Now we know who our new President is, we can leave Ensenada and start our journey south. We left the slip at 7:45am and said goodbye to our friends. It is sunny, not much wind, but as we got further away from shore the wind was just enough to get the swells going and with the wind coming from the North it made the seas lumpy and bumpy. Neither one of us put a sea sick patch on due to hearing there was no wind to speak of on the outside. That wasn’t a good plan. After we had been out in the slosh for a while, Dave started not to feel well. I didn’t want him not to be able to function so I cut a patch in half and put it behind his ear. Half way through the day it started working. I steered most of the day and when it got to be night, I turned the auto helm on and Dave and I changed watch every 3 to 3-1/2 hours. When one was on watch, the other was sleeping. We slept in the cockpit. I went below a couple of times, and I was down long enough to have the motion effect me. When I came up for air, I laid down to get my stomach settled. We had big rollers and confused seas. We watched the sun set and the moon come up and shooting stars.
It was nice to have it warm and dry. I did wish the wind would die down so the seas would relax just a little. When the seas are mixed and the wind is behind us, the wave action tosses the boat around so much that the sail won’t stay filled. It makes for a long night.
Thursday, November 6.
We made it through the night. The auto helm didn’t like the mixed seas and the pressure on the rudder and it let us know by clunking. Dave went in behind the steering wheel, tightened the screws which seemed to fix it for a while. Further into the night, the auto helm seemed to be clunking more often and getting louder. This is not a good thing. Dave will take a look at it when we get to Turtle Bay. We were going to stop at an anchorage named San Quintin, (pronounced Quenteen), but we arrived just outside of it at around 11:00pm, so we decided to keep on going. We weren’t tired and didn’t want to stop yet so we kept going.
It was pitch black and we were keeping an eye open for other boats on the radar and also visually looking for lights. When I was at the helm around midnight or so, I saw a light off my quarter port stern and thought it was one of the sailboats we were traveling with. I just kept an eye on it. Then it was Dave’s watch and I was trying to sleep when he mentioned there was a boat coming up fast on our stern and he doesn’t think any one was at the helm. A lot of the larger boats set the auto helm and then go below for the night. It ended up to where we had to throttle up and turn quickly to our starboard to get out of his way. That was a close one!!! That is why it is so important to always have one or two people at the helm. You never know what you are going to find. The night turned to day with a beautiful sunrise and blue sky. Dave and I were still not feeling up to par. My stomach was still queasy from being down below on Wednesday for too long. I put the other ½ of the sea sick patch on and in 30 minutes I was feeling better, but not good enough to eat or steer the boat. The seas were still confused and the rollers were around 5 to 6 feet coming in all directions. Auto was working since it is hard to control the boat when the seas are like that. I took it easy and laid down to try and get rid of my headache. In the afternoon we put the headsail up thinking it would help keep the bow down. We still had the motor on. It didn’t work so well so we rolled it up. We are coming up to Islas San Benitos and Isla Cedros. We were hoping to get through them while it was still light but that wasn’t going to happen. We had a current going against us that slowed us down. The sun set but we still had enough light to see land. We had to be careful as there were rocks on both sides going through the channel and we needed to stay on course and not deviate. Turtle Bay is behind the islands. I was really hoping after we passed the islands we would be in Turtle Bay anchored for the night but to my dismay, we still had another 8-12 hours to go. We were both very tired of the 25 knot winds and large rolling 6 foot waves tossing us to and fro uncomfortably. It was rough enough both of us had to clip on the tether when in the cockpit. We are to arrive in Turtle Bay at 5:00am tomorrow. It’s always interesting when you get a weather forecast of light winds and then it blows like crazy. We were supposed to have light winds. So much for that!!! It reminds me of Seattle weather forecasting.
Friday, November 7.
The wind never died down. It is still blowing 20-25 knots with 6 foot waves, tossing us about just outside Turtle Bay. In the morning the wind blows off the land, and when the sun comes up it warms the land and the wind dies. That didn’t happen. It is 5:00am and it is starting to get a little lighter to where we can see more land and see what is in the water. The auto helm is on and we are getting close to the entrance of Turtle Bay. Dave put his harness on and went outside the cockpit, forward to the bow, to figure out how far we should move over since we were being side slipped to the starboard, due to current and there were some big rocks to our starboard side. He made his assessment and said to move port three degrees. I made the adjustment and had just sat down when Dave yelled kelp!!!! I jumped up, grabbed the wheel, but didn’t know which way to turn, (because the Captain didn’t say where it was), but it was too late. I had snagged a large piece of kelp that stuck on the shaft. I put the engine in neutral. Dave came back to the cockpit and took the helm. We thought there was a big problem because he couldn’t move the wheel, then he noticed it was still on auto pilot. He changed it to standby and put the boat in reverse figuring if he went backward then forward it might loosen the kelp. It did. The kelp came out behind the boat, and upon looking at the temperature gauge I noticed it was registering warmer than normal, which wasn’t a good thing. We had moved further away from Turtle Bay during all of this so we started heading back to the entrance again, bucking the tide, wind, and waves, making our progress slow. Dave was afraid we might have gotten some of the kelp sucked up into the engine sea strainer which would make the engine run warmer. We couldn’t do anything about it at that moment. We just wanted to get into the bay to get anchored then worry about it after that. We had had enough of the nasty seas and wind. We inched our way into the bay, dropped our anchor and let it set. The wind now is blowing about 30 knots and we are having a chafing problem on the anchor line. If we leave it untreated the sharp edge of the anchor cradle will gnaw the line in two. The only chafing material I could think of for a quick fix was a towel. I have several old one to use for whatever we need them for. I went down below, got a towel, cut it in half and brought it up to Dave to wrap around the line. The other half of the towel was used to keep the roller from pounding into the side of the anchor cradle when we changed direction on the anchor. We didn’t want to hear clunking all night long. After that was taken care of, Dave went down and checked the sea strainer and found a small bulb from the kelp and a slice of kelp inside. There was also a lot of slimy stuff stuck to the screen. We cleaned the strainer and now it is good. At least we hope so. Before we leave Dave will dive under the boat to check the rudder, shaft, and prop to make sure nothing is clinging. We heard a lot about the Santa Ana winds while we were in Ensenada. The winds roar offshore from the East, kicking up dust for miles getting into everything. That is what we were experiencing now. The locals call it Chubascos. I now can say I have witnessed the Santa Ana winds. You couldn’t see the small stretch of land that was in front of us due to the sand.
I had to close hatches and go inside because it got to where I didn’t want to breathe it anymore. Pretty soon the wind died down to the point I could open the hatches and go back outside. It was hot now. We ran the generator to charge the batteries and while that was going we decided to cool the boat down by running the air conditioner. We turned on the water maker and no water was coming through the thru haul and out from the boat on the port side and aft starboard side. Not a good thing so we turned the unit off, Dave checked everything and then went to the strainer. It had sucked up a big blade of sea grass. Once that was cleaned out and the unit was turned back on, it worked, well for a minute or two then it shorted out. It was in the evening so we decided to wait until tomorrow and see what was going on. I’m looking forward to a quiet restful night. Ensenada was not a quiet place for sleeping!!
Saturday, November 8.
We got a good rest and now we are hoping to go ashore and explore. Dave was listening to the Amigo Net. The Net, as all the cruisers call it is pretty neat. This is how you know where other cruisers are, where they are going, and you get weather reports for the Baja coast and inland. It is a chance to let the Net know where we are and where we are heading. It is nice to know that the Net keeps track of the boats and if anyone has a serious problem, someone will be notified to help you. They also know which boats are over due to the port they mentioned would be in. So the word goes out on the Net and if anyone sees them, they tell the Net and also have the boat check in. It’s really a great deal. While Dave was doing his thing with the Net, I was hanging clothes I just hand washed, on the life lines to dry. A man in a kayak named Miguel, stopped by asking if we had any trash and/or laundry he could take to shore. I didn’t have anything so I told him no. He was a talkative man, very friendly and happy. He spoke broken English, which we understood most of what he was saying. He asked for a cup of coffee and then came aboard to drink it talking all the while. He told us it was his birthday and asked if we had a shirt we could give him. At first we said no then I remembered I had a Hunter sailboat shirt that was 2 sizes too big. I got it, packed it in a plastic bag, and told him happy birthday. Well I don’t think it was actually his birthday because he used that same line with the other cruisers when they arrived. It was kind of funny. He has a wife and two children, a boy and a girl. The shirts probably went to the kids. He was happy and so was I. After he drank his coffee he got back into his kayak and paddled to the next boat. When they take trash and laundry they charge a fee. That is one of the ways they make money. After Miguel left, Dave ran the generator, air conditioner, and water maker with no problems. Don’t know what the problem was last night. At least it is working now. We were worried maybe the generator was dying on us. We radioed a man named Enricky, who is owner of the restaurant on shore, and the pier right next to it. There is another man across the bay that brings his boat, named Annabelle, around advertising he has diesel and not to buy from Enricky because he has bad diesel. Funny, that is what Enricky says about him. This war between the two has been going on for ever I guess. They know and dislike each other. It is to the point that if Enricky knows you bought diesel from Annabelle, he won’t let you bring your boats to his dock or on shore. If you do, you could come back to your dinghy and find a slash in it and no way to pump it up. Some of the local secrets you find out. Luckily we got diesel from Enricky. All you had to do was call him on the VHF CH 16 and tell him you need diesel and how much and he would send a couple of his workers out to fill your tank. So we had that done. We took on 50 gallons at $2.50 a gal which cost us $139.00. After we got diesel, I washed some towels and such, hung them to dry, because since we are further south, it is warmer and things dry faster. Then it was time to defrost the freezer. The weather forecast for tomorrow through Monday is for 25-30 knots of wind. We were going to leave tomorrow, but I think we will wait and see what the weather forecast is to make a final decision. It is peaceful here so wouldn’t mind staying another day or two. Dave pulled his stomach muscles again when he was leaning over to fix and check things on the water maker and getting the engine sea strainer off. He had pulled those muscles when we were coming down the coast from Washington, when he had to pull up and cut the line to the crab pot I snagged. He was leaning over the back seat of the boat when he was doing that. So he took it easy for the rest of the day.
Sunday, November 9.
We listened to the Amigo Net this morning and got a weather report. For the Baja coast the winds were going to be blowing 30 + knots through tomorrow and easing after that. When it came to check in on the Net, we heard a familiar voice and found out John & Sandy Eltrich, on Masquerade from Brownsville Marina, were running the Net from Puerto Vallarta. They have been cruising Mexico for almost 4 years now. We made contact with them. Now they know where we are and when we plan on being in La Paz, where we will meet them. Some of the boats we have been cruising with, since Ensenada, are starting to show up and drop anchor here in Turtle Bay. One of them is Mike and Jody on Savannah. We had kept in radio contact with them along the way. This morning they are bringing their dinghy over to our boat to pick us up and take us to shore. We were looking for a bank and a grocery store. We found no bank but they did have two small grocery stores. The streets were dirt except for the main road in and out of the village.
Most everyone was in church.
We walked past an elementary and Montessori school. The Montessori school surprised me. I never expected to see that.
We also passed an elementary school.
The high school was on the other side of the village.
Church got over and the families were walking back to their homes. Most everyone walked, but some drove and some of the children rode their bikes. We saw laundry hanging to dry, women sweeping the dirt to get to the hard dirt so it won’t blow all around. Some people sat on their covered porches talking.
We went to the bigger store and bought some things and then went to another smaller store and bought milk, vegetables and fruit. We went back to the dinghy and Mike and Jody dropped us back to our boat then went to theirs. We checked the house batteries that afternoon to make sure there was enough water in them. This entailed emptying the food from the seat that bolts down to the floor over the batteries, in the settee. Then you have to take out all the screws on the floor boards to get them out of the way. It’s a little bit of a process, but no worries. The rest of the day was spent reading and napping. Pretty rough eh???
From our boat we could see a few colorful houses up on the hill. We wondered about it since we didn't see any people. We found out it is their graveyard. They build little homes for their dead. Pretty interesting.
Monday, November 10.
The wind is still blowing close to 30 knots and it is a little cloudy. A few small rollers are heading in the bay and causing everyone to rock a little. The wind usually dies down at night which is nice. We tried to hear what was going on, on the Net this morning, but because of the static it was hard to hear. We did get a weather report which told us it was going to blow like this today, ease tonight and getting less as the week went on. We were going to leave tomorrow, but after hearing the report we decided to stay until Wednesday to let the seas calm down from the wind. It will also give Dave a chance to dive under the boat to check things out tomorrow. Today is just a little chilly for that. Miguel came by the boat asking if we had any garbage or laundry. I gave him our garbage at a fee of $3.00. We don’t have many pesos so I hope there is a bank in Bahia Asuncion.
Tuesday, November 11.
Dave dove under the boat this morning and everything looked good. That is a load off our minds. We talked to John and Sandy Eltrich, of Masquerade, and made plans to see them in La Paz for Thanksgiving. Mike and Jody, of Savannah, were going into the village to try and find an internet connection, as they sold their house and needed to find out the status. The proceeds from the house will be their only income for 5 years as they cruise. They invited us to go with them. We needed a couple of things from the store so we told them yes. While we waited for them to come get us, Dave started the engine to make sure everything worked as it should. It did. Mike and Jody came by, picked us up and took us to shore. As Mike was talking to family and taking care of stuff, Jody, Dave, and I went to the store to get a couple more things. Mike finished his business and we all got back in the dinghy. They dropped us off at our boat and then went to theirs.
We put our groceries away, had lunch, read a little then took a nap. The winds are easing nicely and tomorrow it is predicted to be 10-20 knots behind us. We need to calibrate the auto helm tomorrow morning before we leave. That shouldn’t take us a long time and then we are headed south.
Wednesday, November 12.
It’s a beautiful morning. We checked the Net for weather and found it is suppose to blow 20-25 knots instead of the 10-20 knots predicted yesterday. We could stay another day and leave Thursday, but the more we thought about it, we decided we needed to leave and go south. We had to be in La Paz by Thanksgiving. The further south we go there is supposed to be less wind. We raised the anchor at around 7:30am and are making the circles needed for calibrating the auto helm. The wind inside the bay is about 10 knots. We must have made about 6-8 circles and still were unable to get a calibration. Dave was pulling out the little hair he has over this. He got the manual out, read it and we made another circle. That didn’t work either. Then he went down and disconnected the charting program from the auto helm and we made another circle and it worked. Once that was set and he got everything working right, we headed out of Turtle Bay for Bahia Asuncion. Mike and Jody, of Savannah, left Turtle Bay around 7:00am. We were supposed to be right behind them but because of the calibrating problem, we were delayed. We hailed them on the VHF radio and told them what was going on and we would see them later. We wanted to get to the anchorage before dark, but that won’t happen now. As we headed out of the bay the wind was about 8 knots. The further off shore we got, the wind picked up to about 20-25 knots with confused seas. Here we go again!!!! We put the headsail out at the first reef mark and that seemed to work for a while. Then it started to flog so we unrolled the headsail to the first reef mark. With both sails out it increased our speed and the boat took the swells better. When the wind got to 25 knots, the headsail wasn’t doing anything for us. Wind was behind us. We rolled it in and kept the main sail up to keep us steady in the swells. We saw a school of porpoises. That was awesome. Later that afternoon we saw a gray whale broach out of the water two or three times. It was really incredible. We arrived in Bahia Asuncion after dark. It was tricky entering the bay as we had to keep clear of the rocks, the unlit fishing boat, and shrimp and/or lobster pots. Mike, of Savannah helped guide us into the anchorage. We found a good spot to anchor and then it was time to relax. As I was sitting in the cockpit looking around, I noticed what looked like a seal head or a ball. I looked through the binoculars and noticed it was a float marking a pot. We didn’t move the boat since the float was far enough away from the boat that when we swing on the anchor we would clear it. We decided we would move to another anchor spot in the morning.
Thursday, November 13.
We are now in mountain time. We had our morning coffee, pulled anchor, and moved to a different anchorage spot.
John and Sandy Eltrich, told us about an American lady named Sherrie and her Mexican husband, Juan, living on a hill facing the Pacific Ocean, and could see the cruisers arrive. Sherrie would contact the cruisers via VHF 16 after they anchored, and ask them if they needed anything. We didn’t get a call from her because we came in at night so she missed us. We made contact with her calling by calling her call sign, Sirena, on Channel 16. Then we would go to another working channel to talk. She offered laundry service and she said her husband Juan was out taking people sport fishing and wouldn’t be back until later. This meant he wouldn’t be able to contact any of the pangas to come get us. That was another business they use to run, but it wasn’t cost effective to continue. We didn’t have our dinghy blown up, so we asked her how we could get ashore. She said if we could wave down a panga boat and negotiate a reasonable price, they will take us to shore and then she would come and get us. The pangas had been out to set their pots and had come back to shore so we missed our chance to get to shore. Our friends Mike and Jody, of Savannah, offered to take us to shore in their dinghy. We contacted Sherrie and she told us where to land the dinghy and she would meet us there with her truck. She is a friendly lady. She used to own a sailboat and traveled a lot of places. She fell in love with Bahia Asuncion and stayed. She has been there for 19 years. She rents houses; her brother has a house with wifi that cruisers can use. She started a yacht club that is next door to her brother’s house. It is a one room place with a bathroom, shower, bed, table; a place to exchange books, and get this----one washing machine!!!!
Sherrie is standing in front of the washing machine. That is where I did my laundry.
This is what you saw across from the club house. And you could see our boat at anchor in the bay from the bluff.
We had our picture taken with her and she said she would send in an article to Latitude 38 magazine, telling about her cruisers Yacht Club. It was really cool. We are charter members along with Jody and Mike. When laundry was finished, Sherrie took us back to the dinghy. She had a meeting to go to so she dropped us off at the beach and said goodbye. As we got to the dinghy we noticed air had been let out of it and the engine had been fiddled with. There was enough air in the dinghy that Mike could motor back to their boat, pump it up and come back to get us. We at first thought someone didn’t like the dinghy there and was leaving us a message. As it turned out, there were two young boys fishing nearby and they came over to Jody and me. The youngest boy talked up a storm. Of course we couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he and his friend were friendly and wanted to show us the fish they caught. The younger boy showed me a couple of his fish lures and he handed me one. I looked at it and gave it back and he said I could keep it. That was neat. We explained that the boat had to get pumped with air and it would be back. As we were waiting, the boys went to the pangas that were setting on the beach, with engines attached and tried to start them out of the water. They were messing around and thought it was fun. We found our culprits!!! They knew we figured out it was them and when Mike came back to get us they were very helpful in holding the dinghy while we got in and then pushed us off the beach. We said goodbye and they waved. It was really cute. They were just having some fun. No harm done. Mike dropped us back to our boat and we prepared the boat to leave in the morning.
Friday, November 14.
We were able to talk to John and Sandy, about where to meet them for Thanksgiving. They are going to be at the Marina Palmira, in La Paz. We called the marina and got reservations. We will arrive on the 25th. We cleared the anchorage and headed south with 14-20 knots of wind on our beam. Dave put the head sail out and we went along with that for a while. We still had the motor on so we could make speed. A little later we tried to pull the main sail out but it was jammed. We have in mast roller furling. Dave worked with it for quite awhile and finally got it to unfurl. It had been pulled in to tight and got stuck. We throttled back the engine to 1000 RPMs and doing about 6.8 knots of speed over ground. We cruise at 2000 to 2200 RPMs normally. The further south we went there was less wind. Eventually we had to pull in the sails and just motored. The weather forecast said the winds were to be variable, which means no wind for us. We are on our way to Bahia Santa Maria and should arrive around 10:00am tomorrow morning. It will be a moonlit night with calm seas. The water is a beautiful teal color. There were more porpoises swimming around the boat jumping out of the water. They are just beautiful to watch and so graceful. Wish I could swim like that. I saw a large fish jump out of the water. It was a dark color with a white belly. Couldn’t see what it was, but there are lots of marlin, dorado, and sailfish here. It was a beautiful evening with a nice sunset. We thought it would get cold as the night wore on, but it never did. We ended up taking our wind breaker bibs off and our jackets and went to lightweight jackets. We had gentle swells of 2 to 3 feet. Not bad at all. Around 1:00am on Dave’s watch, he noticed 5 or 6 boats around us. He wanted to make sure what direction they were heading and hopefully not at us. It looked like a commercial fishing boat heading our way and we didn’t know if he was dragging nets, so we gave him lots of lead way to pass in front of us. Once all the boats passed us we relaxed. It gets scary out there when you see boats on the radar and they are heading toward you. Sometimes they don’t see you so you have to be the one to move out of their way. The sunrise was nice and it was nice to have the warmth.
Saturday, November 15.
29 hours of travel from Bahia Asuncion to Bahia Santa Maria. We arrived around 12:30pm. This is a large bay. We saw a school of tuna as we were coming into the bay. Amazing!!! We don’t have the right fishing gear right now to catch that big of a fish, but we will remedy that before too long. There is a little fishing village at the head of the bay. Pangas traveled back and forth to the camp. The bay is peaceful and has a rugged beauty with the hills and beach.
Sunday, November 16.
We need diesel so we will leave tomorrow for Magdalena Bay, anchor in Man-O-War Cove, and see if we can get diesel. We heard the Port Captain comes out to check your paperwork and he can make arrangements to get diesel delivered.
We don’t feel bad about motoring as much as we did, as the cruisers we talked with have had the same problem. At least we burn a gallon an hour so that isn’t too bad.
We are having a devil of a time with the freezer running all the time. We don’t have solar panels yet and the freezer is sucking our battery power. At home I defrosted the freezer once or twice a week depending on how cold it was outside. Here in the warm weather I have had to defrost almost every other day. That gets old, but I don’t want to be without a freezer. Dave took off the old weather stripping around the lid and put new on new because we were getting a lot of moisture on the lid. The weather stripping seemed to help. Now we are looking for some bubble insulation to put on top of the frozen food inside the freezer and on top of the lid when it is closed. I think that will insulate it better and help a lot. We did normal checking of strainers, oil, and water in batteries, so we will be set to go in the morning.
Monday, November 17.
We pulled anchor at 7:45am. There is hardly any wind, at least not enough to sail with and the seas are calm. We had a pleasant and uneventful cruise and only had to maneuver out of the way of three large fishing vessels. They don’t move for you, you move for them. We arrived around 1-1:30pm, in Man-O-War Cove.
The cove is named after the frigate birds which are also known as man-o-war birds. It was difficult to get a decent picture, but I think you can get an idea from these.
Shortly after getting anchored and settled, the Port Captain arrived wanting to see our paperwork. Once that was out of the way, we asked the Port Captain if we could get diesel. He said yes and he and Dave negotiated a price. He said he would be back. We waited and when it got dark we figured we’d get our diesel early the next morning. On shore there is a little village with a rooster crowing. I am thinking all Mexican villages have a rooster. There was one in the last village at Bahia Asuncion. Someone in the town has a generator that runs the lights to the houses. At 10:00pm the generator goes off as do all the lights.
Tuesday, November 18.
Early in the morning the men get in their pangas and set lobster pots around the bay. At 7:00am the Port Captain showed up with our diesel. We could only take on 32gals since it was 9 pesos a gal. We didn’t have many pesos on board so that was all we could afford. It didn’t fill the tank, but we added two 5 gallon jerry cans of diesel, that we had on board, and that will get us to San Jose Del Cabo. We put things away and pulled anchor around 8:30am. It’s a very warm morning with a few clouds in the sky. We expect to motor all the way to Cabo since the weather forecast calls for no wind. We were on the look out for lobster pots because there were quite a few when we came into the bay yesterday. The floats are small and hard to see. Some barely stick out of the water. We didn’t see any for the longest time, then when we started heading out of the bay, there they were. The fishermen drop the pots in a line and once you spot one you will find others lined up with that one. We thought we might be able to get out of the bay without seeing any. Wrong!! Dave was on the bow looking around to see if he could see any and sure enough he yelled for me to turn hard starboard, which I did, but I was suppose to turn back to even up the boat and I didn’t. It caused the float to go under the boat and hook onto the rudder. Here we go again!! I put the engine in neutral, and then backed up and the float flew out behind the boat. Whew!!! No damage done.
We watched very carefully for more floats and when we got to 200 feet we didn’t have to worry about it anymore.
Remember the weather forecast was for no wind? We had about 15 knots of wind behind us. We put our sails up and sailed for 3-1/2 hours. The wind picked up to 24 knots causing mixed seas so we rolled the sails in. When the boat gets tossed all over, it doesn’t allow the sails to stay full of air. So we rolled in the sails. At least we got some sailing in. I think we are in for a rocky rolly night. Because it is hard to steer a straight course in mixed seas and big rollers, we put auto helm to work. It was doing well and then it started to clunk. This is not a good thing. Dave tightened the screws and it would be alright for a while and then start clunking again. It got to the point there wasn’t anything Dave could do about it and if left to clunk something could break and that would not be a good thing. So we took it off auto helm and manually steered all night. Boy!!! That was a lot of fun!! It’s hard to stay on course when there is no point of interest, as it is pitch black and the seas are pushing you all over the place. I really started working on muscle tone!! About every hour, whoever was at the helm would take a break and try to get some sleep and the other one would drive for a while. One good thing about the night, it was warm!!
Wednesday, November 19.
The sun has come up and we still have 8 more hours to go to get to San Jose Del Cabo Marina. It is a very warm morning, turning into a very hot day. Steering was easier after we rounded Cabo San Lucas, as we were getting away from all the swells.
We met the sport fishing boats coming out of Cabo San Lucas, searching for tuna, Dorado, and marlin. We saw a couple of whale spouts in the distance, a marlin jumped out of the water about 3 times, and porpoises were jumping all over the place. There was lots of action. The wind finally died. We tried auto again and it behaved himself. It does not like the pressure the waves put on the rudder. As we were working our way to San Jose Del Cabo, Dave pointed out a grey whale broaching. It was huge!! It broached several times and then he came out of the water far enough to where he would slap the water with his fin. It was really something to see. Of course I took pictures, but he kept moving away from us. Or was it we were moving away from him. Hmmm!!! So he is small.
We finally reached San Jose Del Cabos new marina. They named it Puerto Los Cabos. We had toured it last year when we were at Royal Solaris, our vacation place, and they had just started building it. They are close to being finished with the marina, but the whole area around the marina is going to be a gated community. They have many more homes, shops and other buildings yet to build. The marina charges $1.25 a foot for transient moorage. We will stay a couple of nights to rest up and then leave. Once tied up to the dock, Dave started working on the auto helm. I helped wherever I could. He needed to replace one of the set screws since it was stripped out. Dave asked one of the guys that work there if they could get one for him. Unfortunately they were unable to come up with one. So now what?
Thursday, November 20.
It’s been a long journey, but we are finally here in San Jose Del Cabo!!!! It seems like a dream!! We are near the Tropic of Cancer and in their winter!!! It sure doesn’t feel much like winter to me. It is pretty hot right now. The only bad thing is the marina is near an estuary so when the sun goes down the mosquitoes come out. Thanks to friends back home I have lots of skin so soft and mosquito coils. I am glad we won’t be doing overnight trips for a while. We cleaned and straightened up the boat then took a taxi into San Jose Del Cabo to hopefully find a set screw at Napa auto store for the auto helm. No luck. The taxi driver stopped at another auto store for us, but Dave didn’t have any luck there either. Then the taxi driver dropped us in the heart of San Jose and we walked around looking for a market. We ran into some other cruisers and they said there was one about 6 blocks up the road. We stopped at the ATM and then headed in the direction of the market. We didn’t find it. We got to see parts of San Jose we never saw before. It was neat. As soon as we came to the main street that goes into Cabo San Lucas, we turned around and headed back toward the marina. We found a taxi to take us back to the marina. We just needed some milk and bread and I think there is a mini market across from the marina. Once back at the marina, I walked over to the market and got what I needed. The walk was not a short one but at least I got my exercise for the day. Dave made a temporary fix for the auto helm and we are praying it will work until we can get a set screw. We’ll have a chance to try it out tomorrow as we are leaving for Los Frailes.
Saturday, November 22.
We are heading north as soon as we get diesel and fill our two jerry cans. It is around 10:00am and we are headed for our anchorage spot at Los Frailes. This is the first anchorage spot as we head for La Paz and the Sea of Cortez. The auto helm worked beautifully. No clunks and you could hardly hear it working. Excellent!!!! Unfortunately, for the whole trip Dave spent working on the water maker. He was going to make water while we were underway, but there was a problem. There was too much salt in the water and it needed to be adjusted so the unit would accept the water into the tanks and not spill it over board. Dave was trying to figure out how to make the adjustment but was having a real problem. The unit is so tightly placed under the settee, it makes it difficult to see and do certain things. He was not a happy camper and there was a lot of swearing going on!!! It was hot with no wind and that didn’t help matters either. He made a phone call to Village Marine, where we bought the unit, but they were closed for the weekend. He made another phone call to a good friend of ours who knows about water makers. He told Dave it was probably the sensor. Because of the tight placement of the unit Dave couldn’t get the sensor out. He was afraid to mess with it too much in fear the wires might come loose. He had the unit torn apart and he didn’t have time to put it back together before we came to our anchorage. He would put it together after we got settled. We arrived in Los Frailes bay around 3:10pm. There isn’t much there to see. There were a few boats anchored already, so it took us a few minutes to find a good safe spot. Once we got anchored we both worked on the water maker. Dave doing the work, and I helped where needed. Once the unit was back together we started the long process of cleaning the filters. We thought maybe this would help as when the filters get clogged the sensor goes crazy. About 7:30pm we were able to make water. However, the problem with the high salinity was not fixed. Dave did a little adjustment to make it work but by no means was the unit fixed. We only filled two of the small tanks and called it good. We managed through all of this to see a spectacular sunset!! I never saw such a beautiful bright red sky in my life. The hills were lit up which made for a great picture.
We are leaving tomorrow for our next anchorage, Los Muertos.
Sunday, November 23.
The sunrise this morning was pretty but didn’t compare to the sunset last night.
It’s a little cloudy but warm. A lot of the boats that anchored last night have left. It is 45 miles to Los Muertos, so we left around 7:00am. We should be there around 2:30-3:00pm. We had short choppy seas and about 8-10 knots of wind. We put our head sail out to the first reef point to help keep the bow down and cut through the chop better. We even picked up some speed. It was a bouncy ride. There must have been a lot of wind north to have caused the choppy seas.
I witnessed another first. Flying fish!!! They aren’t very big. They come out of the water, fly a few feet then land back in the water. Amazing! At first I wondered why a little bird was so far off shore. Then I saw more of them and figured it out. Some of them can travel pretty far. We arrived at Los Muertos around 3:00pm. It took us 20 minutes to find a good spot to anchor. One of the cruisers let us know that the boats anchored already had their anchors set to the north, but because of the wind blowing from the east, the boats were facing the east. We needed to be careful not to get hooked on someone else’s anchor. We found a spot and dropped anchor. I like this anchorage a lot better than Los Frailes. It is more picturesque. There is a bar and restaurant on shore that used to be called the Giggling Marlin, but now is called The Bar on the Bay.
An ex football player bought it and runs the place. He is 32 years old and I believe he played for New Orleans. He also had a resort built and anyone could use it. We didn’t go ashore as our dinghy was rolled up on deck. Not time to unroll it yet.
Dave thought he would see if he could make water again. It didn’t work. The sensor was reading too high again. Dave noticed on the internet a while back that the Village Marine people have a 24 hour service. Wrong!!!! No one responded. He will have to call the store on Monday. He tried running the air conditioner and that didn’t work either!! I believe what happened was, because we forgot to close the thru haul to the unit, before we left our last anchorage, and an air bubble got in there, from all the wave action, and wouldn’t let the water pass. Once we cleared the bubble it was fine. We have to close the thru hauls from now on so it doesn’t happen again. We were going to spend another day at anchor, but due to the water maker problem we wanted to get somewhere we could have it fixed if necessary. We are heading out in the morning for La Paz.
Monday, November 24.
The day promises to be a better one than yesterday. I have declared it!!! We pulled anchor at 6:40am and headed for La Paz. It will take us 8 hours to get there if all goes well. The seas were a little rolly polly and then it was choppy. We were hoping we could sail, but the wind was on our nose most of the way. We went up a channel that goes between an island and the Baja side. The wind piped up to 18 knots and the seas reflected that. Not a smooth ride at all. At times we were crashing down some of the waves which make the boat shudder. Not good for the boat. As we got closer to La Paz, Dave called Marina Palmira, and asked if we could come a day early. We had reservations for the 25th, and were afraid they wouldn’t have room as this is a very busy time for them. To our surprise and happiness they said we could come in. They assigned us a slip but when we got in it we realized it was right next to the fuel dock. When we went up to check in and pay, we asked if we could move to a different slip. They moved us to the second dock which was great and it was a little closer to John and Sandy Eltrich. They were on the 4th dock. As we were checking in, John and Sandy came into the office and gave us a warm greeting. They came down to our new slip and helped us with our lines. They had been in town all day and wanted to rest up so we said we would meet them at the bar at 5:00pm for margaritas. Once everything was stowed, Dave made a call to Village Marine, to find out how to fix the water maker. They told him he needed to adjust the salinity level so it would accept the water. It was just a minor adjustment. Once that was done, it worked great. He was a happy camper now. After that we cleaned up, and walked up to meet John and Sandy for happy hour.
On the way we saw this big goose. We were told her name is Lucy and she got stuck here after the hurricane. She has a hernia which makes it hard for her to fly long distances so she had to leave her group and stay here. The locals have adopted her and feed her lettuce. She loves lettuce and cherry tomatoes. She makes a lot of noise. I took a picture of her, but it turned out dark so I will get a better one when we come back here in the spring. We had a very nice visit with John and Sandy and found out a few things about where to get the shuttle, and where shops are. There is a book signing tomorrow morning at the Marina De La Paz, for an invaluable book for cruisers, titled ‘Sea of Cortez’. It tells of all the places to anchor in the ‘Sea’. John and Sandy invited us to go with them.
Tuesday, November 25.
The four of us, John, Sandy, Dave, and I, caught the 8:00am shuttle and it let us off just before Marina De La Paz. We walked the rest of the way. They have a little club house at the marina with free books from other cruisers. You take one, you leave one. We met the authors of the book ‘Sea of Cortez’. They are young and have updated the book for the cruisers going there next summer. We bought one as looking through it looked most helpful. Afterward John, Sandy, Dave, and I left the marina and walked into town. We went to about 4 marine stores, a wine shop, a fishing shop so Dave could buy a lure to catch big fish while cruising. We walked back to the corner where the shuttle picks up people that are from La Palmira Marina, and takes them back.
Once back at the marina I gathered all the laundry I could and did laundry for about 3 hours. At least everything will be clean now. The washers and dryers were $1.50 for each load. Dave made a phone call to Village Marine and found a solution to the water maker dilemma. Thank goodness for that. When I got back from doing laundry it was time to check the water level in the bow thruster battery and defrost the freezer.
Everyone on our dock was invited to a birthday party. One couple had their 2 daughters with them and the oldest turned 11. They ordered pizza, and salad, and we were told to bring something to drink and a place setting. We knew only one of the couples that showed up, but had a great time getting to know the other people. Most of the people that showed up had traveled the Baja ha ha together. Then get this, after all of that food, mom brought out cup cakes, ice cream and brownies. Mom made the cupcakes and another gal made the brownies. Wow!!! That was one lucky little girl. It will definitely be a birthday she won’t forget. There were lots of other kids she knew there too that. I saw my first cockroach on the dock. Sure hope it doesn’t come aboard our boat. The marina staff tries to control them by spraying the docks, but they are tough critters and live a long time and become immune to stuff. Two more days before Thanksgiving!! Sure doesn’t feel like it.
Wednesday, November 26.
The marina is hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the cruisers. We made reservations through John and Sandy and then called the gal ho was heading up the affair, after we got into our slip, and confirmed our spot. We were told to bring something to share, our place settings and what we want to drink. I am baking a pumpkin pie to take. There are 250 people signed up and no more room for anyone else.
Thursday, November 27.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!! This is one of the few Thanksgivings I have done nothing. I do miss getting together with my family. Thanksgiving at La Paz is a big deal. Cruisers from the different marinas, especially the people who just finished the baja ha ha, come here to meet up with friends and enjoy a nice turkey dinner with all the fixings for only a 100 pescos ($1.00 US). This is the only marina that does this. Once Thanksgiving is over, most of the people, that raced in the baja ha ha, leave to go back home in their boat. It seems such a waste to travel from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, where the race ends, and then some of them travel to La Paz for Thanksgiving, and then turn around and cruise back home.
The dinner started at 3:00pm and we sat with John and Sandy and some people they knew. We ate so much we waddled down the dock to our boat around 5:00pm. It was a good dinner.
Here is John flirting with the Staff!!!
After the food had a chance to settle, we invited John and Sandy over for margaritas. Dave made his special mix. We made plans to meet at the shuttle, in the morning, to explore La Paz.
Friday, November 28.
It is a cooler day which is great for walking around town. We took the shuttle to the Catholic Church and walked around that area. We looked inside the church which was the original church, then went to the Anthropology Museum. That was pretty interesting. All we could do was look at the displays and only make out a few words on the plaques as it was all in Spanish. We stopped to check out what the vendors on the street had for sale. Sandy was doing Christmas shopping because John and Sandy are going home for Christmas. We stopped at this restaurant called California Chicken. All they served was chicken but what a variety. We ate lunch there. It was absolutely delicious!!! We will definitely come back!!! The best part is, it wasn’t expensive!!!! We needed to walk off the lunch so we went to a marine store and then a wine store. Then we stopped at a the Mercado, which is a market that has just about everything you could imagine. There is a meat market that sells everything from pig heads and feet, to innards, fish of all kinds, octopus, shrimp and more. Then you have fruits and vegetables and more food sections. Then there is the section where you can buy clothes, belts, shoes, jewelry and more. Sandy bought some fresh prawns for dinner which we were invited. We walked more blocks to the super grocery store called CCC. It’s like super Wal Mart. We did some grocery shopping, and Dave and I got a couple strings of Christmas lights to decorate the boat. We found a lot of American food products we couldn’t find elsewhere, like Romano Cheese, half & half and more. We took a cab back to the marina and John and Sandy went to their boat to start dinner, and Dave and I went to our boat to put the groceries away and rest a little. At 6:00pm we went to John and Sandy’s boat and had dinner. We had a wonderful dinner and visit.
Saturday, November 29.
Today is boat work day. We worked on the freezer replacing weather stripping. I have to defrost the freezer every other day, so too much moisture is forming. Hopefully this will help the situation. I did house cleaning while Dave went over to talk to John. When I finished my chores, made potato salad, then sat down and read a book. We had dinner and as we were finishing, John and Sandy showed up at our boat. They came aboard and Dave fixed them a gin and tonic. We visited for a short while, and then they had to go to bed as they are working the Subasta at Marina De La Paz, tomorrow. The Subasta is like a garage sale, auction, and street fair all in one and the proceeds buy school supplies and help the orphan children.
Sunday, November 30.
Dave and I took the shuttle down to Marina De La Paz where the Subasta was taking place. It opened at 9:00am but we got there about 8:20am. We went and had coffee and breakfast. We checked out the Subasta and it was interesting. Among all the stuff they had they also held a silent auction.
We didn’t see anything we couldn’t live without so we left and walked back to where the shuttle picks up passengers that are staying at Marina Palmira. Once back at the marina we needed to get some boat supplies and margarita mix from the La Palmira tienda (store). We got the boat stuff but they didn’t have any margarita mix. The man that was working the store gave us a really good tip for how they make margaritas. He said the Mexican people use tequila, fresca, and lime on ice. So we bought some fresca and we already had the tequila and limes. We went back to the boat and made a Mexican margarita and you know---it was excellent!! You couldn’t tell much of a difference. It sure will save us a lot of money!! So remember if you run out of margarita mix, just buy some fresca and lime and it will be great!!
