1000 miles to windward, and that's just a start

5-20-13 – Reno, NV, USA

So it seems I’ve been slacking off on my blog duties, and a lot has happened lately.  Maybe it’s because a lot has been happening that I’ve been slacking off.  For everyone with a short attention span I will give the quick version first. 

 We are back in the States, actually all the way back to Reno, NV at this moment; who knows where we will be in the next moment; certainly not me.  I left from La Paz on June 1^st with Mike and Linda, while Elizabeth flew back to Ohio to retrieve our car.  The Autumn Wind crew overnighted to Cabo where we spent 2 hours on the fuel dock, took on fuel and had an ice cream before being told that the slip was reserved for a “big” boat that was on its way.  Ie. get off the dock and pay for a slip, no hanging out here. 

Mike & Linda on the pier at Turtle Bay

M & L enjoying ice cream at Turtle Bay

Almost exactly 4 days later we pulled into Turtle Bay and dropped the hook.  Ernesto came out in his panga and we took on fuel before he gave us a ride into the pier.  There, Mike and Linda treated me to a shower and lunch, and then we had an ice cream.  12 hours later we left Turtle Bay and 3.5 days later we tied up to the customs dock at San Diego, right at shift change and I was told “we don’t have the money to pay for overtime so it will be a few hours.”  So maybe it wasn't 1000 miles, only 958, and all but about 5 minutes was to windward.  The D sail got a workout on this passage.   In the mean time I spied the M/Y Sense that my old friend Mike was working on.  (Google it, this isn’t some little trawler!)  A few hours later Autumn Wind was tied up at the dock at Harbor Island West.

Last night watch on Autumn Wind

Sun going down somewhere off the coast of Baja

AW at the customs dock in San Diego

  We made it!  A day later Elizabeth showed up after driving across the country from Indiana.  Also the first time we had not been together since the day we got married!  Our SPOT stopped working somewhere 50 miles offshore out of Cabo, causing a fair amount of stress for the people following it.  E did a good job containing the panic and no one called the Coast Guard or did anything rash.  Now it was mother’s day, and my friend Mike invited us to join them for a mother’s Day brunch at the Hotel del Coronado on Coronado Island.  There were no mothers present, but we all had a great time at the super nice, champagne and lobster leg included brunch overlooking the ocean.  After that it was a day of general tourism stuff and bar hopping before the diesel powered jet boat tender ride back to Shelter Island.  They call them “tenders” on boats this big, not dinghies.  Especially when your tender can carry 12 people at 35 knots!  Not a bad way to travel around San Diego Bay.

The crew at brunch at the Hotel del Coronado

  After that it was all about work.  Getting the boat ready to sell, selling stuff off the boat and generally throwing a ton of stuff away.  We had to dispose of 12 jerry cans that no one wanted.  Sold 4 and gave 8 away.  We basically had to move out of a two bedroom apartment and everything we wanted to keep had to fit into the back of a tiny sedan.  Needless to say we threw a lot of stuff away, or left a lot of stuff on the boat. 

Our storage unit (hotel room), trying to figure out how to
get all this stuff into the car

It was hard to see every little piece of gear we had put so much thought into buying a year ago, just get thrown away or left behind.  But we knew this would happen.  5 days later we were living in a hotel, the boat is immaculate and there is no sign that we ever spent the last 11 months living on it.  Depressing and happy all at the same time.  I gave her one last kiss goodbye and we were off to Reno.  We had to plan our departure around the Portuguese Festa parade where they closed the road in front of the hotel, but at least we had some Malasadas for desert one day as a result of this Festa.  10 hours after departure we had stopped in LA at a random gas station with an ornery attendant who made us buy a water before letting us use the bathroom,  to sell our liferaft to a nice couple who want to head South next year, gotten stuck in crappy California highway traffic, bailed off the freeway and took HWY 395 from LA to Reno, thru some of the greatest desert and mountain scenery one could ask for, before landing in Reno at 11PM.  Now we are here, in Reno.  When we figure out what’s next we’ll let you know.  I think we’ll drive to Ohio tomorrow.  Why not?

That’s the short version.  The long version is worthy of its own feature length film, Lots of stories, lots of staring at the ocean, going 3 knots, good food, hard decisions and coming to terms with the end of the sailboat adventure.  (At least for now I say)  I am willing to say that the adventure has just begun.

A quickie

Hola all!  We made it to San Diego!  After 2 hours waiting for customs at the police dock, where Linda Strategically cooked up all of our remaining chorizo and bacon, yum, we are now snugly docked at Harbor Island West Marina.  Thanks for all the good wishes, more to come soon!!

Turtle Bay Arrival

Guest author here again.  Brian, Mike and Linda have safely arrived in Turtle Bay.  Sounds like they have had a great trip so far, are eating lots of good food and we only have a "few small things" to fix so far.

They weren't aware that the SPOT wasn't recording their path so they will try to fix.  As I have been reminded, it is just a tool and a real emergency would be handled with an EPIRB which is on board Autumn Wind.

We will keep the blog posted and look forward to getting Autumn Wind to San Diego.

Sorry, no pictures yet but will add some later.

Away they go......

Elizabeth is a guest author today as this morning Autumn Wind left Marina Palmira in La Paz, MX destination San Diego, CA.  Brian along with crew Mike and Linda are looking forward to a great passage and hope to be in San Diego in 10-12 days, weather permitting.  They have 1000 mostly upwind miles ahead of them.  If you get the chance leave a comment for them on the blog.  They should have the ability to check in Cabo tomorrow and Turtle Bay about halfway through their trip.  I am sure they would love to hear from you!

The Crew

Autumn Wind and Brian waving good-bye

"Stuck" in Puerto Escondido

4-20-13 – Puerto Escondido, Baja California Sur, Mexico

AW patiently waiting at the fuel dockl

I guess the idea of being stuck in Puerto Escondido isn’t that bad, and like all things having to do with cruising and Mexico, you have to be prepared to change you plans; sometimes daily.  Really the title could be the Great Puerto Escondido bottom paint adventure, since that’s all that’s really happened since the last post.  Each aspect of this adventure could warrant its own post as everything is an experience of some sort or another.  I will say it is a good thing we have been fully acclimated to the Mexican way of doing things before this operation.  From tying up to the fuel dock a day early to ensure you actually get pulled out (this is the fuel dock that regularly runs out of fuel, but a really nice big clean Pemex tank and an attendant that is there daily just in case the fuel does show up) to getting the paint and then not getting splashed when you want to.  It’s all an adventure here.

Unlike our past experiences in the States where the entire operation is controlled by one entity, here the travel lift is run thru the marina who rents yard space to Elvin who actually does the work on the boat.  You also need to show up with your own bottom paint for them to apply to your boat.  So you pay the marina for the travel lift, you pay for the application of the paint to another guy and you buy the paint from another store in town.  Thankfully part of the upside of the world down here is willingness of people to give you a ride or help each other out.  So Elvin’s partner Dave gave Elizabeth a ride into Loreto to buy the paint and had checked on its availability the previous day.  Seems odd, as in, why didn’t he just buy it and charge us for it, even upcharge us for the delivery?  I’m not quite sure, maybe because it’s a lot of money to be out and it’s not like we signed any contract or anything to guarantee we would show up on our haul out date.  If fact except for the 25 page, not kidding, contract we signed with the marina (can you guess it is run by the government with a contract like that) we never saw anything resembling a contract and actually have a handwritten receipt.  I’m not sure if any of this is good or bad, it’s just a thing you don’t think twice about after being in Mexico for a while.

Gentle, that's my house!

So Dave gives Elizabeth a ride to Loreto to get paint in his early 90s Jeep with Sarah the dog.  Elizabeth is very excited as it takes her back to the days of her Jeep.  They stop by the bank so she can pay for the paint and Elvin’s services (remember “no cash no splash”) and then stop by the ferreteria (hardware store) where she picks up their two cans of West Marine blue bottom paint.  So I guess we didn’t get the high toxicity paint, but oh well.  On the way back Dave decides they will run out of gas.  Apparently his gas gauge sticks and it’s hard to tell how much gas you really have.  So they pull over at the last stop, a little restaurant,  before a long hill and luckily still have cell service for Dave to call his wife to bring him some gas.  An hour later a pickup truck with Nevada plates has pulled in, had lunch and is now leaving so Elizabeth jumps in with them.  They will give her a ride out to Puerto Escondido.  They just need to stop of in Juncalito, a little beach side palapa community just South of PE, to drop off some propane and wood.  No worries it’s on the way.  Come to find out, these people own a house in Golden Valley, NV just across the road from where we lived.  We actually used to run past their house and they spend winters in Juncalito and summers in Nevada.  Very small world.  In Juncalito Elizabeth runs into Elvin, the guy who runs the boat yard so she figures she’ll just catch a ride with him so the Nevada people don’t need to go out of their way.  No problem, Elvin is moving and all he needs to do is finish loading up his car drop if off at the new place and then they will grab some gas for Dave from his place and be on their way.  Elizabeth proceeds to help Elvin and his wife move for an hour or so and then they go to Dave’s and find his shed locked so they give up on that and just head back to PE.  Along the way they pass Dave, who has since Elizabeth left, had a beer at the restaurant, his wife arrived with some gas, been back to the boatyard and is now going home.  Meanwhile, I have been on the boat at the fuel dock, borrowed a crew member from another boat to handle some lines and had the boat pulled out.  Now hours later I’m getting a little worried that my wife disappeared with a guy we barely know to drive 15 miles each way to buy 2 gallons of paint, how long could that really take, but it’s Mexico so I will not get that worried until the sun goes down, these things happen when the national motto is Manana.   Needless to say it all worked out and we now have our paint and the boat on the hard.

Our new home for the next week

The actual painting of the boat went as expected and took three days as planned.  Unfortunately, the weather picked up on our launch date, Friday, and with 20 knot sustained and gusts to 30 for two days straight, the marina didn’t want to pick our boat to re-launch, very understandable.  The crane guy doesn’t work on Saturday so now it looks like Sunday is our splash date.  We had two days to kill with our boat on the hard so why not wax the hull?  Now Autumn Wind has the full paint and wax and looks great.  Any buyers out there?

View of the anchorage from our tree house

AW on the hard

Wax on

Wax off

View from our patio at the Tripui Hotel

Living on a boat that’s not in the water is a whole new experience in itself.  We’ve been pretending it’s our grown up tree house.   Climbing up and down the ladder and looking out over the anchorage from high above has been interesting, fun may not be the word.  Boat systems are made to be used in the water so doing your daily things and washing dishes are a little challenging but we seem to be making it.  We even treated ourselves to a night in the Tripui hotel up the road.  A nice little hotel, a little spooky that we were the only people there, but we had some good food and relaxed on the patio overlooking the pool and slept in a bed twice as big as the V-berth on Autumn Wind.  It was weird not fighting for foot space at the peak of the bead.

The layup in Puerto Escondido has been fun all around.  We have met many nice people, hung out in front of Pedro’s little store at the marina, socializing and having a cerveza and run into old friends from past anchorages.  You can’t walk the ½ mile to the Modelorama without someone offering you a ride and the same on the way back with groceries.  It’s been a good time but we are now excited to splash and get back to La Paz.  Let’s hope all goes well today!

Sunrise on the  mountains from our tree house

Boat Drinks

4-14-13 – Isla Coronados, Bahia California Sur, Mexico 

E finding some shade on our motor to Isla Coronado

Back to Isla Coronados again.  Yes, it’s hard to believe we are back to a place we left yesterday, but we are.  A quick overnighter up to San Juanico and here we are again.  I have a feeling we are getting anxious as the deadlines approach.  At least we made it to San Juanico to place our momento with all the others at the cruisers tree.  

Momentos left at the cruisers tree in San Juanico

Our contribution to the cruisers tree

A fitting gesture to conclude our Northbound journey in the Sea of Cortez.  Somehow, since we have nothing else to worry about right now, we have decided to haul the boat and have the bottom painted in Puerto Escondido.  The price seems right, Mexican bottom paint seems more toxic than what’s found in the States, and Autumn Wind could use some love.  I also figure a clean bottom might give us an extra ¼ to ½ knot on the trip north.  It may not seem like much, but that equates to 15 to 30 hours less, which means 7 to 15 gallons of diesel less, not to mention the almost 1 day of motoring less.  So we have a lot going on for people with no house, kids or job; trying to squeeze the last few days out of our cruising adventures and planning for the trip North.

Elizabeth has pointed out that we have a lot of pictures of Autumn Wind sitting pretty in a beautiful anchorage with turquoise water and a perfect crescent shaped sand beach.  So I will not bore you with any more of that nonsense.  Yeah, it’s pretty, the water is clear, you can take endless pictures of your boat in such places, and it’s impossible to describe what it’s like until you are here; and all that nonsense.  Now let’s get down to what counts.

AW at Honeymoon Cove - Isla Dazante

AW is the left boat in the triangle - from the top of Isla Coronado

(OK I lied, there are a couple more pics.  Like pictures of babies, the people you show them to may not care but we love 'em)

Everyone knows that the most important part of any day on a boat it the cocktail hour/sunset drink/anchor down.  (as you can tell, us boater/yachtista types can come up with a reason for a cocktail for just about anything)  What most non-cruiser folks don’t understand is what this cocktail really entails and what it really means, at least for people of moderate boat size. 

For a proper cocktail you need ice.  Having ice is in itself a whole set of decisions one made months ago having to do with refrigeration, cold plates, power to keep said things cold and sources to store said power.  Autumn Wind came equipped with a cocktail ice maker and all we had to do was add 170 watts of solar panels and $400 dollars worth of batteries to make sure it was always functioning.  So now you have power to keep things cold.  Now you need to realize that unless the thing you want to freeze is actually touching the cold plate that all that power is keeping cold, it will only make very cold water in little cubes.  

Our freezer - Ice trays on the bottom

Yes our “freezer” is about ½ the size of your microwave and everything in it must stack vertically.  Now following the logic, cocktails are the only reason we really have boats, cocktails must have ice, to make ice the water must be touching the cold plate, our freezer stacks vertically; you come to the conclusion that the ice trays must be on the bottom.  Underneath anything else you may want to keep more than averagely cold/frozen.  We procured our little red Teflon ice trays in Petaluma from a designer hardware store for a price that seemed huge at the time, but they work, and remember you can’t put a price on ice in your cocktails.  We didn’t have room for a sledge hammer so the big metal vertical trays are stowed somewhere out of sight. (if you have these things you know what I mean)  We can make two mini trays of ice per day, just enough for two cocktails.  Good planning if you ask me since there are two of us.  So now you have ice.

Can you believe all that stuff has to come out of the freezer
just to get to the ice trays.  That's dedication!

Next you need booze.  Booze comes in glass bottles.  Glass breaks, sailboats tip a lot, you can see where I’m going with this.  A “real” yacht would have a nice booze cabinet with little circles cut out of some plywood to set their various bottles in to keep them upright and from rolling around.  Instead of all that silliness we bought a 48 pack of white tube socks.  Each bottle gets a sock.  Then they can roll around all they want and not clank or break.  You can only hope to run out of socks before you run out of wine and booze bottles to put in them!  So now you have found yourself in Mexico with something other than a good Tequila (which there are many of), it isn’t broken and after searching thru your sock inventory you find what you want.

Look what I found in this sock!

If you need some fruit to ward off scurvy, I suggest a little Mexican lime, aptly called a limon in Mexico.  Why Mexican limes are 1/3 the size of limes in the US is beyond me.  But they all are.   Now we use our cutting board that covers the stove when not in use, or generally rolls around the floor when the stove is in use to cut this little thing in half.  Just perfect for 2 cocktails, I’m sure this is why they have genetically engineered these limes, called limons, to be so small.  Washing the cutting board would be a waste of water so just be careful not to make a mess when cutting your fruit.  Then put the cutting board back on the floor where you found it.

Frankly if you made it that far I would be happy.  Add anything you have to whatever booze you have; or don’t.  You have ice, booze and a garnish, what else do you need?  Sit in the cockpit and enjoy the scenery or watch the sunset; this is what it’s all about.  Just don’t forget to refill those ice trays or you will be very disappointed tomorrow!

The most important job of the day

Cruising the Sea

4-7-13 – Puerto Escondido, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Isla San Francisco (This picture may look familiar to anyone
who has Shawn and Heather's book!)

We are back to cruising the Sea of Cortez, free from the dock and all the horrors of marina living; like a quick walk to good beer and a burger, hot showers, endless water, fellow cruisers hanging around the dock always ready for a “dock safety meeting” (ie happy hour) and the security of knowing that our house will not float away at night.  I suppose being in the marina for a little while wasn’t that bad.  During our last outing into the sea we explore Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida so  this time we took the fast track to Isla San Francisco, the next island North, skipping Espiritu Santo and Partida, and now, nine days later, we find ourselves in Puerto Escondido.  With our time waning we made some quick stops at the highlights in the area.  The days seem to run together, one beautiful anchorage after another, listening to the various nets to hear the weather on our little SSB receiver, taking a hike to overlook the anchorage, paddling around the clear water and watching some incredible phosphorescence after the sun sets.  Isla San Francisco, San Evaristo, Los Gatos, Agua Verde and now Puerto Escondido.  Rather than bore you with the hum drum of our everyday life at every anchorage, I’ll take Agua Verde and just multiply it by however many days we have been gone to get an idea of our life up in the sea.

AW is the closest boat, in our little cove

When we arrived in Agua Verde the swell was running into the anchorage making most of it uncomfortable, so we tucked up, way up, into the North lobe of the anchorage.  Being the new cruisers on the block our general theory is don’t be the closest boat to the beach.  We actually developed this theory way back in Santa Cruz, but that’s another story.  Well this time we were the closest to the beach in order to get out of the swell and avoid the other boats already anchored.  We were close enough that we feared we would get tangled in the pangas stern anchors that kept them off the beach, so pretty close.  The weather turned quite nice and this turned into an opportunity as I could easily paddle us to shore in the dinghy as opposed to putting the engine on, so that was a bonus for us.  As per the cruisers guide book, there are some cave paintings “close” to Agua Verde.  What they don’t say and what close means they don’t say, but we met a guy.  A guy who had been cruising the sea for 13 years and he knew where to go.  It’s a good thing I have lived in Nevada and have received directions like “turn left at the third fork in the road, just past the cattle guard, go a little while until you see the wash on the right and then the best campsite is on the left”   That’s sort of how his directions sounded.  Mind you this would have been a good time for Google Earth, but alas no cell/internet service available for two days in any direction. 

Agua Verde cemetary

Step one, paddle to shore and fend off the unclaimed beach puppy who seems to think our dinghy is a good place to pee every time we come ashore, follow the trail up the hill behind the little house on the sand spit up and over the hill to the cemetery.  Keep following the trail until you come to an arroyo that looks like “a freight train came thru”.  

The freight train arroyo

Walking down the beach

Follow it past the date palms out to the beach.  Go left to the end of the beach and look to your left.  You will see to “eyes” in the hillside, not the close hill, the one back a little.  There is a trail here, don’t follow it.  Go back up the beach a little and follow the trail around the back of the hill.  On your right there will be a trail that leads up the back of the hill and to the caves.  Hard to believe but his directions were spot on and we found the caves and the cave paintings with no problem.  I did no forensic detective work on the paintings, so they may have been made by some kindergarteners last week, but I doubt it. 

The cave paintings

Hanging out in the caves we had a little snack and thought how perfect they would have been to live in and overlook the channel, looking for whales to eat or fighting off your enemies.  Just speculating, I have no idea what went on there.   The only downside, like all cave dwellings, would be rolling off the front porch into the cactus covered desert below. 

View from the cave

Step two, is getting back.  He told us, when you head back towards town, look out into the valley behind you and find the truck tracks in the dirt flat.  Get on those and follow them thru the desert until you get to the main road, turn left and follow this into town.  This part of it wasn’t that hard.  Although it’s a little interesting walking thru a desert valley in Mexico, at least 3 hours from any sort of paved road with no one in sight wondering what sort of critters will jump out and get you. 

Crossing the valley - Can you see the road to town in the distance?

You know they have rattleless rattlesnakes here in the Sea of Cortez?  That’s just to scare you, they are only on one little island.  We found our way back into town and then followed his directions to the spigot at the pink house on the left, just after you enter town to fill our water bottle up.  Yes, there are only a couple of water spigots in town, gravity fed from a holding tank that is fed from a diverted spring somewhere up in the mountains.  More of a novelty than a necessity for us, but still interesting. 

The little village of Agua Verde

So we had checked out the cave paintings and were back in town.  I was craving a cold Fresca so we stopped at the little tienda.  Little may be giving it more credit than it deserves, it’s’ maybe a 10’ by 10’ room.  Although fairly well stocked for being a three hour drive down a dirt road from the main highway, which is who knows how long from the next real town.  Hard to believe with all that remoteness, they still had a cold Fresca, kept cold on blocks of ice brought from forever away; since there really isn’t any electricity here to keep a refrigerator running; for 13 pesos.  Cold Fresca in hand we set out to find Ramona, the goat cheese lady.

Just to prove there really are goats here

Agua Verde is also known for their goats and hence goat cheese.  Ramona is known to make the good stuff from local goats milk.  She lives on the far side of town and once again the directions are interesting.  Once you find the kindergarten building, the one with Winnie the Poo and The Little Mermaid painted on it, right next to the little blue jail building, go between them and head South down the trail.  Cross a wash and head towards the goats.  Scare away a couple of cute little pigs and walk between some houses.  Now you are on the other side of town.  Then just ask for Ramona, everyone knows her.  Once again we did just that and we found Ramona roasting coffee on an open fire under her ramshackle lean-to of a house.  She was more than happy to sell us a kilo (2.2 pounds) of goat cheese for 50 pesos. (about 4 dollars)  Somehow she figured out we had come on either a kayak or a sailboat and asked us about it.  We told her our amigos on the other boat had sent us and she understood who they were. 

After that it was a fairly straight forward walk down the beach, around the rocks at low tide back to the dinghy, wipe off the pee and paddle back to the boat.  All that before lunch.  Now we had fresh goat cheese and tortillas, sounds like goat cheese quesadillas for lunch. 

Later on the wind changed direction and put us conspicuously close to the beach so we hoisted the anchor and moved to the South side of the anchorage to gain some more protection from the wind.  This operation went off well and gave us some new scenery to look at for our last night at Agua Verde.  

The pyramid rock - our new scenery this night

A sundowner/anchor down (we did set the anchor again you know) dinner, watch some phosphorescence and stars and bed.  It makes for a full day and now we have a lot of goat cheese!

Sunrise from the North lobe of the anchorage