We were in Sweet Pea Cove near Santa Rosalia. It was after ten and the cove was quiet as I lay on the bed in the aft cabin completely absorbed in a good book when Bill tells me he thinks there are dolphins outside. I hold still, listening but can’t hear anything through the hull so I scramble out on deck.
Soon an almost full moon will reflect bright silver off the water and light up the little cove almost like daylight but now it’s pitch black dark. I stand still listening and realize the dark water is definitely not still or quiet. I can hear water lapping at the beach, a fish jumps, a bird cries. All around me a thick marine layer of low fog is already creeping in and soon will coat everything with dew. In the morning the bees will come, drawn to the fresh water. I hear the distinct splat splash of a leaping ray and then a breath.
My mind see’s whale but my eyes and ears are still searching for dolphin. No clicks or whistles and then the breath again: too big for a dolphin. The night feels soft and thick. My eyes keep searching but instead are drawn to the flash and twinkle in the dark the water. The night’s phosphorescence is unusual. Normally we see trails. Whenever a fish moves we catch the swish of a trail lit up with phosphorescence. Tonight instead there are thousands of tiny twinkling bits. The phosphorescence sparkles and shifts with every movement of sea life. Like fairytale snowflakes it sparkles and shifts below the surface.I hear the breath again. How far off is it? I move to the bow of the boat and stand alone and silent while my eyes adjust to the lack of lights. In the distance I can see the slight golden glow of Santa Rosalia. There is the breath again, closer, closer, then moving off again in the distance. The fog seems thicker now. The night is alive with sounds. I keep thinking about what it would feel like to hear all these sounds around me on a passage, then imagine what it would sound like if I had never been on the Sea before.
I hear the breath again. How far off is it? I move to the bow of the boat and stand alone and silent while my eyes adjust to the lack of lights. In the distance I can see the slight golden glow of Santa Rosalia. There is the breath again, closer, closer, then moving off again in the distance. The fog seems thicker now. The night is alive with sounds. I keep thinking about what it would feel like to hear all these sounds around me on a passage, then imagine what it would sound like if I had never been on the Sea before.
More breaths, I am sure now that it is a whale. Then, a sound like a gunshot -the whale is breaching somewhere out there in the dark- then again.
Three days ago as we moved from the marina at Santa Rosalia to Sweet Pea Cove we came upon a sight we had never seen before: ten or more sleeping Sperm whales. Spread out in two’s and threes we could see them off in the distance as the sun reflected off their backs. At first they looked like huge logs but I knew we were far from the land of logs. As we motored closer I could see a spout here then there. They weren’t reacting to our presence at all. Then as we got close enough to see them clearly they would slip backwards, great heads lifting up and then slipping beneath the surface before rolling forward and down into the depths. Each new group we neared stayed still until we were nearly upon them and then slip back, great head lifting, roll forward and down into the deep.
Tonight it sounded like just one. Was the whale I was hearing now a mighty Sperm whale? Another smash and a splash then one more breathe then nothing. I stood on the deck listening for a while but heard nothing more. As I moved below again I wondered what kind of a whale it had been. How many were there? Why do whales ? Why would a whale breach in the darkness? Did he know I was there?
Grabbing for my book I scrambled back onto the bed thinking about whales and life. Every new wildlife experience here in the Sea shows us a new piece of nature and every new cultural experience shows us another view of our world. This whole experience surely has been the chance of a lifetime and tonight I feel grateful.
Kat
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Sea is beggining to show herself
The Sea is starting to really show herself. Lots of new marine life. Have you ever seen a blue footed booby? They are of course striking for their bright blue feet but they are really beautiful birds. They are diving birds, very sleek with a long narrow beak that is the same shade of blue. The blue shows itself off against an amazingly brigth white breast.
At Sweet Pea cove every evening the birds come out in force to feed right at twilight. The many many birds hitting the water in sheer dives sounds like far off firecrackers…bang, bang, bang. The area is also thick with bat rays that jump with a bang. They jump all day but especially in the early am and the late pm. They are fun to watch for two reasons. First they just make you laugh the way they come barreling out of the water like wet bats. They are very wiggly and they often do complete flips before hitting the water. Sometimes they skip across the water like a skipping stone. Second you can watch them from quite a ways off and you see them fly out and smack back into the water and then hear the sound a second later. Growing up in Seattle during the SST and the era of sonic booms I think of those little rays breaking the speed of sound! Sitting in the cockpit in the evenings your surrounded by the sounds of the birds feeding and the rays jumping….bang bang, smack, bang, smack smack, smack.
The last three nights there has been a sperm whale feeding in the channel that runs between Santa Rosalia and Sweet Pea Cove. I think they are feeding on the squid that are here in abundance now. Three nights running now I caught the sound of a breath and so went up on deck. Mostly it has just been feeding but one night out in the darkness it was breaching. The sound of a creature the size of a sperm whale breaching in the darkness is awesome and a little bit earie.
Yesterday we went out on a dinghy ride and had a manta ray come up next to us. It was a very small manta –maybe two and a half feet across- not a huge ten footer but he took a look at us and sort of veered away then changed his mind and came back to check us out. They are known to be very inquisitive and seem to actually seek out people which is why it is possible to “ride” them while diving in some places in Mexico.
We have not been diving here yet but the clarity is of the water is getting better every day. The snorkeling is pretty good but it too depends on how hard the wind has been blowing and how much muck has been stirred up. The visibility at Sweet Pea had been really good then a southern blew in and the water murked up with tons of silt from the upwind gypsum mine. Oh well its getting clearer every day.
We’ve had two four foot+ mahi mahi on but lost both before we could get them aboard which really chaps Bills you know what. Especially the second one because he had said “next time I am going to drag it behind the boat and wear him out for half an hour before trying to get it on board” then dumped that game plan when it hit the line.
The good news is that the fishing is picking up. The big pelagic fish come into the Sea with the warmer waters and are beginning to arrive now. On our trip across the Sea from mainland (Guaymas) to Santa Rosalia we saw tons of big fish in the water. We saw a huge fish swimming under the boat, a sailfish breaking the water just aft of our stern as we flew by at 8knots and many sightings of big guys jumping off in the distance. Then we went fishing and could see big fish tearing across the surface leaving a sort of jet stream V as they streaked across the surface. None of them would hit our lures, oh well we'll keep trying.
One afternoon at anchor one of the other boats in the anchorage came over and offered us some squid. Seems Pat got talking with a panga full of fisherman and successfully traded a Hustler magazine for a bucket of squid. Pat was being generous in sharing which was lovely but what he really wanted was to find someone who knew how to cook and clean them. Bill was able to find a sight online that went through the cleaning process so knife and cutting board in hand we motored over to Pats boat. I was a bit surprised at first because I was expecting five or six inch squid but instead was faced with a water pail sized bucket full of three footers. It turns out too that he didn't really want to learn how to clean them and was happy to sit and watch as I made my way through the bucket full. It also turned out that Pat has no refrigeration aboard so he gave us a huge pile of fresh calamari. The next day some friends happened into the cove so I sautéed up a batch and served it with aoli -a big hit all around. When we make it back to Santa Rosalia we will try and find a squid jig and will try our own hands at filling a small bucket.
At Sweet Pea cove every evening the birds come out in force to feed right at twilight. The many many birds hitting the water in sheer dives sounds like far off firecrackers…bang, bang, bang. The area is also thick with bat rays that jump with a bang. They jump all day but especially in the early am and the late pm. They are fun to watch for two reasons. First they just make you laugh the way they come barreling out of the water like wet bats. They are very wiggly and they often do complete flips before hitting the water. Sometimes they skip across the water like a skipping stone. Second you can watch them from quite a ways off and you see them fly out and smack back into the water and then hear the sound a second later. Growing up in Seattle during the SST and the era of sonic booms I think of those little rays breaking the speed of sound! Sitting in the cockpit in the evenings your surrounded by the sounds of the birds feeding and the rays jumping….bang bang, smack, bang, smack smack, smack.
The last three nights there has been a sperm whale feeding in the channel that runs between Santa Rosalia and Sweet Pea Cove. I think they are feeding on the squid that are here in abundance now. Three nights running now I caught the sound of a breath and so went up on deck. Mostly it has just been feeding but one night out in the darkness it was breaching. The sound of a creature the size of a sperm whale breaching in the darkness is awesome and a little bit earie.
Yesterday we went out on a dinghy ride and had a manta ray come up next to us. It was a very small manta –maybe two and a half feet across- not a huge ten footer but he took a look at us and sort of veered away then changed his mind and came back to check us out. They are known to be very inquisitive and seem to actually seek out people which is why it is possible to “ride” them while diving in some places in Mexico.
We have not been diving here yet but the clarity is of the water is getting better every day. The snorkeling is pretty good but it too depends on how hard the wind has been blowing and how much muck has been stirred up. The visibility at Sweet Pea had been really good then a southern blew in and the water murked up with tons of silt from the upwind gypsum mine. Oh well its getting clearer every day.
We’ve had two four foot+ mahi mahi on but lost both before we could get them aboard which really chaps Bills you know what. Especially the second one because he had said “next time I am going to drag it behind the boat and wear him out for half an hour before trying to get it on board” then dumped that game plan when it hit the line.
The good news is that the fishing is picking up. The big pelagic fish come into the Sea with the warmer waters and are beginning to arrive now. On our trip across the Sea from mainland (Guaymas) to Santa Rosalia we saw tons of big fish in the water. We saw a huge fish swimming under the boat, a sailfish breaking the water just aft of our stern as we flew by at 8knots and many sightings of big guys jumping off in the distance. Then we went fishing and could see big fish tearing across the surface leaving a sort of jet stream V as they streaked across the surface. None of them would hit our lures, oh well we'll keep trying.
One afternoon at anchor one of the other boats in the anchorage came over and offered us some squid. Seems Pat got talking with a panga full of fisherman and successfully traded a Hustler magazine for a bucket of squid. Pat was being generous in sharing which was lovely but what he really wanted was to find someone who knew how to cook and clean them. Bill was able to find a sight online that went through the cleaning process so knife and cutting board in hand we motored over to Pats boat. I was a bit surprised at first because I was expecting five or six inch squid but instead was faced with a water pail sized bucket full of three footers. It turns out too that he didn't really want to learn how to clean them and was happy to sit and watch as I made my way through the bucket full. It also turned out that Pat has no refrigeration aboard so he gave us a huge pile of fresh calamari. The next day some friends happened into the cove so I sautéed up a batch and served it with aoli -a big hit all around. When we make it back to Santa Rosalia we will try and find a squid jig and will try our own hands at filling a small bucket.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
6/6 Outbound Guaymas
This morning we head away from Guaymas to a clean quiet anchorage in San Carlos. The cabin temperature at 7:30 is already 93 degrees so we are leaving bright and early to beat the heat - as if that's possible. Our time in Guaymas has been productive which is great because I think the heat is going to slow down any ideas we might have on doing boat projects or much of anything really.
I finally finished our sunshade which other cruisers had told us would be essential for surviving a summer in the Sea. I started working on the sunshade way back in January while in La Cruz. The idea behind the sunshade is to have a awning of sorts over the whole boat to keep the beating sun from raising inside temperatures to intolerable levels.
You would think it would be simple. Maybe a big rectangle suspended from the rigging and your good to go. Except for two important problems. 1. we have four solar panels that can't be covered and 2. that rigging.
The rigging of a sailboat is a complicated thing. We have an eight shroud, two spreader rig with a back stay, the forstay and a stays'l stay. In addition we have a boom brake that attaches port to starboard midship and a set of moveable running rigging for heavy downwind passages. Then of course there are the three sheets and four halyards (sailors' names for all those lines.) Plus of course the mast itself and the boom all of which are in the way of anything one tries to suspend "above" the deck.
As for the four solar panels: with them we generate enough electricity to stay at anchor unplugged from civilization essentally indefinitly. With them covered we would be forced to run our engine daily to run the ship. Running the engine means heat and that is a kill joy.
In the end it required aproximatly 45 yards of hem, 50+ grommets, 25 bungy cords, a handful of snaps and 8 hemmed slits for rigging, sheets and stays to produce four seperate 6'x12' panels aloft and one 5'x5' foot panel that snaps off and on to provide side shade as the sun clocks around us. I already can feel a difference but I suspect in the end we will find out that either we love it and use it faithfully or it simply becomes too much of a bother. Did I mention that we will have to take it down every night or risk having it torn to smithereens in one of the Seas frequent night Coromuels or Elefantes -sudden night winds that blow in the Sea in the summer?
Bill was busy installing both our repalcement power inverter -so I can run my sewing machine at anchor and the new radar. The radar turned into a bit f a fiasco unfoartunatly. The chart ploter we purchased before we left Seattle was purchased partly because it was supposed to support running several different electronics all at the same time onthe same viewing screen. It already was wired with: chart plotter, GPS, VHF, Loud Hailer, AIS and Depth. The radar should have been a simple install and add on. Unfortunatly Standard Horizon doesn't supply enough ports to run a radar too. Eventually Bill wound one of his miracles by installing a set of switches in the cockpit so we can toggle from one application to the next without needing to go below to flip a switch. That going below by-the-way would have primarily been Kats job. Up, down, up, down -a one more trip and I will scream kind of job.
Yesterday was our first truly hot day -even with the new shade in place. I am not going to try complaining to all of you. It is just the way it is here. We came looking for Christmas in shorts and flipflops, tropical beaches and warm blue waters. Those things don't come without an off season. When it comes to the tropics the off season always brings either blasting heat or drenching rains from storms. Oh, and hurricanes or typhoons.
Today there is the first murmer of a "depression" off to the south. Not a hurricane, not even a tropical depression. Nothing for us to worry about, no need to run or prepare but it is the season and we check every day. When woke up I looked at our cabin thermometer, just to check because last night had felt hotter than any other so far. Sure enough the cabin was 90 degrees at 8:00am. By 3:00pm with every port, hatch and companionway wide open it was 99!
We worked a few hours in the morning and the afternoon was left to relax and do nothing. While doing the laundry I slipped into my swimsuit before hitting the marina laundry mat. Wash in, a dip in the pool. Move the laundry and another dip in the pool before doing the fold and fluff. This morning its a flurry of getting ready. A quick trip to the bank, sunshade down and stored, hatchboards away, everything stored and a quick check out with the marina. Swimming and hopefully a cooling breeze. I cant wait. Once back at anchor (and out of the poluted harbor) I can slip into the water as often as I like to stave off the heat. My only worry right now is how to arrange a reading pillow on my new water cooled airmattress. Kat
I finally finished our sunshade which other cruisers had told us would be essential for surviving a summer in the Sea. I started working on the sunshade way back in January while in La Cruz. The idea behind the sunshade is to have a awning of sorts over the whole boat to keep the beating sun from raising inside temperatures to intolerable levels.
You would think it would be simple. Maybe a big rectangle suspended from the rigging and your good to go. Except for two important problems. 1. we have four solar panels that can't be covered and 2. that rigging.
The rigging of a sailboat is a complicated thing. We have an eight shroud, two spreader rig with a back stay, the forstay and a stays'l stay. In addition we have a boom brake that attaches port to starboard midship and a set of moveable running rigging for heavy downwind passages. Then of course there are the three sheets and four halyards (sailors' names for all those lines.) Plus of course the mast itself and the boom all of which are in the way of anything one tries to suspend "above" the deck.
As for the four solar panels: with them we generate enough electricity to stay at anchor unplugged from civilization essentally indefinitly. With them covered we would be forced to run our engine daily to run the ship. Running the engine means heat and that is a kill joy.
In the end it required aproximatly 45 yards of hem, 50+ grommets, 25 bungy cords, a handful of snaps and 8 hemmed slits for rigging, sheets and stays to produce four seperate 6'x12' panels aloft and one 5'x5' foot panel that snaps off and on to provide side shade as the sun clocks around us. I already can feel a difference but I suspect in the end we will find out that either we love it and use it faithfully or it simply becomes too much of a bother. Did I mention that we will have to take it down every night or risk having it torn to smithereens in one of the Seas frequent night Coromuels or Elefantes -sudden night winds that blow in the Sea in the summer?
Bill was busy installing both our repalcement power inverter -so I can run my sewing machine at anchor and the new radar. The radar turned into a bit f a fiasco unfoartunatly. The chart ploter we purchased before we left Seattle was purchased partly because it was supposed to support running several different electronics all at the same time onthe same viewing screen. It already was wired with: chart plotter, GPS, VHF, Loud Hailer, AIS and Depth. The radar should have been a simple install and add on. Unfortunatly Standard Horizon doesn't supply enough ports to run a radar too. Eventually Bill wound one of his miracles by installing a set of switches in the cockpit so we can toggle from one application to the next without needing to go below to flip a switch. That going below by-the-way would have primarily been Kats job. Up, down, up, down -a one more trip and I will scream kind of job.
Yesterday was our first truly hot day -even with the new shade in place. I am not going to try complaining to all of you. It is just the way it is here. We came looking for Christmas in shorts and flipflops, tropical beaches and warm blue waters. Those things don't come without an off season. When it comes to the tropics the off season always brings either blasting heat or drenching rains from storms. Oh, and hurricanes or typhoons.
Today there is the first murmer of a "depression" off to the south. Not a hurricane, not even a tropical depression. Nothing for us to worry about, no need to run or prepare but it is the season and we check every day. When woke up I looked at our cabin thermometer, just to check because last night had felt hotter than any other so far. Sure enough the cabin was 90 degrees at 8:00am. By 3:00pm with every port, hatch and companionway wide open it was 99!
We worked a few hours in the morning and the afternoon was left to relax and do nothing. While doing the laundry I slipped into my swimsuit before hitting the marina laundry mat. Wash in, a dip in the pool. Move the laundry and another dip in the pool before doing the fold and fluff. This morning its a flurry of getting ready. A quick trip to the bank, sunshade down and stored, hatchboards away, everything stored and a quick check out with the marina. Swimming and hopefully a cooling breeze. I cant wait. Once back at anchor (and out of the poluted harbor) I can slip into the water as often as I like to stave off the heat. My only worry right now is how to arrange a reading pillow on my new water cooled airmattress. Kat
Friday, May 27, 2011
5/26 Alone in Guaymas
Tonight I am aboard alone in Guaymas with Bill back in Seattle handling some business. It was an unexpected trip but was worth the time and trouble. We had sailed from Playa Santispac to Bahia Santa Domingo because we had heard that it was possible to pick up cell coverage there. When we arrived in the early afternoon Bill opened his mail and found out there was a bit of a snafu back home that couldn't be handled from Mexico. The coverage was patchy and so unable to do mcuh to handle the problem we set sail across the Sea to Guaymas. Back in the land of the internet we set out to try and arrange a trip home.
it was going to take a ten hour bus ride from Guaymas to the US, one night in Phoenix and an early flight to Seattle all for a rather exhorbinant price. I would have loved to get home for even a short visit but the money we could save if I stayed will be enough for both of us to take a trip back in August or September when the heat really settles down on the Sea. So, I loaded him down with snacks for the trip, kissed him goodbye and walked the two or three miles back to the boat in the 90degree heat.
While Bill bounced along on the road I finished cleaning the decks, scrubbed things out below and did three loads of laundry. Eventually I wore myself out and settled back with some leftover tortillas and cold chicken to watch three episodes of Breaking Bad (a USA TV series) before crawling into bed. I was beat tired but right across from the marina they were busy getting ready for a visit by the President that is scheduled for June 1st. The town is crawling with military while they ready the town for the visit and they have been banging away setting up a huge pavillion that is now filling up with booths,beer gardens and stages. For some reason for two nights running a military brass band has been practicing a stones throw from my bed. They don't even start to play until after 8 and last night they were still bugling away at 11:00.
This morning I set out with Grover on Koloa Kai for a tour of Guaymas and the nearby town of San Carlos. Grover is a long time friend of "Far Country" and when Valasta and Gordo heard we were sailing this way they told me to look him up. He not only gave me a tour of both Guaymas ans San Carlos but also filled me in on the bus system so I get around on my own. We visited with some friends of his in San Carlos, had a great lunch at JJ's taco stand and even located the local AA hall. Tomorrow I will set off on my own to see the town and hopefully get a peek in the Presidential party tent. Now though it's hot out. Really hot. I left a cup of tea in the cockpit and when I came home four hours later it was still drinkably warm! Right now the marina pool is calling my name so hasta` luego. Kat
5/22 50th Birthday
22nd Mulege` Yesterday was my fiftieth birthday, the second I have celebrated since becoming a full time cruiser. It seems impossible that it was only a year ago that I was celebrating in the rain and the cold of Prince Rupert BC. Still miles from Alaska we were stuck there desperately trying to fix the broken heater that threatened to end our Alaskan trip before it had even started. Prince Rupert was cold and wet, I was cold and wet and my gift from Bill was a pair of fancy flowered rubber boots that I begged for. Well, it’s a whole new world this year. For 2011 I spent my morning in my swimsuit paddling alone in my kayak around the anchorage in Playa Santispac with four!!! whale sharks. The previous day Bill and I were able to get in the water with them and then follow them around in our dinghy snapping pictures and watching their odd behavior. You may have picked up on the fact that seeing the whale sharks was high on my list of “hope it happens” in the Sea. I guess I thought it was a given that we would find them, eventually. Then I began hearing stories of cruisers who have spent years in the Sea and never happened upon them. It was an amazing experience and we were very lucky to have stumbled on them. I guess I assumed that it was a once in a lifetime chance. So I was stunned to see them again early the next morning. Bill was busy below with his Spanish lesson and I had been sitting in the cockpit drinking my tea and there they were, four whale sharks feeding quietly in the calm anchorage. There were four of them for goodness sake! I sat watching them, was going to just sit and observe but then thought what the heck I just couldn’t pass the chance by. In less than five minutes I had changed into my swimsuit, launched the kayak, grabbed a paddle and my camera and slid into the water. It was a very different experience than the previous day. Part of it was having a lower adrenalin level. Well a little at least - I had been so hyped and excited the previous day. Today the anchorage was quiet and calm. No boats buzzing around and no paddle boarders. My vantage point from the kayak –so close to the water- got me incredibly close to the fish as they fed. Very calmly and quietly I paddled into their midst and then just let myself float freely along . These great creatures are a marvel to watch. Their dark brown bodies are a dark brown with golden spots all over with faint stripes running vertically along their length. These four ranged in length from fifteen to over twenty feet and I can long only guess that they weigh over a 1000 pounds. Their silhouette looks roughly like a huge pollywog. They are very thick top to bottom, have a long sweeping tail and sport a large dorsal fin and a huge vertical tail fin shaped like the tail of an airplane. I am sure that their sheer size and the distinct shark shaped tail are what gave them their name. They are fish not mammals and they swim along the surface with dorsal and tail protruding as they “S” along through the water ala` “Jaws.” They have huge flat heads with great gills running along both sides about four feet back and they have the biggest mouth I think I have ever seen. They look scary but are incredibly docile creatures who spend their days swimming along the surface, huge mouths agape scooping up the thousands of gallons of water that they need to filter out the tiny bits of sea life that sustain them. From right on the surface of the water I could have simply reached and touched them. In spite of their size when they are not on the surface they move through the water barely causing a ripple. Trust me when I say that when one suddenly appears underneath you, gliding silently by with a swish of their tails it is a bit unnerving. They frequently came so close that I thought they were going to run into me only to veer off at the last moment. Three times I could feel the tip of a giant tail running the length of the bottom of my kayak. The first time we contacted I was sure it was going to upset a sleeping giant and that he would give a mighty swish and topple me into the bay but instead he made a tiny flinch and then sailed on past. What a way to start my birthday. Later we went in to Mulege` with Jerry and our friends from Sirena Connie and Ed. We met Jerry the night before at dinner, a local expat who moved here 11 years ago. His daughter Kelly was visiting him from California and he offered to take us into Mulege` to see the sights and to do some grocery shopping. What a treat. Jerry is one of the truly friendly in this world. He acted as tour guide and gave us a running history as we drove into town. He waited patiently as we did our tourist duty of walking all over town, ducking into stores and buying ice cream –it was my birthday after all. Then shared his local knowledge and took us to four stores so we could provision with the most choices and best prices in town. When we were all spent out and beginning to suffer from the mid day heat we drove to his favorite spot for lunch and a cool drink before finally dropping us on the sandy beach right next to our dinghies! Once we had unloaded about 15 bags of goodies from his SUV we all waved and he was off to meet friends for cocktail hour. Later that evening we went ashore to Anna’s with the crew from Sirena to celebrate my birthday dinner. Jerry had turned us onto Anna’s the designated gringo hangout for everyone south of town. The locals meet every Saturday night from roughly November till June and this was to be the last big hoorah of the season and the place to be to celebrate my birthday. Before our seats were warm we had invited another couple, Lynn and Clint from Taya to join us and then Jerry and his lovely daughter Kelly arrived. The music started up before we ordered and by the time chips and salsa were due the disco ball was spinning. Bill and I love to dance: swing, waltz, Lindy, salsa…disco not so much but who wouldn’t love to dance the night away in a Mexican cantina named Anna’s, owned and run by a woman named Lupe that plays primarily country music under the sparkle of a disco ball? All that and all the groceries I could fit into a dinghy!! Great day. Kat
Thursday, May 26, 2011
5/20 Whale sharks at Playa Santispac
We arrived at Playa Santispac in Bahia Concepcion yesterday after a 10hour rodeo ride. It started out calm as could be and we had our sails up in a light wind as we left San Juanico at 6am. The mild NW beam reach winds quickly turned into a northern and built throughout the day with winds reaching about 18kns. The winds were not the problem though. Once the northern settled onto our nose it was the steep short chop that made for a rough ride. Ten hours later we arrived worn out and bit jumbled but fared better than our friends on both Persistence and Serina. Persistence packed it in after about three hours and headed back to San Juanico and Serina (who got an extra hour of sleep but quickly left us in her dust) blew out the clew of their high tech jib. The day ended nicely with Ed and Connie from Serena helping us finish off the rest of the Chocolate clams from San Juanico. Oh and on our way in to Bahia Concepcion I picked up a VHF transmission saying that the whale sharks were in Playa Santispac. So while Bill hit the sheets by 8:15 I stayed up and got our underwater camera ready to go in case they returned. As my head hit the pillow I was thinking about the morning (snorkel gear, camera, charged battery, check!) and hoping they would reappear.
I rolled out of bed, turned on the tea pot and fled to the cockpit with my yogurt and the binoculars hoping I would be lucky. I had no more than taken a bite of yogurt when I saw a big tail cruise between us and Serena. No wonder they call them whale sharks. They are the size of whales but feed on the surface so their tail and dorsal fin cuts through the water like a shark. They have that familiar swishing movement of a shark too. Whispering at Bill as loudly as I could I nearly fell down the companionway in my excitement. As Bill scrambled on deck I was already grabbing flippers and masks and looking for my suit. It took us no time to get the dinghy down and the gear loaded and off we went in pursuit.
There is some controversy about swimming with the whale sharks. Some people feel that we shouldn’t bother them at all. If they swim by great, get a few photos and consider yourself lucky but don’t pursue them or get in the water with them. The other school of thought is that since the creatures seem to have no concern what so ever when humans are in the water or next to them in boats means its not harming them at all. I simply couldn’t pass the experience by. Since they are actually fish not whales their bodies are covered with a slippery slimy coating that acts as a protective barrier. Touching them can compromise that barrier so hands off. With my wet suit on and still trying to tuck my feet into my swim fins we motored the dinghy towards one of the two we were watching. In a moment I was pulling on my mask, slipping the camera over my head and sliding into the water with my heart pounding.
As I bobbed at the surface adjusting my gear and turning on my camera my mind began to run its own line of reasoning. I swam forward, then slowed down, then stopped. The water was very murky and I hadn’t really gotten a good look at him. Just how big is he? Will I see him coming or is the murk to thick? If one comes right towards me will I see him before he is on top of me? With adrenalin pumping, fear creeping in, body on alert and conversation with myself still rumbling in my head I moved forward -a little. How often do I get to be in the water next to a creature that is 15feet long? Should I put my head in the water and swim towards him? Or should I keep my head above water and try to keep my eyes on him? Then finally a deep breath through my snorkel I pushed through the adrenalin and slipped below the surface.
I thought he was in front of me moving towards shore but suddenly to my right out of the dark green he swims passed me only a few feet away. *&^%, by the time I had my camera raised all I could see was the last bit of spotted body and the great big tail. By this time Bill was in the water too and for the next fifteen minutes we swam around in circles trying to get close enough to them to photograph. The reason the whale sharks are here is because the water here is full of good stuff for them to eat. Unfortunately that means the clarity of the water is poor which doesn’t make for good underwater photography. I had one more decent pass by and clicked off a couple of pictures but we could tell the other people now around us were getting much better pictures from their dinghies than we were managing from the water so we climbed out and headed off to try and get some better shots.
The next thirty minutes was amazing. From the dinghy we had a much better view. We could see the shadow of their body even when they swam deep which made them easy to track and the amount of time they spent on the surface made it easy to get lots of good pictures. They seem to do most of their feeding on the surface with their huge heads half out of the water. They have the biggest mouth I have ever seen. They swim along the surface mouth agape scooping the huge amounts of water they need to filter out the tiny krill and plankton they need to survive. They truly don’t seem to be bothered at all by the human contact. Everyone was being thoughtful and careful around them and every outboard was carefully kicked down to neutral whenever the creatures came close. Over and over they surfaced right next to paddle boards and boats full of gawking cruisers. They stayed on the surface for amazingly long amounts of time swishing the water in and siphoning out their breakfast. No fear and no worry that we could see. One of them though must have tangled with a propeller or two in the past because his dorsal fin looked like it had been sliced into big thick strips. With that kind of injury you would think they would choose to stay away from humans but apparently not. Maybe much like Florida’s manatees their docile nature doesn’t serve them as well as it did eons ago when they began swimming the Sea. Happily for me though they simply keep on swimming and scooping. It was a heck of a way to start my day. Kat
5/18 In search of Mexico's famous Chocolate` clam.
In the nine days we stayed at San Juanico we had several opportunities to try our hand at capturing the great Chocolate` clam. I will add a disclaimer before we upset anyone. In spite of the widely held belief that gringos are not allowed to harvest any clams or shellfish numerous cruisers had talked about the chocolate` clams in isolated anchorages that “just jump into their dinghies.” So it was a rule often broken and rarely if ever enforced but we were not comfortable with breaking any laws or the possible penalties for doing so in a foreign country. Then while at Loreto fest we talked with a Fish and Wildlife official who said that wasn’t and was never true. If you have a current fishing license it is OK to take clams, crabs, lobster etc “in amounts for personal consumption only.” He also debunked the myth about fishing licenses themselves. That being –and pushed vigorously by the agencies in San Diego that sell Mexican licenses- that “if there is even one hook on your boat it is necessary to have a license for everyone on board your boat.” And that further “the penalty of breaking this rule carrying punishment up to and including a heavy fines and the confiscation of your boat! He assured us that as long as people who are actively fishing are properly licensed those who have no interest do not need to purchase one. And he even gave us the website and a contact email for a person who could verify that.
So, being told that there were Chocolate` clams at San Juanico and getting some helpful hints from Peggy on “Interlude” we set out to try our luck. Armed with snorkel gear, game bag and dive gloves to protect our hands we set off. We dove and dug and dove and dug but after nearly an hour I had come up with zilch and Bill had a measly five. Not enough for a meal that’s for sure. We obviously needed a bit more information from Peggy!
The next morning armed with a few more helpful hints we set off with Leonard and Wilma of Midnight Sun to a nearby shallow sandy bottomed beach. The signs we were looking for would be two holes side by side about an inch or inch and a half apart. They should be in 8 to 20 feet of water and they were reported to dig deeper if you swam over them with the sun to your back, the shadow apparently alerting them to the presence of predators. Leonard and Wilma came equipped with snorkel gear, a game bag attached to a life preserver to keep it afloat and their abalone bars –a metal pry bar with a handle and a wrist tether. Bill went for the bare handed method but carried our game bag and I brought along my trusty garden trowel tied to my wrist with a length of cotton rope.
We split apart and in no time all you could see were splashes and flippers and bums in the air. I found my first clam on my second dive and stuffed it into the top of my wet suit. The extra information was already paying off. It was easy when you were looking for the right signs. We knocked em dead for the next half hour. I “captured” roughly 2 ½ dozen and Bill at least that many. Our game bag was so heavy with clams that when I swam back to bill to drop off my haul with him I could barely stay afloat while holding the bag. Wilma and Leonard were just as successful and in no time we were back to our boats with a six pm date for dinner and a game of Farkle aboard their boat.
The feast was delicious and because I am nice I will give you a great recipe that will work for any clams you might happen to have jump in your boat. Chocolate` clams are the shape of our butter clams back home and about the size of the palm of your hand. They have a chocolate brown shell and the meat inside is roughly twice the size of a butter clam. We have been told they are great just cooked on the BBQ but we decided to try something a bit more gourmet.
Clams San Juanico
2 doz. Chocolate` clams (shells of 1 doz. Reserved)
2-3 T mayonnaise
2 cloves garlic minced (I used more like 4)
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup (give or take) of freshly grated parmesan cheese
Toasted bread crumbs ( I toasted them on the top of the stove in some EVOO and fresh garlic)
Hang the clams for a few hours so they rid themselves of any sand. To open them I put them in the fridge until they began to open on their own then with a heavy glove to protect my hands I pried them open with a knife. (Only take out two or three at a time because by the time you get the third clam open the fourth will have shut back tight again.) Remove the main stomach part and discard and chop the rest of the meat into a mince. Add the mayo and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste then fold in the parmesan cheese. Refill cleaned shells and top with a tsp of bread crumbs then cook for just a few minutes on the BBQ or bake at 350 for about ten minutes.
The captain of Midnight Sun produced a delicious red sauce – I am lazy and would use Prego spaghetti sauce- then mixed in the steamed minced clam meat like you would add ground beef. Top with parmesan cheese and serve with fresh bread baked in your sun oven!
The second night I steamed the remainder of the clams for a minute or two to make it easy to remove the meat and added it to a simple pasta.
3 cloves of garlic minced
5 cloves of roasted garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ of chopped clam meat
Grated parmesan
½ a box of Mexican La La brand “media crema”
Cook garlic in EVOO till soft but not browned in large pot. Add chopped roasted garlic and season to taste. Remove from heat and add chopped clam meat.
Prepare pasta as directed reserving a cup or so of the pasta water when through. Add drained pasta to pan of clams and stir. Add parmesan and check seasoning. Pour 1/3 to ½ small box of La La crema media and stir. Add pasta water as needed to desired consistence. Serve with three or four of the baked clams San Juanico arranged on top of each plate.
*La La brand media crema is a Mexican product that comes in small boxes and can be stored on your shelf indefinitely. It makes a great instant cream sauce. It is roughly like half and half and is also delicious used like heavy cream over fruit or baked deserts if you add a bit of vanilla and chill.
Bon appetite! Kat
So, being told that there were Chocolate` clams at San Juanico and getting some helpful hints from Peggy on “Interlude” we set out to try our luck. Armed with snorkel gear, game bag and dive gloves to protect our hands we set off. We dove and dug and dove and dug but after nearly an hour I had come up with zilch and Bill had a measly five. Not enough for a meal that’s for sure. We obviously needed a bit more information from Peggy!
The next morning armed with a few more helpful hints we set off with Leonard and Wilma of Midnight Sun to a nearby shallow sandy bottomed beach. The signs we were looking for would be two holes side by side about an inch or inch and a half apart. They should be in 8 to 20 feet of water and they were reported to dig deeper if you swam over them with the sun to your back, the shadow apparently alerting them to the presence of predators. Leonard and Wilma came equipped with snorkel gear, a game bag attached to a life preserver to keep it afloat and their abalone bars –a metal pry bar with a handle and a wrist tether. Bill went for the bare handed method but carried our game bag and I brought along my trusty garden trowel tied to my wrist with a length of cotton rope.
We split apart and in no time all you could see were splashes and flippers and bums in the air. I found my first clam on my second dive and stuffed it into the top of my wet suit. The extra information was already paying off. It was easy when you were looking for the right signs. We knocked em dead for the next half hour. I “captured” roughly 2 ½ dozen and Bill at least that many. Our game bag was so heavy with clams that when I swam back to bill to drop off my haul with him I could barely stay afloat while holding the bag. Wilma and Leonard were just as successful and in no time we were back to our boats with a six pm date for dinner and a game of Farkle aboard their boat.
The feast was delicious and because I am nice I will give you a great recipe that will work for any clams you might happen to have jump in your boat. Chocolate` clams are the shape of our butter clams back home and about the size of the palm of your hand. They have a chocolate brown shell and the meat inside is roughly twice the size of a butter clam. We have been told they are great just cooked on the BBQ but we decided to try something a bit more gourmet.
Clams San Juanico
2 doz. Chocolate` clams (shells of 1 doz. Reserved)
2-3 T mayonnaise
2 cloves garlic minced (I used more like 4)
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup (give or take) of freshly grated parmesan cheese
Toasted bread crumbs ( I toasted them on the top of the stove in some EVOO and fresh garlic)
Hang the clams for a few hours so they rid themselves of any sand. To open them I put them in the fridge until they began to open on their own then with a heavy glove to protect my hands I pried them open with a knife. (Only take out two or three at a time because by the time you get the third clam open the fourth will have shut back tight again.) Remove the main stomach part and discard and chop the rest of the meat into a mince. Add the mayo and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste then fold in the parmesan cheese. Refill cleaned shells and top with a tsp of bread crumbs then cook for just a few minutes on the BBQ or bake at 350 for about ten minutes.
The captain of Midnight Sun produced a delicious red sauce – I am lazy and would use Prego spaghetti sauce- then mixed in the steamed minced clam meat like you would add ground beef. Top with parmesan cheese and serve with fresh bread baked in your sun oven!
The second night I steamed the remainder of the clams for a minute or two to make it easy to remove the meat and added it to a simple pasta.
3 cloves of garlic minced
5 cloves of roasted garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ of chopped clam meat
Grated parmesan
½ a box of Mexican La La brand “media crema”
Cook garlic in EVOO till soft but not browned in large pot. Add chopped roasted garlic and season to taste. Remove from heat and add chopped clam meat.
Prepare pasta as directed reserving a cup or so of the pasta water when through. Add drained pasta to pan of clams and stir. Add parmesan and check seasoning. Pour 1/3 to ½ small box of La La crema media and stir. Add pasta water as needed to desired consistence. Serve with three or four of the baked clams San Juanico arranged on top of each plate.
*La La brand media crema is a Mexican product that comes in small boxes and can be stored on your shelf indefinitely. It makes a great instant cream sauce. It is roughly like half and half and is also delicious used like heavy cream over fruit or baked deserts if you add a bit of vanilla and chill.
Bon appetite! Kat
5/14 Apache Tears and the Cruisers Shrine at San Juanico
We have spent the last five nights –or is it six? What day is it again? - at San Juanico. It’s a great anchorage, beautiful, safe in most winds, room for plenty of boats and the weather has been perfect. Who could ask for more? We have had beach gatherings, Bocce Ball games, potluck dinners and evening games of Farkle. Saturday night was the last night for several of the boats in the anchorage so we gathered for one last potluck and good bye for the season. The gals decided to turn it into an early celebration of my 50th birthday. They amazed me with some wonderful impromptu gifts, a candle to blow out and chocolates to cap off the meal. The gifts were all tailor made for a cruising woman of “a certain age.” Among the gifts were several that were made to order: a fan to ward off hot flashes, face cream with high SPF to protect my skin, the coveted Mexican brand of high octane insect repellant and its sister product the anti-itch cream. Loving and practical!
This morning we went out fishing again and quickly caught enough for a couple of meals but also spent some extra passes trying to hook one that got away. We were trolling when an eight to ten inch reef fish hit Bills spoon and came flying out of the water. As Bill began to reel him in a huge grouper came up from the depths and swallowed the fish that Bill had on. Unfortunately the light leader he had on was not up to the job and the big guy dropped back into the rocks and quickly snapped the line. I could tell you an “it was this big” story about just how huge he was but since we didn’t actually get him to the boat its purely a fish tale except of course we know he was big enough to make dinner out of the other fish. Darn thing took off with one of our best spoons. Oh well there is always tomorrow.
Shortly after we arrived we went ashore on a quest. First we wanted to be sure to see the Cruiser’s Shrine here in San Juanico. The shrine has been here for years as a way for cruisers to leave their mark on the Sea. A small grove of trees near the northern end of the cove is home to a hodgepodge of signs and offerings. Everything from hand lettered signs, old flip flops, bottles with boat cards inside and even an old pair of cargo shorts inscribed with poetry. Most bear boat names, captain and crew and a date. We paid homage and took lots of pictures but didn’t leave anything to mark our presence. Eventually it got under my skin and I decided it just wouldn’t be right to pass up the opportunity. So this afternoon out came the sign board -a plastic bin lid- some thin nylon rope, a pile of beads, the glue and a magic marker. In no time at all Island Bounds passage through Baja waters was ready to be left for posterity.
We took a hike across a small hillside to the anchorage at La Ramada. It felt good to get out and hike a bit and La Ramada anchorage was perfect for a quick dip to cool us down from the hike. But what I was really interested in was searching for Apache Tears along the dry creek beds and dusty road on the hill. Apache Tears are the smooth glossy stones made of natural volcanic glass that resulted from rapidly cooled lava flows in this part of Baja. The legend of Apache Tears began in the 1870’s when the U.S. cavalry fought against the Arizona Apache. The defeated Apache warriors refused to accept capture so chose to leap to their death from the face of a cliff. The families of the lost warriors wept for their loss and each tear shed turned to stone as they hit the earth. The legend promises that because the warriors’ families wept their sorrows into the hills anyone who caries an Apache Tear will never have to weep again.
The stones themselves range from pea size to golf ball sized and though they can be translucent brown the best examples are a shiny jet black. I didn’t really hold out much hope in finding any since this place is so well known but the hunt intrigued me and really pulled me in. I kept my eyes to the ground and before I knew it there it was. With a quick brush to remove the dust there in the palm of my hand was the lovely shine of a small jet black stone. Bill had not seemed all that interested but began looking too and as soon as he found one he was just as hooked. It seemed odd but once we would find one often there would be a handful more. Once we really knew what to look for they seemed to litter the ground. The search was addictive and we could have filled our pockets but instead I kept a handful of the shiniest for jewelry making and a few for gifts and left the rest where they lay in the dry Baja dust. Kat
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
5/10 11 Slowing down the pace in Baja
Loreto Fest was a blast. During the Festivals run the Singular Marina at Puerto Escondido was alive with people and activity. But we quickly learned that Puerto Escondido looks completely different the entire rest of the year. After the Festival this lovely marina averages only a handful of boats per day. All the Singular marinas in Mexico are part of FONOTUR, the government’s highly successful foray into turning all of Mexico in to a tourist destination. The facilities boast pretty much everything one could hope for. Here they have a small dock, a fuel dock with potable water, clean bathrooms with free showers (hot water available 10:00am to 6:00pm!) 100+ mooring buoys, a shore boat service, a restaurant and small store, a pool and hot tub, cruisers lounge, a friendly yacht club with an extensive book and DVD exchange, a full service boat yard with a 50 ton lift and laundry facilities. A short but hot mile walk away is Tapui where there is a hotel with a restaurant and a small 7-11 type store. That’s it, there is nothing else for miles. The seaside town of Loreto is only 14 miles away but the $80 cab ride leaves the marina isolated and empty for most of the year. It looks like they had big plans though. Around the marina there are miles of concrete roads and sidewalks, a guard house, landscaped palm trees and block after block of dry scrub, turkey vultures and free range cows, nothing more. Hopefully the rebounding economy will bring some growth again and all the plans and dreams will materialize. In the mean time it’s a great place to throw a party!
You may wonder why I bothered to write about the clean showers. Well the year we got our boat we spent three weeks in the San Juan Islands. I was excited about our first long trip and also was looking ahead to our full time cruising years. I was definitely in a learning mode so every time we talked with other boaters I would ask lots of questions. In a cove near Hope Island I spoke to a couple on a sailboat who were headed home from a month out and asked them a simple question: what’s been the highlight of your trip this year? The answer I got back caught me off guard. “Definitely Dear Island. They have the best showers in the San Juans!” They went on actually gushing a bit and explained that they were clean, the hot water was quick and plentiful and they were free. I had expected to hear about a perfect anchorage or a secret crabbing spot somewhere but I tucked the info away anyway. It didn’t take me long to understand the value they placed on their answer. Finding simple things like a place to take a long hot shower definitely falls into the luxury category for most cruisers. In fact I am still learning the importance of many things that fall into that category: potable water at a dock, good clean bathrooms, laundry facilities where you don’t have to stand in water up to your ankles while you fluff and fold (or better yet here in Mexico I love paying less to have someone else do my laundry for roughly the price I used to pay to stand in a laundry mat and do the chore myself,) a reasonably priced grocery store that isn’t a taxi ride away and quiet anchorages where your neighbors turn off their music before midnight.
We took two trips into Loreto with vans full of cruisers for sightseeing and provisioning and it was worth the price. Loreto is a beautiful seaside town with just about everything you could need. The original Baja mission was established there in 1697 and became the first of 24 missions built in Baja California. In spite of being in total ruins several times over the years it stands proudly now more than 300 years later as a center of the towns’ community. They also have a beautiful town square surrounded by stands of huge mango trees. In fact there are mango trees all over the city. The fruit wasn’t ripe yet but my mouth watered at the thought of the thousands of juicy mangos that will be falling in a month or so.
Once we left the artificial hustle and bustle of Puerto Escondido it was like stepping off into another world. After a short hop to Isla Coronados, we set our anchor and settled in to watch the days roll by. For the first time in a year we have nowhere to go and no deadlines to meet. No one flying in and no long list of things to finish so we can be off to somewhere else. Instead we’ve begun our six month slow down. We broke out the kayaks, grabbed the pool noodle and blew up the floatie toy. The days are warm, the nights are cool and the biggest worry is weather the next anchorage will have bee’s , Bo Bo’s or No See Ums. We have time for a morning kayak around the anchorage with a girl friend or to power through an entire paper back in a day. It has been a great way to ease into the leisure life in Baja.
Being at anchor for days at a time far away from any town opens the days up like nothing else. We of course have projects we could work on but neither one of us seems in any hurry to break out any big projects. At Isla Coronados we had a potluck get together one night and then I went kayaking the next morning with the gals from “Oya”, “Far Country” and “Interlude.” We just paddled around aimlessly, not really going anywhere and talking about our cruising lives and soaking in the luxury of just relaxing. We were just about to call it a day when I saw a pod of dolphins off in the distance. They had been feeding in our big cove off and on all morning and I just couldn’t help myself. I had to try and see how close I could get to them. The harder I paddled the farther off they seemed. Finally I decided to give up and head back towards the boats. I turned again to watch them and saw them change course and head my way. Instead of pursuing I just stopped paddling and just floated along in the water. I sat still and quiet and in a matter of a minute or two they were all around me. Sitting just inches off the water they poured like silver around me. The waters were clear as glass and it felt like I could reach out and touch them as they surged by. I was so close I could hear every breath they took and feel the pulse of the water with their tail slaps as they pushed past. Moments later they were gone and I was alone again sitting in swirling water, their sounds falling off into the breeze.
The next morning we moved just a short sail away to Puerto Ballandra. We had a nice visit with our friends on Ponderosa from Seattle and then spent the next two days sleeping in and fishing. While underway we almost always drag a couple of lines hoping for game fish but this is a different kind of fishing all together. In fact in the entire year we have been gone this is only the second time we have set off in the dinghy to fish. It was already hot but we loaded up the dinghy with everything we would need and headed for the rocky point at the entrance to the cove. There was no finesse really in what we were doing just experimenting and trying different things but in no time we had three nice rock cod (I caught all three thank you very much.) fish tacos for dinner! The next day we loaded up with sunscreen and set out again. We left Island Bound with our trolling gear out and within minutes I caught a very weird looking fish. It was shaped like an eel but with fins and was about two feet long with very big sharp teeth. Maybe he would have been fine eating but he was just too nasty looking to serve for dinner so off he went back into the blue. We trolled the point for an hour or so and in the end we had three fish (all of which I caught -not that I would rub that in at all of course.) We had to consult our fish books to learn one was a rock cod, one was a small barracuda and the last was a rather exotic looking reef fish with a fan like tail and two colorful stripes. They all found their way to the BBQ for more fish tacos with enough leftovers for coconut fish curry with brown rice.
The next morning Bill decided he was bored and so we raised the anchor and set off for Caleta San Juanico. We learned after arriving that Puerto Ballandra is known as Puerto Beelandra. So between the bees, the horse flies and Bo Bo’s during the day and the swarms of No See Ums at dusk it was time to look for a new anchorage. Plus Bill was ready to try out some of the fishing techniques were learned at Loreto Fest. We tried all the tricks but in spite of high hopes, a fancy cedar plug lure, a green and orange squid, a fluffy, sparkly pink feather and a teaser bottle (a pop bottle full of beads and tin foil pieces you drag close along behind you) we were royally skunked. Oh well, there is always the next passage.
Other than the fishing which does takes some work these last days have been very easy and lo key. We slept in, read, swam, baked my first ever sourdough bread and took the time to listen on the Ham. The Sonrisa net comes each morning with weather and news and then in the evening we tune to the Amigo net for the evenings updates. Both Bill and I become Ham operators before we left Seattle but then in because the internet it more familiar we didn’t touch our SSB radio for most of year. Once we are proficient the Ham will let us stay in touch no matter where we are and will be crucial in our ability to monitor weather in the isolation of the Sea. Next spring when we cross the Pacific – roughly 25 days and probably our longest ever passage-the Ham will again be one of our most important tools. Bill has already learned how to get our weather via GRIB and we are starting to use our sailmail email account but it will take me some time to be comfortable. The ICOM 802 has all sorts of buttons and functions to learn and there are rules to remember and lingo to practice. For me the hardest part is getting over a sort of vocal shyness that sets in when I key the mike. Suddenly miss chatty sounds tongue tied and mumbly but it’s our ticket to the outside world so it’s time for practice, practice, practice. “This is KE7MZh signing off. Kat
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Loreto Fest and the Big Blow
It’s early evening here in Puerto Escondido and I am listening quietly as the fleet continues to chatter on CH 22. Earlier the mood was light and relaxed while roughly 400 folks were ashore enjoying the last day of Loreto Fest. Most had come ashore in their tenders leaving scores of dinghies tied to a couple of small dinghy docks and nearly every boat empty of captain and crew when high winds began rolling through the anchorage. As the winds grew the afternoon quickly disintegrated into chaos but now thankfully the emergencies are passed and everyone is back safely aboard their boats.
This year was the 15th annual Loreto Fest, which by the way is held in Puerto Escondido not Loreto and the weather had been perfect for the first two days. This year’s event drew well close to 200 boats, spanned three days and included numerous seminars with titles like “Diving Baja,” “How to Catch Baja’s Bottom fish” and “Jewelry Making.” There were extremely serious competitions in Bocce Ball, horse shoes, dominoes and Baja rummy. In between the seminars and cut throat competition they sold hot dogs and hamburgers, held a spaghetti feed and a pancake breakfast, poured icy cold kegs of beer and gallons of margaritas and Bloody Mary and held a silent auction and raffle all to raise funds for a local school and a handful of other charities.
It had been gusty and the weather reports had called for winds in the low 20’s by afternoon but no one seemed overly worried. The main venue had a clear view out into the bay and over the 100+ moorings scattered across the main anchorage. When the wind began to blow slowly we all began to take notice. The tents set up for the event began to flog and rumble. One tipped over and was caught as it began to skitter away like tumbleweed. The shade tarps began to whip and bang and folks started looking out towards the anchorages. We moved in little groups to the harbor wall and looked off into rising winds. All the boats were swinging and bucking but holding tight. Soon an announcement was made: a boat was dragging. More of us moved to the sea wall as the conversations began questioning when the winds might ease and how we might begin making it back to our boats.
There are only two dingy docks one right in front of the marina and one tucked off behind the marina office in the “Ellipse.” (My captain chose to take the long route and tie in the “Ellipse” around the corner and out of the days prevailing winds.) Per the dinghy dock rules we had all tied to the docks with extra long painters. The long painters allowed for a great many dinghies to be tied along a line run round the small docks edge. In normal situations we would just muscle our way through the pack of dinks, tie our painter to the rope and climb out on the dock. When we returned we would untie the painter and climb from boat to boat then muscle ourselves through to the open water. Now in the rising winds we watched as the main dinghy dock was quickly turning into a roiling heaving knot of rubber, rope and banging outboards. The mass was pushed around and behind the dock itself and was coming seriously close to a mega yacht tied in a slip. It became clear that getting off the dock was going to take a whole new technique this afternoon.
Under brilliant blue skies Bill and I watched the building winds, checked our dinghy tied round the corner and then moved back to the sea wall to discuss and watch some more. By this time everyone was beginning to crowd into groups of serious discussion and decision. I was hoping the winds would die as the afternoon slid by but I was also aware that if we waited too long in hopes of a lull we risked adding darkness to the problem. By this time getting off the dock at the front of the marina was simply impossible but thankfully our tender was safely tucked out of the brunt of the winds. After a handful of other boats safely made it out to their boats the Captain decided it was our turn to try.
With Bill at the tiller and me sitting forward on the floor of the dinghy to help keep the nose down the quite, private mooring a quarter mile out that we had been enjoying so much seemed to be a very long way away. The launch off the quieter dock was easy enough but as we turned the corner of the “Ellipse’s” breakwater we instantly plowed into the surf. I was glad I had put hats, sun glassed, cell phone and camera inside my day pack and tied the pack to the dink. Surprisingly, though the water here is 74 degrees and the sun was still high when we hit our first trough I was instantly soaked through and cold. I rode that ¼ mile with my left arm wound through the safety line and my eyes shut tight against the salt spray or sneaking peeks back at Bill to see how he was doing at the tiller.
We made it back to Island Bound wet and chilled but without any real problems. Bill checked the mooring lines and I did a quick tour to take down all our flags, put away the hose and haul in a sagging head sail sheet. Once everything was ship shape we settled down in the shade of our safe and dry cockpit to check the wind indicator and monitor the radio for problems. The wind gusts were hitting 40+ and sustained winds were about 30. In retrospect we realized we had never been off the boat in these kinds of winds. In every other instance we simply would never been off our boat in this kind of wind. At the first signs we would have either chosen to stay on the boat or returned as soon as any winds began to build. We also realized we now trust our own anchoring ability and our trusty Rocna anchor over any 6’x6’x6’ block of concrete. If it hadn’t been for the party we never would have left our boat with a forecast of high winds.
It was an unusual set of circumstances to find ourselves surrounded by competent boaters all basically trapped onshore. It was also an experience to see first hand the competence and community that came together to handle the problems that did appear. All hands came together to close down the festival and everyone quickly took responsibility for grabbing hold of the floating gas tank, the loose oar or the piece of runaway canvas for later return. People hooked up and communicated to take care of whatever was in front of them. We were fortunate to not have had a single boat go aground and no major injuries. Tomorrow mornings the forecast is for even higher winds and it feels sort of like a snow day. Movement is limited but communication is thick on the radio and happily I doubt there is a boater amongst us who doesn’t actually enjoy an excuse to spend the day doing pretty much nothing other than simply quietly being aboard their boat.
Kat
This year was the 15th annual Loreto Fest, which by the way is held in Puerto Escondido not Loreto and the weather had been perfect for the first two days. This year’s event drew well close to 200 boats, spanned three days and included numerous seminars with titles like “Diving Baja,” “How to Catch Baja’s Bottom fish” and “Jewelry Making.” There were extremely serious competitions in Bocce Ball, horse shoes, dominoes and Baja rummy. In between the seminars and cut throat competition they sold hot dogs and hamburgers, held a spaghetti feed and a pancake breakfast, poured icy cold kegs of beer and gallons of margaritas and Bloody Mary and held a silent auction and raffle all to raise funds for a local school and a handful of other charities.
It had been gusty and the weather reports had called for winds in the low 20’s by afternoon but no one seemed overly worried. The main venue had a clear view out into the bay and over the 100+ moorings scattered across the main anchorage. When the wind began to blow slowly we all began to take notice. The tents set up for the event began to flog and rumble. One tipped over and was caught as it began to skitter away like tumbleweed. The shade tarps began to whip and bang and folks started looking out towards the anchorages. We moved in little groups to the harbor wall and looked off into rising winds. All the boats were swinging and bucking but holding tight. Soon an announcement was made: a boat was dragging. More of us moved to the sea wall as the conversations began questioning when the winds might ease and how we might begin making it back to our boats.
There are only two dingy docks one right in front of the marina and one tucked off behind the marina office in the “Ellipse.” (My captain chose to take the long route and tie in the “Ellipse” around the corner and out of the days prevailing winds.) Per the dinghy dock rules we had all tied to the docks with extra long painters. The long painters allowed for a great many dinghies to be tied along a line run round the small docks edge. In normal situations we would just muscle our way through the pack of dinks, tie our painter to the rope and climb out on the dock. When we returned we would untie the painter and climb from boat to boat then muscle ourselves through to the open water. Now in the rising winds we watched as the main dinghy dock was quickly turning into a roiling heaving knot of rubber, rope and banging outboards. The mass was pushed around and behind the dock itself and was coming seriously close to a mega yacht tied in a slip. It became clear that getting off the dock was going to take a whole new technique this afternoon.
Under brilliant blue skies Bill and I watched the building winds, checked our dinghy tied round the corner and then moved back to the sea wall to discuss and watch some more. By this time everyone was beginning to crowd into groups of serious discussion and decision. I was hoping the winds would die as the afternoon slid by but I was also aware that if we waited too long in hopes of a lull we risked adding darkness to the problem. By this time getting off the dock at the front of the marina was simply impossible but thankfully our tender was safely tucked out of the brunt of the winds. After a handful of other boats safely made it out to their boats the Captain decided it was our turn to try.
With Bill at the tiller and me sitting forward on the floor of the dinghy to help keep the nose down the quite, private mooring a quarter mile out that we had been enjoying so much seemed to be a very long way away. The launch off the quieter dock was easy enough but as we turned the corner of the “Ellipse’s” breakwater we instantly plowed into the surf. I was glad I had put hats, sun glassed, cell phone and camera inside my day pack and tied the pack to the dink. Surprisingly, though the water here is 74 degrees and the sun was still high when we hit our first trough I was instantly soaked through and cold. I rode that ¼ mile with my left arm wound through the safety line and my eyes shut tight against the salt spray or sneaking peeks back at Bill to see how he was doing at the tiller.
We made it back to Island Bound wet and chilled but without any real problems. Bill checked the mooring lines and I did a quick tour to take down all our flags, put away the hose and haul in a sagging head sail sheet. Once everything was ship shape we settled down in the shade of our safe and dry cockpit to check the wind indicator and monitor the radio for problems. The wind gusts were hitting 40+ and sustained winds were about 30. In retrospect we realized we had never been off the boat in these kinds of winds. In every other instance we simply would never been off our boat in this kind of wind. At the first signs we would have either chosen to stay on the boat or returned as soon as any winds began to build. We also realized we now trust our own anchoring ability and our trusty Rocna anchor over any 6’x6’x6’ block of concrete. If it hadn’t been for the party we never would have left our boat with a forecast of high winds.
It was an unusual set of circumstances to find ourselves surrounded by competent boaters all basically trapped onshore. It was also an experience to see first hand the competence and community that came together to handle the problems that did appear. All hands came together to close down the festival and everyone quickly took responsibility for grabbing hold of the floating gas tank, the loose oar or the piece of runaway canvas for later return. People hooked up and communicated to take care of whatever was in front of them. We were fortunate to not have had a single boat go aground and no major injuries. Tomorrow mornings the forecast is for even higher winds and it feels sort of like a snow day. Movement is limited but communication is thick on the radio and happily I doubt there is a boater amongst us who doesn’t actually enjoy an excuse to spend the day doing pretty much nothing other than simply quietly being aboard their boat.
Kat
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
4/12 Getting ready for the Sea of Cortez
We are back in Mazatlan, in the yard doing boat projects. Mazatlan won by default for the work because we needed to be back here to meet my sister and my mom for a visit. We had a great visit though I was forced to spend the last few days holed up in bed fighting a high temperature so I missed some precious time with them.
The work that is being done stems from the emergency repairs we did a few months ago in Marina Del Rey where we had attempted a hasty repair on our leaking rudder post. Their quote of $267 for the first three days turned into $267 A DAY for the first three days (approximately three times the going rate.) After that revelation we rushed the job and now have to pay the piper. While in Muertos a few weeks ago while we scrubbed barnacles off the bottom eagle eyed Bill noticed what looked like delamination over the area of our repair on our rudder skeg . We had applied some of the epoxy over our sloughing bottom paint. We needed to pull her out of the water and see exactly what kind of damage there was. Once on the hard we could see the epoxy slowly peeling away from the repaired area. In time it would have simply fallen off! Oh well what is it they say “cruising is really just doing your boat jobs in exotic places. We should be back in the water in a day or two and then it’s off to the Sea Of Cortez for the next 7 months. Seven months! I am excited at the chance to really sink into living in the Sea but I am also a teensy bit apprehensive about all the things other cruisers have been telling us about the upcoming season.
For clarity let me explain that of the roughly 28,000 boats that come into Mexico every year there are four basic routes that they have to choose from. The majority of the boats spend a few weeks to 6 months between La Paz and Zihuatanejo before they turn around and go back into California and points north either under their own steam (beating back against the prevailing seas) or by truck over land. The next group spends their winter in the same but then go south to Central America or to hook a left for the Caribbean through the Panama Canal. The third group leaves mainland Mexico in March or April for a three week passage to the South Pacific and beyond (our route next spring.)
The fourth group goes into the Sea of Cortez for the season. That fourth group is then further divided. You see a summer in the Sea of Cortez is terribly hot, absurdly dry, extremely remote and in the southern end hurricane prone. So of those who head into the Sea most only plan on spending a few months there. Usually they take their boats out of the water and take the opportunity to travel north to cooler climates to attend to homes, families and work during the hottest months. We are part of the small group that stay the entire season mucking about in the Sea.
But no matter the choice for each boat they have to get far enough either south, west or north of the main Mexican cruising waters in order to get out of the hurricane zone. Most boats have to be north of a certain latitude in order to have insurance coverage. Our policy pays for whatever difficulty we have as long as it is NOT a named storm. If it has a name we are on our own. Our goal is The Bay of L.A. which should be safe and secure. In addition we will monitor the daily weather forecasts and if there is any indication of a storm headed our way we will run to which ever hurricane hole (already scoped out on our charts) looks like the safest harbor.
Of the problems with staying in the Sea all season the heat will have the most impact. It is reported to be hot. Hot, hot, hot. 110! I have been busy working on a full boat shade that I hope will give us some protection. In a perfect world I would just be able to hang a giant rectangle over the deck that would be easy to put up and take down (in case of sudden high winds.) But this boat is not a perfect world. We will be spending weeks at a time at anchor and will be relying on our solar panels for power. In order to allow our solar panels to work for us I had to devise a series of sort of stair stepping pieces. In the end we will either use it a lot or decide it’s too much trouble and never put it up. Time will tell. We are definitely counting on our ventilation which is better than most boats. Our old school boat has16 opening port lights, two companionways and three large hatches all of which now have home made bug screens, yea!
Another big difference in the Sea will be the relative isolation. There are only a handful of places to get provisions so we are looking at this as a sort of a dry run for when we sail across the Pacific next year. We have already begun the first of many trips to the grocery with our day hikers hauling home long shelf life foods. My plan is to flesh out meals of fish and rice with canned goods, pasta and sauces (the fishing is reported to be fantastic.) New stores of meat, dairy, fresh fruit and vegetables will be expensive, limited in choice and few and far between. But though I have gotten pretty self sufficient by being able to make my own flour and corn tortillas, fresh bread, rolls and biscuits, homemade yoghurt and even fresh cheese I am not sure how enticing kitchen chores will be if it’s sweltering hot in my galley.
We have been given lots of pointers on provisioning which helps but in the end you just have to sort of guess. Do you know how many rolls of toilet paper you use in a month or how many boxes of cereal you go through? Nobody is going to starve to death but we are told that things like packets of pudding mix, canned fruit and chocolate will become worth their weight in gold.
Our trusty water maker is the one item that will make the difference between a season of comfort and a season of roughing it. Fresh water will be extremely valuable if we are swimming, snorkeling and diving to while away our time. The old days of having to ration our drinking water is behind us thank you very much! Having the luxury of a fresh shower everyday is going to be mighty wonderful and many say it will become the highlight of our day.
We are very excited to begin experiencing the sea life that is legendary in the northern Sea. We have heard stories of wondrous things. One from my wish list will be the chance to swim with the whale sharks. There are several families of whale sharks living in the northern reaches of the Sea and the cruisers keep tabs on them simply because it’s an amazing experience to swim with the huge creatures. These filter feeding sharks grow to more than 40 feet long and weigh up to 79,000 pounds (that’s not a typo!!) They are reported to live for up to 70 years and are virtually unchanged from the whale shark of 60 million years ago. They are gentle things that seem to enjoy human company so if we find them I promise when I jump in I will be sure to bring along my underwater camera so I can share the pictures with everyone.
kat
The work that is being done stems from the emergency repairs we did a few months ago in Marina Del Rey where we had attempted a hasty repair on our leaking rudder post. Their quote of $267 for the first three days turned into $267 A DAY for the first three days (approximately three times the going rate.) After that revelation we rushed the job and now have to pay the piper. While in Muertos a few weeks ago while we scrubbed barnacles off the bottom eagle eyed Bill noticed what looked like delamination over the area of our repair on our rudder skeg . We had applied some of the epoxy over our sloughing bottom paint. We needed to pull her out of the water and see exactly what kind of damage there was. Once on the hard we could see the epoxy slowly peeling away from the repaired area. In time it would have simply fallen off! Oh well what is it they say “cruising is really just doing your boat jobs in exotic places. We should be back in the water in a day or two and then it’s off to the Sea Of Cortez for the next 7 months. Seven months! I am excited at the chance to really sink into living in the Sea but I am also a teensy bit apprehensive about all the things other cruisers have been telling us about the upcoming season.
For clarity let me explain that of the roughly 28,000 boats that come into Mexico every year there are four basic routes that they have to choose from. The majority of the boats spend a few weeks to 6 months between La Paz and Zihuatanejo before they turn around and go back into California and points north either under their own steam (beating back against the prevailing seas) or by truck over land. The next group spends their winter in the same but then go south to Central America or to hook a left for the Caribbean through the Panama Canal. The third group leaves mainland Mexico in March or April for a three week passage to the South Pacific and beyond (our route next spring.)
The fourth group goes into the Sea of Cortez for the season. That fourth group is then further divided. You see a summer in the Sea of Cortez is terribly hot, absurdly dry, extremely remote and in the southern end hurricane prone. So of those who head into the Sea most only plan on spending a few months there. Usually they take their boats out of the water and take the opportunity to travel north to cooler climates to attend to homes, families and work during the hottest months. We are part of the small group that stay the entire season mucking about in the Sea.
But no matter the choice for each boat they have to get far enough either south, west or north of the main Mexican cruising waters in order to get out of the hurricane zone. Most boats have to be north of a certain latitude in order to have insurance coverage. Our policy pays for whatever difficulty we have as long as it is NOT a named storm. If it has a name we are on our own. Our goal is The Bay of L.A. which should be safe and secure. In addition we will monitor the daily weather forecasts and if there is any indication of a storm headed our way we will run to which ever hurricane hole (already scoped out on our charts) looks like the safest harbor.
Of the problems with staying in the Sea all season the heat will have the most impact. It is reported to be hot. Hot, hot, hot. 110! I have been busy working on a full boat shade that I hope will give us some protection. In a perfect world I would just be able to hang a giant rectangle over the deck that would be easy to put up and take down (in case of sudden high winds.) But this boat is not a perfect world. We will be spending weeks at a time at anchor and will be relying on our solar panels for power. In order to allow our solar panels to work for us I had to devise a series of sort of stair stepping pieces. In the end we will either use it a lot or decide it’s too much trouble and never put it up. Time will tell. We are definitely counting on our ventilation which is better than most boats. Our old school boat has16 opening port lights, two companionways and three large hatches all of which now have home made bug screens, yea!
Another big difference in the Sea will be the relative isolation. There are only a handful of places to get provisions so we are looking at this as a sort of a dry run for when we sail across the Pacific next year. We have already begun the first of many trips to the grocery with our day hikers hauling home long shelf life foods. My plan is to flesh out meals of fish and rice with canned goods, pasta and sauces (the fishing is reported to be fantastic.) New stores of meat, dairy, fresh fruit and vegetables will be expensive, limited in choice and few and far between. But though I have gotten pretty self sufficient by being able to make my own flour and corn tortillas, fresh bread, rolls and biscuits, homemade yoghurt and even fresh cheese I am not sure how enticing kitchen chores will be if it’s sweltering hot in my galley.
We have been given lots of pointers on provisioning which helps but in the end you just have to sort of guess. Do you know how many rolls of toilet paper you use in a month or how many boxes of cereal you go through? Nobody is going to starve to death but we are told that things like packets of pudding mix, canned fruit and chocolate will become worth their weight in gold.
Our trusty water maker is the one item that will make the difference between a season of comfort and a season of roughing it. Fresh water will be extremely valuable if we are swimming, snorkeling and diving to while away our time. The old days of having to ration our drinking water is behind us thank you very much! Having the luxury of a fresh shower everyday is going to be mighty wonderful and many say it will become the highlight of our day.
We are very excited to begin experiencing the sea life that is legendary in the northern Sea. We have heard stories of wondrous things. One from my wish list will be the chance to swim with the whale sharks. There are several families of whale sharks living in the northern reaches of the Sea and the cruisers keep tabs on them simply because it’s an amazing experience to swim with the huge creatures. These filter feeding sharks grow to more than 40 feet long and weigh up to 79,000 pounds (that’s not a typo!!) They are reported to live for up to 70 years and are virtually unchanged from the whale shark of 60 million years ago. They are gentle things that seem to enjoy human company so if we find them I promise when I jump in I will be sure to bring along my underwater camera so I can share the pictures with everyone.
kat
Sunday, March 20, 2011
3/20 Not feeling the love in La Paz
La Paz
I like to think we are pretty laid back visitors and tend to find the good in most people and places but somehow we are just not connecting with the town of La Paz. The marina we are staying at is just a few blocks from the towns’ “malacon” which is the main road that runs along the waterfront area. Every malacon seems to be full of restaurants, hotels, dive shops, trinket sellers, street venders and hoards of sunburned tourists yet here in La Paz there seems to be very few tourists. The marinas are full but there seems to be few cruisers out and about either. Or maybe we are just not looking in the right places yet?
The non touristy parts of town seem seldom visited by gringos. Yesterday we wanting to find a decent local taco stand for dinner so we set off to explore. The first restaurant we stopped at brought us menus and the usual platter of salsa and accompaniments and then left us in limbo land. No waiter returned and no one even noticed when we finally stood up and walked away. We then walked a few blocks this way and a few blocks that way with no luck finding an open restaurant.
Off we went a few blocks this way and a few blocks that way, looking for someplace interesting to eat. Ahead of us we could see a family sitting in chairs on the sidewalk in front of their home. This is one of the striking habits of the local Mexicans, when the day warms up they move outside. Late afternoon or evening comes and out come the chairs, a table, the radio, maybe a charcoal grill and soon the whole family is sitting happily across the sidewalk or in the street. So, do we step off and go around or walk through? Either seems to be OK though it always feels sort of like your walking through their living room. We try to be courteous and generally make our decision based on a combination of how crowded the sidewalk is, how busy the street is and whether or not there are smiles on faces or wide eyed looks. This time we chose to walk on through.
Then we saw the dog. A big boxer spread out on the cool pavement but there was lots of room and the people smiled as we came closer. Then the suddenly Fido barked, jumped up and lunged at Bill. !!&%$#! Now growing up I was always taught that if a dog comes at you aggressively you can usually stop them in their tracks by getting big and loud yourself: raise your arms, yell and move towards them. So without thinking I yelled in my biggest, meanest, get away from me, big, bad dog voice. My reaction was actually rather superfluous to the whole encounter but the dog did pause and a family member kicked him quickly into the house. Looking back the dog was likely an adolescent and he didn’t have much bite to his bluff but there was no look of concern or word of apology, no show of being concerned at all.
Now I have to say that we have already learned to treat the dogs and cats here differently than the average pet back home simply because they do treat their pets here differently. Most seem to be, well, little more than street dogs with mangy coats and flea bitten skin. They are almost never leashed and are usually unsupervised. We have often seen them roaming in packs with no human around and they have proven to be rather untrustworthy. Most seem friendly enough but in just these few months here my friend Barbara was bitten during her visit with us, I had a dog snap at me close enough to feel the air woosh by and I met another cruiser who had to undergo the whole shebang of rabies shots. The cats too are tattered and torn and look pretty ragged. So, as much as I love animals I am keeping a safe distance from the local dogs and cats.
As our adrenalin leveled off we continued on our quest for dinner. Just a few minutes later we wandered on to a little taco stand. We approached politely and asked if they were open. "Abierto?" "Si." So we took a table. There was soon an air of unwelcome that came wafting over the table. A woman came to take our drink order but at each question we kept getting no's. Agua fresca? No. Horchata? "No. Coca light? No. Ice? No…… you get the idea. So we ordered a single coke and three tacos.
Our Spanish is not great but we could tell the waitress was talking about us and not in a nice way and then laughing and ignoring us. The vibe was beginning to feel rather hostile. Soon another patron came in and I heard him ask for a Coca light. Walla’ no problem. She simply walked four feet into a building and came back with a Coca light and a big glass of ice. Now by this time we were finished with our three small tacos and didn’t think we were too welcomed so tried to pay the bill. The three tacos cost us at least double the going rate. That part was our fault, we should have gotten the price before we ordered and ate. So, we paid the bill left the change and walked away just not feeling the love in La Paz.
I know it takes time to get to know a place and we are not giving up on La Paz as of yet but it was odd. There have been so very few times we have not felt welcomed. This wasn't a bad part of town, we were not being disrespectful and our ability to communicate is pretty good at least for the rudimentary stuff. We left with our adrenalin level jacked back up and feeling sort of sad at the way we were treated but we calmed down as we neared the marina district. This one incident will not slow us down or deter us the next time we head out into the local neighborhoods and we really do prefer to shop and eat away from the touristy areas but it sure put a damper on the evening. Right now we are headed out again to see what we can find.
Kat
Friday, March 18, 2011
3/18 North Again
We are now in the Sea of Cortez and it is stunningly beautiful. There is nothing new really. The dusty dirt roads far outnumber the paved ones and everything has a sense of long hot days. But here in Baja the mountains surrounding us often shear sharply into the sea. The hills are shades of brown, black, red and yellow and the waters shallow fast into shades of blue and aqua. Everywhere you look it is pure desert with cactus far outnumbering the palm trees. The people still are speaking this new language we are struggling to learn. The dirt roads and paths surrounding the stereotypical adobe homes lead into towns that bustle with activity and the conveniences of modern life. La Paz is a modern and relatively large town but it feels as different from Mazatlan as Mazatlan did from la Cruz.
We had an easy and uneventful passage up from Mazatlan. The sailing was decent though the wind could have cooperated some by clocking around behind us a bit but hey free wind is free wind. We arrived at Bahia de Muertos early in the morning after sailing through two nights. After a short nap we jumped over board and finished scraping the bottom clean accompanied by hundreds of fish who swam below us waiting for the bits of barnacle and green slim we were raining down for them. We have refined our snorkeling technique: deep breath, dive, scrape, swim, spout and gasp! The plan is to try and dive the boat every week so we can stay on top of the job. Now that the water is warming it should be much more enjoyable.
Bahia de Muertos (Bay of the Dead) was so enjoyable we stayed an extra day so we could snorkel the nearby coral garden. The water is still a little cold, about 66 degrees but we both have shorty wet suits so we didn’t freeze. There are very few places in the Sea that have live coral so it was an unexpected treat. It was alive with fish and there was plenty of sun to soak up when we were done. Bahia de Muertos by the way is being systematically renamed as Bahia de los Suenos(Bay of Dreams.) I guess the big wig land developer thought Bay of the Dead was too depressing.
We left the bay for La Paz at 3:00am in order to catch a good tide to help sweep us through the Cerralvo Channel. We hoped to get a spot at one of the marinas so it will be easier to have guests but when we arrived after a 10hour passage the current was running so fast that we decided to drop our hook out in the anchorage until slack tide so we could get into a slip. There must be 4knots of current running sideways through the marina here! Oh yea, guess what? We finally found the heat. It was 93 today and as we made our long passage we found barely a breath of wind.
La Paz feels different than the other towns we have visited. It’s my experience that the human brain sort of shorts out and expects that the way life is is the way it will be. So when we travel we get a false belief that seems to expect each place to be basically like the last. But, here just like everywhere in the world each new place has a totally new life to it. La Paz’s is almost tactile. I wont really be able to qualify that statement until we have been here a while I suppose but it has a very different and new feel. Maybe it’s the heat? Downtown La Paz is bustling. The malacon is just a few blocs from our marina and was full of life last night as we searched for something cold to drink. We don’t have much of a lay for the land yet but we were surprised to see very few tourists other than a few handfuls of other cruisers.
Here is where we begin running into the other cruisers who we will be spending the next six months with. The pack has broken off now. Some have left heading to the South Pacific. Others turned due south for Central America. The boats here are either getting ready to bash back up the coast to California or plan on spending the entire summer inside the Sea of Cortez. There is a very active and involved cruisers network here and they seem very organized and settled. There is a little for everyone. Announcements filled the daily “net” with activities ranging from yoga to volleyball to a daily coffee hour at Club Cruceros – the local quasi yacht club. They try to keep us up-to-date on the local happenings and cultural events as well as the opportunities to help with some local community charities. So, other than a trip south to meet my sister and my mom we will be here in the Sea until November 1st. I will be great to have a chance to really get to know all the nuances of this place and slow down enough to really get an appreciation for the beautiful Sea of Cortez..
The kids (Josh and Dianna along with cousin Ryan from St Louis )drive down from Santa Barbara on Monday so we will spend the next few days getting everything ship shape and hauling groceries before taking the off to the islands for some hot weather fun. Hopefully we will still have some time to get our bearing in town too. Kat
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Waiting out a tsunami
Our passage from La Cruz northward turned out to be very different from what we had planned. After taking time to hit the fish market for fresh shrimp and the carniceria for chicken and carne asada we had a bit of a late start so we decided to stop in Punta de Mita. PdM is only 10nm from La Cruz but it made for a great first day and we got there in time to be able to jump in and spend some time cleaning the bottom of the boat. All those days of sitting still in the marina allowed a whole army of slimy things to begin growing on our hull as well as the dreaded barnacle. We could have had a local worker scrub it all off at the marina but decided we needed to figure it out for ourselves so, we donned our snorkel gear and over we went. It took a bit of finessing to not float away on the waves and a few gear adjustments to be able to dive efficiently down the hull but eventually we got the hang of it though it sure wore us out.
The next morning we headed towards Chacala. It felt great to be back underway. It was the warmest day we have ever sailed through and the Humpback whales were breeching off in the distance most of the trip. The only downfall to the day was the wind was on our nose so sadly no sailing. Once we arrived at Chacala that same wind and swell was rolling right into their anchorage. Since that meant a rolly night we opted to keep going for a few more hours and so headed towards Esenada de Matanche'n near San Blas were we had a lovely peaceful night.
When we motored out of the big quiet bay the next morning the plan was to go to Isla Isabel about 44nm NW. Again it was sunny and beautiful but we were headed to weather so we banged and crashed as the wind and waves built throughout the day. As we neared Isla Isabel I was hot, tired and hungry and all I wanted to do was make a quick meal and get some sleep. Unfortunately the rocky anchorage had such a surge that we decided to sail right on by and head towards Mazatlan. There really aren't any decent anchorages between Isabel and Mazatlan so instead of a simple dinner and a cool bed I was suddenly looking at cooking amid the banging and night watches! Plus I was disappointed to be missing the island. I wanted to see the volcano crater, the iguanas and the blue footed boobies. Oh well, maybe next year.
We continued on through the night with approximately 90nm to go. Eventually the wind and waves subsided enough to get a few hours sleep. Bill was on watch as we neared Mazatlan. When I woke up and came stumbling out bleary eyed he said "you have no idea what’s going on do you?" I looked around and saw that it was several hours past when Bill should have woken me for my watch. I looked out and saw that we were drifting off the islands that lay off the entrance to Marina Mazatlan. Still not following what was happening at all he told me there was a tsunami warning and the Harbor Master had closed the harbor to all traffic. So we had breakfast and waited. Then we listened to the VHF reports and waited. We read and we looked for whales and we sailed too and fro. We flushed our water maker and made some water. I cleaned the boat and we waited some more. For twelve hours we bobbed around waiting for the harbor to reopen or the tsunami to hit. There was virtually no information coming from the Harbor Master and there was lots of talk, speculation, questions and noise on the VHF. And still we waited.
The entrance to the three main marinas in Mazatlan is through a dredged channel that is long and narrow. A dangerous place to be in a deadly surge. The Harbor Master was not allowing anyone to leave but they were asking everyone who was outside to come in. We opted to stay out in deeper water. For all intents and purposes there was no tsunami here. We did feel a sort of weird wave set -bigger and off rhythm-but no giant wall of water and no standing wave. Still we waited. Eventually after picking up information about the timing in California we figured whatever was coming was done and it was safe to go in. Turns out we were the first boat to enter the harbor all day. But we were safe and sound as was everyone else in Mazatlan. We do know of course that the devastation in Japan was wide spread and many places in California sustained damage. One of the places on the coast that had the most damage was Brookings where we had sought refuge when we came down the coast last summer. I am just grateful that it turned out to be nothing and the worst we had to deal with was boredom and worry. And in the end regardless of what the Port Captain was imposing we are glad to have had the option to stay in deep water until the coast was clear. Tomorrow morning we head across the very bottom of the Sea of Cortez from Maz to La Paz. Will write soon. Kat
The next morning we headed towards Chacala. It felt great to be back underway. It was the warmest day we have ever sailed through and the Humpback whales were breeching off in the distance most of the trip. The only downfall to the day was the wind was on our nose so sadly no sailing. Once we arrived at Chacala that same wind and swell was rolling right into their anchorage. Since that meant a rolly night we opted to keep going for a few more hours and so headed towards Esenada de Matanche'n near San Blas were we had a lovely peaceful night.
When we motored out of the big quiet bay the next morning the plan was to go to Isla Isabel about 44nm NW. Again it was sunny and beautiful but we were headed to weather so we banged and crashed as the wind and waves built throughout the day. As we neared Isla Isabel I was hot, tired and hungry and all I wanted to do was make a quick meal and get some sleep. Unfortunately the rocky anchorage had such a surge that we decided to sail right on by and head towards Mazatlan. There really aren't any decent anchorages between Isabel and Mazatlan so instead of a simple dinner and a cool bed I was suddenly looking at cooking amid the banging and night watches! Plus I was disappointed to be missing the island. I wanted to see the volcano crater, the iguanas and the blue footed boobies. Oh well, maybe next year.
We continued on through the night with approximately 90nm to go. Eventually the wind and waves subsided enough to get a few hours sleep. Bill was on watch as we neared Mazatlan. When I woke up and came stumbling out bleary eyed he said "you have no idea what’s going on do you?" I looked around and saw that it was several hours past when Bill should have woken me for my watch. I looked out and saw that we were drifting off the islands that lay off the entrance to Marina Mazatlan. Still not following what was happening at all he told me there was a tsunami warning and the Harbor Master had closed the harbor to all traffic. So we had breakfast and waited. Then we listened to the VHF reports and waited. We read and we looked for whales and we sailed too and fro. We flushed our water maker and made some water. I cleaned the boat and we waited some more. For twelve hours we bobbed around waiting for the harbor to reopen or the tsunami to hit. There was virtually no information coming from the Harbor Master and there was lots of talk, speculation, questions and noise on the VHF. And still we waited.
The entrance to the three main marinas in Mazatlan is through a dredged channel that is long and narrow. A dangerous place to be in a deadly surge. The Harbor Master was not allowing anyone to leave but they were asking everyone who was outside to come in. We opted to stay out in deeper water. For all intents and purposes there was no tsunami here. We did feel a sort of weird wave set -bigger and off rhythm-but no giant wall of water and no standing wave. Still we waited. Eventually after picking up information about the timing in California we figured whatever was coming was done and it was safe to go in. Turns out we were the first boat to enter the harbor all day. But we were safe and sound as was everyone else in Mazatlan. We do know of course that the devastation in Japan was wide spread and many places in California sustained damage. One of the places on the coast that had the most damage was Brookings where we had sought refuge when we came down the coast last summer. I am just grateful that it turned out to be nothing and the worst we had to deal with was boredom and worry. And in the end regardless of what the Port Captain was imposing we are glad to have had the option to stay in deep water until the coast was clear. Tomorrow morning we head across the very bottom of the Sea of Cortez from Maz to La Paz. Will write soon. Kat
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Somalian Pirates.
To all our Friends and Family,
I am sure you have heard some of the news about the four Americans hostages killed recently and we may have crossed your mind. So I'd like to reassure you about our plans. Bill and I are not now or anytime soon headed to the Arabian Sea, the coast off Somalia or any other hot spot of pirate activity. For good reason. First off our even being in that part of the world is a long way off. Second, we have discussed it ourselves and with many other cruisers and the only way we would every consider transiting that area in the current climate of violence would be in a convoy and yes it was a very poor choice they made when they decided to leave the convoy. Third, we don't need to go there at all. There are other routes. People do choose to transit the area because it a route that gets you to the Med. In fact it shaves off the several thousand mile trip down the east coast of Africa and around the treacherous Cape of Good Hope. So if we decide we absolutely positively have to get from A to B we can ship the boat for roughly $10,000 and the price of two airfares -heck we are paying thousands for a new radar and have many tens of thousands more in other cruising equipment aboard so we would find a way to manage that option . Our lives and Island Bound are well worth the cost
I will share that it touched my heart to read the reports. I saw a picture of the Seattle couple sitting on the deck of their boat smiling and laughing. It is hard to imagine them gone. I fell asleep last night sending up prayers and wondering what their last minutes were like. Its not like the movies......people are really getting hurt there and in many other places in our world. We humans can be violent souls. Turns out there are more than 700 hostages currently being held by pirates. Unbelievable.
Bill has a pretty good idea for countering the ongoing piracy though it is fighting violence with violence which in the long run truly isn't the way we should be acting as human beings. His idea is to buy a dozen or so capable cruising boats and make them look exactly like a cruising couple is aboard and then set up stings. Inside would be a whole group of Special Forces in full body armor and with high tech guns and ammo, enough to blow them out of the water right through the hull. If we were to do that a few times and the big tankers ran the same sort of stings the pirates would surely decide that the pickings were better elsewhere. If we were persistent enough they would run out of crews willing to do the dirty work. (I nearly choked when Reuters quoted the pirate boss as being mad because he had more than $100,000 invested in his crew!) Paying a ransom is the wrong answer. It just encourages them. Yet if it were me I would be praying that my friends and family were busy holding bake sales and car washes to drum up the cash. Our thoughts go out to the families and we hope that things change soon. Maybe this will be the beginning of the end?
Being out here full time means we have put a great deal of thought into what we are doing. As have all the other cruisers around the world in their own boats. We talk about it amongst ourselves and we keep in touch. All over the world boaters use VHF nets and the Ham radio to share important information amongst themselves And are quick to pass along any news about dangerous areas and problems. So as a group we are very informed and very opinionated about the subject. Please be assured, we are just happily basking in the sunny spring of Puerta Vallarta. Now that that's over I am going to try and talk Bill into going into PV and seeing the circus!
kat (and Bill
I am sure you have heard some of the news about the four Americans hostages killed recently and we may have crossed your mind. So I'd like to reassure you about our plans. Bill and I are not now or anytime soon headed to the Arabian Sea, the coast off Somalia or any other hot spot of pirate activity. For good reason. First off our even being in that part of the world is a long way off. Second, we have discussed it ourselves and with many other cruisers and the only way we would every consider transiting that area in the current climate of violence would be in a convoy and yes it was a very poor choice they made when they decided to leave the convoy. Third, we don't need to go there at all. There are other routes. People do choose to transit the area because it a route that gets you to the Med. In fact it shaves off the several thousand mile trip down the east coast of Africa and around the treacherous Cape of Good Hope. So if we decide we absolutely positively have to get from A to B we can ship the boat for roughly $10,000 and the price of two airfares -heck we are paying thousands for a new radar and have many tens of thousands more in other cruising equipment aboard so we would find a way to manage that option . Our lives and Island Bound are well worth the cost
I will share that it touched my heart to read the reports. I saw a picture of the Seattle couple sitting on the deck of their boat smiling and laughing. It is hard to imagine them gone. I fell asleep last night sending up prayers and wondering what their last minutes were like. Its not like the movies......people are really getting hurt there and in many other places in our world. We humans can be violent souls. Turns out there are more than 700 hostages currently being held by pirates. Unbelievable.
Bill has a pretty good idea for countering the ongoing piracy though it is fighting violence with violence which in the long run truly isn't the way we should be acting as human beings. His idea is to buy a dozen or so capable cruising boats and make them look exactly like a cruising couple is aboard and then set up stings. Inside would be a whole group of Special Forces in full body armor and with high tech guns and ammo, enough to blow them out of the water right through the hull. If we were to do that a few times and the big tankers ran the same sort of stings the pirates would surely decide that the pickings were better elsewhere. If we were persistent enough they would run out of crews willing to do the dirty work. (I nearly choked when Reuters quoted the pirate boss as being mad because he had more than $100,000 invested in his crew!) Paying a ransom is the wrong answer. It just encourages them. Yet if it were me I would be praying that my friends and family were busy holding bake sales and car washes to drum up the cash. Our thoughts go out to the families and we hope that things change soon. Maybe this will be the beginning of the end?
Being out here full time means we have put a great deal of thought into what we are doing. As have all the other cruisers around the world in their own boats. We talk about it amongst ourselves and we keep in touch. All over the world boaters use VHF nets and the Ham radio to share important information amongst themselves And are quick to pass along any news about dangerous areas and problems. So as a group we are very informed and very opinionated about the subject. Please be assured, we are just happily basking in the sunny spring of Puerta Vallarta. Now that that's over I am going to try and talk Bill into going into PV and seeing the circus!
kat (and Bill
Monday, February 21, 2011
Yes, we are still in Banderas Bay staying at La Cruz de Huanacaxtle and we are ten working days into the job on our decks. We need to be in La Paz by March 21st to meet family but La Paz is only a four day sail from here so we should have plenty of time to finish the project and take our time working north since there is lots we passed on our way down. I am feeling pretty confident of our time table and feel certain that we will be done way before our cut off date but then again...this is Mexico.
The deck job is BIG. It took three tries at finding workers and getting an OK from the marina to do the work here. The first deal we agreed to with “Chewy” fell through when the marina nixed the job saying no one was allowed to use power tools within the marina. This was a big surprise because the're being used all around the marina. Our new friends Tom and Bobbie on Persistence just finished removing their old teak decks and then doing the exact same job we were trying to contract out. But go figure. Then some time passed and Chewy came back and said "oh the marina said its OK now. I’ll be glad to do the job but right now I am in the middle of another project.” OK, so we have another local come and take a look and he promises to come back manana with a quote. But he’s a no show. Then our friends finished with their boat, beautiful job by the way, and their guy can start tomorrow and he thinks it will only take a week and a half and he assures us he will have no problemo with the marina rules.
The day we start the job guy number two comes back with the quote (six days late.) Adrianne the Jefe (boss) and Bill go over costs and figures and make a deal. He and his crew start with an agreement to pay $100 a day for two guys and we buy all the supplies. Adrianne offers to add guys for free if things get too bogged down. Great. At the end of day three we need to make a payment so he can pay some of his workers. No problem. Bill and El Jefe talk and it turns out the guy wanted $100 per guy per day. Lots of conversation, a new deal is struck, papers signed and initialed this time the price is for the whole job not by the hour.
By now its time to move the boat. There is an area in the marina that is virtually empty and the plan is to go there so our mess won’t bother everyone around us. Jefe says "no problem I talked with the marina they just need you to call them." So Bill calls the Harbor Master on the radio and is asked “now you do know, no power tools right?” El Jefe is standing right there mouthing….you guessed it “no problemo.” For the next three days they use power tools and there is no way the Harbor Master could possibly not know. We suspect we are going to learn something really important here. Either we will learn that we get a big fat fine or we will learn that the rules only apply sometimes to some things. So far so good.
In spite of the fact that this is such a large and disrupting job we are enjoying the connection that we experience as a byproduct. We get a chance to practice our Spanish and get a closer view into some of the culture. For instance they seem to always want to tell you what you want to hear no matter the reality of the situation. The communication begins to get murky when the days begin to pass or the promised item isn’t delivered. They have a give away tell though because when they can’t tell you what they think you want to hear they get agitated and are unable to look you in the eye if they know you are unhappy. In most situation they can simply give you what you want – a fixed meal or a changed table for instance. But when they simply can’t give you the completed job with the stroke of a magic wand they get very quiet and frustrated.
In this heat you would think the day would start early but they don't start the day until at least 10:00am. We actually never really know when they will appear and each day they seem to come later and later. We never know whether there will be one guy working on the boat or seven. If we leave the boat while they are working the work seems to come to a grinding halt. A good part of every day is spent spear fishing for ceviche lunch or the nights dinner.
We were given a hint from some friends. "If the crew leaves for lunch it will be a minimum of two hours before you see them again." So we decided to give them lunch on the boat. Good idea but hard to put into practice. The first couple of days I made sandwiches and had cold soda but I could never really tell if they were enjoying the food or just choking it down. One afternoon I picked up rotisserie chicken with rice, tortillas, peppers and salsa at Feliz Pollo. (Happy Chicken.) There had been two guys working all morning on the boat so I bought enough for them, us and the Jefe in case he came back. By the time I was getting out plates there were seven guys on the boat and suddenly I needed to feed 9!
Slowely the working is progressing. Bill cut six holes in the boat hull at deck level opening up scuppers to replace the deck drains that were never up to the job. The crew has stripped off the old non-skid and wet sanded the whole deck and cabin house and applied two coats of gel coat. After the gel coat will be a coat of West System epoxy, fresh taping followed by a coat of primer, two coats of two part paint, dry, and tape again and apply the new non skid. The two coats of two part top coat will be applied by the official painter with a spray gun. Actually applying the paint will be interesting. Because of overspray we can’t do that in the marina so we will take the boat out into the bay, start up a small generator and head into the wind. We saw the painter right after they brough Persistence back to the dock uncomfortable shade of green. He was sea sick! While doing the spraying he has to keep his head down and his eyes on the deck. Between the bumpy bay, no horizon to equalize to and the paint fumes he was toast.
It is odd to my mind that the Mexicans seem to work so slowely. Americans are so time conscious. The deal we made is by the job not by the hour so you would think they would want to get it done as fast as possible so they can move on to another job. They just simply don’t have the same relationship with time. Start at 10am or 12pm? No explanation or attempt to make excuses. No show on Tuesday? Walk in ready to work on Wednesday. Not done when it’s promised? Just give a new date. We have been told a week and a half, two weeks and three. After the first negotiations we were told three weeks then they worked for a week, renegotiated and still said “three weeks.” Finding out just how long it really takes I guess will just be part of the manana experience. The one thing that does seem to help is to be right outside alongside them working while the local radio station blasts out the "ranchero musica." Then they are happy, friendly and productive. For me just knowing how much my knees would be hurting if we were doing the whole thing ourselves makes everything worth while.
The local culture shows through somewhat differently when you are dealing with the government or buraucratic businesses like TelCell. The boat workers see the local migration of cruisers as a huge part of their annual income whereas the Government workers I think get fed up with us all. Well maybe that isn’t completely accurate. They are friendly and helpful in direct correlation to our friendliness and willingness to stand quietly in long lines with little or no information flowing our way. The gringos definitely seem to be low man on the totem pole. AN interesting phenomenom occurs at banks, government offices and places like TelCell. Every one is standing in long very slow lines with the gringoes easy to spot. It is common to watch as a few gutsy locals cut in front of a gringo at the head of the line. I think they know (correctly) that we are unlikely to challenge their movements.
I have spent the last three days traveling back and forth by bus to Bucerias trying to obtain our FM3 which would give us permanent immigration status. Since our plan is to stay in Mexico for a total of 18months before crossing the Pacific Ocean in 2012. The 180day visa given in Ensenada when we cleared only takes us to May. There are only two ways to extend;by obtaining an FM3 or by both of us flying out of the country and getting a new 180 day visa, twice. With the FM3 we have a full year from issue and we can reapply for up to ten years. It is essentially easy to obtain. All you need is your original VISA, some letter or bill that indicates you live here (for us a letter from the local marina,) your passport, and three months worth of bank or investment statements that indicate you will not be a financial liability to the people of Mexico.
A simple procedure but made difficult by a lack of language and by the bureaucracy of Mexico. I started online by finding a government site with a form to print out and a list of the things that I needed to bring with me. We were instructed to bring for each of us: our current visa, our passport, a photo copy of each page even the blank pages, an original letter from the marina with two copies, our original marriage license plus copies, $491 pesos each, and three months worth of financial statements. Once at the offices all I need do was to take a number, wait, have my papers checked and then go to the bank pay the charges and return to the office. Yea right.
After taking the bus into Bucerious and getting $50 pesos worth of photo copies I made my way to Immigration. Take a number. When I finally got to the front of the line it turns out that the form I printed, translated and filled out was worthless so I was given the website for the correct form. She didn’t need the letter from the marina, the marriage license, the photo copies of the blank pages and the bank statements I brought were not adequate. Back to the boat to regroup and Google the translater again.
Day two went more smoothly, much shorter lines (though this time I brought a book.) By the time I made it to the desk and had my paperwork OK’d they were closing in 10minutes. No, I couldn’t go pay the bank fee today. Seems you must pay the fee on the same day they accept the paperwork. Regroup, back to the boat.
The next morning off to the bank and got bumped by a nervy local at the front of the line. Then to the immigration office (darn, forgot my book.) When I got there they were on ticket #54 and I was #84. The office was scheduled to close in 90 minutes. In those 90 minutes they moved all the way to #58! There were lots of people coming in after me and the locals didn’t seem too worried. No one was telling us anything but we assumed correctly that they would stay until they had completed the numbers given out before closing time.
This is when we once again saw the locals step into line ahead of the gringos. We’re sort of used to it now but it was blatant here. By the time they worked their way through the remaining crowd the last two people helped were gringos. Imagine that. They didn’t even try to hide the cutting in line. Plus at the last minute three or four locals came in who were obviously paid agents acting as reps for people who were not there. They stepped into line without a number at all and most were doing multiple applications. Oh well, eventually we got to #84 (second to last) and we got to do lots of people watching while we waited. We were much luckier that the last guy in line. He had come before Christmas, finished his paperwork and paid his fee. He then flew home for the holidays and came back only to find out that not only did he have to repay his fee because it wasn’t made on the same day his paper work went in but he had to pay a fine for apparently messing up their system by being late.
We go back in about ten days for our final OK. If everything on the forms was accepted off we'll go to stand in line at the bank again to pay yet another fee. Then a final few days wait, a thumb print and two shiny new laminated FM3 cards will be ours and we will be perminent alien residents of Mexico!
The deck job is BIG. It took three tries at finding workers and getting an OK from the marina to do the work here. The first deal we agreed to with “Chewy” fell through when the marina nixed the job saying no one was allowed to use power tools within the marina. This was a big surprise because the're being used all around the marina. Our new friends Tom and Bobbie on Persistence just finished removing their old teak decks and then doing the exact same job we were trying to contract out. But go figure. Then some time passed and Chewy came back and said "oh the marina said its OK now. I’ll be glad to do the job but right now I am in the middle of another project.” OK, so we have another local come and take a look and he promises to come back manana with a quote. But he’s a no show. Then our friends finished with their boat, beautiful job by the way, and their guy can start tomorrow and he thinks it will only take a week and a half and he assures us he will have no problemo with the marina rules.
The day we start the job guy number two comes back with the quote (six days late.) Adrianne the Jefe (boss) and Bill go over costs and figures and make a deal. He and his crew start with an agreement to pay $100 a day for two guys and we buy all the supplies. Adrianne offers to add guys for free if things get too bogged down. Great. At the end of day three we need to make a payment so he can pay some of his workers. No problem. Bill and El Jefe talk and it turns out the guy wanted $100 per guy per day. Lots of conversation, a new deal is struck, papers signed and initialed this time the price is for the whole job not by the hour.
By now its time to move the boat. There is an area in the marina that is virtually empty and the plan is to go there so our mess won’t bother everyone around us. Jefe says "no problem I talked with the marina they just need you to call them." So Bill calls the Harbor Master on the radio and is asked “now you do know, no power tools right?” El Jefe is standing right there mouthing….you guessed it “no problemo.” For the next three days they use power tools and there is no way the Harbor Master could possibly not know. We suspect we are going to learn something really important here. Either we will learn that we get a big fat fine or we will learn that the rules only apply sometimes to some things. So far so good.
In spite of the fact that this is such a large and disrupting job we are enjoying the connection that we experience as a byproduct. We get a chance to practice our Spanish and get a closer view into some of the culture. For instance they seem to always want to tell you what you want to hear no matter the reality of the situation. The communication begins to get murky when the days begin to pass or the promised item isn’t delivered. They have a give away tell though because when they can’t tell you what they think you want to hear they get agitated and are unable to look you in the eye if they know you are unhappy. In most situation they can simply give you what you want – a fixed meal or a changed table for instance. But when they simply can’t give you the completed job with the stroke of a magic wand they get very quiet and frustrated.
In this heat you would think the day would start early but they don't start the day until at least 10:00am. We actually never really know when they will appear and each day they seem to come later and later. We never know whether there will be one guy working on the boat or seven. If we leave the boat while they are working the work seems to come to a grinding halt. A good part of every day is spent spear fishing for ceviche lunch or the nights dinner.
We were given a hint from some friends. "If the crew leaves for lunch it will be a minimum of two hours before you see them again." So we decided to give them lunch on the boat. Good idea but hard to put into practice. The first couple of days I made sandwiches and had cold soda but I could never really tell if they were enjoying the food or just choking it down. One afternoon I picked up rotisserie chicken with rice, tortillas, peppers and salsa at Feliz Pollo. (Happy Chicken.) There had been two guys working all morning on the boat so I bought enough for them, us and the Jefe in case he came back. By the time I was getting out plates there were seven guys on the boat and suddenly I needed to feed 9!
Slowely the working is progressing. Bill cut six holes in the boat hull at deck level opening up scuppers to replace the deck drains that were never up to the job. The crew has stripped off the old non-skid and wet sanded the whole deck and cabin house and applied two coats of gel coat. After the gel coat will be a coat of West System epoxy, fresh taping followed by a coat of primer, two coats of two part paint, dry, and tape again and apply the new non skid. The two coats of two part top coat will be applied by the official painter with a spray gun. Actually applying the paint will be interesting. Because of overspray we can’t do that in the marina so we will take the boat out into the bay, start up a small generator and head into the wind. We saw the painter right after they brough Persistence back to the dock uncomfortable shade of green. He was sea sick! While doing the spraying he has to keep his head down and his eyes on the deck. Between the bumpy bay, no horizon to equalize to and the paint fumes he was toast.
It is odd to my mind that the Mexicans seem to work so slowely. Americans are so time conscious. The deal we made is by the job not by the hour so you would think they would want to get it done as fast as possible so they can move on to another job. They just simply don’t have the same relationship with time. Start at 10am or 12pm? No explanation or attempt to make excuses. No show on Tuesday? Walk in ready to work on Wednesday. Not done when it’s promised? Just give a new date. We have been told a week and a half, two weeks and three. After the first negotiations we were told three weeks then they worked for a week, renegotiated and still said “three weeks.” Finding out just how long it really takes I guess will just be part of the manana experience. The one thing that does seem to help is to be right outside alongside them working while the local radio station blasts out the "ranchero musica." Then they are happy, friendly and productive. For me just knowing how much my knees would be hurting if we were doing the whole thing ourselves makes everything worth while.
The local culture shows through somewhat differently when you are dealing with the government or buraucratic businesses like TelCell. The boat workers see the local migration of cruisers as a huge part of their annual income whereas the Government workers I think get fed up with us all. Well maybe that isn’t completely accurate. They are friendly and helpful in direct correlation to our friendliness and willingness to stand quietly in long lines with little or no information flowing our way. The gringos definitely seem to be low man on the totem pole. AN interesting phenomenom occurs at banks, government offices and places like TelCell. Every one is standing in long very slow lines with the gringoes easy to spot. It is common to watch as a few gutsy locals cut in front of a gringo at the head of the line. I think they know (correctly) that we are unlikely to challenge their movements.
I have spent the last three days traveling back and forth by bus to Bucerias trying to obtain our FM3 which would give us permanent immigration status. Since our plan is to stay in Mexico for a total of 18months before crossing the Pacific Ocean in 2012. The 180day visa given in Ensenada when we cleared only takes us to May. There are only two ways to extend;by obtaining an FM3 or by both of us flying out of the country and getting a new 180 day visa, twice. With the FM3 we have a full year from issue and we can reapply for up to ten years. It is essentially easy to obtain. All you need is your original VISA, some letter or bill that indicates you live here (for us a letter from the local marina,) your passport, and three months worth of bank or investment statements that indicate you will not be a financial liability to the people of Mexico.
A simple procedure but made difficult by a lack of language and by the bureaucracy of Mexico. I started online by finding a government site with a form to print out and a list of the things that I needed to bring with me. We were instructed to bring for each of us: our current visa, our passport, a photo copy of each page even the blank pages, an original letter from the marina with two copies, our original marriage license plus copies, $491 pesos each, and three months worth of financial statements. Once at the offices all I need do was to take a number, wait, have my papers checked and then go to the bank pay the charges and return to the office. Yea right.
After taking the bus into Bucerious and getting $50 pesos worth of photo copies I made my way to Immigration. Take a number. When I finally got to the front of the line it turns out that the form I printed, translated and filled out was worthless so I was given the website for the correct form. She didn’t need the letter from the marina, the marriage license, the photo copies of the blank pages and the bank statements I brought were not adequate. Back to the boat to regroup and Google the translater again.
Day two went more smoothly, much shorter lines (though this time I brought a book.) By the time I made it to the desk and had my paperwork OK’d they were closing in 10minutes. No, I couldn’t go pay the bank fee today. Seems you must pay the fee on the same day they accept the paperwork. Regroup, back to the boat.
The next morning off to the bank and got bumped by a nervy local at the front of the line. Then to the immigration office (darn, forgot my book.) When I got there they were on ticket #54 and I was #84. The office was scheduled to close in 90 minutes. In those 90 minutes they moved all the way to #58! There were lots of people coming in after me and the locals didn’t seem too worried. No one was telling us anything but we assumed correctly that they would stay until they had completed the numbers given out before closing time.
This is when we once again saw the locals step into line ahead of the gringos. We’re sort of used to it now but it was blatant here. By the time they worked their way through the remaining crowd the last two people helped were gringos. Imagine that. They didn’t even try to hide the cutting in line. Plus at the last minute three or four locals came in who were obviously paid agents acting as reps for people who were not there. They stepped into line without a number at all and most were doing multiple applications. Oh well, eventually we got to #84 (second to last) and we got to do lots of people watching while we waited. We were much luckier that the last guy in line. He had come before Christmas, finished his paperwork and paid his fee. He then flew home for the holidays and came back only to find out that not only did he have to repay his fee because it wasn’t made on the same day his paper work went in but he had to pay a fine for apparently messing up their system by being late.
We go back in about ten days for our final OK. If everything on the forms was accepted off we'll go to stand in line at the bank again to pay yet another fee. Then a final few days wait, a thumb print and two shiny new laminated FM3 cards will be ours and we will be perminent alien residents of Mexico!
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