossing. We were so grateful to be able to stop in for the day and see not only the boobies but also frigates by the thousands. Our stop was brief (the anchorage was frankly a bit scary so I was not sad to not spend a night there) but we made the most of our time and I finally got to see the characters that are the blue footed boobies. My only regret was that we were too early for any fledglings to have hatched – there were lots of ornery mamas sitting on nests (many of them square in the middle of the path!) but no babies. This was truly a bucket list moment for me and I was so happy to be able to tick it off!
3. La Cruz cruisers gatherings – La Cruz has an amazing cruisers community and the local sailmaker makes it even better by holding weekly meetings for people getting ready to depart across the ocean. During these Friday meetings, we had presentations put on by representatives from Fiji and New Zealand as well as information sessions on weather, the coast guard, passage planning and all other manner of topics. It was a great opportunity to discuss weather windows as they started to approach. The sail loft has a library of charts and they arranged for copies to be made for all who needed them. In addition to the weekly meetings, La Cruz has some great restaurants which allowed for some fun nights out with fellow cruisers – both those headed out at the same time as us and with those we would be leaving in our wake. I believe that being with this group of likeminded and supportive sailors gave us a bit more motivation and confidence to ready for the crossing.
4. Crossing the Pacific – what an epic feat that was. Our first big jump across the Pacific was challenging in so many ways but also gave us so many moments of beauty and wonder. Realizing we had only made it 1/3 of the way across the Pacific when we arrived in French Polynesia was a good reminder of how truly vast the Pacific is. We crossed the equator for the first time on this trip – turning us from Pollywogs to Shellbacks – to be safe we made a tribute to Neptune and then reveled in our new status! The idea of crossing the ocean had been so daunting – I am not sure we really understood what we were taking on – but we felt such a great sense of accomplishment in achieving that goal!
5. Landfall in Hiva Oa – that first sighting of the lush and magical land of Hiva Ova was so breathtaking. As we approached land, we could smell the earth – an incredible thing after more than 30 days at sea – and we could see the everchanging colors of green towering over us. It was such a truly breathtaking moment. Sadly, the anchorage at Hiva Oa was a true nightmare but that first glimpse of land was still such a treasure!
6. Fatu Hiva – if you google the Marquesas, you are likely to see a picture of The Bay of Virgins at Fatu Hiva – the magical, mystical beauty of this bay is unparalleled. This was one of our bucket list items for the Marquesas – it was gloomy and drizzly and the anchorage is so deep that someone dragging was a daily event – and even so, it was pure magic!
7. South Pass Snorkel – Fakarava – Fakarava was our only atoll and on its own it was amazing. The water was crystal clear, the community was lovely and the fact of being anchored inside of a reef was just simply cool. But for Owen, being able to do a drift snorkel through the south pass was a dream come true – he saw multitudes of fish and sharks as he drifted through on the current – truly another bucket list item!
8. Moorea – Moorea was far and away our favorite spot in the Society Islands. Combining the imposing beauty of the Marquesas with the flat, calm waters of an atoll, Moorea was truly the best of both worlds. We anchored in Cook’s Bay, giving us easy access to town and stunning beauty. Our tour of the Island, made even better by doing so with friends, gave us a look at all of the beauty of the Island. Everywhere we went we were greeted with a smile. It was heartbreaking to sail away from Moorea – given more time, we would definitely have stayed longer!
9. Maupihaa – this was a totally unplanned stop that gave us one of our best experiences. It is stunningly beautiful and the locals that we met (just a couple of the very few people who live there) were lovely. We had the experience of being “trapped” with a number of other boats and that gave us the chance to meet many more fellow cruisers. With a potluck, a sing along, a walk of the atoll and simply stunning scenery in all directions, it was truly a stop to be remembered!
10. Tonga – Tonga stole our hearts and was our favorite stop of all. We so enjoyed our two months in the magical Kingdom and would have stayed longer if the seasonal weather had not pushed us along. The people of Neiafu, both locals and expats alike were wonderful and the anchorages were calm, peaceful and beautiful – as close to sailing at home as we experienced anywhere! Even with a full blog post on Tonga, I don’t think we managed to explain how much or why we loved Tonga but suffice to say we have left a piece of ourselves there and hope to be able to return.
We are in Fiji now and loving it as well – though we have only seen the marina and Savusavu so far! I look forward to much more exploring here next year, before we have to start the long trek home – 2025 should have some pretty epic moments as well!!
Wishing everyone the happiest of New Years and reminding you to chase your dreams – it is so worth it!!
As time passed and we realized how late in the season it was getting, we started to get a bit antsy. In reality, the weather windows were opening late this year and we just had not been ready for the first one (and as it turned out, that first one was a bit of a bust with a fair bit of light air). The second window was opening and we were eyeballing it to decide if we were ready – we were not, but it was a good push to get ready for the next one!!
We finally headed out for the big provisioning trips. We decided to start with Costco, not something we were really excited about! We were able to make the day much better when we started with lunch with my Aunt and her partner, who had been staying in Puerto Vallarta for a few months. After that wonderful lunch and visit, we headed off to Costco – Owen was adamant that we would not exceed one cart – he forgets how good I am at Tetris!!! We slowly made our way through the aisles, adding all the essentials to our cart – trying to reasonably decide how much we needed and what items would be hard to get as we moved along. When we finally approached the till, our one cart was overflowing – by the time the Costco employee had gotten through with it, we had two carts – apparently she did subscribe to my Tetris philosophy!! We called an uber and after stuffing her trunk with bags and boxes, we were off to La Cruz – arriving back at the dock after dark and quickly realizing that we were not going to be able to get everything back to the boat in one load!! Instead, we loaded everything down to the dinghy dock, loaded the dinghy with all the items that would be easy for Owen to toss up onto the deck himself, and he headed off to the boat. I perched myself on the case of milk, and awaited his return. Once we got back to the boat I realized that I now had to do something with 2 dinghy loads of items! My first plan was to put all perishables in the fridge and leave everything for morning. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that the giant bags of cheese were not going to fit in the fridge in their current state and had to spend an hour separating them and vacuum sealing portions. The next day saw me portioning out bacon and canning hamburger. Slowly, I managed to stash most everything that we had brought back with us into nooks and crannies all over the boat – the amount of packaging garbage that I got rid of is somewhat astonishing!!
It doesn’t look so bad spread over two carts!
And so, feeling rather proud of myself for getting that load packed away, I decided that we had better head off on the next round. We headed off to Soriana for what I thought wouldn’t be a terribly huge shop – I knew I wanted to stock up on a bunch of canned items but somehow ignored the size of the list still to be bought – we again left the store with two carts!!! This one was a bit more compact and we were actually able to get everything back to the dinghy in one load – with several items on my lap! And as it goes, I again had to figure out how to stash everything away. I had a couple of collapsible crates already and bought a third, larger, one at Costco. I also had a couple of soft sided baskets. My plan was to load all of the “overstock” into these crates and baskets and to line them up along the back end of the v-berth. The paper towels, toilet paper, etc. could be stacked further forward. After another day of hard work I had everything packed away in a fairly organized fashion. I then realized that I actually needed to get several items out of the abyss – the storage that is under the v-berth – and of course at that time, under all of my organized provisioning!!! Ugggh.
We had been pondering whether to go to a dock for a couple of days and finally decided that, with the relentless rolling in the anchorage, we would need to be at a dock in order to send Owen up the mast to do a rig check. We finally headed into the marina on a Sunday morning and jumped right into the jobs that needed doing, I spent the day scrubbing Solstice Tide from bow to stern, getting layers of salt and grime off of her. Owen spent the day futzing with projects below deck. Once the sun had started to set, I hauled Owen up the mast – he checked all the rigging fittings, changed out the lashings for the spreader boots and cleaned and greased the VHF antennae connection.
In an example of our excellent planning, rather than spend the Monday getting more jobs done, we realized that we needed to head to Puerto Vallarta – we had to get pieces of acrylic plexiglass cut to replace our salon windows. Owen had reached out to the only contact we had been able to obtain a couple of weeks previously, only to be told he was on holiday until this Monday. And so, fairly early Monday morning we jumped on the bus headed to PV – we intended to get the windows and then stop in Nueva Vallarta on our way back to La Cruz in order to begin the check out process and then continue on with our job list. Instead, as we were nearing PV, Owen got a message from the window guy to indicate that he would not be at his shop until 3pm!! Well drat! By this time, we were rolling into PV so we got off the bus, grabbed a coffee and decided to do the day in reverse. Our first challenge was getting out PV – it only occurred to us at that point that we had only taken the bus to PV – never from it – we had no idea how to get on a bus going north- they just kept flying by us in the other lane. Finally, too frustrated by the day already, I ordered an Uber. When Owen had asked one of the local bus drivers about heading to Nueva he had said that we had to get to Walmart and get a bus from there – as the Uber headed around the corner from where we were picked up, we spotted the Walmart – and the bus exchange! Oh well – we know for next time.
We took the Uber to the Port Captain – thankful to have done so when we realized they actually closed at 2pm – we may not actually have made it if we had waited on the windows! It was April 8 – the day of the eclipse and, though PV was only a partial eclipse, it was still causing some excitement. We strolled up to the Port Captains’ office only to find a good chunk of their staff standing on the steps watching the eclipse through welding lenses. Not wanting to rush them back in, we hung back to wait. They quickly offered up one of the lenses so that we could also watch some of the eclipse – the eclipse was a bit anticlimactic, but the friendliness of the staff made our day!! We did finally go in and start the process to check out of Mexico – the initial paperwork was done and we were given an appointment for Thursday morning to bring the boat down to the marina and to finish the immigration side of the check out.
The palm fronds made cool half moon shapes in the light from the eclipse.
Finished there, we grabbed a bus back to Puerto Vallarta. We were still early and conveniently the window place was near to the malacon so we did the requisite tourist thing, walking the length of the malacon and then enjoying pina coladas at a wonderful Mexican restaurant overlooking the ocean. We made it to the window place a few minutes before him and about an hour and a half later were on bus headed to the Walmart. We ran in to Walmart to grab a few things and then headed back to PV.
Tuesday was spent doing more jobs and Owen decided to add another night at the dock so that we could finish a few more projects. We went for dinner Tuesday night at a local “club” with our friends on Cosmic Debris. We had really only planned on dinner but the band was wonderful and we ended up staying until the band shut down!! Wednesday night we had a visit from Tera and Gentry on Freia. We were sitting in the cockpit when Tera decided to get off on the dock for a smoke – in the dark – I hadn’t even thought of our black folding dock cart that Owen had not yet put away – Tera took a step back, fell over the cart and soon both of them were in the water!!!! We fished her out and tried to fish around for the cart with no luck at that point. The next morning Owen grabbed our dinghy grapple anchor and tried to fish around for the cart – I did not have much hope and busied myself disconnecting power, putting away hoses and generally getting ourselves ready to leave the dock. Suddenly Owen was calling for me and I looked over to see him bringing up the cart, with the anchor wrapped around one of the wheels – what a miracle!!!! I hosed the cart off, evicting a few small crabs that had already moved in, and we were soon underway and headed for Nueva Vallarta to do our final check out. The check out was quick and we were soon on our way back to La Cruz to wait for the weather window.
One of the items that was still to be done was lee cloths – we had made it all the way from Canada without them – and only fell out of the salon beds a couple of times, but we figured we should probably have lee cloths for this long voyage. We picked up some meshy cotton and I set to work forming panels to make the lee cloths. I had decided that I needed them to be attached in a manner that would be easy for me to undo while all tucked in behind them – the idea of having them lace up to the ceiling or something like that would not work for me – being crazy claustrophobic, the idea of being “trapped” did not work for me. I made them so that they would clip at each end, making it easy to get out. I put grommets along the bottom to allow it to be laced down and the end result is actually pretty effective! We also needed to install those windows that we had bought – Owen got to work pulling out the old windows and fixing the rust that had formed. I applied a first coat of epoxy primer that day, putting on a second the next morning. The windows were finally reinstalled Saturday. We also did one final Walmart trip on Saturday, stocking up on some fresh items and grabbing even more toilet paper (you really cannot have too much!)
ignore the mess – windows were in progress too!
We had decided that we wanted to get away Sunday morning – as would be expected from us, on Sunday morning we could not have been less ready to head out!!! We frantically worked at getting more jobs done, stowing everything that we could and trying to clean up the mess caused by the frantic last days of work. We watched as several boats pulled up anchor and headed out. We headed into the marina to get fuel and to get rid of final bags of garbage. We headed back to the anchorage, lifted our dinghy up and deflated and stowed it. Finally, about 5:30, we realized that we had to leave then or we were not going to be able to leave! We put up the mainsail, and slowly motor sailed past Freia, Cosmic Debris and Spy – shouting quick goodbyes to friends that were going to be so missed!! Tera took some great pictures as we headed out, marking our departure from cruising Mexico. We slowly, slowly sailed out of Banderas Bay, headed first for the Revillagigedo Islands, an island chain starting about 300 miles west of the tip of Cabo and spreading out over about 200 miles.
Thanks for the pics Tera!
We had a slow first few days of sailing – we were sailing into headwinds, waves and current and it felt like we were pulling a trailer behind us. Those days were challenging in every regard – our tummies were doing backflips, the motion was relentless – my bruises have bruises, and on the first full day out I decided to take advantage of the light winds and a period of relatively calm conditions and prepare the fixings for a frittata – I was frying up the bacon and the grease in the pan just exploded – my hand was deep fried, there was bacon grease all over the stove top, down the front of the cupboard, on the floor and even down the hall to our berth – it was not a promising start!!!
One of our first mornings I came on deck and was informed we had some stowaways – an entire flock of brown footed boobies had taken up residence on our bow pulpit – at one point there were 10 of them – we let them hitch a ride for about 24 hours and then – seeing the state of poop on our deck, we decided they should go!! We now find ourselves having to scare them off as they look to come in for a landing – a few of them snuck onto the rear solar panel our last night – and were not so easy to scare off – the mess is just not worth the entertainment!
We finally started to get into a bit more steady pressure and were happily settling into a routine and enjoying the higher speeds when our weather router sent a message that the wind was going to die out completely in a few days and he strongly recommended that we stop at the last of the islands, Clarion. I was really quite upset by this idea – I absolutely did not want to get out of our routine – we were finally settled into our sleep schedules and the sailing was so good!!! We also did not want to bob around in no wind, rolling in the swell if we could avoid it, so we grudgingly agreed we should stop.
Of course, the boat had other ideas – that entire last day she screamed along (at a whole 5-6 knots, but for Solstice, that is screaming along!) and we knew we were going to get to the Island too early. We were leery to slow down too early – but also didn’t want to arrive at Clarion before sun up. Finally, at 9pm, we only had about 25 miles to go and we were doing 5.5 – 6 knots – we had to slow down!! We furled most of the headsail and slacked the main – we were still going too fast but managed to slow down to about 3.5. We finally ended up nearly heaving too – as the head and mainsails weren’t balanced we did not completely stop but were able to keep speeds under 2 knots – until about 3am, when the winds starting building and even in that configuration we were still doing 3 – 3.5 knots. Our last three hours had us basically drifting around about 3 miles off shore until the sun came up and we were able to call for permission to anchor.
We slowly entered the bay, not trusting the charts as depths were not lining up and, even though we were in deeper water than we wanted to be, we dropped the hook just behind a huge surf break. We were finally able to take a breath, and take a look around – what a stunning spot!!! The water in a shade of blue that I cannot describe – it is absolutely heavenly. There is a constant surf breaking on shore and once I got over the fear of being so close to the break, the sound is amazing. The swells come in long and big, we can hardly feel them – until we get one where the surf drops out suddenly and it feels like our tummies are in an elevator – Owen watched one coming and decided to keep and eye on the depth sounder – we went up 7 feet as it passed under us!!
This does not do the color justice – so amazing and so clear!
Clarion Island is a Navy base, and we were visited shortly after we arrived by six of the guys posted here – if we didn’t know it was a Navy base, I would have thought they were local fishermen – they were all in board shorts and rash guards. They came by to confirm we were welcome and then headed off. Later that day, a few of them came back – this time they were in uniform and two members boarded our boat – one stood on the rail while the other sat on the edge of the cockpit and filled out some paperwork. They were so nice and respectful of the boat. The paperwork was done quickly and they were off again. I had been a bit nervous about the stop here – worried that perhaps we would get some power tripping Navy guy who wanted to make our lives difficult, but everyone here is so spectacularly friendly it just added to the magic of the place!!
We spent Sunday and Monday getting some more jobs done – multiple loads of bucket laundry, filed our income taxes (nothing like leaving it to the last minute!), set up the preventer system that Owen has been planning. We had a pizza night and I was able to dig some stuff out of the “overstock” to save myself from having to crawl around while the boat is moving.
Our plan now is to leave tomorrow mid-afternoon and start to slowly make our way to the magic 10 – 120 position, where we will finally be able to start dropping south. The wind is to fill as the day goes on and into Wednesday so hopefully, we will back in good steady trades by end of day Wednesday! We will likely start with a couple of buddy boats as they are also anchored here right now waiting for the same window – though who knows how long we will be able to keep up with them!!
It has been a hectic few weeks and we still likely have more than 3 weeks until we make it to the South Pacific but we are excited about seeing new places and experiencing new cultures. My Aunt asked why we wanted to do this – we really couldn’t come up with any better answer than “to say we have”. And so, I look forward to letting you know that we have!!!
It feels like we have been in La Cruz forever!!! Once we crossed over to La Cruz in February, we had a couple of weeks to get ourselves and the boat sorted. We did a big grocery shop – it had been quite a bit since we had been in a place that had really good grocery stores and we took advantage. We had just finished stowing all that away when one of our fellow boat friends suggested a trip to Costco – though it was early to be getting our full provisioning started, it seemed like a good opportunity to just do a run around the store to start to finalize my provisioning list – five hundred dollars later, we left the store with just the start of the list done – non-perishable items like vacuum sealer bags, garbage bags, paper towel, cheese, bacon, etc – not exactly just a look around shop but it did get some of the big items out of the way!
The first round of provisioning begins
Once we had that done, we headed down to Barra for a quick visit with Owen’s Mom, Brother and Sister-in-Law, all of whom had been enjoying themselves in Melaque for the month of February. We had an exciting trip down – the winds just south of Cabo Corrientes built to about 25 knots, gusting higher and we were clearly in some pretty good positive current – that has to be the only explanation for the boat hitting 10.2 knots – she just isn’t capable of going that fast!!!! It was a pretty wild few hours as we helped the Hydrovane to stay on course and marveled at the continuous 8+ speeds!!!
So fast!!! lol
We realized that we were going to arrive at Barra in the very early hours of the morning and decided instead to head into Tenacatita to drop the hook for the night – it was quite dark when we arrived but with the assistance of radar and AIS we were able to approach the anchored fleet and land ourselves just on the outer edge. We were not there to stay however and had the hook up early the next morning for the short trip around the corner and into the Barra lagoon. After a few attempts to find a spot that felt deep enough (I swear the lagoon is shallower this year!!) we were able to get the hook set and finally catch our breath. We ended up holding off on going into Melaque until the next day and instead had a quiet afternoon on the boat. The next day started with the delightful arrival of the French Baker boat. Once we had devoured our treats, we, along with our friend Rob, headed into Melaque. We arrived just in time for the local market and as it happened, we needed to travel right through it to get to the condo that Owen’s family was staying at. After grabbing some lovely fresh fruit and eggs, we all had a nice visit at the condo before the three of us, along with Owen’s brother and SIL, wandered into the town for lunch.
The next few days followed a similar pattern with family visits, some dinners out and lots of time sitting in the shade of the almond trees at the condo. Unfortunately, we had to make the decision to head north earlier than we had perhaps intended – meaning we had to cut our family visit short and miss out on an actual visit to Tenacatita. There was a weather window that would allow us to get back up around Cabo Corrientes (motoring for 27 hours unfortunately – but not taking 30 knots on the nose!) and we didn’t want to miss it.
Once we were back in La Cruz, we jumped into attending all of the seminars and meetings geared to people heading across the South Pacific. A doctor attended to give us an idea of what should be in our medical kit, and again later to do a short CPR seminar. Fellow cruisers on Totem joined with Mike at PV Sails to put on Safety at Sea seminars, even inflating an old life raft (which proved to be infested with ants!!). Totem hosted a seminar on what to expect once we get to the South Pacific, discussing possible routes once we have finally made that first big jump. The Vallarta Yacht Club hosted a Pacific Puddle Jump seminar with info on Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. Mike at PV Sails had people zoom in from those locations as well, at our Friday meetings, giving everyone the ability to ask questions of the reps. There have been weather seminars and provisioning seminars (which I unfortunately missed but got good notes from a friend!) We have also been knocking jobs off our list – probably more slowly that we would like but every job done is satisfying!
The pizza dough got a little away from me!Where mattresses and furniture are sold out of the back of a truck!
We did need to take a day out of working to head to the airport – we had ordered items to be delivered to the condo and of course they arrived after we had been there so we made the trip to the airport where we were able to receive our packages from Owen’s family before they headed back to Canada. It was good to get in one more visit and get good last hugs before we head out on the next leg of our adventure.
We have had a few nights off – a night out with about 17 other cruisers for ribs, a couple of dinners out after the Friday meetings and dinner on a friend’s boat. We ended up doing a short sight-seeing trip to Bucerias when a trip to pick up a package at the DHL outlet ended with the location closed for Semana Santa – figured as we were there we might as well do a little look around! Owen snuck in a few days of racing – unfortunately the boat he was on was damaged and they had to cut their regatta short!
Some of the Rib Night Entertainment!
Last night was the “Last Chance to Dance” party – an event put on by PV Sails and Mexico Marine as a send off to everyone heading out – whether across to French Polynesia, north to Hawaii and/or back to Canada or west coast of the US. It was a fantastic night of good tacos, great music, a big bonfire and wonderful visits with other cruisers.
Kid Boat Ingenuity – a metal rake used to roast marshmallows!
And so here we are, still in La Cruz! We still have a few jobs to do on the boat and do need to get our big provisioning done but we are eyeing early next week to begin the check out process and keeping an eye out for that next weather window – it appears it will likely be mid-month and at that time we will make the jump to French Polynesia!
At about 4pm, we decided that it was time to depart Los Muertos. The winds had settled down to the mid-teens and though we knew the sea state was going to be rough, we also knew this was our window. We got everything tucked away and went to fire up the engine – nothing! Tried again – nothing. Ummmm…. Owen had a think for a moment and then went back to check the glow plug resister – and found it pretty much melted!!! Apparently, at some point, we had over glow-plugged!!! He was able to quickly by-pass the resister and we were underway. Just another job to add to the list!!! Things were very, very rolly as we got underway!!! The waves were hitting the boat from every direction and, at one point, I took a series of waves right in the face!!!! Thankfully, though it was still windy, the wind was pretty warm – it would have been a pretty miserable wet night otherwise!!!!
Owen was just getting settled in for his off-watch while I was tucked in in the cockpit with blankies and my podcasts – I felt around on the bench beside me to find my phone, to confirm that our heading was good – I grabbed what I thought was the end of the traveler line – it was pretty wet and soggy and I kind of rolled it through my fingers thinking “wow – did we ever get doused earlier!” – suddenly, it occurred to me that what was in my hand did not feel like rope – in fact it felt pretty slimy – ummmm – I put my hand up into the light of the chart plotter and realized I had some sort of sea creature in my hand! Screaming ensued – I rushed down the ladder and into the head, yelling “flying fish on my hand, flying fish on my hand!!” Owen, who was just trying to get himself wedged onto the settee grabbed a flashlight and shone it up in the cockpit – of course laughing at me while I scrubbed the skin off my hands – there was actually a squid still sitting where I had dropped it beside my seat, and another on the floor. He dispatched those two into the sea – the next morning we found another one on the deck and the day after that found one we had missed – it had been a bit wedged under the pole – it did not smell good when Owen scraped it off the deck!!! I can’t help but shudder to think that I could very well have taken one of those in the face during that big wave!!! Ewwwww
This is the one I manhandled – bleck!
The rest of the night went along with much less drama – by my second off watch, the sea state had leveled out so much that I went to sleep in the bed (quite uncomfortable in any kind of spicy conditions) and had a great sleep!!! The winds were pretty light all through the next day though we did manage to keep moving at around 3 knots. By the time we were heading into the night, the winds were very light and the seas nearly flat – we both slept all shifts in bed that night. Unfortunately, we were going very slow – Owen had a 3 miles in 3 hours shift!! I have to admit that I am becoming concerned about crossing the Ocean when it seems to take us five days just to cross the Sea of Cortez every time!!!
We sailed along with the wind picking up every afternoon and dying again in the early morning. We were finally in the final approach to Isla Isabella – conditions had been quite crazy the night before with big waves hitting us broadside – I actually slept in the cockpit at one point – just couldn’t bring myself to go below and get tossed out of the settee!!! Sure enough, just as the sun was starting to set on our 4th night at sea, the wind and waves started to build. By 11pm we were flying along with no main up and just a sliver of headsail, and making over six knots. At this rate we were going to miss Isla Isabella entirely – we anticipated flying right by it at 2am!!!! As it was the wind did slowly start to die – at first it looked like we might make it to Isabella just around sunrise and then, as the wind started to die even further, we were realizing we might not make until mid-day!!! What a difference a few knots makes!!! We finally fired up the engine when we were about 8 miles from Isabella and landed in the anchorage about 10am. We had had friends tell us they had to sail on by because the anchorage was full so we were so happy to see only one other boat in the anchorage. We edged our way into the anchorage, avoiding the waves crashing onto rock formations on the one side, and the reef and rocks on the other – it sure didn’t feel like a safe place to be!!! We attached a trip line and float to our anchor as we had heard that the bottom was quite rocky and we didn’t want to lose our anchor!!! Once we were fully set we took an hour or so to get ourselves recovered and to be sure we were not going to go anywhere and then we got the dinghy in the water and went ashore. We were a little uneasy about this as well – there had been reports from people that had arrived by dinghy only to be told they were only permitted to explore the Island with a guide. When we approached the shore there were a few people unloading pangas that had just arrived with tour groups – we asked them if it was okay to walk around and they assured us it was, warmly welcoming us. What a relief! With that sorted, we headed out in search of the holy grail of birds – the blue footed boobies!!!! We have been trying to catch a glimpse of these guys our entire time in Mexico. We have heard of sightings of them in places we have been but had not yet caught a glimpse of them – we knew that our chances here were almost guaranteed and we were not disappointed!!
There are birds everywhere as you approach the Island!!!
Once we managed to find our way over to the East Beach we discovered the little characters. They appear to nest on the ground – we had to walk around one mamma who fluffed herself out and gave us a bit of a talking to. We found little groups of them just wandering around with their gorgeous blue feet – there is something so cute and communal about them. I joked that the group of four of them that were tucked in under a tree were probably the dads, taking a break from getting squawked at by the mammas – they literally looked like a group of guys at the pub!!! We just crouched down and watched them for a half hour or so and then decided we had interrupted their day enough. After some celebratory high fives and a happy dance by me, we made our way back to the south end, and our awaiting dinghy. We headed back out to the boat, got the dinghy up and were back underway by early evening.
It was another lumpy night – I slept one of my off-watch shifts on deck as it is just too uncomfortable to be below. We finally began our approach into Bay of Banderas just as the sun was coming up – we had a beautiful sail in, finally firing up the motor when we were about 2 miles out of the anchorage. We were welcomed to the bay by dolphins and whales and beautiful warm sunshine!!! We got the anchor down amongst 40 or 50 other boats and breathed a sigh of relief. After 4 days and 22 hours but we were back on the mainland.
After a bit of a clean up and a rest, we took ourselves into town and enjoyed dinner out. Our initial plan was to do a quick turn and burn here and to get down to Barra but it is looking like we might be here a couple of weeks before the weather lets us get away – we have a lot to do in any case!!!
We started with one blissfully calm day in Refugio, where we managed to get the tape off the windows and go to a neighboring boat for drinks. That was followed by a day where the boat rolled endlessly from side to side in big rollers. My coffee even ended up flying right off the shelf at the back of the settee and landing square on my laptop! Thankfully we got that cleaned up quickly and no harm was done. The rolly conditions continued into the night but were joined by torrential rain, booming thunder and lightning that seemed too close for comfort!! Understandably, with the boat still rolling the next morning and a northerly on its way, we decided to depart from Refugio and head to the hurricane hole known as Don Juan.
Don Juan is a good-sized cove in Bahia de Los Angeles and is protected from nearly all directions. We set the hook later afternoon, with 3 other boats in the cove and decided we were there to stay through Christmas. That being decided, I restrung the Christmas lights around the lifelines and pulled out our little tree. We enjoyed three peaceful days, watching movies, calling family and friends for Christmas and generally NOT doing anything boat chore related. We watched It’s a Wonderful Life, had blueberry muffins for breakfast and sipped Ronpope (the liqueur version of eggnog). We were blissfully lazy – that is until the head would not flush – ugggh. A blockage in the hose from the pump to the tank meant for a disgusting and stinky job – the hose had to be pulled, cleared and rinsed out and then reinstalled. Bleck!!! The joys of boat ownership I guess.
So Peaceful at Don Juan!
After three days there, and realizing that it had been nearly 10 days since I had done a reasonable grocery shop, we decided to head around to the village for the day in hopes of stocking up on veggies and perhaps some chicken. We loaded up all of the garbage into the dinghy, along with our trusty cart and motored around to set the anchor in front of the village. Thankfully they have a very protected dingy landing spot so we were able to land without drama and loaded all our various bags of garbage into the cart and headed off to town. We sprinkled our garbage bags in the bins that line the main street and finally, with our cart empty, we arrived at the grocery store. Sadly, the vegetables were all in horrid condition and there was not much to be found in the way of meat (previously frozen but now thawing meat always makes me nervous!) or cheese. We finally stocked up on pop, chips and cookies and hoped we wouldn’t starve before we made it back to civilization! Owen decided we should treat ourselves to lunch and we had the longest wait in history for okay burgers, all the while the wind was building in the bay. After finally scarfing down our burgers (which arrived nearly an hour and a half after they were ordered!), we had a very wet dinghy ride back against the wind and waves to the boat. The anchor was up quickly and we beat into ever increasingly bad conditions, wind and seas both building right on our nose, making the six mile run back to Don Juan feel like forever. We finally made it back to the peace of Don Juan and gratefully got the anchor down again.
The next morning we decided that we had better get moving along, before our boat attached itself to the bottom at Don Juan!!! We were up early and had the anchor up before sunrise. We motored out of the bay and around the corner before putting out the headsail only. We sailed all day, averaging 5-6 knots on headsail alone – it was a glorious day and Solstice Tide was so enjoying spreading her wings and not running her motor!! About 4 miles from San Fransiquito, the wind started to die as did our speed. Realizing we needed to charge the batteries anyway, we fired up the engine and motored the last hour into the bay. We had the anchor down about 5pm, after a long glorious day of sailing. It was a bit of a rolly night but nothing like Refugio!!!
We decided that this was as good a spot as any to spend New Years and so, with not another boat in sight, we again settled ourselves in. We had a few blissfully quiet days at San Francisquito – not another boat came in to share the anchorage with us. We finally put the dinghy in the water and motored over to the small Caletta just off the bay where we found that indeed another boat had been there all along (we thought we had spotted one on our way in). The Caletta is the site of an eco-camping set up that was built decades ago and appears to have fallen largely into disrepair. There were a few buildings left, and it did appear that perhaps a caretaker still lives there, but it does not appear to be a thriving enterprise any longer. It is somewhat sad as the beautiful white beach and protected waters would make for amazing kayaking, snorkelling, swimming, etc (in warmer weather!). We hiked around the property and then headed back to our boat.
January 2 found us finally leaving San Francisquito for an overnight sail to Santa Rosalia. We sailed throughout the night, with winds gusting into the 20’s. We were becoming concerned that we were going to arrive before daylight. The wind finally started to lighten in the morning and we fired up the engine about an hour out of Santa Rosalia – only to have it die after a few minutes – the tiny bubbles were back!!! We fired it up again and again and generally only managed about 15 minutes of run time before the engine would die again. The sea conditions were getting very rolly and the wind was dying completely – this was not good!!! Owen again bled the injectors as I continued our approach to Santa Rosalia. Our plan was to take a spot at the dock for a couple of nights but with the engine issues, we decided to get ourselves into the protected harbour, get the hook down and then figure out where the air was coming in. With the sail still up, and the anchor ready to be deployed immediately, we lined ourselves up on the entrance and, where I would normally go quite slowly through a narrow entrance with rocks on both sides, I didn’t back the throttle down a bit – we shot through and into the anchorage and got the anchor down – and of course the engine continued to happily hum away!! We finally decided that we were going to brave taking her to the dock (anchor still ready to deploy) and managed to get her safely on the dock by about 10am. Once we were checked in and had had a few minutes to recover, we went for a short walk around town so that Owen could procure the parts necessary to build a test pump to figure out where the air was getting into the system. We got back to the boat and he hooked up his test system, clamped off the lines and put soapy water on all the lines and filters and pumped air into the system – and immediately a giant bubble appeared on the primer pump for one of the fuel filters!! The culprit had been found. We have isolated that pump out of the system and, knock on wood, have not had further issues.
sneaky air leak!The old jail – right on the waterfront – those bars are the walls of cells and they would have been staring at the port!
We were intending to spend 2 nights on the dock – beside figuring out the air leak, we were having issues with our main bilge pump and the water pump was leaking. After the second day of work, we realized we really needed another day and booked in for one more day at the dock. Owen managed to knock off the items on the list, but we still needed to get water and fuel so we were going to be in for a busy morning the next day. Unfortunately, the next day, we found a red flag flying over the harbour meaning the port was closed – and that remained for 3 more days. We did take advantage of visiting one of our favorite cities – going for dinner with dock neighbors and wandering up and down the streets. We got groceries, hit nearly every ferrateria (hardware store) in town and of course made it the bakery. We indulged in ice cream and pina coladas and still managed to get a few jobs knocked off our list. We made countless trips across the street to get water and fuel and finally, a week after arriving, we again headed out, making our way further south.
Unfortunatley there was nearly no wind so we motored, with the occasional headsail assist, to Punto Chivato, right at the north end of Bahia Conception. We arrived just as the sun was setting, got the anchor down and retired below after a very long day!
The next morning, we had the anchor up about 10am, hoping for some wind to push us down Bahia Conception to Playa Santispac. Just as we were getting ready to lift our anchor, a panga came in right behind us and we watched as they laid a net out from directly behind us to a mile out of the bay. I was sure glad we were already on our way out as, when the wind shifted around and we pulled back on our anchor, we would have landed right on top of that net!!! We were largely denied the wind, only finally able to sail the last couple of miles into the anchorage. We had come into this anchorage on our way up the sea and found quite a few boats, but almost no campers on the beach. This time there was probably twice the number of boats, and the campers were cheek to jowl on the beach – it is a beautiful spot but the close quarters seem to belie the reason for going camping on the Baja!! This was our first time being amongst more than a few boats and it was so strange!!! We just hung out on the boat the next day – occasionally considering putting the dinghy in the water but, as it was pretty blustery, deciding that we would pass.
We were up before the sun on January 13 – motoring out of the anchorage in the dark of night. We motored up Bahia Conception and finally managed to sneak the sail out around the corner. We had a great day of sailing with some fairly gusty conditions. The seas were pretty big, occasionally causing us to roll quite abruptly from side to side but it was not anything we or the boat couldn’t handle. We finally stormed into San Juanico just as the sun was setting and set the anchor behind several other boats.
As much as we would have loved to have stayed at San Juanico for a couple of days, the weather forecast said we had better move on so, the next day, we lifted the anchor around 9:30 and with the headsail only out, we motored and motor sailed in very light conditions. We finally started to see more sealife on this trip – to now we had seen only a few dolphins – this trip we saw whales in the distance, dolphins and rays!!! We arrived at Isla Coronado mid-afternoon. Of course, the winds arrived just as we did, leaving the anchorage a bit windy for the first couple of hours that we were in. The next morning, I awoke to realize that all but one of the 5 or 6 boats that had been in the anchorage the night previous were gone – did they know something we didn’t? We opted to move the boat in closer to shore to get more into the lee of the island and put the dinghy in the water. We took the dinghy for a motor around towards the north end of the Island, hoping to perhaps see the Blue Footed Boobies that we knew nested there. On our first trip to Loreto, so many years prior, we had taken a snorkel trip over to Isla Coronado. The trip included heading around to the north end of the island – we were told to see Sea Lions – unfortunately the conditions were a bit spicy and some of our fellow passengers were not entirely comfortable (actually entirely terrified) – as we had of course seen plenty of sea lions, we advised the guide that if the rest of the group were not comfortable going around the island, we were okay to go back and start snorkeling. It was only after we got back and talked to the people on the other boat in our group that we learned there were blue footed boobies and they had in fact been spotted. Keeping this in mind, we really wanted to head around to the north end – unfortunately, the increasing north winds stopped us shy of our goal – we made it roughly to the top corner and then decided it would be safer to turn around and head into the beach. We went for a short walk in lovely white sand and then headed back to the boat. By the time we returned to the boat, we were the only boat left in the anchorage and so enjoyed a peaceful night at anchor.
It was time to get moving along again and so we had the anchor up by 8am the next morning and motored – motor sailed around to Island Carmen, located directly across from Loreto. We headed to Punta Balandra, joining several other boats in the serene anchorage. The rollers had gotten pretty intense about 2/3 of the way over so I was glad to have our anchor down and to relax for the afternoon. We left the next morning, attempting to head over to Loreto for the day. Instead, we were only about a mile and a half out of the anchorage before we were again hit broad-side by huge rollers. The wind was also stronger than hoped for so we turned around and headed back to Balandra. We wanted to be able to enjoy a day at Loreto without worrying about the boat, and this was not the day!! We put the dinghy in the water and headed into the beach for a walk and a chat with fellow cruisers.
The next day we tried again and this time were rewarded with flat calm conditions. We set the anchor to the north of the panga marina at Loreto and headed in to explore one of our favorite Pueblo Magicos. We of course began with pina coladas in the square and then headed out. We needed to get groceries and were hoping to find a new bilge pump to replace our not-entirely functional one. Owen also wanted a haircut. We found some of the parts Owen required at a ferrateria and found a ridiculously over-priced bilge pump (nearly $300!!! We passed!). Owen managed to get a quick haircut and then we headed over to get groceries. With the cart full we called for a cab to take us back. The conditions were a bit blusterier than when we left the boat and we got a bit wet going against the wind back out to the boat but it was not enough to keep us there for long. We unloaded what had to go into the fridge and freezer and then headed back in where we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and then wandered around town enjoying the quiet atmosphere! We finally headed back to the boat after dark, thankfully in flat calm conditions. We would have loved to have stayed here for days, but the reality is that it is an easy city to visit by air and not such an ideal spot to leave the boat so we knew we had to move along the next day.
See you soon Loreto!
Isla Carmen offers a multitude of wonderful anchorages – we actually had not realized how many – and so, we next headed around the north end of Carmen, and down to Bahia Salinas. Salinas is a huge bay, and the site of a former salt mine. The salt ponds are all still there – though they seemed to perhaps be flooded out during the winter storms – we had seen pictures of pink water at the ponds but sadly did not see that ourselves. We did explore some of the old buildings and equipment and the immaculately maintained church. A couple of the buildings have been restored and there is now a high-end hunting lodge on the site. There has been a program to reintroduce big horn sheep to the island and, though I can’t entirely understand how a preservation project leads to a hunting lodge, that seems to have been the genesis of the lodge!! On the dinghy trip back to the boat, we tried to find the shipwreck in the middle of the bay – we were motoring around in circles when we suddenly realized that it was right under us!!!! It is a fairly large ship and apparently makes a great dive and snorkel site. We did see lots of fish there – were the water much warmer, and time more on our side, we may have stayed another day to be able to snorkel there.
We next made our way further down Carmen, anchoring near the southern tip for the night. This left us ideally situated to make a short run to Puerto Escondido. The laundry was piling up and we were getting short of water and fuel so we went into Escondido to take a mooring ball for one night. We got the laundry done after a bit of a wait (even when they are over-priced, if there are only 3 machines, there is likely to be a wait!). Though we were determined to avoid it, the lure of the restaurant proved too hard to resist so we headed back in for supper.
The next morning, we were at the fuel dock before they opened and had the boat filled with diesel and water by 9:30. We had a fairly long run to do so wanted to get underway early! We sadly ended up motoring most of the way to Agua Verde under grey, somewhat threatening skies and nearly no wind. We arrived at Agua Verde mid-afternoon and anchored in Pyramid Bight with several other boats. Though we loved Agua Verde on our first trip, the dark skies meant we didn’t get to enjoy that green water. We did have the most breathtaking sunset there – I had poked my head up just to take a look-around and literally said wow! at the amazing red sky. We would have loved to have stayed here longer but it was starting to feel like more than time to get across to the mainland and we still have a long way to go!
This sunset literally made me say wow!!!
Keeping that in mind, we headed out the next day for a run down to Los Gatos – it is only when the wind is a bit stronger and the conditions fairly rolly, that you really notice how unprotected Los Gatos is!! We would have loved to have gone on a hike here – the red rocks are so cool – but the wind started howling right off the beach nearly the minute we set our anchor and getting the dinghy down didn’t seem like a good idea. Thankfully the wind that afternoon and evening was primarily from the west, meaning that, though we did get some wrap around swell, the conditions were not too awful. It was a bit rolly in the evening and I was not unhappy about setting out early the next day.
Sorry to not get to explore the red rocks of Los GatosThe sunset was worth it though!
And it was early – like up at 6am, anchor up at 6:30. We had a 40 mile run to do to get to Isla San Francisco. There were some really strong northerlies heading our way, and Isla San Francisco felt like the best place to wait that out. We were barely out of the anchorage when we realized that two of the other boats that had been anchored with us had also set out – it was not a race by any means as SJ quickly motored past us, but it is always fun to be in the company of other boats. We actually saw more activity on the AIS then we had seen the entire way down the sea. The forecast had called for 10-12 knots from the north or north west all day so we had high hopes for sailing. The reality was that we had little to no wind for the first 26 miles and what we did have was right on our nose. The seas were very lumpy from the winds that had blown the previous evening so it was a fairly uncomfortable start!!! We were finally able to sail for about the last 14 miles, once the wind had backed and filled in with a vengeance!! It was sometimes some spicy sailing, taking pretty big waves on our quarter. We arrived at the anchorage at about 3pm, with our main still up and coming in hot to anchor!! The winds had definitely started to pick up!
It was fairly rolly when we woke up the next morning – the wind was more north-west than north so we were getting a bit of wrap around swell (the anchorage is very open to the west). Once a few boats had headed out, we took advantage and moved in closer to the beach, getting us out of the worst of the swell. We weren’t sure if we wanted to launch the dinghy in the crazy gusty conditions (nothing like have the wind grab it while it is suspended in mid-air on a halyard to be lifted over the rail!). However, as I was working on cleaning some of the stainless stanchions, I dropped a plastic scrubby into the water and couldn’t leave it there!!! We quickly got the dinghy in the water (yes a gust came just in time to whip it out of Owen’s hands!) and retrieved the scrubby. As we had the dinghy in the water anyway, we headed to the beach later that afternoon where we met cruisers on another boat that had come down around the same time as us. We joined them in a beach walk, exchanging war stories from our first year in Mexico! We spent the next day on board, with strong gusty winds blowing all day – thankfully the conditions in the bay remained relatively calm – just a very slight bit of hobby horsing occasionally. By day 3 we were again itching to get to shore and, realizing that we would soon have a long stretch of not being able to stretch our legs, we decided to do the ridge hike. The climb up to the hike looked steeper than it was and we managed to scramble our way up fairly easily – the tough part came when we went to head south along the ridge – it is a long drop down on the east side and the path was getting fairly narrow – add to that my insane fear of heights and winds gusting high enough it felt like we could get blown off, and we ended up opting to head back around more to the north and then down through the salt flats. The ridge is an ideal place to get a glimpse of the horseshoe shaped bay with its gorgeous green water.
A very rare selfie!
While checking in on emails and social media, I was surprised to realize that we were approaching the one year anniversary of our heading across to the mainland – it seemed that we might make that jump on the same date. The weather gods, however, had other ideas. The forecast was calling for a strong blow to occur, probably some time in the middle of our 2nd night at sea. We would be facing 30+ knots of wind – keeping in mind that the winds have been blowing for nearly a week and the sea state is a bit untenable already, we decided to take a more cautious path. We pulled the anchor about 10am on day 4, headed south to Isla Partida. We motor sailed for the first hour in order to charge batteries and then, with just the headsail out, we sailed through big, lumpy seas – often sliding down the side of a wave sideways – averaging 4.5 – 5 knots. We sailed almost right into Ensenada de Cordenal. We had been in this bay a couple of times last year – actually making a quick run down here when the conditions in Grande became too wild – so we knew that we would be comfortable here – even as the winds continued to blow.
We were up before the sun the next morning, pulling anchor by 5:50 am and motoring out of Cordenal. We had high hopes for being able to sail the entire 52 miles to Los Muertos based on the forecast. Surprise, surprise, the forecast was again wrong. Instead of a steady 10 -12 from the NE, we motored into light wind from the South East!! We were nearing the bottom end of Jacques Cousteau Island, and the mid-point of our mileage before the wind began to fill – and fill, and fill!!! We were finally seeing 18 gusting to about 25, with the seas building to about 6 – 8 feet in close repetition. We wind was of course now coming from dead behind our course, meaning we were gybing across the waves – never my favorite thing!!! We finally shot into Muertos, taking huge waves over the side (and right into my face more than a couple of times), dropping the anchor in pretty steady 20 – 24 knot winds. We managed to get the mainsail put away and the cover on and had just dragged ourselves below when the rain started!!! It was a howling, rolling night – I was woken 3 different times by rain coming in on my face (every time the rain stopped I decided it was too stuffy to have the hatch closed and surely, it had rained itself out – not so much)!!!
And now here we sit – wind is blowing 18-22 and the sea state in the anchorage is miserable – I am guessing it is more so outside!!! We are trying to decide whether to pull the trigger and head out for the mainland now, or wait until things abate a bit – knowing that if we wait we could see no wind for the crossing. It is a tough call – it will be a “spirited” sail if we go now… but if we don’t and we have little to know wind it will be long and frustrating!!!
After a summer back on the Island, we left home in early October, headed back to our boat in Puerto Penasco, Mexico. Our plan was to jump right in to get the boat sandblasted, complete the paint job and get her in the water by early November. You know what the say about the best laid plans…
Things got off to an inauspicious start right off the bat – while at dinner at our hotel in Vancouver on October 2, I commented to Owen that it was strange that we had not yet received a notice to check in to our flight. I opened the West Jet app and nearly had a heart attack – the flight that I was absolutely positive was booked for October 3? The flight that I booked all hotel rooms and rental cars around? That flight? Ummm – turns out it was actually for October 4!!!! Ooops – after a few desperate attempts to change our flights to the 3rd, we gave up and added another night to our hotel reservation in Vancouver. We also called our hotel and car rental company in Phoenix to beg them not to mark us as no shows and to confirm that we would be there – just 24 hours later than planned!!!
After a quiet, rainy day hanging out in our hotel in Vancouver, we were finally able to fly out to Phoenix a day late. We arrived late evening and were surprised to realize that, in the chaos of making our connection in Calgary we had actually already checked in to the US!!! We gathered our luggage and then headed to the car rental. I had been a bit concerned about taking our car to Mexico and had made a call to Budget ahead of time to confirm that I would in fact be able to take the car over the border. Of course, when we went to collect the car, they advised that we were not permitted to do so…. After a few back and forths and thankfully being able to provide the name of the person who had told us we could, we were able to get our car, and our Mexican insurance, and head to the hotel with just enough time for McDonald’s drive through dinner before falling into bed!!
The next day saw us trying to accomplish everything we had planned to do in 2 days all in one day – of course the stops we needed to make had us hitting nearly all of the communities surrounding Phoenix proper, and winding our way on and off of countless on and off-ramps – driving in that city is not for the faint of heart!!! We managed to make it to the fabric store, West Marine, Home Depot, Target and Costco before heading back to the hotel after dark.
I swear the roads look like a plate of spagetti!
Our last day in Phoenix we made a stop to pick up our paint and, with our car literally loaded to the ceiling, we headed for the border. We were pleasantly surprised to be waived through the border with almost no questions and an hour later, arrived at our rental apartment in Puerto Penasco. We unloaded the car into the apartment and then headed over to check on our girl. Unfortunately, we were not immediately able to get our hands on a set of stairs to get up to the boat, so were only able to reassure ourselves that she was still standing and still where we left her – sadly now buried about 4 boats deep at the back of the yard. We did a quick grocery shop and stop at a local barbeque chicken place and, after 3 very long days, were relieved to drop into bed.
Our temporary home
We were able to get a staircase early the next day and hesitantly went up to check on her – I admit to having fears of finding the boat infested with bugs, or finding some sort of vermin skittering around but, other than a pile of sand inside, let in by the hatch that we mysteriously left open, the boat looked really good. We next hunted down the boatyard manager to discuss when we would be moved to be sandblasted – this was our first hint that we might have a long wait. The answer was something akin to “well there are a lot of boats to move to get you out and no where to put them – oh and we are currently storing boats in the sand lot, soo…..” Given that we had been making the arrangements to have this done since January, reconfirmed in May and then followed up with messages as we prepared to return to the boat, we were less than pleased. We tried to make some sense of the boat and then, succumbing to the heat, returned to our apartment.
We drove back to Phoenix the next day to return our rental car, dropping it at the airport. We grabbed an Uber from there to a shuttle that would take us back to Mexico, and were back at the apartment by about 10pm that night.
Did I mention the heat – the first few weeks we were back in Mexico, it was regularly 40 – 42 degrees (104 and up for our American friends). Our walk to the boatyard was about 15 minutes and by the time we would get to the yard, we were swimming in sweat. Every day found us trying to accomplish tasks, only to need to escape to the air-conditioned cruisers’ lounge until our brains cooled enough to think again!!!
Owen decided to start working on the dodger (we left Canada with the dodger finally assembled but merely coated in a layer of house primer) – it needed to be fiber-glassed and painted. Here was another point where the heat was a battle – everything we were working with was drying or kicking off so quickly we had to work in really small sections or lose a bunch of product. I worked on trying to get the boat cleaned up a bit, a tough job given that I was still navigating around bins of food, our sails, boxes of paint and a kayak! We didn’t want to move items up onto the deck because we would just need to move them back when (and if) we got sandblasted.
Nearly every day we checked in to see what the progress was in getting us moved – only to realize that yet more boats were being moved into the sand lot (in an attempt to get to boats that were actually trying to go in the water) and in fact it seemed that as many boats were being hauled out to be stored somewhere as were going back in!
Getting packages delivered to Mexico is a challenge to say the least – items apparently regularly get stopped at customs and, if they make it past there, don’t always make it to their intended destination. As an alternative, because Puerto Penasco is so close to the Lukeville border crossing, the Gas Trak at Lukeville will accept and hold packages – you drive to the border to pick them up and are generally back at the yard within a few hours. We were waiting on the parts for our water maker along with orders from Sailrite and Defender. Once we knew most of the packages were there, we rented a car and drove up. As is the custom in the boatyard, we offered to pick up packages for anyone else expecting items to be there – as a result, we returned to the border with our car again piled to the ceiling – only to again be waived right through. We did stop on this trip to go in and get our FMM (our tourist Visa) – we had not received one when we first arrived, nor when we returned by shuttle – as Puerto Penasco is an Arizona party town and people are often just going for short periods, the border crossing is very casual and FMMs are not generally issued. We would need it to check in and out of ports though, so we did need to go and get that dealt with.
As the days dragged on and we continued to languish in the back of the boat yard, checking often to see when we might be moved, we became increasingly frustrated and frankly ready to be out of the yard and the town. We lived through Razor fest (a gathering of what can only be described as toothless wonders speeding through town in their Razors and other ATV’s – generally with a beer in hand, music blaring and no concern for the safety of anyone who may be walking around). That was followed all too shortly by bike week – a gathering of 8000+ motorbikes, none of which had mufflers – even at our apartment which was away from most of the areas that the bikers were gathering, we could hear them roaring up and down the main highway all day and all night.
Finally, three weeks after we arrived, and three days later than the tentative date that had been suggested, our boat was moved to the sand lot – it is exactly what it sounds like – the sand in the lot was ankle deep. The sandblasting was to start Monday – it did not. On Tuesday, we watched as they moved a 50’ Beneteau to the sandlot for storage while they again shuffled boats. We were pretty sure we were again going to wait to be sand blasted but, after a couple of hours to get the equipment actually working, they actually blasted our boat, with this poor cruiser parked only about 50’ from our boat!!! We felt terrible, but at the same time, we needed the job to be done. We did shut things down only about an hour and a half after they started the first day as the wind was pushing all the sand and rocks from our job onto the Beneteau. The second day we got nearly a full day of blasting in and they finally finished before lunch on day 3.
Sandblasting has started!!
Each day, as soon as they were finished, we would start to apply primer – we needed to get the bare metal covered immediately and then, once we had a coat of primer on, the next had to be applied within 24 hours (otherwise we would need to sand). We started with a “high build” primer (4 coats), and followed that with a sandable primer (2 coats). After that, we needed to sand the boat in an attempt to reduce the orange peel texture that was left after so many coats. We used 60 grit sandpaper which would only last about 10 minutes before it stopped cutting. We were having to put huge pressure on to even touch the texture and we were working in half hour shifts as any longer than that, our arms were nearly falling off! That round of sanding took about 5 days and by the end, we were exhausted!!!
So much sanding!
During this time, we were watching friend’s boats being launched and becoming increasingly discouraged that we would ever get back in the water. We were also making new friends with other couples stranded in the sand lot and welcoming other friends back to the boatyard. The entire experience would have been so much worse without the wonderful people also stuck is some level of purgatory in the boatyard as well as the awesome staff in the yard!!!
Our favorite security guard – Federico – he spent hours giving us spanish lessons and ribbing us about getting more work done!!!
At some point in this process, we had moved all of the extraneous items out from below deck, piling everything up on deck under cover of tarps. Even though we were done sandblasting, they still blasted two more boats in our yard immediately after us and, the yard next door was blasting a big party boat, sand and rocks were literally raining down on our boat all day every day. We finally moved back to the boat six weeks after arriving in Mexico (having extended our rental by two weeks). While were happy to not have to do the walk to and from the apartment every day, I was less pleased about the idea of having to walk half a block down the street to go to the washroom or (ewww) use the outhouse that sat immediately under our boat (that was only a middle of the night thing). For reasons we don’t understand, they started to leave the puppies in our yard at night (they are nearly a year old now but we still called them the puppies) – and they are still very much puppies. I was making a dreaded trip to the outhouse one night only to have Riply throw herself at the door of the outhouse to remind me she was there – scared the life out of me. They also managed to rip the plastic that we had covering our new hot water tank off nearly every night and most frustratingly, ripped our dinghy cover in an apparent game of tug of war. Boatyard living had other challenges – there are 4 washrooms at the yard – three of them have showers but only one reliably had hot water and pressure – one did not have a hot water tank so as the days grew shorter and cooler, the water in the rooftop gravity tank was somewhat less than hot. The other shower could best be described as a drizzle most of the time. As such, most evenings there was easily an hour wait to shower – a great chance to chat with other boatyard prisoners, but when you are covered in sanding dust and feel grimy and gross, you just want a shower!!! In addition, there seems to be something missed in translation about wax seals on toilets. The toilets at nearly every washroom were generally leaking around the base and the solution seemed to be to put another bead of caulking (rather than a new or second seal) – between the water from the showers and the water from the toilets, you were usually wading around in the washrooms. On a high note, there were nights like the movie night with a screen slung up across the front of a catamaran and everyone snuggled in below on lawn chairs, or the night a bunch of cruisers decided to join up for margaritas at one of the local restaurants (with amazing sunset views), in an effort to help support the struggling local businesses. (those margaritas had to be at least triples and apparently my 2nd one was not a good idea – I paid for that night until well into the next day!)
Sunset from El Capitan Restaurant on a rare night out.
We finally started to apply top coat – not getting exactly the results we were hoping for. We kept adjusting the amount of thinner we were using in an attempt to get the paint to flow better but were still ending up with a lot of orange peel. So again, after 2 coats of top coat, we started to sand – taking the layers down to as smooth a finish as we could manage. We started the final coat on a Friday – using a foam roller as an attempt to eliminate the orange peel. I was just getting started in the early afternoon after having wiped the boat down to remove the ever present layer of grime and grease, when we were told that we would be moved out of the sand lot that day – eek – I couldn’t stop in the middle of a side of the boat without leaving big lines, so I needed to get that side done asap before they came in to move us – at about 3pm I was still trying to finish painting that side when the skateboard arrived to move us – I was literally on a ladder finishing the last ¼ of the side while they took out boat stands and got us ready to move. We were moved over to the main lot and literally dropped in the middle of the lot for the weekend. At first, I thought this was a great thing as I thought it would be cleaner for doing the final coat on the other side and transom (it is paved rather than sand). As it turned out, Saturday was a big wind day and clouds of dust would come from the other lot across the street and literally bombard me (and my wet paint) as I tried to paint. At one point my entire tray, roller, brush and thinner was blown right off the ladder. I ended up with some kind of debris in a big streak in the paint (I tried to fix it made it oh so much worse!!!). We finally had to abandon that back corner and do another sand and fix on that corner the next day. We had discussed the possibility that we would be able to splash that coming Wednesday but, after realizing that the paint was not drying very quickly (our extreme heat had by this time given way too much shorter and somewhat cooler days and very cool nights (about 12 – 14 overnight), which meant that the paint was taking at least 36 hours to dry (rather than the 12 or so that we were expecting). We weren’t able to put on a tape line to mark the water line and paint the bottom for at least a couple of days.
By this time, it was mid-December and we were becoming increasingly worried that we would not be able to launch before Christmas – the yard shuts down beginning December 22 and does not reopen until January 4 so if we didn’t get in before then, we would be there over Christmas and New Years. I honestly could not imagine anything worse!!! It had occurred to me that, if we were not able to make the launch, I was going to check into one of the nearly empty resorts on the beach with a heated pool and someone to bring me pina coladas all day. (The US government temporarily closed the Lukeville border crossing and this has led to a dramatic drop in tourism in the town – as it is the main economy the effects were definitely being seen with super low occupancy at hotels, empty restaurants and a lot of people sadly out of work).
We were again moved on the Monday – rather suddenly. I was up in the boat, in jammies and a fuzzy house coat, just about to pour my coffee when I heard the skateboard (the skateboard is a lift that moves the boat from underneath rather than the normal sling type lift – this allows the boats to be jam-canned in closer together than they could ever be if they needed to get the sling lift in between them) fire up – I rushed out to get down to the ground before I went for a ride in the boat – that meant I was wandering the boat yard in jammies and house coat, with hair going every which way, and worst of all, coffee-less, for about two hours while the boat got moved and reblocked. We were finally able to start putting the tape line on on the Tuesday (shocked to realize that that back corner that had to be touched up on Sunday was still just ever so tacky!)
I got the first coat of bottom paint on on one side that night (literally finishing as the sun was going down). The next day I was able to get to two coats on both sides and the day after that I did two more coats at the waterline. We had now decided that we were going to launch on Monday – no matter what (we did have holes in the bottom of the boat at this time so Owen had a couple of projects to do).
BeforeAfter – looks great from far!!
We spent the next few days working at a feverish pace just trying to get the boat to a state that it could be launched. Of course, there were also opportunities to socialize – a Saturday gathering for Tamales and potluck (as well as a firepit set up right on the road) and Sunday dinner with boat friends. After dinner on Sunday, we went to the bank to grab pesos, knowing the opportunity to get them down the Baja coast would be few and far between, and happened upon a parade… a few minutes were lost to that! Owen got the holes that could actually sink us plugged and I got all painting touch ups done. We did a run for diesel at about 9pm on Sunday night. Luckily, the water truck had been in the yard on Saturday so that was pretty topped up. We worked until 1am on Sunday night, getting the headsail on and the dinghy on deck. We were up at 5am to get the final items moved back up onto the deck and to stow as much as we possibly could. The guys were at the boat at 6:45 to ask if we were listo (ready) – and listo or not, they had us in the slings and into the water by 7:30 – at long, long last, on December 18 – almost 2 ½ months after returning to the boat (with our one month refit plan!) we were back in the water!!!!
Christmas Parade!Going back in!!Finally back in the water!
We motored out of the port and anchored off the beach (in front of those fancy, almost empty hotels) and got the mainsail on and all of the various crap that we had dumped on deck tucked away below. Thankfully we knew we were in for very light to no winds so we weren’t as concerned about the chaos down below – it could be dealt with later!!! At about 2pm, we picked up the anchor and headed out for our first destination, back to Refugio, about a 106 miles away. There was almost no wind all night – we managed about 2 hours of sailing before we were again going below 3 knots. But, on a high note, the night was not nearly as cold as we had feared it might be and we both had great sleeps when off watch. We arrived in Puerto de Refugio at about noon on December 19, dropping the hook and finally turning off the engine. We are finally back out here!!!!
First night passagePuerto del Refugio
We still have tons of stuff to be done – the water maker still needs to be installed, along with the emergency bilge pump and the cockpit drains. The dodger still needs one last coat of paint (it was pretty much abandoned once the sand blasting started!) and we have a ton of sewing projects to be done. I haven’t even taken the tape off the windows yet!!!! We will be here a few days and will knock off a couple of items and then intend to move to a nice, very protected bay where we will likely stay through Christmas.
After that, who knows? We are headed for the mainland but would like to make a few stops on the Baja – I guess as long as the weather allows it, we will just slowly make our way down the coast before jumping across the Sea.
For now, I intend to enjoy rocking at anchor, being able to use my own head and not sanding or painting for a few days!!!!
We only very grudgingly got the anchor up and headed out of Agua Verde. We once again had a long day of motoring or motor sailing as we headed for Puerto Escondido. We did manage to sail for one short stretch, crossing our fingers that the wind would hold, but of course, as the day went on, the wind lightened and then died altogether. Puerto Escondido is an amazingly protected series of three bays, each more protected than the last, that has been almost entirely swallowed up by the marina – they have put mooring balls throughout the two inner-most bays and you are not permitted to anchor anywhere in those bays – the most outer of the bays does appear to allow anchoring, but if you want to use the dinghy dock at Puerto Escondido, they will charge you the same fee as if you are using a mooring ball so we grudgingly took a mooring ball – hoping that the tackle was sound!! We dinghied over to the marina to pay up and to get laundry done. The facilities at the marina are top notch, and very, very expensive. We had our most expensive pina coladas here, along with a very expensive dinner. Laundry was do-it-yourself, and the most expensive I had seen – 100 pesos per wash and 100 pesos per dry (keeping in mind that I was paying 70 pesos per load, washed, dried, folded and returned to me in La Paz!). There is a little store on site that is very well stocked, and very expensive (there is definitely at theme here!). We ended up staying two nights there, to allow sufficient time to get all of our laundry caught up – I had thought we might hang out by the pool on day 2 but by the time we got the laundry done and back to the boat, neither of us could be bothered to go back to shore!! We had considered taking a taxi from Puerto Escondido to Loreto to do a good grocery shop, knowing that the anchorage off Loreto is at best an open roadstead, but given that the taxi would be about a $70 usd round trip, we decided that we would chance stopping at Loreto and if the conditions were too bad, we had the option to run over to one of the Islands just off the town and anchor there.
After two nights at Puerto Escondido we were ready to head out, stopping first to fuel up at the fuel dock (again – so expensive!) and made the small hop up to Loreto where we anchored just off the breakwater. We dinghied into shore and visited the API to pay our anchoring and landing fees and then wandered off into one of our very favorite little cities. We have previously done two fly-in trips to Loreto and loved our time there – it was one of the places I was so excited to get to on this trip. We walked along the Malecon and then headed to the town square where we stopped for some very deserved Pina Coladas before heading to the grocery store to stock up. Our plan had been to get groceries, run them out to the boat and then come back in for dinner at one of our very favorite restaurants. Unfortunately, by the time we were heading back out to the boat, a wind had picked up, building a pretty good fetch between the breakwater and our boat – we were soaked by the time we reached the boat and not excited about going back to shore and then having to head back to the boat in those conditions, in the dark. We decided to forego dinner in Loreto, sadly, and got the dinghy up in its bridle. I was popping up and down from the cockpit, cleaning the veggies and fruit we had bought, and noticed a tandem kayak heading into the wind and waves, trying to get back to shore. I pointed them out to Owen and commented that they had some work to get back in. A few minutes later, he looked over and realized that they were no longer in the kayak!!! He quickly launched the dinghy and motored over to where he had spotted them. Luckily, another boat had also seen that they were in distress and he had motored over to them as well. Our fellow cruiser was in a rather tippy, small tender – he had managed to get one of them into his tender, but the other person was being dragged behind, holding onto the overturned kayak. Owen got there just as they finally made it back to the other cruiser’s boat and helped to get the kayak up and drained out and then offered to take one of them into shore, while the other cruiser took the other person and towed the kayak. The kayakers were very grateful to accept that offer, being a little shaken from their experience and not wanting to try to paddle into the sea state at that time! Luckily the sea state settled a bit overnight and we had a pleasant night at anchor.
Sadly, not really feeling like we had spent enough time in Loreto, the next morning it was again time to continue north. We mostly motored, with a few minutes of sailing mixed in, to San Juanico – by the time we arrived in the anchorage, the wind that we had waited all day for was finally beginning to build and the conditions in the anchorage were very rolly. We pulled the dinghy up right away and spent a fairly uncomfortable night at anchor. Perhaps we will have the chance to check this spot out on our way back down!
We were up at 5:30 the next day, with the anchor up by 6 am – we had a long way to go!!! The wind was very strong from the Northwest when we first left the anchorage so we sailed into lumpy seas for a while before the wind died completely again. We were motoring along when the wind suddenly built to over 20 knots on the beam – we were thankful to throw the sails out and enjoy some rollicking sailing before the wind again started to die. As we did have a lot of miles to cover on this day, sailing slowly was not an option and we once again had to fire up the engine. We had originally considered taking anchorage right at the mouth of Bahia Conception, in what was really just an open roadstead, but knew that the wind was scheduled to pick up overnight and we wanted a more protected anchorage. Keeping that in mind, we motor sailed the 7 miles down Bahia Conception to Playa Santispac – going through a swarm of no-see-ums just as we were coming into the anchorage – they were everywhere!!! We finally got the anchor set and disappeared below, closing all of the hatches behind us!!! We spent the next day dinghying around and exploring the various anchorages around Playa Santispac (being chased away from one of them by the no-see-ums again) and then beached the dinghy at Playa Coyote to enjoy a quick lunch at the beach bar. There are a couple of islands around the Santispac area that are covered in literal forests of saguaro cacti – it was so cool to see! This beach appears to be a good stop for campers as there were a number of motorhomes of all sizes parked along the beach – the driveway down from the highway must have been challenging for the bigger rigs though – it looked awfully steep and narrow! The anchorage got a bit lumpy in the evening but was not terribly uncomfortable.
We were up early the next day and motoring back out Bahia Conception – almost immediately the wind was building, causing a terrible sea state – by 1pm the wind was at 15 knots on our nose and the waves were huge – we were hardly making any headway and still had another 7 miles or so before we would be able to turn off the wind a bit (which would have put us broadside to the big waves anyway!). We finally opted to bail out to the last anchorage at the northern mouth of Bahia Conception, Punta Chivalo. The anchorage was beautifully protected with flat calm seas and I was so happy to get the hook down in the crystal-clear water. There were a number of very nice private homes on the beach, along with an abandoned hotel and the map showed that there was an airstrip just off the beach. The area felt almost entirely deserted however – likely snowbird homes – perhaps people had already headed home for the season. We hung out there and watched a movie – I had pretty well decided that we were there for the night but as the wind started to die down late afternoon, Owen figured we should make the final jump to Isla San Marcos so that our day would be shorter the next day. We quickly realized once we were out of our protected anchorage that although the wind had died down, unfortunately, the seas had not settled yet so we had a rolly, slow motor the final 10 miles or so – finally putting the hook down in the south end of Isla San Marcos, in a desolate bay, at about 7pm. Isla San Marcos has a large gypsum mine, and the area surrounding the bay looked like the surface of the moon, but it was perfectly protected from any north wind. For no apparent reason, we both found the area a bit creepy and I was on high alert, not even sure what I was worried about – there were no houses around – though we had been spotted as we anchored – there were a few people out on a lookout around the corner when we were coming in and I did notice them notice us. We actually locked the boat right down that night but had a peaceful sleep. We would later discuss how weird the bay had felt with another couple and it turns out they had been in there the night previous to us and had felt the same way!!
It was time to move along further north – next stop the mining town of Santa Rosalia.
Once we departed Mazatlan, we decided to motor away from the coast for a couple of hours, in hopes that the wind would fill in a bit, and to get us away from fishing traps and nets before dark. We finally set the sails and, very slowly, began to sail towards La Paz. Sadly, the wind would die in the evening and we would be forced to motor throughout the night (not the most enjoyable sound when you are trying to sleep!). Generally, when we were able to sail, the wind was coming from exactly where we were heading to – that, combined with current, made for terrible tack angles – we were only making about a third of our actual distance sailed towards our destination each day and we were getting frustrated by our slow progress!
We did have some spectacular sunsets and lots of turtle and ray sightings. Each night we would hear whales near us and finally on our last night we spotted them joining us just as the sun was setting.
After 4 nights at sea, we were finally on the home stretch – we had anticipated arriving in La Paz sometime mid-day. When I came on shift at 2:30 a.m. there was again nearly no wind and I was motoring along towards the top end of Jacques Cousteau Island. About an hour in I suddenly had 15-20 knots on the nose and the sea state was getting terrible. The main was still up and I was having to drive off course a little bit to allow the main to drive us through some of the worst waves. By 4:30 in the morning the wind was gusting in the mid 20’s and the sea state was even more untenable. I was now at least a couple of miles east of the light that I needed to turn at to head into La Paz and the wind began to funnel directly from the entrance into Bahia de La Paz. We were making terrible headway – sometimes only managing to go a knot and a half. When Owen came on deck the sun was finally rising which just let us see how terrible the sea state was. We finally had to make the decision to turn around and run back downwind, away from what was now 28 knot gusts. Our plan had been to get into the lee of Jacques Cousteau Island, hopefully find a spot to tuck in for a few hours and wait for the weather to settle down.
As we had been at sea for 4 nights, and our only weather had been large scale grib files downloaded via our SSB radio, we had not had the information that a localized wind was expected to blow right out of Bahia de La Paz – we finally received this information when we hailed another boat that we would see coming up a few miles behind us on the AIS. He was able to let us know that the wind was expected to die down late morning or early afternoon – hopefully allowing us the chance to get into the bay. We decided to try to work our way closer to the Baja Coast and come up on the bay entrance from its immediate south – rather than trying to beat into the wind and waves coming out of it! All morning and afternoon, we slowly tacked our way back and forth through a miserable sea state, all while the wind gradually died to nearly nothing. We finally fired up the engine and managed to drive into the bay, realizing we would never make the nearly 15 miles to go to town before dark. Instead, we opted to anchor at Balandra Bay. After more than 4 full days, we finally got the anchor set just as the sun was going down and called it a day!!!
The wind continued to blow all night and through the following day. The entrance to La Paz Harbour is very shallow and anchoring can be a bit of a bear so we opted to spend yet another day at Balandra Bay. Sadly, Balandra Bay is known to have one of the nicest beaches in the La Paz area and we were not even able to consider putting our dinghy down to enjoy it!!
We finally woke up to flat calm seas and quickly pulled up the anchor to head into La Paz. We got the anchor set and promptly made our way into town for arrachera tacos at Viejo – we had missed those amazing tacos!
We knew we wanted to get in and out of La Paz quickly but could not bring ourselves to get moving the next day!! We spent the entire day on the boat (I may or may not have even gotten out of my pajamas) watching movies and cleaning up from the passage. We paid for that with a couple more days of chaos. Over the course of the next couple of days, we got so much accomplished!! We got to the boat store to buy the new block to replace the spinnaker block that had been jammed lifting the dinghy. Owen went to the barber and I found a great little salon to finally get my hair cut. I walked up to the Soriana to do a provisioning shop (and so wished I had called an Uber to head back to the boat – I nearly pulled my arms out carrying everything back!). Owen went in hunt of oil and oil filters and spent an entire afternoon traipsing from store to store, never managing to come up with the filters! We did three runs with our trusty little cart to fill diesel jugs and 4 runs to get water. We also fit in one last visit to Viejo for more of those tacos! Finally, on our third day in La Paz, we motored out of the harbour, fighting current the whole way, and anchored in Bahia Falsa.
We spent the next day at Falsa – Owen dove the prop to clean off the barnacles that had been building up and we swam and scrubbed the water line. Unfortunately, we ended up covered in little shrimpy like things – they were everywhere when we got out of the water so quick showers were a must before dinghying in to have Pina Coladas and guacamole at the beach bar.
We were now all ready to start our march north. It was April 20 and we had about 450 miles to cover before being hauled out in Puerto Penasco on May 15.
tjsailing 