2/7/15

We went to the beach and messed around. I thought we were going to meet up with this woman and her kids we had met the day we got here but we didn't see them and since we don't have a phone or regular use of the internet it's hard to make plans. We knew we needed to go shopping today so we asked a guy who worked on the beach where one was and he said it was only a few blocks away. I told Paul I would just go and then when I got back we would go back to the boat and make lunch and have a siesta (nap/break). 

I walked where the guy said and I found a seven 11 basically that didn't have eggs or milk so I asked the guy where one was and he said I'd have to go to Walmart. Well we try not to shop there so I continued my search figuring I would ask someone who wasn't trying to get me to shop at their store. I mean if we had wanted soda, chips, cookies and bologna I would've scored. So after walking around more people just kept telling me Walmart so I got on a bus, paid 15 pesos and headed off to find Walmart. It was a pretty short ride and I almost missed my stop but luckily some lady sitting near me said,"didn't you want to go to Walmart? This is your stop". Whew. So I got some produce which I was overexcited about and ended up buying almost too much to carry. I had to take a million stops walking back to the beach because my arms and traps were killing me. I knew I had been gone a long time but had no idea it had been almost 2 hours. He was like geez another hour I was going to go to the police. I would've given anything to not had to walk all the way to the beach, down a big hill knowing I would be carrying that crap back up it to get back to the dinghy. I don' know why we didn't keep at least one phone. We made it but it was rough. Oliver was already ready for a nap when I left so by the time I got back he was practically delusional. We had to make him walk too since we had so much stuff to carry. Thankfully on the way back to the boat some friends of ours who had gotten a slip, offered for us to come back that night to shower at the marina. I was overjoyed, it again had been 6-7 days without a proper shower. That part is tough. 

Then after our nap we headed to the cafe to use the internet, which is when I got the devastating news that my friends brother had died in a car accident. It is unbelievable. 

After that we met our friends and took a glorious shower then sat at another friends boat, with the friends who let us shower and had some wine and talked about sailing, ect.

2/8/15

We found out the boat anchored next to us had a little boy named Thorston who is 4 so we radioed them in the morning and went to the beach together so the boys could play and we could share stories. They have been having a lot of trouble with their boat and are trying to get back up north, they are just coming back form the Sea of Cortez. The boys had a great time, Oliver loves to wrestle and play rough so it's nice when he gets to play with an older boy. 

Oliver getting taken down by Thorston. He went right back for more

Oliver and his buddy Thorston

Me swimming with the boys

While Oliver and I played with them Paul stayed on the boat working on the ignition problem, which he fixed!! I was so proud of him! He had gotten a few pointers from some other cruisers and it turned out to be really easy. I was so relieved, nothing on this boat has been easy (or cheap) to fix. 

My man doing manly stuff

We went back to the boat for a nap but Oliver didn't sleep, he is in that in-between area where he needs a nap most days but then he doesn't sleep as good at night or he doesn't nap then he is a crab but goes to bed early and sleeps great. We just make daily decisions on naps. Anyways after that we went to meet our Canadian friends because they had heard of a market we could walk to. So we walked with them, it turned out to just be the same Mexican tourist junk you can get everywhere but it was fun. I think they even make most of that stuff fin Taiwan which is weird but whatever. It was nice to walk and talk then we stopped to get a beer before we headed back to get ready for supper. 

Me and the canucks

We got ready quick and went to meet our Portland, OR friends for supper, Mexican food of course. They had such good salsa I am going to bring a big tupperware and buy some from them before we go. Anyways we had a great time, it was on the beach so Oliver got to run and play with other kids and we sat and had some drinks. It's nice when we get to pull the dinghy up on the beach which we got to do there. They are a really cool couple, like minded and the guy Eric is a very experienced sailor and the lady is a nurse so we always have plenty to talk about. Paul and Eric pretty much only talk to one another when we get together, they are in a bromance we think, haha.

2/9/15

Oliver slept in, thank goodness because I could feel the drinks I had the night before. We decided to go check out some snorkeling spots by the arches since we will go tomorrow. Then we met our buddy Thorston and his mom again at the beach. They were having a guy come look at their engine so they had to be off of their boat for the day. Then we went back for our usually siesta and needed to go back to Walmart to get some more produce since we are planing on leaving tomorrow. That leads to know…Starbucks=internet:)

Panoramic shot from the boat, lots of hotels

If you go just a bit further to the left is the arch

Dead puffer fish we found, Paul just wanted to grab it, I was like probably not

This sea lion by our boat. He was resting or something, he is upside down. Alive I promise, I have never seen them do that before and with all the boats and jet skies...risky business

2/5/15

I am just out on watch on our way to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur. So when we left Turtle Bay it was really rough conditions for around 12-14 hours, I cant remember exactly, and we would've been getting to Scorpion Bay when it was dark so we would've had to motor around until dawn so we just decided to go to Mag Bay. If I haven't explained we don't ever go into a spot we haven't been to before at night. We have read a lot about people reading things wrong and/or running into land or aground so we just make a rule that we don't do it. 

Side note our engine isn't starting great so we didn't want to shut it off until we got to where we were going and that sucked. We were worried about it starting when we left but after a few tries it did. We are again worried about shutting it off on the way to Cabo but we will if we get good wind, nothing so far. We will definitely have to get that looked at in Cabo which sucks but at least, for now, it is still chugging along.

The rest of the trip was ok, nothing bad like it was in the beginning but then we realized we would be pushing it to make Mag Bay by dusk so we decided to go in the nearer cove that is adjacent to Mag called Santa Maria Bay. We got there around 2pm on the ??? I don't remember and don't have my daily journal handy, I think the 1st. There were about 4 other boats and a very small fishing village. We didn't expect anything since we had read about it in our book but man it was bare bones out there. Well we couldn't wait to get off of the boat and it was close to 80 degrees so we went straight to the beach before it got dark. It is so beautiful there and no one was around. Just miles and miles of empty beaches that were covered with seashells and tons of sand dollars as well. So we just spent the day after at the beach, Paul went snorkeling and then we got together with some of the other cruisers. We had met most of them when we were in Turtle Bay so it was nice to see them again and have a drink. Then the next day we took our dinghy through these mangroves. It was nice but the scenery was a lot like California with desert and dry mountains so it didn't wow me that much. It was still a weird kind of river. Along the way we saw a few other make shift houses for the people who live and fish there. I could've stayed there a lot longer had we been able to get some produce. I didn't take too many pictures but here they are. 

Just anchored at Santa Maria

Empty beaches for miles

Oliver playing in the tide pools at low tide

Some of our fellow cruisers at our make shift happy hour

The black one is alive, I never knew they looked like that before they died and turned white

Moon rise, I have never seen anything like it

Whale tail

Whale and dolpin

Happy boy

Famous Cabo arch

2/6/15

Holy crap. We actually sailed all the way down Baja California, Mexico. I am just so happy and a little dumbfounded. We got to Cabo at noon. It is very warm, in the mid 80s which is fine with me I just want to get anchored and in the water. We went straight to the beach and swam, the water is cooler than I remember it being but fine for swimming.

2/7/15
I just got the worst news. A friend of mine and a brother of one of my best friends is gone. Please throw up a quick prayer or thought of peace to him and everyone who knew and loved him. The world will never be the same.

This one is long but I tried to put a lot of pictures, it is from the 3 day sail from Ensenada to Turtle Bay (which is where we are now). I also put more pictures on the last blog from what we saw and where we stayed in Ensenada.

1/25/15

We went to check the weather in the morning and it looked good so we left around 1130am. 

Sailing has been uneventful mostly. We saw quite a few dolphins but nothing else. I put Oliver to sleep around 8 and woke up at 1045pm to take over watch. We use a red light at night to see since it doesn't affect your night vision but it is also kind of creepy. 

The light pollution coming from the US is shocking. I know that has to be what it is since I have seen it from Catalina Island and I do not see any of it from Mexico, well bits and pieces here and there but nothing like from the US, it almost looks like the sun is going to rise but it is midnight. I am a little more afraid tonight. I guess because we are a lot further from the shore and can't see any lights where there were a lot more lights on shore going from San Diego to Ensenada. 

The picture below is what we look at while we sail at night. The green screen is the radar that tells us if anything is within a 2 mile radius, it also will alarm in case we miss it. The computer has the little red boat and line which shows us where to stay so we adjust the autopilot accordingly to stay on course. We also check to make sure the engine isn't overheating if it's on. I usually do all of those things every 15 minutes depending on the conditions, the time goes by surprisingly fast. 

It blows my mind to think of doing this without any instruments. There are many times I just have to remind myself to trust the instruments because it gets really, really dark and you can't see much ahead. I guess it's the same kind of thing as flying at night. My biggest fear and Paul's too is hitting a container that has fallen off of a container ship, like in the movie All is Lost. If you haven't seen it a guy hits one while he is sailing (I guess those containers fall off of those big container ships in storms, who knows if they float or sink) and has to abandon his boat and almost dies…yes we watched that movie and still left:)

1/26/15

I was on watch for 5 hours last night while Paul got some sleep. Then I woke up at 8am to Paul turning the engine off and all of the dishes drying on the counter flying onto the floor because the boat heeled and Paul had forgot to secure everything. Among the dishes was a knife…can you imagine Oliver or even Paul or I getting stabbed by a knife flying across the boat. Ahh, I was not happy and I don't think either one of us will make that mistake again. After that I thought that it was good we were getting some wind since we had been motoring for some 20 hours and when we sail it is (usually) so peaceful. Well it was a lot of wind and it brought big waves. We have been bobbing up and down for the last 3 hours and we only had the wind for 2 hours. So now we are jumping up and down and the engine is on. Double bummer.

The boys are taking a nap. The sun has finally appeared and the seas have calmed down. I just wish we could have some wind. Paul said the wind this morning was up around 26 knots which is a lot. I could hear it but was busy keeping Oliver busy and trying not to think about how uncomfortable it was. Now it is 4 knots. It was nice to have the engine off if only for a few hours, I hope the wind picks up and we can sail more today. I don't mind the engine so much at night since I hate to have to fuss with the lines at night but during the day it sucks. It is hard to believe we have 2 more days of this. I guess it is going by ok but I miss running to Target to buy crap I don't need haha.

We did get more wind and only had to have the engine on for a lit bit today. I think we sailed at least half of it. I made some supper and we just hung out listening to music and playing until bed. It turned out to be a great day minus this rough morning.

1/27/15

I am at watch now it is midnight. Paul's 32 birthday is today. I think he is so happy to be spending it out on the water, I am happy for him. I brought some stuff to make a cake but we may wait until Turtle Bay. I have a quiche we will have for breakfast. The night has been easy. We had to turn the engine on at the beginning of my watch the wind was gone and we were barely moving. I am ok with that. Paul says the engine noise drives him crazy but to me it just becomes white noise. I do like the quiet of sailing more though. 

The ocean is like a glassy lake right now, reminds me of good water skiing conditions. When I woke up the moon was so big, I could only see half of it but it looked like a planet all red and orange. It 'set' only an hour or so after my watch started, I was sad to see it go, it was so bright and beautiful. I tried to get a pic of the moon before it went down but the picture, as usual, doesn't do it justice. The stars are again amazing. It is hard to find the big dipper there are so many.

Yikes it's 4am and I hear the radar going off and sure enough something is on there. I quickly look to where it says the thing is and there is a boat. Yikes, that freaked me out, I did not see that coming. Crazy to think there are other people out here, they were going the opposite way though and about a mile away so we just watched them pass.

Man it is 330pm and still not much wind. It gets old having the engine run all the time, I thought we would for sure get another break this afternoon. We still could I suppose. I want to make Paul a bday cake or some brownies but he said he didn't feel like it. We did just see our first whales. I have to admit I don't look too much since I usually read on watch or am playing with Oliver. They were pretty far away so no telling exactly which kinds but we were told we would see grey whales so probably safe to assume. There were at least 3 that we saw blow at one time. It is crazy, kind of looks like puffs of smoke, especially as they get further away. One breeched too, not crazy high but definitely saw the body come up and just above the surface with a splash back down. As much as I would love to get close they could do serious damage to our boat so better they be far away. We also saw 2 more ships today, container ships just where we saw the other last night, it must be a shipping route.

Finally got some wind around 430pm, we are going fast now (that means 6-7 knots which is basically mph). I think Paul said the wind is 10-15 knots and the ride is no too bad however I feel sea sick. After all this time on the water with none I feel it now. Weird. If we can keep this wind we will get there in the late morning! If we lose the wind it could take us another 12 hours and that would mean getting there after dark which means we would have to tool around waiting for the sun to come up which would suck big time. Lets hope we keep the wind tonight. 

1/28/15

The wind kept up all night, it stayed between 11-15 knots, until we got to Turtle Bay around 11am. I am so happy we got here. Almost 72 hours exactly it took us. Paul stayed up most of the night since the wind was blowing so hard and Oliver wanted me to sleep with him, it was a lot rougher than usual otherwise he usually sleeps great on the boat. I did give Paul a few 1-2 hour naps throughout the night but it was not enough I know he is tired. We plan on anchoring and then he can nap and Oliver will too then we will go to town and try to find some laundry and showers…showers for sure. We've been seeing tons of whales too, I think our count is 11 right now.

You can barely see the back of the whale but it's there. They can go under for like 15 minutes so it's hard to get a picture and we are rocking around constantly

This place is very small and rustic. As you can see from the pictures it is not a touristy place. The few 'restaurants' I have seen are peoples homes who have converted part of it which is very cool. I saw two markets but they are more like scarcely stocked convenience stores and none of it is on any sort of main street we just found it by walking around. It is funny that they are at least 100 miles from any other town but there is wifi all over the place that you can pay to use. It's also much cleaner than Ensenada which is nice, at least from there not being trash in the water and the water is clear. 

We are just pumped. We got to have some beers with some other cruisers (about 8 of them) at this little hole in the wall 'bar' that was right on the water overlooking the boats or we never would've found them. It was nice to talk to everyone about where they are headed and what their experience is. Then we paid $12 to shower at a motel, it felt amazing, it was a week today not touching water. I have never gone so long not even jumping in the ocean or anything, we were disgusting. 

Sunrise while on watch...not too bad

Strip of houses

Main dock

More houses,we get beers at the house on the far right

1/29/15

Rained all day. Stuck on the boat. We just played games and read a lot. The kindle broke, I am so bummed, will have to figure out a way to get a new one. We sat up after Oliver went to bed and looked over where else we want to go along the coast, we think we will leave for Punta Pequena, which has one of the longest rights called Scorpion Bay (for surfing) in the world if I am correct, tomorrow or possibly the next day. We both brought our surf boards so it would be fun to get those in the water. We must get off the boat tomorrow rain or shine!

1/30/15
So far we walked to their biggest supermarket, which is like a nice gas station store. We got eggs, milk, fresh tortillas and the like. We walked and it was super muddy from the rain yesterday, Oliver slipped it was funny. I took some pictures of their muddy streets, it is so strange to not have anything paved, but I forgot the camera.  I have been teasing Paul thanking him for this luxurious vacation. Will try to put them up later.

Just one of the many muddy streets

I am now calling Paul, Yusuf (after Cat Stevens)

1/31/5

We leave today. Hopefully will get wind and swell so we can surf. Will check in later. I hope you all are well!!

1/25/15
We will leave for Turtle Bay in a few hours. We decided to wait an extra day since the forecast was calling for good wind but 3 meter seas which wouldn't have killed us but made for a semi-miserable sail. Everything is going good, we have just been walking around and killing time, we are ready to get out of here. We just need to stop at the market and pick up some fresh produce and we are on our way. Should take us 3 days to get there so don't expect anything until at least that long. I put some pictures up on the last blog.

Main street Ensenada, tourist stuff

More shops

Pharmacy...who needs a prescription!

Market

More market, big head

3 big heads. Important people. I want one.

Juanito's Place, where we kept our boat

Juanito's Dock, they do mostly fishing and tours

The boardwalk outside the marina

More boardwalk

Juanito's hang out

Walking the dock

Mousepad at the dock

Our friend from BC, Michele

Fire boats practicing I think, Oliver loved it

1/22/15

I just tried to write as the day went on...

My first watch. We left san diego around 1030pm, I helped Paul get out of the shallower part of the harbor and then he took over so I could sleep. It was rough at first, the boat was rolling all over the place and I could hear Paul putting the sails up, which is great but doesn't make for a quiet sleep. Oliver was tossing around a lot too. By the time I felt like I really got to sleep Paul was waking me up. It was past my turn, being 3am. I was on watch for maybe an hour when I woke Paul up to check the radar and since the wind was up to 18 knots we reefed the mail sail (made it smaller). We didn't really have to but we were being overly cautious and it was good practice. Paul somehow got the lines tangled or something and had to go mess with it, which is fine, he was tethered in and it wasn't very rough, but it makes me nervous at night. The stars out here are amazing. There is still quite a bit of light pollution coming off of the mexican coast but nothing like LA. It is very peaceful. I have a lot of good books to read so I started in on one of those. 

We almost didn't leave Paul was kind of pushing to wait another day but we had nothing to do and he had already put the dinghy on the boat and strapped it down. I think he was getting cold feet. He said he was tired and I was like well we are going to be tired having to stay up whether it be tonight or tomorrow so lets go. You are the one who has been pushing me to sail to Mexico for so long so lets go already! The only way we are going to get more confident is by doing and 12 hours to Ensenada doesn't scare me very much. None of this really does. I mean I have my moments of fear, mostly irrational (like falling off the side but being tethered and getting caught in the propeller…nightmare stuff, your welcome ;)) but I think that is good, will keep me cautious. I hope we meet some friends tomorrow in Ensenada who have a kid so Oliver can play. We are definitely going to need naps. This would be a million times easier without a child but I know we won't regret it. We will put the jib up too since the wind is so good and try to kill the engine...so much better to sail if we can.

We had some wind and had the sails up but it didn't last so then we had to take them down. Paul didn't sleep very much but he is catching a nap now. I took one this morning when he said he wasn't tired I sure was. Oliver woke up around 0630, the sun was coming up, it was our first Mexican sunrise. I wish we could sail more the engine's so loud. We will get to Ensenada around 2pm I think then we gotta run around while we have daylight and get to immigration and what not, I am hoping it is easy. Paul thinks he saw a whale blow but I didn't see any. I guess there are grey whales along the coast, heading south. 

Otherwise uneventful. Oliver and I are reading books and playing with some flashcards. The land is pretty boring, I mean no cities, mostly mountains. Oliver is being good but he did just ask to get off the boat to run around. It's beautiful weather must be in the seventies and sunny. We couldn't count on just sailing this lag because we had to get there during the day for safety and to get to all the check in places we have to go to. The next lag which will be 3 days at sea we will sail a lot more since we wont know when we will get in. We still will never enter a port we haven't been to if it's dark.

We caught our first fish! A mexican stripped bonito we are pretty sure. I saw something on the line while paul was in the berth reading to Oliver but Paul said oh it is probably sea weed so I was like ok whatever it looked weird to me but what do I know…ha! So like a half hour or hour later I was like check that line and he was like holy crap there is a fish on there. So we pulled it in and looked at our fish book to identify it. It was still alive but all the fight was out of it. We sprayed vodka in the gills and it died fast. I still hate that, makes me sad to see anything suffer. Oliver watched Paul clean it. It made a mess, blood spatters. I was like if that was a bigger fish it would look like a crime scene in here. He got some meat off of it. I would say it was 18 inches and a few pounds. After that excitement we were almost to Ensenada I took a picture of the Mexican flag that you can see flying way out. It has a little port and looks like most harbors for now, we aren't too close yet. Oliver went down for a nap…here we go.

We found the dock no problem and met a guy who helped us with the lines. There is a Carnival cruise ship here and we met a guy from BC Canada who got in a terrible storm on the way down and is slowly fixing his boat here. He plans to head south in a month. We went to pay for our slip for the day and try to go to immigration but they told us to wait until tomorrow because if we go today they will charge you more since it's past 230pm….weird they can do that but whatever. So we walked to the main street and poached some internet quick and let Oliver run around. Before we headed back to the boat for the night we stopped to get a drink and a little pizza, how lame of us I know. I had the best margarita I have ever had in my life! The guy fresh squeezed everything that was in it. It even had some orange and mango, it was nothing like I had ever had before. Then Paul made us fish tacos from our catch that were delicious and that was about it.

1/23/15

First thing I hear today from the vberth (the boys got out of bed before me) is Paul going to the bathroom and Oliver telling him to stop singing. Paul was letting off some gas in the bathroom, he was definitely not singing. I started laughing so hard. I mean it's a small boat if you don't have music or the engine on you can hear everything. That still makes me laugh. 

So we woke up and knew we had to go check in with immigration and register the boat and all that so we left to do that first. On the way there this Mexican guy asked us about Oliver and we got to talking, he spoke pretty good english, and then when he learned we were going to immigration he offered to take us…either he didn't think we knew where it was or was just trying to make a buck so we followed him and on the way there (he had a dog) this other dog came out like going to bite his dog and he just karate kicked the thing and it went running back inside. It was hilarious. I couldn't believe it. I was about to pick Oliver up and run the other way. So then we got there and he helped us translate and get through all we needed to do. It took a few hours and a trip back to the boat but we did it. After a nap we headed to the main street and walked around. We bought a Mexican flag to hang on the boat as a sign of respect. We also checked the weather because we heard there was going to be a lot of wind and big swell over the next few days and we were planning on leaving tomorrow for a 3 days sail. It doesn't look as bad as we had heard but we will check again tomorrow morning and make sure. So that leads to right now we are sitting in a starbucks…wow. Will write tomorrow…and try to post pictures:)

Our Bonito fish

The most gigantic Mexican flag (bigger than the ones at Perkins restaurant if you remember)

The marina from the water

This sign makes it look like it's a lot nicer than it is

Paul sleeping on the floor after his watch lol

My first sunrise on watch, I am sure there are many more ahead