La Paz happenings

3-28-13 – La Paz, Bahia California Sur, Mexico

One of the super mercados, affectionately knows as "the
cow store" by the cruisers

We have once again found ourselves becoming way too comfortable in Marina Palmira.  Not hard to do here on dock 3.  As someone put it, you need to leave for the bathroom a half hour before you need to go.  Everyone on the dock has been great to get to know and we have learned much from all the random conversations had on the dock.  Somewhere in all of the socializing, eating out; of course we made it back to The Shack and Harker's Boards for burgers and tasty beer; and relaxing we found some time to be productive.  Don’t worry we only try to do one thing per day, no need to needlessly stress yourself out.  Two drops of oil in the engine compartment turns into half a day trying to figure out where they came from and if it spells disaster for us in the future.  Somehow we went shopping twice and now have enough food to cross the Pacific.  The simple question “what route would you take for the bash?”  turns into a three hour dissertation on the art of the Baja bash.  Like anchors and religion, The Bash has no right answer, and everyone believes their answer is the correct one.  If you read the books and Google it, it sounds like an epic journey fraught with peril and difficulty.  If you talk to people who have done it many times, it’s just another trip; albeit up wind, into the waves and swell along a desolate desert coastline.  We finally completed our taxes.  Yes, even when you are unemployed, living in Mexico on a boat you still need to do taxes.  It was one of the harsher realities I have experienced in a while.  I suppose if you need to do you taxes, what better place to work on them than on a boat, in 85 degree weather, T-shirt and flip flops on in Mexico?  It’s hard to complain.

Dinner at Rancho Viejo with friends from Flibbertigibbet, Ojo Rojo
and Valhalla - you must try the arachera!

We re-reunited with Jim and Betty on s/v Flibbertigibbet once back at dock 3 and we must thank them for letting us borrow their car to provision for our trip into the Sea of Cortez.  It was the first time I had driven a car since July 3rd, 2012, and it was in Mexico.  Scary I know!  Jim’s advice was to make sure I rolled thru the stop signs because if I were to actually come to a stop, I’d get rear ended.  There are speed bumps that are not painted so you bounce over them at 30 MPH and there are random yellow stripes across the road you think will be speed bumps but are actually just big yellow stripes across the road.  The main street thru La Paz is one lane each way technically, but since two or three cars can fit, sometimes people pass you when there’s no one coming the other way.  Technically you probably shouldn’t have 6 people in the bed of your 4 door tiny Nissan pickup, but it seems be commonplace.  Theoretically, you shouldn’t have three, or four people on a quad speeding down the main street in traffic, but it doesn’t seem to get noticed.  And since you know all of this craziness will be coming at you; you pay more attention.  So thanks to the Flibbers for trusting us with their car here in Mexico.

The new Flibber Sur on dock 3

 I, actually me and Elizabeth with some dock neighbors help, completed a very nice new eye splice on our anchor rode.  Many thanks to Rob on s/v Shindig for the first lesson back in Punta Mita that gave us the confidence to do it ourselves this time.  It turned out great, not like a python that swallowed a pig.  My advice for people needing to re-splice their anchor rode is buy more chain.  While splicing old three strand was somewhat frustrating Elizabeth kept me encouraged and we were finally successful.

Headed back to the islands

The end of the adventure is in sight, but we are trying not to think about it.  We are off to explore the Sea of Cortez for the next three weeks.  Hard to believe but there are still places in this world without cell coverage, i.e. no internet for us for a while.  So I will not be able to accept any friend requests for at least a week, please forgive me.  “I didn’t have cell coverage” sounds like a lame excuse in the states, but is a very real thing down here.  So check the SPOT link on the right to figure out where we are.  Hasta luego La Paz.

What will we ever do without phones and internet?

Good times on Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida

3-20-13 – Ensenada Grande, Isla Partida, Baja California Sur, Mexico

View from the South peak overlooking Caleta Partida

After the adventure of getting our CONANP island permits, as described previously, I am happy to report that in the last seven nights out at the islands they have been checked exactly once.  Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida are everything the Mexican mainland from Mazatlan South is not.  There are no beach palapas with happy hour, no beach vendors selling you stuffed giraffes, so far no surf landings at the beaches and almost nothing on the islands except nature.  After so many months of beach palapaing and having little restaurants to go to for dinner or a tienda just around the corner to pick up whatever was needed these islands are downright remote.  Remote in that, we are still only 25 miles from La Paz kind of way, but still remote in the, we need to provision for the entire stay kind of way.  This became all too apparent when we peered into the beverage locker and saw the last four Modelos looking back, a situation we have yet to deal with on our trip.  Let me tell you, it was scary.  So what do you do with no beach palapas and happy hour margaritas you might ask?  Mostly just slow down and enjoy the places we have been anchored.  Have a sundowner on our personal little white sand beach overlooking the anchorage, hike up the many arroyos for a killer vista, snorkel with the sea lions at Los Islotes and look down at our anchor buried in white sand 20 feet below.  (oh yeah and sit out a night of 30 knot gusts, hoping nothing cuts loose and puts us on that beautiful white sand beach only a hundred yards away.) 

s/v Willow and our "private" beach in South bay of Ensenada Grande

We have had the pleasure of spending the last six days hanging out with our friend Wendy on s/v Willow as we hop anchorage to anchorage, sharing stories of our sleepless nights listening to the wind, comparing weather notes and sharing the occasional sundowner or huge yellow tail she procured from a Mexican fisherman who only wanted a little female company. Much to his dismay it sounds like 100 pesos and a jacket was all he got out of the deal.

View of the anchorage from shore

Bahia San Gabriel from the North peak, Autumn Wind is the
middle boat of the three in a line

Elizabeth on our hike across Isla Partida from Ensenada Grande

The hikes have been adventurous.  Some more like rock climbing expeditions than hikes.  Since we are at sea level and the islands go up, they all seem to be climbs of varying difficulty up to a peak, an amazing vista, and then a slow climb back down to the beach.  They have proven to be great picture opportunities and a great way to view the desert landscape.  We’ve done two hikes from the South bay of Ensenada Grande.  One leaving the beach by the little tourist camp on the beach and following the arroyo to the other side of the island to look out over the cliffs ending in the Sea of Cortez and another, more of a climb than hike, to the memorial cross way up at the top of the hill overlooking the anchorage.  (not the fisherman’s cross, the other one, way up there)  You’ll have to climb up there to read the plaque and get the whole story for yourself. 

View of Ensenada Grande from the memorial cross to the East

Swimming with the Sea Lions

We took a morning excursion out to Los Islotes to swim with the sea lion pups, and moms and big daddies. The little pups were exciting, just like little kids, they seem to run everywhere with no real purpose except to get there, and then run back.  The bulls just hung out protectively waiting to fend off anything that seemed ominous.  It was pretty cool and not something you will get to experience everyday. Especially in the “everything needs to be protected with rules” USA.  Note to all those heading that way:  it seems to be worth getting there in the morning, say 9:00 A or so on a weekday so you can pick up one of the three mooring balls on each side of the island, depending on the wind direction.  Stay for a quick swim and then get on your way.  We were told that they were for the pangas and the ranger would fine you if he caught you on them.  Might be true, may have been a pangero who wanted to use the mooring for his paid clients who knows.  But I’m sure we can all get along if we just try a little.

Elizabeth chasing down a sea lion pup

More sea lions playing

Thanks Jim and Betty on s/v Flibbertigibbet!

Back to those lonely Modelos.  A welcome surprise arrived last night in the form of a Flibbertigibbet.  As we sat down to pan fry up some more yellow fin tuna for dinner; like I said it was a huge fish Wendy procured, and even after our shared dinner she still gave us enough for two more meals, and by the way fresh tuna that hasn’t ever seen the land it’s so fresh is hard to beat; we heard our friends all the way from the California Delta, Jim and Betty on their new Mexico boat Flibbertigibbet call on the VHF looking for us.  It was probably a little less random than it sounds.  They knew about where we were going to be and we knew they were heading out this way around this time.  They had a special delivery of a fresh 12 pack of Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA for us; brought all the way from California with them on their latest drive south to visit Flibber, loaded onto their boat and hand delivered to a little anchorage on Isla Partida.  Now that’s thoughtful.  As they would later put it: “we knew everything was going good for you guys when we asked you if you needed anything from the states and all you wanted was some good beer”.  So the lonely Modelos now have 12, or 10, maybe 8 after tonight, friends.  Yes the cruising community is pretty cool.

Sundown at Ensenada Grande

La Paz Recap & the CONANP Island Permit Adventure

 3-14-13 – Bahia San Gabriel, Isla Espiritu Santo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

From the obnoxiously long location above, you can tell we’ve moved on from the Marina Palmira in La Paz.  Less than 14 miles from a city of ¼ million we are anchored in a bay with crystal clear turquoise water, 30 foot visibility and the perfect crescent shaped white sand beach.  This place is fairly incredible and I can’t wait to see the rest of the islands.

E on the beach at Bahia San Gabriel

Back to La Paz.  La Paz was a good stop.  Pretty low key but fun and productive.  You can read the previous post to learn about The Shack and their great burgers.  We also made a stop by Harker’s Board Shop; a paddleboard rental shop that also serves killer burgers (do you see a trend here) and has Baja Brewing’s beer on tap.  

Harker Boards / Restaurant & Bar on the malecon

We walked the beautiful malecon into town couple of times.  We found the “cow” store, as recommended by more than one person, for all of our provisioning needs.  Took a nice hike up to the hill that overlooks the marina, went to a little pizza party for dock 3 people who were departing and generally met a lot of good people.  Oh yeah, like the good law abiding square people we are, we also procured out CONANP Island Nature Permits.  Just in case you were wondering, the Sea of Cortez is “the second most diverse marine body in the world” per the Nature Conservancy.  I suppose that qualifies it as a place worthy of requiring a permit to visit.

La Paz Malecon

Looking west from the breakwater at the marina

Back to the desert

View from the top of the hill of La Paz, the marina and the channel

This adventure was to be a quick one, we thought.  The guide to the Sea of Cortez we have been using by Shawn and Heather, which is all you need to say for everyone to know which guide you are talking about and seems to have become most cruisers bible to Mexican Cruising, informs you of the need for a permit to visit the islands.  While you could pay by the day if they come to check you, which is highly unlikely in itself, it only seems right to donate a little cash to the Mexican government in support of keeping their spectacular natural places natural.  So we know we need a permit and the guide tells you exactly where to go to get the permit, only about a mile walk from the marina.  Just to double check we Googled the CONANP offices and confirmed what the guide said as to location.  After a nice morning run on the malecon we grabbed our morning coffee and caught the 9:30A shuttle into town thinking we could knock this task out quickly and grab some chiliquiles, one of the better breakfast items in Mexico, for breakfast on the walk back.  We were on the second round of the shuttle so we had some time to talk with Mariam, a lady we had met earlier on our trip North from Banderas Bay in the anchorage at Ipala on s/v Solarwind.  Her husband had just procured their permits a few weeks ago and it sounded like it was a little more of a process than we had originally given it credit for.  In all honestly we should have seen that coming as we were dealing with a Mexican governmental agency.  No worries, we could figure it out before breakfast it wasn’t that far away.  The shuttle arrives and the ever nice Christian, the driver who gets to cart all these Gringos and Canadians into town every day, politely tells us that CONANP has moved.  Waaaaayy out by Wal-Mart; yes even in Mexico there are Wal-Marts everywhere, and just like the States they strategically place them at  the outskirts of large towns.  Precisely far enough away that the free shuttle doesn’t go there, it’s really too far to reasonably walk and you then need to figure out the local bus system or take a cab.  At this time we decide that we should probably go get a shower after our run, eat some breakfast and pack some provisions for this adventure.  Out of the shuttle we go to regroup.  We stopped by the marina office where they graciously called CONANP and confirmed the location which she was then unable to precisely relay to us.  But we did have a map with a circle around about three blocks and knew that it was about 5 blocks past the VW dealer.

After a shower and some breakfast I ventured over to s/v Solarwind to get the real story about these permits.  Mariam’s husband Lanam proceeds to go into a lengthy story that you couldn’t make up and which we soon thereafter experienced.  Note to all of our cruising friends, Shawn and Heather’s guide is in fact wrong about the CONANP office location, as was the internet, so obviously there are only a select few of us who know where this place actually is and in order to spare you this “adventure” read on for the details. 

Notice the symbol, your only indication this is the CONANP office

We decided to grab a cab and after haggling with him, as his price was for some reason 50% higher than the last guy we talked to, headed toward this circle on the map. A thing that made the cab driver a little uneasy to start with.  He was much more used to going to specific locations, not ideas of locations.  From Marina Palmira you follow the malecon into town on Paseo Alvaro Obregon and then continue past Marina de La Paz on the same road that is now called Abasolo, go figure.  Carry on for a little while and when you see the VW dealer and the Mega, keep going about 5 blocks or so.  Here is the key: the road, which is now a 4 lane with a planter median, (some would call it a boulevard) has been going fairly straight for a while and will make a slight left turn.  That’s where it is on your left.  I would say that it is across from the Modelorama on the right, just after this slight left turn, but that’s like saying to someone in the states, it’s just across the street from Starbucks.  The building is a low laying building that could have been an old Motel 6 or something of that nature.  It has an eight foot tall rust red stucco wall along the main road.  Look for the CONANP symbol because it is really the only thing to distinguish this place.  There was no road name or address to speak of in sight.  Now you have found the building.  That’s a good start.  We bypassed some of the next disaster as we ran into some friends at this exact point who guided us thru the mess. 

View of the CONANP office as you approach on Abasolo

B sneaking around the second corner

The CONANP permit office

Once you enter the overly aggressive security lady may or may not ask for your name and first born.  Apparently, she will then lead you around the corner into an empty courtyard with no one in sight, and then around another corner, this one you need to turn sideways to fit between the building and the wall.  There you will find another dirt courtyard and a little outbuilding that houses the permit people.  Don’t worry what could go wrong with this,  you’re in an old motel 6 converted into a government building, being lead into the farthest back room by a security guard on a dirt street with no name and no one around?  Not to worry the lady behind the desk, Mirtha Susana, at the permit place is super friendly and speaks great English.  In about three minutes she will have you on your way….to the bank to pay for your permit before returning to her to get your permit before getting a cab back to the marina.  Yes, sometimes you just have to laugh.  Apparently, they do not have any 2013 year passes, which are like credit cards you put in your wallet.  So in order to have something to show the park ranger once out at the island you will need to keep your receipt, but since this is Mexico and governmental agencies have a tendency to “lose” money, they make you pay at a bank and then bring the receipt back to the office to receive your permit.  

The walk back to Mega and the Banamex

Once again we lucked out and had some friends with a car to drive us to the bank, wait for us and then drive us back to the CONANP office.  If you don’t have any friends, you will need to walk or take a cab about 1 mile back to the Mega and on the other side of the street is a Banamex.  Then walk about a mile back to the CONANP office to get your permit.  Then get home somehow.  When we arrive back at the office she had our stuff ready to go, was incredibly nice and very apologetic about the lack of 2013 park passes.  In order to make the best use of our cab ride home we walked to Mega, loaded up on groceries and caught a cab from there back.  Once again having to haggle with the cabbie who wanted to charge us even more than the first guy and we were closer!  All this to pay a little less than $50 USD for two, year long passes to the Sea of Cortez islands.

So if I was you this is what I’d do:  Get a cab to the CONANP office, should be about 80 pesos.  Walk thru the lobby like you know where you are going, head left into the courtyard and left again around the building.  Say hi to Mirtha Susana, walk to the Banamex, pay and walk back.  Say hi to Mirtha Susana again and then walk to Mega.  Have a piece of pizza for lunch, buy some groceries, and get a cab home from there.   So now we have a receipt for the permit we tried to get, which is just as good as the real thing I guess.  Mirtha wrote a note on the receipt to give to the park rangers so that should cover us!

Sailing to La Paz for a Burger

3-10-13 – La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Morning of Departure in Mazatlan

We made it to La Paz a few days ago, but my busy schedule of socializing and random boat projects has kept me from getting a post up, except for that last one we won’t talk about any more.  That was actually work. 

French toast, egg and cream
cheese (thanks s/v Ojo Rojo)
breakfast thingy, smells good and
helps the time go by quickly

The passage from Mazatlan to La Paz, approximately 251 miles but who’s counting, was thankfully relatively uneventful.  No oil in the engine compartment this time after replacing the oil filter and we actually planned some tasty meals this time, so that was an added bonus. 

  It took us 56 hours, so for everyone slow at math, that was three days and two nights out.  I believe our longest passage without crew.  I guess that’s a thing.  That fact didn’t really occur to us until we had made it to La Paz.   The reality is, barring any unforeseen things that would have probably happened on a day sail or any unforeseen weather, one day is the same as two as three.  

B checking the weather on our SSB receiver (actually it's Elizabeth's
favorite toy on the boat)

E taking a nap after a long night shift

We fall into a rhythm and by the third day we could have gone for another day or two.  I guess we are getting more comfortable with this cruising thing.  The weather was as predicted, always a miracle in itself.  Unfortunately, that meant we had wind on the nose for the entire trip.  We had a bearing of 282deg from Mazatlan to La Paz and in two days the wind never strayed from 310 to 280 deg.  That made sailing a challenge.  I guess what I should say is it made making forward progress a challenge.  The sailing was pretty good for at least a few hours a day.  Ultimately, to steal some clichés from some friends, we spent a lot of time with the D sail and the Dacron stabilizer up.  We saw no one except for one tanker in the distance on the second day.  AIS told me there were some people out there, but never close enough to see.  This was a nice change from the last passage up the coast where we dodged shrimpers all night.  The highlight would be the phosphorescence on night one.  The moon didn’t come up until 2A so it was fairly dark as the sun set and the phosphorescence was crazy.  I will allow the more literary folks out there do the poetic describing of it as I wouldn’t do it justice.  It was awesome.  We watched as, what we assume were dolphins, came streaking towards the boat, leaving trails of blue phosphorescence underwater wherever they went.  There were huge pods of blue glowing water.  Maybe millions of little fish jumping around?  We weren’t sure, but they blue pods would migrate as we approached and then disappear.  So the passage was a success, we made it and now are in La Paz waiting out a Norther before heading out to the islands in the area.  Maybe in the future I will give a profound description of what happens while at sea.  That should take about two lines.  Sleep, eat, watch the ocean. Don’t hit stuff.

Sunset on day two

Back in Monterey, CA we were tied up to the transient dock at the marina.  It was a long dock that had two or three transients tied to it at any given time.  We were there for a few days and somewhere in the middle of that time a boat tied up that looked like it had, I’ll say, been well used.  We talked to the single hander onboard and learned that he was returning from Mexico after a few years down there to replenish the bank account.  He said he had gone South 12 times and done the bash 8 times and offered us some different advice on places to go in Mexico and how to bring the boat back north.  At this time we had not really fully fathomed that we would actually make it to Mexico and all these places with names like San This and Punta That seemed very distant and, while interesting, we were still a long way from any of them.  Besides leaving us a lengthy two page letter in our cockpit, explaining how he could help us on our way south as a mentoring captain, he also told us to visit a place called The Shack in La Paz.  At this time we didn’t know if we would make it to San Diego let alone Mexico, and then this place called La Paz.  We filed the info away for future use you could say. 

The Shack

So two days ago we find ourselves in a place called La Paz in Mexico, all the way from San Francisco.  I guess we did make it after all.  We decided that we had to pay a visit to this place called The Shack.  Apparently it is a little bit of a cruiser hangout, has good burgers and is sort of a unique place.  All of this is true.  I would say that The Shack is a place you will either love or hate.  We loved it, but then we are cruisers who haven’t taken a shower without walking outside to get to it while carrying our toiletries and towels in about 7 months.  So this may not be the place for everyone.  They were exceedingly nice, food was great, and Rosie shared some dinner she made for her kids with us, which was also great.  So I will propagate the rumor that The Shack is a great place to visit.  Thanks captain, I guess, Marc from Monterey.  I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Autumn Wind made her mark on The Shack

There are a lot of deep philosophical
sayings on the walls to stimulate conversation 

Menus

B ready to dig into a 1/2 lb burger with
onion rings, bbq sauce and jalapenos

We felt privileged to eat where Jimmy Buffet once sat  (Please
don't comment on the spelling, that's the joke!)

The Shack, finding a good use for old sails

1995 Catalina 34 For Sale

3-8-13 - La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico

(Sorry for the lame post title, I was just trying to get more hits from anyone doing an internet search.)  In order to show our dedication to restarting a "normal" life, you know that one where you go to work everyday and oh yes they pay you, we have decided the best or most practical thing to do is to put Autumn Wind up for Sale.  I would like to use the Sale/Sail pun throughout this post, but it may get old.  So, just pretend I do it every time you see the word Sale.  I will not bore you with the details of why or how we came to this decision, and we have not yet told Autumn Wind about this decision as we still have many miles to cover and we don't want to piss her off.  I will say that it took many days to decide this, some days con tequila, some days without.  Now on to the speech that everyone that googled "Catalina 34 for sale" came for.

Autumn Wind is probably the best equipped C34 that ever existed   If you don't buy her for the full asking price you would be foolish.  In fact I would buy her, but I own her.  Honestly, She is a great boat.  Quite perfect for cruising Mexico in fact.  We probably spent more money than we really needed to upgrading things before we left, but we were a little ignorant and didn't realize how un-intimidating cruising Mexico can be. We have had a great time on our trip from San Francisco until now, and continue to have a great time until the day YOU buy her from us and carry on.  In most boat adds you can hear about all the stuff on the boat.  The simple fact is we are cruising Autumn Wind right now; so that means that everything is working, and everything you need is on the boat, because we are actively cruising her.  We take good care of her, daily, because once again, this is where we live  and we depend on her to safely and comfortably take us places.  You may be able to buy a different boat that is "waiting" for its new owners.  Well AW is not "waiting"(ie. deteriorating).  She is moving and being used.  Don't worry we can get her to any of the major ports in the Sea of Cortez once the deal is done.

For all the spec junkies out there check out the add on yacht world, but if you want to buy her let us know first because we get a little bit of a deal on the commission if we bring the buyer to the table.  Thanks!!

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/pl_boat_detail.jsp?&units=Feet&id=2573757&lang=en&slim=broker&&hosturl=mazmarine&&ywo=mazmarine

Thanks for looking.  Remember, we did it, you can too!

Autumn Wind at Bahia de Navidad marina

Autumn Wind in San Diego, Ready for the 2012 Baja Haha

Autumn Wind, second from the left, at anchor in Chacala

Sunset from anchorage at Punta Mita, in Banderas Bay

This could be you!

Hasta Luego Banderas Bay- Hello Mazatlan

2-27-13 – Mazatlan, Sinaloa, MX (Almost)

One last look at the anchorage at Punta Mita

How nice! and a great lunch underway.

They say that one of the best and worst parts of cruising is meeting all the new people, and then having to say goodbye too soon.  I’m a firm believer in not really saying final goodbyes as you depart, as plans change and this world of cruisers in Mexico is pretty small, so you never know who you’ll see again.  Hence Hasta Luego or until next time, seems to fit.  We have finally released ourselves from the time vortex that is Banderas Bay and are making the bash North to Mazatlan (18 miles to go).  Not that the time vortex of Banderas Bay is all that bad, we had a great time, but due to many reasons we need to keep moving and do some more adventuring before our time is up.  Being some of the first to leave Banderas Bay has had its advantages.  It seems everywhere you leave you say goodbye (or hasta luego) to your friends, and we want to have dinner one last time, or one last beer, margarita, surf or whatever.  Either way we’ve had a lot of fun the last few weeks, sort of saying goodbye as we move out of the bay.  Even our pal/owner of Mita’s Pizza, Nicole, left us a nice goodbye note.  The night before we left we went to Mita’s Pizza for a last dinner with some friends and we ordered an extra pizza to take with us for lunch the next day underway.  Come lunch time the next day we open up the box and find a nice note from her on the inside; a great way to brighten up a long upwind day.

On a side note, while we have seen so many whales lately they are almost common place, we saw one up close the other day while visiting with s/v Destiny, an 84 foot schooner, once borrowed by the US government to look for submarines during World War II among other things (so it’s very cool).  Being as big as they are, they usually end up at the back of the anchorage.  We were visiting and we saw yet another whale baby breaching over and over again.  Almost not a thing anymore we see it so often.  But the baby and mom were heading towards Destiny and they just kept on coming closer and closer until we were all holding onto the rails waiting for impact.  One picture actually has our dinghy tied to Destiny in the picture with the whales.  Now that’s close!  We all had a good time with that and watching the pictures on the big screen downstairs afterwards.  Like I said it’s a cool boat.

Elizabeth on our way to San Blas

Our trip North has not been without adventure.  Nothing serious but that’s why they call it a bash.  The forecast has been right on at least, with winds of 12 to 20 knots from the NW and 3-6 foot swells.  Unfortunately, we need to go northwest, so there have been some frustrating moments over the last three days.  We left Punta Mita under grey skies and more wind than we wanted, but it all turned out ok as the skies cleared and the wind came around just enough to make it usable for the last half of the day.  We entered the huge Mantanchen Bay a little after dark to find little white lights blinking every so often in random locations.  Pangas with fishing lines stretched out behind them.  There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to where or in what direction they place their lines, so you just have to guess and match up the blinking light at the end of the line you think goes with the solid light of its matching panga.  

Moonlight over Mantanchen Bay

Sunset over the Pacific enroute to Mazatlan

We guessed wrong, and ran one over.  We heard it and put the engine in neutral and from what we can tell slipped over it; but we did feel bad about his line.  Not sure what to do about it, maybe tie a beer to the cut line with a note saying sorry?  The next morning we had to dodge a few lines on the way out, but we guessed right that time.  Somewhere along the line on our trip from San Blas to Mazatlan, a 130 mile overnight passage, Elizabeth discovered that there was oil leaking from the engine somewhere.  We were already going nowhere, beating into the wind and swells and dodging shrimp boats, so we shut down the engine to investigate.  It appears that there is a faulty oil filter to blame, not exactly sure yet as I made the executive decision not to fix it underway, oil is really hot when the engine is running,  it wasn’t dripping too bad and I figure I added at least a little extra oil when I changed it last week in La Cruz.  Should be good for another 25 hours of motoring, right?  After all this our spirits were a little low, trying to find a sail combination, motor combination that would actually allow us to go in the direction we wanted without almost doubling the miles traveled was proving to be very difficult.  That’s when a little good karma paid off and all those quarters and pesos Elizabeth has been tossing overboard to Neptune came in handy as we saw a couple of our first dolphins in a while, and then an OWW gull circled us a few times (courtesy of our friends on s/v Shindig I’m sure)  After that things seemed to pick up and we figured out the magic go upwind solution (more throttle!) and carried on.  An easy dinner of beans and hotdogs as a result of the upwind bash, a night spent with the company of my new piggy timer, fluffy pancakes for breakfast under a sunny sky and calm (er) ocean, and a lot of motor sailing.  I guess that’s why they call it a bash.

Brian hanging out with 1st mate - Piggly

Where Piggly hides out when it gets rough

Afterward:  I guess you figured out we made it.  Even though after all that way the entrance to the channel was sketchy with little breaking waves every so often.  Two days later still haven’t looked at the engine, maybe it has fixed itself…That’s todays project.

PS: I suppose unless you've spent many hours trying to stay awake, staring mindlessly out at the ocean, trying not to hit stuff in the middle of the night you wouldn't understand that Piggly is a little egg timer we set to go off every so often so you know to look around and record where you are in the world.  Oddly enough I look forward to his ringing so I have something to do in the middle of the night.