We are making great time and the miles are rolling by. We have just under 250 miles to go so if the winds hold we will be arriving at Hiva Oa by early morning Tuesday. In fact if we don't slow down a little bit we will arrive in the middle of the night and will have to heave to and wait for daylight. Hiva Oa doesn't have a terribly difficult approach but it's never wise to enter an unknown anchorage at night. So, two more night watches tonight, two tomorrow and a wake up. WoooooHoooo.
It seems a little unreal to be so close but I am sure it will all fall into place once we are checked in. The plan for now is to complete our official check in and then work our way clockwise around Hiva Oa before making a day passage to Fata Hiva were some of the best cultural sights remain. I will take advantage of the sunshine and flat water to get the laundry done and the boat put back in order and Bill will be busy fixing a handful of small problems. All in all it was a fine passage, few problems and the sleep deficit stayed at a minumum. Several boats had much more serious equipment failures so a lost halyard, a leaky diesel tank and leaky watermaker along with it being too bumpy to serve much in the way of gourmet meals is a small price to pay for arriving in French Polynesia aboard our own boat. I do have to admit though I can't wait to sleep through an entire night in a dry clean bed. Kat
Monday, April 23, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
4/19/2012 Day 18 at Sea
Day 18 at Sea
Yesterday we crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere officially transforming us from Tadpoles into Shellbacks. We crossed over in the late morning with pictures of the chart plotter reading 00 00 001 South, a bottle of sparkling apple cider and bacon cheeseburgers. We had considered stopping the boat and taking a swim as many do as part of their celebration but I have a tiny phobia of swimming in very deep waters. All I could imagine in my head were thoughts of Great White's patrolling the equatorial line every spring waiting for their free dinner to arrive. How easy it would be to pick off the cruisers one by one as they plunged into the depths to celebrate with King Neptune.
Our days have flowed into hours of rhythms: getting up, going to bed, taking watch, passing watch, grabbing something quick for breakfast and sharing dinner our one sit down meal together. The incessant rocking and rolling has been replaced by hours running from squalls and trying to combat the hot muggy equatorial weather. The squalls are part and parcel for traveling through the ICTZ. They are the counterbalance to the normal lights winds usually found here. So our hours are spent trying to keep the sails filled and set with whatever wisp of air comes our way or frantically taking in canvas as the squalls blow through. Thank God for radar. During the daytime hours it is fairly easy to spot and track the micro storms as they build and flow but at night they are impossible to see or anticipate. The radar gives advance warning so we can avoid them all together and also lets us use them to our advantage by tucking in and taking a hold of the winds to help us on our way. They squalls bring high winds and torrential rains. The rains keep the decks cleaned which I love but also adds to the humidity and forces us to keep the hatches and ports closed to try and keep it dry down below.
The rhythm is an almost palpable thing and the term is what always seems to come forth when you talk to sailors who make long passages. On the one hand the day seems so long and at the same time the days are shortened too. You might think there would be lots of time to do projects or watch movies or work on a hobby but that doesn't seem to be true. The days flow into each other until you have no idea what day of the week it is and the hours are hard to follow as we pass through one time zone after another. The only real things in life are sleep, food, watch and more sleep. Oh and reading. I have read 12 books so far. Each sunset slides into sunrise and a kiss good morning morph's into a kiss good night as you pass in the hallway headed for a still warm bunk.
We should be reaching Hiva Oa in a week or less. Till then...kat
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Yesterday we crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere officially transforming us from Tadpoles into Shellbacks. We crossed over in the late morning with pictures of the chart plotter reading 00 00 001 South, a bottle of sparkling apple cider and bacon cheeseburgers. We had considered stopping the boat and taking a swim as many do as part of their celebration but I have a tiny phobia of swimming in very deep waters. All I could imagine in my head were thoughts of Great White's patrolling the equatorial line every spring waiting for their free dinner to arrive. How easy it would be to pick off the cruisers one by one as they plunged into the depths to celebrate with King Neptune.
Our days have flowed into hours of rhythms: getting up, going to bed, taking watch, passing watch, grabbing something quick for breakfast and sharing dinner our one sit down meal together. The incessant rocking and rolling has been replaced by hours running from squalls and trying to combat the hot muggy equatorial weather. The squalls are part and parcel for traveling through the ICTZ. They are the counterbalance to the normal lights winds usually found here. So our hours are spent trying to keep the sails filled and set with whatever wisp of air comes our way or frantically taking in canvas as the squalls blow through. Thank God for radar. During the daytime hours it is fairly easy to spot and track the micro storms as they build and flow but at night they are impossible to see or anticipate. The radar gives advance warning so we can avoid them all together and also lets us use them to our advantage by tucking in and taking a hold of the winds to help us on our way. They squalls bring high winds and torrential rains. The rains keep the decks cleaned which I love but also adds to the humidity and forces us to keep the hatches and ports closed to try and keep it dry down below.
The rhythm is an almost palpable thing and the term is what always seems to come forth when you talk to sailors who make long passages. On the one hand the day seems so long and at the same time the days are shortened too. You might think there would be lots of time to do projects or watch movies or work on a hobby but that doesn't seem to be true. The days flow into each other until you have no idea what day of the week it is and the hours are hard to follow as we pass through one time zone after another. The only real things in life are sleep, food, watch and more sleep. Oh and reading. I have read 12 books so far. Each sunset slides into sunrise and a kiss good morning morph's into a kiss good night as you pass in the hallway headed for a still warm bunk.
We should be reaching Hiva Oa in a week or less. Till then...kat
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Saturday, April 14, 2012
4/12/2012 Day 12 at Sea
4/13/2012 Pacific Crossing Day 12
Sailors everywhere know the disappointment of the whims of the wind. In the Pacific Northwest if you don't motor sail you don't sail. No matter where you're headed it seems that the winds are on your nose until that is you turn around to go home and then they shift and are on your nose for the return trip too. The Pacific trade winds are usually an exception to the rule yet once again the winds are not cooperating.
First the winds were too light and for days our sails were banging and popping as they filled and dumped the bursts of air. They also evidently only wanted to send us anywhere except west. Then they began to fill in, lots of wind free for the taking but now they blow from directly behind us and with our broken whisker pole and the lost halyard we can't go directly downwind. For every inch of west we could scrape out we had to accept the penalty of also moving north.
Then as the winds built so did the swells. Because of a high pressure ridge to the north of us and another system to the south though the winds are from the north east we have two sets of swell one from the NE and another from the SE. Let me explain what that means: hours on end of sailing merrily along while being pushed around first from the NW and then from the SW. The boat rocks back and forth steadily until it doesn't quite know which way it wants to throw our 32,000 pounds. It is immensely uncomfortable. It makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to move around, sleep, stand up, sit down, climb the companion way, make a cup of tea or put anything even close to a real meal together. One wrong move and the effects of gravity and motion take over. Thankfully no real injuries but the constant pin-ball effect is defiantly leaving bruises.
Now at least we are moving which is great except we are still going in the wrong direction. The winds have now ramped up and the washing machines like seas are close together, unorganized and 6 to 8 feet high. Speed is no longer the issue. In fact we are doing all we can to slow the boat down. Trying for control we are sailing along with just our head sail or stay'sl and a reefed main.
Each night I sit my watch in the cockpit and watch the "windicator" rise: 12mph, 14mph, 17mph, 22mph - last night to 30- I lock my eyes on the chart plotter and watch our speed ratchet up. The normal speeds when it comes to sailing are relatively slow. Our hull speed is 8.4 knots. We travel under power at around 6.5 knots and are pleased to average 5 to 6 knots while under sail. The wind and waves has us surfing down the wave crests at over 10 knots. Speed is not your friend.
In the middle of the night your perceptions change. You can't see the swells coming but all around you they crash and swoosh, hitting the side of the boat, sometimes slapping spray into the cockpit or across the dodger windows and occasionally we take one hard across the stern. The wind whistles in your ears and the boat groans and creeks as it rocks off a swell. There is constant noise from down below as the contents of lockers rattle and clank and occasionally some item reaches its limit and goes crashing across the cabin, somewhere. It's eerie and a bit scary as you're true speed gets very distorted. It sounds a lot like you are rocketing along on a freight train.
Now for four days now we have been sailing along with nothing but a little bit of a hankie sail in order to keep our boat speed down and add some level of comfort. In the mean time the swell gives us the added benefit of crashing into Island Bound and sending cascades of water every which way. Yesterday afternoon Bill asked if all the cabin hatches were dogged down so I scurried down to check. Sure enough the one over our bed and the one in the main cabin were closed but not locked. So I locked them. Later while I was trying to catch a little nap we took a big wave which instantly informed me that the hatch over our bed was not dogged down but rather was in the one inch open but locked mode. Saltwater poured in soaking pillows, bed spread, blanket, sheets and mattress.
We have had water in the boat before but this is the most we have ever had and the absolute worst timing. The salt water doesn't dry it just leaves a sort of sticky dampness which spreads to anything it touches. In order to set things right I will have to rinse everything multiple times and then hang to dry. But I can barely walk the cabin so my bucket washing system is out of the question. Where would I hang wet laundry to dry? Not outside where the salts spray is still raging. Don't forget, the next laundry mat we see will be months from now.
So, let me honest with you here. This put me into a bit of a tizzy. The aft cabin is my refuge. I bought lovely sheets, made black out curtains so I can sleep on my off watch even when the sun is out and filled it with down pillows. The bunk is designed so that no matter which tack we are on I have a wall to scrunch up against. There aren't many rules in our house but there are rules about this bed on passages….no daytime clothes in the bed, no dirty feet in the bed, no icky sticky, just- gutted-a-fish on the back deck hands and feet, and of course everyone takes a shower on clean sheet day, no matter what. I'm really not neurotic I just have always been a little particular on this point.
So, here I am coming up on ½ way to Hiva Oa. Yes only half way! I've had no more than 3 ½ hours of sleep at any one time in the last 11 days and ever movement in the last 6 days has needed to be choreographer. I tore out a chunk of my toenail, bashed my head on the roofline above my bed, tried to tear out a piece of flesh on the companion way hasp, haven't really cook much of anything for days now and, AND my bed is full of salt water! I didn't really take it well, and worse yet it was all my fault.
Today was better. I got over the wet bed thing. I didn't have a choice really: nothing to do but strip the bed and pile everything together on the floor of the head to keep it out of the way and move on. The saltwater has migrated throughout the boat making everything it's touched a little sticky. We are doing only that which has to be done. Everything else goes to the end of the line. Last night the roll got so bad that when I went to relieve Bill for watch we discussed simply heaving to and getting some sleep. Heaving to is a sort of survival move, you backwind your headsail and your main and it stops your forward progress. When done right you simply stay in place or slowly move downwind. Screw forward progress.
We looked around into the darkness: 12 foot waves rolling and crashing by, no moon, slick decks, tired to beat all. But and the main sail was down. Our boat doesn't heave to without having the main up. To risky to go forward and raise the main in 30 knot winds so Bill went to get some sleep and I sat in the cockpit in the rain, on wet cushions, under a soggy wool blanket and waited for the sun to rise.
Today looks better, a little. We put up the main, triple reefed just in case. Good to keep our options open.
Kat
4/10/2012 Fishing has been fabulous
4/10/ 2012 Fishing had been fabulous!
We caught two very nice yellow fin tuna our first day out and caught a nice ahi tuna a few days ago. The other morning I went to check the lures and one was gone and the other had no hook, both signs of BIG fish. So I dug through the tackle box and came up with a white glow in the dark hootchie with big squidy eyes and a silver and blue feather that was nice and new and sparkly.
Fishing off a sailboat is a little different than what most people think of as fishing. We don't' use a rod and reel. We are strictly meat fishermen so it's not really a sport. We just want to get them on the boat and try to lose as few lures as possible. We drag thick 300 to 600 pound test lines with wire leaders from our back cleats. They have a bungee cord set up so when the big fish bite they don't just tear the hooks out. It's not uncommon to haul in your line and find the lure gone or hooks straightened out, or even occasionally just the head of a fish. Fish bites lure, gets drug along in the water in the dark and then something with a very large mouth comes along and enjoys a free meal leaving nothing but the head and the hook for us.
There is a great deal to timing too. They like to bite right as the sun is setting so you have to take care of them in the dark, or right as the watch changes so everyone gets to stay up to take care of the fresh meat, or just as you are headed into an anchorage, or right as the winds kick up and you are trying to reef. It's not sport but it is fun.
Two days ago my lure picks had already brought in two nice ahi tuna and then a five foot long Wahoo, our first. Bill was down below getting the weather off the Ham radio when I heard a noise. I looked back and could tell we had a fish and could tell it was very big. "Fish on, a bigggg one Bill." We were screaming along at 7 knots and this fish was skating off to the side like a water-skier -back and forth, back and forth the line making a very cool zinging noise as he tried to get away.
Wahoo are known for their big teeth. Lots of fish are lost because they bit through the leaders but this guy was hooked. He's not on a rod and reel so Bill has to bring him in by hand. Once up to the boat we could see what we had and he looked very unhappy. I ran for the gaff and Bill took a swing then moved to fling him over the life lines. Five feet long and perhaps 50 pounds and he wasn't going to simply be flung over the lifelines. Oof…..and a thud and gnashing teeth. Blood everywhere, I swear it looked like we were slaughtering pigs back there.
Our freezer is filled to the brim. Bill is pouting (a little) because the hooks are put away until we have room to store more fish. I'm too tired to deal with fish anyway and for that matter, I think I'll pass on anything over 20 pounds.
kat
Sunday, April 8, 2012
4/6/2012 Equipment Malfunction, User Error and Bugs
Days five and six
We have settled into our watches and Island Bound is performing well but the winds are awful. We decided not make our island dive stop because the winds were supposed to be excellent for making tracks towards the trades and there was a predicted swell that would have made the anchorage untenable. Friends on three other boats are there now diving with the Manta Rays and we sit becalmed with out sails banging and popping under the lightest of winds which worse yet keep clocking around us in a circle. So much for our great weather window.
The winds are the worse so far today but the past two days have not been much better. Yesterday we decided to hoist our light wind sail so set off to rig it up. Bill wanted to try a slightly different configuration and set up so fresh off four hours of sleep and still groggy we moved to the foredeck. For those who don't know Bill is an engineer and.......I'm not. I have learned loads of things in order to be out here on this big ocean but being able to quickly envision mechanical workings in my head is not one of them. I have a decidedly empty place in my brain where there should be an ability to work through spatial issues. Bill on the other hand simply see's things a different way and then sometimes expects me to have followed his thought processes (perhaps by osmosis)and sometimes never the two shall meet.
He had the pole -a fifteen foot, carbon fiber, telescoping whisker pole -in his hands and wanted me to be working the thin red lines while he lengthened the length of the pole from some 15 feet to 25 feet. First he wanted me to ........then he wanted me to ........then no grab that one and go forward......then...Oh Sh!t! I stood holding two of the red lines in my hands while the third line which HAS to be tied down (it holds the pole up) had come loose and was now half way up the mast jammed in a pulley while the end of the whisker pole was falling, falling, falling until it's tip was two feet underwater with four knots of wake trying to tear it off the boat. We managed together to push the pole forward out of the water and get it back on deck but no one was very happy and everyone was suddenly mad. Eventually cooler minds prevailed and in a surprisingly short period of time everything was back on track and we were soon scudding along in the light winds with our beautiful brightly colored asymmetrical pulling us along.
A very short time later I was down below when I heard another howl. I rushed topside and discovered our asymmetrical was now hanging along the port side of the boat completely in the water. Bill was hauling hand over hand and shouting at me to turn the helm into the wind in order to reduce the drag as much as possible. It turns out that the halyard for the spinnaker had parted/chafed/untied -who knows, its stuck at the top of the mast- letting the sail and our brand new chute fall overboard. Again we had things quickly under control. Nothing worse the wear but we are now unable to use our light air sail for the remainder of the passage. Unless of course someone goes to the top of the mast, a thing nobody likes to do and is even less inviting while wallowing around with fluky winds and a 8' swell rolling under the boat. I guess only time will tell how desperate we get for a light wind sail!
Today dawned warm and calm, again. Everyone is well rested and settled in to pass the time with books and IPods. We polled out our Yankee and are making a whopping 2.5 knots as we roll and bang around. So I decided it was a good day to cook a grand meal -sliced, chilled tuna on a big Caesar salad: make some croutons, wash the romaine, grab the Ponzu sauce to season the tuna, brush off the bugs, Bugs!!! A cupboard full of little brown bugs. So much for settling in to read. Does anyone remember which locker the bug spray us in?
Kat
P.S. The bugs at least seem to have been contained to a single locker -the flour and baking supplies are safe as are the brownie mixes. Disaster averted.
It was an instant crisis but one which we had fixed
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Day 4 at Sea
4/4/2012 Day Four at Sea (1/6th of the way there)
In the end our departure was a fizzle and spurt instead of the big bang of an occasion I suppose I expected it to be. We receive news that there was a favorable weather window opening up in four or five days. We were far enough along in our preparations to catch it's start but then found out that in two days Semana Santa would begin -Mexico's huge Easter week celebration- and with it all the official offices would have curtailed hours or be closed completely. In the past cruisers have been allowed 48 hours to leave the country after checking out but this year for reasons unknown it had changed to immediately. All the boats who had already checked out had actually left but of those remaining suddenly everyone was talking about risking problems with immigration and checking by weeks end but staying to complete their preparations. It would be impossible to leave until the weekend because we had a new VHF radio coming in as baggage with friends on Saturday but we also didn't want to miss the window. We decided to beat the rush and left the next morning to begin the checkout process.
All went well and no one actually said we needed to leave immediately so Zarpe in hand we snuck back into the anchorage at La Cruz. Other boats who had checked out were merrily going about their business, talking on the radio, doing final banking and sitting around in the local gathering spots. Bill being more skeptical than most insisted that we stay off the radio and fly under the radar so we finished our preparations but remained pretty much isolated from the rest of the cruisers for several days.
The entire final day I felt disconnected and on edge. We were ready but stalled. Everything stowed, cupboards brimming, minutes ticking by. I wanted to say goodbye to friends but felt stuck on the boat saturated in energy and emotion, stressed, nervous, exhausted and excited.
As the sun was setting we decided to join a group of friends at the Sky Bar for cokes and goodbyes. The rooftop bar was filling with cruisers come to say goodbye and there were several other boat crews there who also were planning on leaving by sunset.
I was thrilled at the unexpecxted last minute gathering. It was a great way to let off some of the steam and help run out the final minutes of waiting. We all sat around laughing and talking and taking pictures it was reassuring to me to hear that to a one every Puddle Jump wife present was bone tired, stressed out, exited and ready to strangle their captain husbands. Everyone had been working so hard on final preparations (Captains too, don't get me wrong)and the tension was high. As the cameras clicked I looked around and watched as one wife mimed strangling her hubby, another was barely speaking to hers and another threw a mock roundhouse punch as the shutter clicked. It was good to know we weren't the only couple bickering: stress and tension full blown! Finally we got the call that the VHF had arrived so one last round of hugs and a tear or two and we were climbing into the dink headed out to the anchorage. Absolutely nothing left to do but stow the outboard, tie the dingy on deck and lift the anchor.
There was of course one last glitch, there always is. As I stood at the bow hauling the anchor aboard I heard an exclamation from the cockpit followed by a very stressed sounding..."wait." Suddenly we had no reverse! Captain Bill is a whiz though and within five minutes we were motoring out of the anchorage while the last bits of light crept out of the sky. Disaster averted, bye bye La Cruz.
We've been at sea now for four days. All our energies have been directed at getting our sea legs and establish our watch routine. We caught two beautiful yellow fin tuna in the first twelve hours which topped off the last bits of space in the new freezer. The winds have been fluky but we have managed to sail every mile since we raised anchor -no sense using up our stored diesel in the first few days. We have four hundred miles behind us and all is well. The watch schedule is letting us both get adequate sleep and today I even had enough energy to pop some brownies in the oven and make bread to have with seared tuna we'll have for dinner.
Expectedly but still disconcerting is that there is so little visible life around us . Other than the tuna the only wildlife we have been seeing are the birds circling above us. Last night I had porpoises during the end of my watch which made for nice company but all in all life right now is just an empty sea. I am surprised that the emptiness is making such an impact on me since. In fact I have explained to plenty of folks that though we are part of the Pacific Puddle Jump once we left La Cruz, even if we left at the same exact time as another boat we would probably not see them again for the entire trip. That reality is pretty big. Three to four weeks of it coming my way. We left at dark, a couple of boats right ahead of us and another right behind us and another that had left a few hours earlier -we haven't seen another sailboat in 400 miles! We haven't even been able to raise anyone on the VHF. We are miles away from any other boats checking in on the Pacific Puddle Jump Net. In fact even with our AIS to give us a heads up we have only seen three fishing boats off in the distance. 64 million square miles makes for one really empty ocean. Kat
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Big Jump
3/28/ 2012 The Big Jump
After years of planning and hard work we've been full time cruisers now for two years. We have logged over 10,000 miles and completed a near total refit of our 35 year old boat. Now , after all of the work, the planning and hours on end of dreaming we're teetering on the brink of what inspired us when all of this began. This next passage has been firmly in the someday realm for so long that it feels a bit unreal. Finally in a few short days we will un-tie the dock lines and store them away with the fenders and the outboard and set off on our biggest adventure yet; the great Pacific Ocean and its 25,000 islands scattered over more than 64 million square miles.
There is plenty of work to do before a big passage but at least the butterflies are familiar. This jump feels very much like our last few months in Seattle and the days spent in San Diego before leaving the United States for Mexico. Each day is filled anticipation and excitement as well as bits of tension and stress. It's not all smiles and bon voyage parties though. We're human and so between the work, the heat and the clock ticking loudly sometimes those bits of stress and tension build and bubble up into big bits of emotion. It all must be normal though because every Puddle Jumper I've spoken with has shared stories of their own melt downs as they work through the lists and piles and jobs to be done.
On a boat, any boat there is always a well worn to do list. We simply seem to move things around on the list and add new ones as we go. There are also the inevitable hard hits on the bank account to pay for all those gotta have items. Eventually the momentum builds until finally the whole process takes complete control of your lives. Someone at dinner said I looked more relaxed than most of the others at the table so maybe that means I'm getting more comfortable with the cruising life. Not pulling my hair out is a simple reflection of having done this often enough to realize that there really are only to important lists: the jobs that will keep the boat from sinking and everything else.
We've loved Mexico and will definitely miss this place we have called home for so long. We're still very happy that we decided to stretch out our stay through these seventeen months and it turned out to be a great primer. We call it "cruising light" because the weather was near perfect, the cruising was easy, provisioning was a snap and we always managed to find a way to get the things we needed along the way. Each new problem from finding someone to "mule" down boat parts and pieces to trying to stutter out a new language was a part of the experience and ultimately pretty easy and simple.
In just a few days we'll set sail across the biggest ocean in the world and with that cover more miles in one jump than we are unlikely to attempt again. We are aiming for Hiva Oa in the Marquesan Archipelago -a tiny dot 2700 miles away (2700 miles at 5 mph = roughly 22days.)
The South Pacific will be very different. We will need to learn to speak at least a little French, Marquesan, Tahitian and Pigeon and I am pretty sure that I'll still be trying to roll my r's for months to come. When we finally sail out at the other end wherever that may be I suspect we will be able to put this big step in the same light as every other big step we've taken: not nearly as difficult as all the hoopla would warrant.
Right now though all I can see are the miles and the remoteness. We will be on our own for three to four weeks and then we will spend the next three months marching from island group to island group where everything we consume beside fruit and coconuts has to be either stored away in the boat or brought in by supply ships at great cost. To that end we have been provisioning like never before.
How many rolls of toilet paper do you think you would need for 4 months? My educated guess is 40 rolls. How many eggs do you think you would buy if they cost $12 a dozen? I'm packing six dozen AND bought a can of powdered eggs that equals 80 eggs. They were a last light bulb idea and cost me $24 and a valuable spot in one friend's carry-on bag- so I hope they work out. When will the next opportunity be to wash down the boat with fresh water? I have no idea but I'm counting on the tropical rain between now and the six months to a year before we see a dock and a hose. When will we see a boat yard with a travel lift big enough to haul Island Bound? Four months from now in Raittea, Society Islands but we've planned and prepared for no haul-out for at least two years. When will we reach a port where we can have things shipped in if we need repair parts or pieces? Four months from now in Tahiti but anything coming in will come with a very hefty fee so that leaves American Samoa, a stop that is so far away though that it's out of the realm of planning.
Another question is how much do we need to bring to trade? And what should we bring? Who knows! We bought dozens of fish hooks and extra fishing gear to trade along with a few bags of lightly used clothing and canned food (Spam and Mexican seasoned meats) some sewing supplies and fabric which we hope will be popular. We won't carry cigarettes or alcohol though we are told they are highly prized items; we're just not willing to leave addiction and bad health in our wake. Sorry guys! We do have piles of crayons for the island kids, bubble wands, popcorn and powdered drink mix for sharing if the kids come to the boat. I have also stashed away a fairy wand and a tiny etch-a-sketch to give away along with notebooks and pencils and extra aspirin and basic medicines to share along the way. A side note, the only thing the Mexican Pangeros ever asked me for was aspirin!
OK, the question many of you want to ask is am I nervous and afraid? Well, no not really. Island Bound is made for this and can take most anything the seas can dish out. We've become pretty competent sailors over the miles and have a tried and true plan for getting plenty of sleep which is the one big danger we could face. Bill is an excellent captain and our sailing tends to lean towards the conservative. Early on we learned the truth about reefing: by the time Kat says it's time to reef it's usually to late. So we reef often and reef early. I trust Bill's leadership and I know our goal is to never be in a position where we have to use any of our emergency gear.
Here in La Cruz one by one the Puddle Jump boats are leaving the marina and starting their crossings and as each one leaves the excitement builds. In one big step each of us will be entering a whole new world. Our marine single sideband radio will allow us to stay in contact with each other and our families and will even let us email in our blog updates -sorry no pictures for awhile. The internet, Google and Google Maps, Skype and cheap flights back to the states will be a thing of the past along with our days in marinas, dinners out at cheap taco stands and 80 cent bags of tortillas.
From here on out we'll be rolling alone. We will roughly follow what is called the "coconut milk run" across the pacific. The ocean is so vast and the islands so small in comparison that running into friends will be a real luxury. It's hard to imagine but even if we leave at the same time on the same day as another Jumper by mid day we may not see them again during the entire crossing.
There are really no impulse decisions in timing for cruisers. There are usually choices in direction to be made but no wild changes to the established seasonal routes. Those who cross go between mid march and the end of May. Period. If something happens to delay your departure (as happened last year with our friends on Buena Vista) you simply have to wait out another year.
We follow in the wake of centuries of sailors pacing along their same routes to take advantage of the best the winds have to offer. The biggest worry is the ITCZ where it is possible to experience squalls -rain, high winds and lightning- or the complete opposite the dreaded doldrums. Once across the ITCZ we are pretty much home free! Once across, like all the sailors before us we will grab hold of the fabled trade winds and be steadily pushed across the miles to our first landing at Hiva Oa.
Once through French Polynesia our plan is to favor a northern route while most of the fleet will be making a slow bee-line for Australia or New Zealand. Around the first of November when most of the fleet flees southward for the coming cyclone season we expect to turn north for the safety of the equator and winter over in Micronesia: more countries, more languages and more experiences to write home about in the fall. Oh and I almost forgot, once we depart you can follow along with our progress if you'd like by going to www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=wdf2704 In the meantime I will keep striking things off our lists and somehow manage to find just one more place for just one more grocery run. So far it's been a great ride. Kat.
Monday, March 12, 2012
3/12/ 2012 Make-Over Mexican Style
We are still in Banderas Bay staying at one of our favorite places, La Cruz. and there has been a grand transformation going on all around us for the last few weeks. La Cruz is generally a sleepy little town. The kind of place where when you walk through town you hear friendly hola's and buen dias' thrown from every corner. The kids on their way to school are just as likley to say hello as the shopkeepers and restaraunt owners. There are loose dogs wandering around, kids playing in the streets and senior citizens sitting in their courtyards or on the sidewalks in front of their small homes hiding from the heat. We brag about the place and have enjoyed sharing it with friends. But these days our descriptions would be drowned out and covered up by the dust and noise.
There are simultanious reasons for the change. A few days ago Copa Mexico began their annual regional races. The 24ft J-boats are leading the way for an entire month of racing in the bay. The little trailerable boats came flooding into La Cruz for weeks before the racing started and their activity was just the beginning. Next came the first of the "big boys" sailing across the finish line from California -no trailers here. The catamaran that lead the pack (The original Water World Boat sans Kevin Constner) had racked up some 400 mile days and the rest of the race fleet came streaming in behind. These big flashy boats with their uniformed crews and dead serious competition have their own week on the water which then will slowley lead into the annual Bandereas Bay Regatta. The BBR which is the closest thing to big money racing a crusing boat ever sees. The Regatta is an opportunity for even the cruisers to get in on the action because they handicap especially for cruising boats allowing even the loaded down "house boats" a chance at the gold.
Things will wrap up at the end of the month when the marina will be hosting a one day vacation tradeshow extravaganza. This too is serious money for the Puerto Vallarta area and La Cruz is crowing over capturing the event from Acapulco for the first time in ten years. All these things have coelesced into some serious work and money being dumped into sleepy little La Cruz. A huge pavillion was built in a matter of days and soon filled with racers, beer, music and the everpresent secrity. The marina grounds have been washed, painted, clipped and trimmed until everything sparkles and shines. The money has been flooding into similar work all over the Bay area. From here to Puerta Vallarta there are workers everywhere from the wee hours of the morning until well into the night, painting and picking up, washing down and hauling sod and trees for landscaping and generally sprucing up anything that holds still.
The town square in La Cruz has been torn up and completely rebuilt all within the last few weeks. This included new surrounding roads, a stonehenge looking paviliion, new curbs, sidewalks and pathways through the park and a new coat of paint. Seemingly every cobblestone street in town has been dug up and redone. They are burying power lines and gas mains, laying sod and painting newly poured curbs, sidewalks and park benches everywhere. Very early on in the process a crew inexplicably punched fist sized holes like swiss cheese through almost every sidewalk in town -yet almost all the sidewalks remain untouched and un-repaired. Maybe it will be done by the time the trade show arrives? The workers are being bussed in and they fill the tiendas and restaurants for lunch and dinner and the local beer joints have long lines at siesta time. They have been cutting down old trees and planting new ones and the dust and the noise rolls over everything in sight.
There had been a rumor that E'l Presidente' would be visiting soon but no one knew if it would be for the races or for the trade show. There has been a large Navy presence for days now and then the Army rolled in. The transit police slips in daily with their silent caravans of dark tinted windows and spinning flashing lights. The exact date and time were reported to be top secret -as a matter of security. The exact date and time were carefully guarded secrets held close in order to insure a high level of security. Plus no one knew if it is actualy the president who was expected or the state govenor who is also refered to as E'l Presidente'.
Then yesterday I received a VHF call from Katrina of Marina La Cruz asking me a favor. Katrina is the go to gal for anything Marina La Cruz. She is not the marina manageer nor is she a secretary but rather is more like Julie on the Love Boat but sexed up: PR, customer relations, organizer extrordinaire, in charge, idea filled, high heel wearing, cleavage showing, wowzer did-you-see-that-skirt- business manager. She proceeded to tell me the President was coming in the morning and that the racers were planning a nautical salute and could I try and solicit the cruisers help and participation in an ovation of sorts . So filled with her instructions I showered and changed and set out to explain to each and every boat on dock 4 that if they would listen to VHF chanel 01 from 9:00am to 9:45am they would at some point hear a count down: 10, 9, 8..... and when the count came to zero we would all add our salute of air horns, bells and loud hailers to the blasts form the racing fleet as a kind of tip of our hats to the President. It was the hottest part of the day and I didnt have much time as we had a dinner date and I only knew a few people on our dock but what the heck.
The morning came and I tuned into CH01 and heard nothing. Nine o'clock came and went as did nine fourty five. Bill and I had work to do so we kept our loud hailer on and got busy. Eventually the air filled with the pulse of a helicopter as the first bird flew in for recon. An hour or more passed by with the helicopter making slow wide circles over BIll and I as we worked on deck installing our new spinnaker sock and hauled the new dinghy up on deck for a dry fit its place for our crossing.
The crowd thickened all around us, more and more cruisers took seats in their cockpits to watch the spectacle and the Navy and Army were at full force spread out all over the marina grounds. There were two military patrol boats weaving in and out of the fareways, numerous exits and parking lots were cordoned off and left with armed guards and they installed a metal detector on the walkway leading to the Sunday Artisan Market. The area of the sea wall where the helipads had recently been laid out was sprayed down with water to dampen the dust, the walkway passing closest by was cordoned off and sharp shooters were stationed in the marina's Sky Bar.
Finally at nearly noon the rest of the flock of helicopters came charging over Banderas Bay -we are told the President always travels in a procession of five- and landed to the thrill of the crowds. The cruisers stood on deck all over the marina waiting for the sign that never came. Not one horn blew, nor bell rang and not a sound from the racers over on docks ten and eleven.
Oh well it was a good idea and there did seem to be a better representation of courtesy and home port flags flying even if it didn't pan out. Everyone had been surprisingly receptive of the request and as a bonus for me it gave me a great excuse to meet the rest of my dock four neighbors.
Kat
There are simultanious reasons for the change. A few days ago Copa Mexico began their annual regional races. The 24ft J-boats are leading the way for an entire month of racing in the bay. The little trailerable boats came flooding into La Cruz for weeks before the racing started and their activity was just the beginning. Next came the first of the "big boys" sailing across the finish line from California -no trailers here. The catamaran that lead the pack (The original Water World Boat sans Kevin Constner) had racked up some 400 mile days and the rest of the race fleet came streaming in behind. These big flashy boats with their uniformed crews and dead serious competition have their own week on the water which then will slowley lead into the annual Bandereas Bay Regatta. The BBR which is the closest thing to big money racing a crusing boat ever sees. The Regatta is an opportunity for even the cruisers to get in on the action because they handicap especially for cruising boats allowing even the loaded down "house boats" a chance at the gold.
Things will wrap up at the end of the month when the marina will be hosting a one day vacation tradeshow extravaganza. This too is serious money for the Puerto Vallarta area and La Cruz is crowing over capturing the event from Acapulco for the first time in ten years. All these things have coelesced into some serious work and money being dumped into sleepy little La Cruz. A huge pavillion was built in a matter of days and soon filled with racers, beer, music and the everpresent secrity. The marina grounds have been washed, painted, clipped and trimmed until everything sparkles and shines. The money has been flooding into similar work all over the Bay area. From here to Puerta Vallarta there are workers everywhere from the wee hours of the morning until well into the night, painting and picking up, washing down and hauling sod and trees for landscaping and generally sprucing up anything that holds still.
The town square in La Cruz has been torn up and completely rebuilt all within the last few weeks. This included new surrounding roads, a stonehenge looking paviliion, new curbs, sidewalks and pathways through the park and a new coat of paint. Seemingly every cobblestone street in town has been dug up and redone. They are burying power lines and gas mains, laying sod and painting newly poured curbs, sidewalks and park benches everywhere. Very early on in the process a crew inexplicably punched fist sized holes like swiss cheese through almost every sidewalk in town -yet almost all the sidewalks remain untouched and un-repaired. Maybe it will be done by the time the trade show arrives? The workers are being bussed in and they fill the tiendas and restaurants for lunch and dinner and the local beer joints have long lines at siesta time. They have been cutting down old trees and planting new ones and the dust and the noise rolls over everything in sight.
There had been a rumor that E'l Presidente' would be visiting soon but no one knew if it would be for the races or for the trade show. There has been a large Navy presence for days now and then the Army rolled in. The transit police slips in daily with their silent caravans of dark tinted windows and spinning flashing lights. The exact date and time were reported to be top secret -as a matter of security. The exact date and time were carefully guarded secrets held close in order to insure a high level of security. Plus no one knew if it is actualy the president who was expected or the state govenor who is also refered to as E'l Presidente'.
Then yesterday I received a VHF call from Katrina of Marina La Cruz asking me a favor. Katrina is the go to gal for anything Marina La Cruz. She is not the marina manageer nor is she a secretary but rather is more like Julie on the Love Boat but sexed up: PR, customer relations, organizer extrordinaire, in charge, idea filled, high heel wearing, cleavage showing, wowzer did-you-see-that-skirt- business manager. She proceeded to tell me the President was coming in the morning and that the racers were planning a nautical salute and could I try and solicit the cruisers help and participation in an ovation of sorts . So filled with her instructions I showered and changed and set out to explain to each and every boat on dock 4 that if they would listen to VHF chanel 01 from 9:00am to 9:45am they would at some point hear a count down: 10, 9, 8..... and when the count came to zero we would all add our salute of air horns, bells and loud hailers to the blasts form the racing fleet as a kind of tip of our hats to the President. It was the hottest part of the day and I didnt have much time as we had a dinner date and I only knew a few people on our dock but what the heck.
The morning came and I tuned into CH01 and heard nothing. Nine o'clock came and went as did nine fourty five. Bill and I had work to do so we kept our loud hailer on and got busy. Eventually the air filled with the pulse of a helicopter as the first bird flew in for recon. An hour or more passed by with the helicopter making slow wide circles over BIll and I as we worked on deck installing our new spinnaker sock and hauled the new dinghy up on deck for a dry fit its place for our crossing.
The crowd thickened all around us, more and more cruisers took seats in their cockpits to watch the spectacle and the Navy and Army were at full force spread out all over the marina grounds. There were two military patrol boats weaving in and out of the fareways, numerous exits and parking lots were cordoned off and left with armed guards and they installed a metal detector on the walkway leading to the Sunday Artisan Market. The area of the sea wall where the helipads had recently been laid out was sprayed down with water to dampen the dust, the walkway passing closest by was cordoned off and sharp shooters were stationed in the marina's Sky Bar.
Finally at nearly noon the rest of the flock of helicopters came charging over Banderas Bay -we are told the President always travels in a procession of five- and landed to the thrill of the crowds. The cruisers stood on deck all over the marina waiting for the sign that never came. Not one horn blew, nor bell rang and not a sound from the racers over on docks ten and eleven.
Oh well it was a good idea and there did seem to be a better representation of courtesy and home port flags flying even if it didn't pan out. Everyone had been surprisingly receptive of the request and as a bonus for me it gave me a great excuse to meet the rest of my dock four neighbors.
Kat
A Whale of a Story
We are in the last weeks of preparing to sail off to the pacific
islands. It's a dream come true and the biggest adventure of my life.It is so far from my prior reality and that of most of my landlubber friends, that I cannot make them understand my new reality. Often they talk of the risks, like pirates and storms and shipwrecks and death.
I've grown to realize how protected we are in the states. There was a big change just coming to Mexico. Big holes in the road or sidewalk are not marked or barricaded. If you don't watch your step you fall and it's your own fault. Along walkways there are sometimes drop offs of 20 or 30 feet without a rail. Same thing, you must look out for yourself. No one seems to follows rules or laws; they seem to be open to interpretation. If you're stupid enough to lose all your money or
to pay too much for something then you deserve to lose it. I haven't heard a single person mutter the words I'll sue you since we got arrived. But Mexico is tame compared to where we are going.
You can't take the same kind of risk in the states. You are prevented. Well mostly you are prevented. I've a bit of time out in some of the wilderness areas.
You are on your own and no one can hear you call for help. But the opportunities are a bit rare to get that self sufficient with little or no safety net. Even walking around a bad section of town after dark there are usually some people around and someone will call the cops eventually.
This is a whole new ball game. On the first leg of the journey we're going 3000 miles without any back up:we are completely on our own. The ocean is big and mighty. It occasionally reaches out and smashes some little boat into oblivion. Often no one ever knows what happened even with GPirbs(satellite emergency beacon - we have one). I'm not fretting. I'm just realizing that we don't often get to do this kind of man against nature things in this day and age. We've been in Mexico for a year and a
half; in that time three boats have been lost here. There will be more than 100 boats heading to the pacific islands this year and a couple will end up lost. There is very little help and you must always stand on your own.
It seems hard to explain why someone would take the risk. Maybe the best way is through some seasoned cruisers eyes. Some friends who have been cruising for a couple decades were telling us about a whale charging their boat. At first there were two big males breaching and tail slapping up a storm. They were off in the distance but clearly big and energetic. If you've only seen whales on TV or on the deck of a big metal ship you may have a hard time realizing how huge and powerful
these animals are. They are gigantic and strong and fast and in their element. They are the biggest baddest mothers in the neighborhood and we are pretty much the wimpiest.
All of a sudden one of these huge males broke away from his pal and started heading for their boat. It charged straight at them very fast. It was making huge waves and frothing up the water just like some horror movie. When it was a hundred yards off it lifted is head up above the water still swimming very fast and making huge waves. They could see it's big eyes making sure where they were.
That's when they saw two dolphins surfing in the head wave it was generating. They were riding the wave as the whale thundered on toward the boat at a terrific rate. At the last possible second the whale swerved away and departed with dolphins still riding the pressure wave. The boat was jarred sideways and was rocked heavily. For a while it wasn't clear whether they'd been hit or not because there was so much motion. There was no heavy thud that would have indicated the side of the boat getting caved in or the keel or rudder being damaged. The whale and his two sidekick dolphins swam off a bit slower than the charge. As time passed it became clear that there wouldn't be a second charge and the boat was unharmed.
It was a harrowing experience that scared them deeply, but they just kept going on and on about the dolphins riding the head wake. I can see them surfing in my mind can't you? The giant whale is thrashing up mighty waves and lifting his head to looking right at you, right into your eyes as he makes his deadly charge. All the
while two dolphins surf and jump and dance in the wave as he thunders toward you. While they charge, you remember several stories about friends of yours who lost boats to whales. The fear is tangible; these beasts can kill you very easily.
One can't see dolphins from a cubicle. These dolphins can't actually be seen from land at all. One can't see them on a cruise ship either. Nor can they see them from a whale watching boat. To really see them, you must stand on the deck of your own boat and be charged by a whale. You must sell your house and all your stuff and start a new life on a little boat and sail halfway around the world and
through several storms to a place so remote that no one can help you. You must feel the great strength of the beast. You must know that sometimes the whale chooses to sink the boat. Then and only then can you really see the dolphins as my friends saw them.
We cannot see them yet. We'd like to think we can, but we can't, not really. We still have a long way to go. We are only beginning the journey. Someday we will have a whale of a story to tell. We will try very hard to tell it well, but most will only see the shadows of the real story. Some things just have to be lived and that is why we are going… we want to see our dolphins.
Bill
islands. It's a dream come true and the biggest adventure of my life.It is so far from my prior reality and that of most of my landlubber friends, that I cannot make them understand my new reality. Often they talk of the risks, like pirates and storms and shipwrecks and death.
I've grown to realize how protected we are in the states. There was a big change just coming to Mexico. Big holes in the road or sidewalk are not marked or barricaded. If you don't watch your step you fall and it's your own fault. Along walkways there are sometimes drop offs of 20 or 30 feet without a rail. Same thing, you must look out for yourself. No one seems to follows rules or laws; they seem to be open to interpretation. If you're stupid enough to lose all your money or
to pay too much for something then you deserve to lose it. I haven't heard a single person mutter the words I'll sue you since we got arrived. But Mexico is tame compared to where we are going.
You can't take the same kind of risk in the states. You are prevented. Well mostly you are prevented. I've a bit of time out in some of the wilderness areas.
You are on your own and no one can hear you call for help. But the opportunities are a bit rare to get that self sufficient with little or no safety net. Even walking around a bad section of town after dark there are usually some people around and someone will call the cops eventually.
This is a whole new ball game. On the first leg of the journey we're going 3000 miles without any back up:we are completely on our own. The ocean is big and mighty. It occasionally reaches out and smashes some little boat into oblivion. Often no one ever knows what happened even with GPirbs(satellite emergency beacon - we have one). I'm not fretting. I'm just realizing that we don't often get to do this kind of man against nature things in this day and age. We've been in Mexico for a year and a
half; in that time three boats have been lost here. There will be more than 100 boats heading to the pacific islands this year and a couple will end up lost. There is very little help and you must always stand on your own.
It seems hard to explain why someone would take the risk. Maybe the best way is through some seasoned cruisers eyes. Some friends who have been cruising for a couple decades were telling us about a whale charging their boat. At first there were two big males breaching and tail slapping up a storm. They were off in the distance but clearly big and energetic. If you've only seen whales on TV or on the deck of a big metal ship you may have a hard time realizing how huge and powerful
these animals are. They are gigantic and strong and fast and in their element. They are the biggest baddest mothers in the neighborhood and we are pretty much the wimpiest.
All of a sudden one of these huge males broke away from his pal and started heading for their boat. It charged straight at them very fast. It was making huge waves and frothing up the water just like some horror movie. When it was a hundred yards off it lifted is head up above the water still swimming very fast and making huge waves. They could see it's big eyes making sure where they were.
That's when they saw two dolphins surfing in the head wave it was generating. They were riding the wave as the whale thundered on toward the boat at a terrific rate. At the last possible second the whale swerved away and departed with dolphins still riding the pressure wave. The boat was jarred sideways and was rocked heavily. For a while it wasn't clear whether they'd been hit or not because there was so much motion. There was no heavy thud that would have indicated the side of the boat getting caved in or the keel or rudder being damaged. The whale and his two sidekick dolphins swam off a bit slower than the charge. As time passed it became clear that there wouldn't be a second charge and the boat was unharmed.
It was a harrowing experience that scared them deeply, but they just kept going on and on about the dolphins riding the head wake. I can see them surfing in my mind can't you? The giant whale is thrashing up mighty waves and lifting his head to looking right at you, right into your eyes as he makes his deadly charge. All the
while two dolphins surf and jump and dance in the wave as he thunders toward you. While they charge, you remember several stories about friends of yours who lost boats to whales. The fear is tangible; these beasts can kill you very easily.
One can't see dolphins from a cubicle. These dolphins can't actually be seen from land at all. One can't see them on a cruise ship either. Nor can they see them from a whale watching boat. To really see them, you must stand on the deck of your own boat and be charged by a whale. You must sell your house and all your stuff and start a new life on a little boat and sail halfway around the world and
through several storms to a place so remote that no one can help you. You must feel the great strength of the beast. You must know that sometimes the whale chooses to sink the boat. Then and only then can you really see the dolphins as my friends saw them.
We cannot see them yet. We'd like to think we can, but we can't, not really. We still have a long way to go. We are only beginning the journey. Someday we will have a whale of a story to tell. We will try very hard to tell it well, but most will only see the shadows of the real story. Some things just have to be lived and that is why we are going… we want to see our dolphins.
Bill
Saturday, February 25, 2012
1/6/2012 Hiking to the Petroglyphs
Yesterday we took our first inland sightseeing trip and had a blast. We’ve done very little off the boat cruising so when the trip was announced on the cruisers net and the price was right we jumped on the chance and signed on. The plan was for an early stop at a farmers market, the largest in Nayarit then a short drive and a hike into the hills to view some petroglyphs, followed by lunch on the beach at Chacala and then back to the marina around 3:00pm. Bill and I, Chris and Liz from Espiritu, Paul and Judy from Grace and their son Kevin and his dog Patches all loaded into our guides van. The entire trip was great but the highlight was definitely the hike into the petroglyphs.
The petroglyphs are about a 40 minute drive NE of Banderas Bay and the ride through the hills was a whole new view of Mexico. April our guide has lived in Banderas Bay for 25 years filled the tour with her years of insider knowledge and insight. As we wound through the hills she acted as naturalist and historian telling us about the plants, trees and birds around us including a type of tree that the locals use for fence posts that re-sprouts back into trees once planted into the ground and a “gringo” tree known for its red peeling skin.
A sharp right turn had us off road and climbing into the hills. The road soon turned from pavement to dirt and then into something much more like a dry river bed. When the road got so bad we were barely crawling along it was time to either get out and push or grab our gear and get walking. After about a mile and a half of easy walking through nothing but fence line, cows and trees we arrived at the park entrance.
The boundary of the park was little more than a clearing and more barbed wire fence line. As we entered there was a large clearing off to the left where we could see the remains of what had once been the Mexican Indian version of a sweat lodge. On the other was the fence with an entry gate wired in with a lone gentleman holding a cell phone. We paid him our 20 peso entrance fee -we were warned the admission price varied from day to day and group to group, typical Mexico- and he silently went back to texting on his cell phone.
We had passed a couple of other trekkers on our way in but we seemed to have the park to ourselves as we followed the riverbed path into the park. Within a few feet of the gate April began pointing out petroglyphs and telling us about the history of the place. Along the path there were information signs in Spanish and English that gave detail and historical references and told the story of the people who lived in these hills many generations ago and the stories behind the petroglyphs.
The last curve of the trail led us to a bend in the river that opened up to a waterfall in a beautiful shady grotto.
There was an almost still leaf strewn pool at the bottom of the falls and a series of stair stepping rocks that climbed upwards along the slow moving riverbed. Below the pool there was a big stone curve that over the centuries had cut deep into the rocks. The years of flowing water left what looked like great rocky rectangles standing sentry over the sight. Along the curve there was one recessed spot into the rock that looked like an opened doorway, deep enough and tall enough for a man to stand in and it gave the impression of a giant stone doorway. All amongst the stair stepped rocks and boulders there were dozens and dozens of petroglyphs. Large and small images of the sun and various depictions of lines and squiggles that they believe represent the nature of weather, seasons and crops. There were also many glyphs that represented the great corn god or god of the crops.
When we arrived our group was alone and everyone spread out on their own to explore. As I climbed the rocks to the top of the falls I passed small alters that had been left scattered into nooks and crannies. Each alter was filled with modern day offerings of candles, beads, sweets and flowers. There were also bits of burned away candles tucked into the flats and crevasses all along the outer curving river rock wall. The quiet of the place had settled into the wet earth and the mossy woods all around us. Over the centuries it has left a peaceful calmness that you could feel. Maybe that feeling came from knowing how old the carvings are or maybe it’s a sort of left over spirit that makes this such a magical place. The place oozes power and energy and it was easy to see why the site was chosen hundreds of years ago and why it is still in use today by the native Indians.
By the time we had finished our hunt for petroglyphs and a quick dip in the deliciously cool pool we had been joined by some other hikers and the spell of the place was dimming. Our cameras were filled with pictures and Patches the Chihuahua-Jack was walking on sore tippy toes across the rocks so it was time to head home.
The hike out seemed shorter (of course) and soon we were back in the van and headed to our beachside lunch in the tiny seaside town of Chacala. This had been our tour guide Aprils' beta test trip with cruisers and the trip took us much longer than she had anticipated. Our 3:00pm drop off at home was well past by the time we made Chacala for lunch but we had all had a great time. And hey, were cruisers -all we have is time. So April, what else do you have for us in the state of Nayarit?
The petroglyphs are about a 40 minute drive NE of Banderas Bay and the ride through the hills was a whole new view of Mexico. April our guide has lived in Banderas Bay for 25 years filled the tour with her years of insider knowledge and insight. As we wound through the hills she acted as naturalist and historian telling us about the plants, trees and birds around us including a type of tree that the locals use for fence posts that re-sprouts back into trees once planted into the ground and a “gringo” tree known for its red peeling skin.
A sharp right turn had us off road and climbing into the hills. The road soon turned from pavement to dirt and then into something much more like a dry river bed. When the road got so bad we were barely crawling along it was time to either get out and push or grab our gear and get walking. After about a mile and a half of easy walking through nothing but fence line, cows and trees we arrived at the park entrance.
The boundary of the park was little more than a clearing and more barbed wire fence line. As we entered there was a large clearing off to the left where we could see the remains of what had once been the Mexican Indian version of a sweat lodge. On the other was the fence with an entry gate wired in with a lone gentleman holding a cell phone. We paid him our 20 peso entrance fee -we were warned the admission price varied from day to day and group to group, typical Mexico- and he silently went back to texting on his cell phone.
We had passed a couple of other trekkers on our way in but we seemed to have the park to ourselves as we followed the riverbed path into the park. Within a few feet of the gate April began pointing out petroglyphs and telling us about the history of the place. Along the path there were information signs in Spanish and English that gave detail and historical references and told the story of the people who lived in these hills many generations ago and the stories behind the petroglyphs.
The last curve of the trail led us to a bend in the river that opened up to a waterfall in a beautiful shady grotto.
There was an almost still leaf strewn pool at the bottom of the falls and a series of stair stepping rocks that climbed upwards along the slow moving riverbed. Below the pool there was a big stone curve that over the centuries had cut deep into the rocks. The years of flowing water left what looked like great rocky rectangles standing sentry over the sight. Along the curve there was one recessed spot into the rock that looked like an opened doorway, deep enough and tall enough for a man to stand in and it gave the impression of a giant stone doorway. All amongst the stair stepped rocks and boulders there were dozens and dozens of petroglyphs. Large and small images of the sun and various depictions of lines and squiggles that they believe represent the nature of weather, seasons and crops. There were also many glyphs that represented the great corn god or god of the crops.
When we arrived our group was alone and everyone spread out on their own to explore. As I climbed the rocks to the top of the falls I passed small alters that had been left scattered into nooks and crannies. Each alter was filled with modern day offerings of candles, beads, sweets and flowers. There were also bits of burned away candles tucked into the flats and crevasses all along the outer curving river rock wall. The quiet of the place had settled into the wet earth and the mossy woods all around us. Over the centuries it has left a peaceful calmness that you could feel. Maybe that feeling came from knowing how old the carvings are or maybe it’s a sort of left over spirit that makes this such a magical place. The place oozes power and energy and it was easy to see why the site was chosen hundreds of years ago and why it is still in use today by the native Indians.
By the time we had finished our hunt for petroglyphs and a quick dip in the deliciously cool pool we had been joined by some other hikers and the spell of the place was dimming. Our cameras were filled with pictures and Patches the Chihuahua-Jack was walking on sore tippy toes across the rocks so it was time to head home.
The hike out seemed shorter (of course) and soon we were back in the van and headed to our beachside lunch in the tiny seaside town of Chacala. This had been our tour guide Aprils' beta test trip with cruisers and the trip took us much longer than she had anticipated. Our 3:00pm drop off at home was well past by the time we made Chacala for lunch but we had all had a great time. And hey, were cruisers -all we have is time. So April, what else do you have for us in the state of Nayarit?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
1/2/2012 The Hunt for the Missing Flopper Stopper
Happy New Year from La Cruz de Haunacaxtle.
We are back in one of our favorite places in Mexico, the small town of La Cruz “the place with the cross at the Huanacaxtle tree.” It sits in the well protected NW corner of Banderas Bay, NW of the city of Puerta Vallarta. La Cruz has all the charm and feeling of small town Mexico, has a busy and popular town square just off the marina entrance, is close to everything, has great restaurants, easy bus routes and is extremely cruiser friendly. There is a good (free) anchorage along with the very popular Riviera Nayarit Marina de La Cruz. The marina hosts cruising seminars, a kids club, movie night in the amphitheater, potlucks, bonfires, happy hours, offers propane pick up days, cooking classes, morning yoga, Wi-Fi, a fuel dock, showers and bathrooms and even concierge services. The town stole our hearts last year and we couldn’t wait to come back again for the Holidays.
The anchorage can be a little rolly and uncomfortable at times so our second day out we deployed our trusty Flopper Stopper. A Flopper Stopper helps keep the boat from rolling. Basically it is a heavy metal rectangular frame about 24”x 36” with a piece of plastic in the middle that has been cut with a big X that hangs off the side of your boat. You pole out your boom or a spinnaker pole far off to one side with a line that trails the Stopper down six to ten feet below the surface. When the boat rolls in the waves the pole tips the Flopper Stopper deeper into the water and then the split plastic baffle creates drag on the counter roll that keeps the whole roll on a smaller arc. It stores flat and out of the way but it along with the fact that we weigh in at 32,000 pounds can make the difference between a comfortable anchorage and ka-chinging around like a pinball.
Three days ago as we motored back through the anchorage we could see that though our pole no longer had a line attached to our Stopper. On closer inspection we could see that the yellow nylon line we had suspended from the pole end was frayed and flapping empty in the wind! After the fact it was impossible to tell if our line had simply split from chafe or if it had been cut by someone coming too close to the boat. The second option would seem impossible except for the fact that the locals routinely fly through anchorages alarmingly close to anchored boats. If the line had chafed it should be simple to retrieve –all we need do was look for the floating tail of yellow line that should be floating a 25foot stream up from our Flopper on the sea floor. If the line has been snagged it could be just about anywhere by now. We ran a slow circuit around our boat in the dinghy hoping to glimpse the telltale yellow line a few feet below the surface but gave up in the waning light and bumpy seas.
Early the next morning we grabbed our snorkel gear while the tide was at its daily low and the current was at slack. The plan was to swim a grid in a circle around Island Bound to try and find the wayward line. Chris from Espiritu came over to offer topside support but the cold, murky water gave us no help at all. Eventually we decided to don our dive gear then use a line to swim increasingly larger circles along the bottom. We would dive with the line and then literally draw a 100 foot line off the point where the anchor chain touched the bottom. This would create a 200 foot circle ringing out from the point where our anchor sat. We hoped this technique would help us search all the possible ground the boat had been covering when the Flopper dropped and save us a load of time and trouble. By the time we assembled and safety checked all our dive gear the tide had begun to run and the current was strong. The visibility at the bottom proved to be much clearer than we had expected but the current was running so strong that it was impossible to make any headway on our grid so Bill called no joy. Off came all the dive gear and everything had to be rinsed and set out to dry to wait for the mornings calm and slack.
News Years Day broke with blue skies and calm water. It took us far less time to suit up and slide in and the slack made things much easier and down we went. After even just the one dive under our belts our buoyancy control had improved and we descended the 30feet down quickly and nearly effortlessly.
Sheesh, once again we were thwarted. The visibility now was so poor we had to be touching bottom with fingertips before we could see clear to anything along the sea floor. Once again we ascended, with such poor visibility we would have literally had to crawl along the bottom inch by inch to cover our 200 foot circle. Frustrated at the lack of any progress we were about to call it quits when Bill said he was going to try to snorkel and dive to look for the line. Off came the dive gear and down we dove with snorkel gear. Bill, Chris and I off at all points of the compass. No plan or discussion just one last attempt at a needle in a 200ft haystack.
By this time my ears were tender and my nose was clogged with salt water but I began to dive. Once, down, kick, kick, nothing and surface. I looked around to place the guys as they surfaced and dove. Twice more I dove thinking “this is not going to work it is just a waste of time and trouble all for a $30 piece of metal and plastic,” down, kick, kick, nothing and surface. OK, “I am going to make one more dive and then swim back to the dink and climb out.” Down, kick, kick……Yahoo…there it is - the yellow line only about ten feet below the surface and trailing off into the depth just 20 feet SE of the boat! I swam to the surface grinning like an idiot and whooping out a hurrah. A moment or two later I had caught Bill and Chris’s attention as tried to stay treading over the line. Within just a few minutes Bill had successfully dove to grab the frayed end and he and Chris drug it back to the boat and tied it off to the side of the dinghy!
It all seemed like a lot of work for a $30 piece of equipment but it would have been difficult if not impossible to replace it in Mexico before we leave for the South Pacific and even if we could buy one the size and especially the weight would have made it impossible to ship or even to hand carry it in our luggage when we made our upcoming trip back to Seattle in January. My success made it almost possible to forget how soundly I was trounced last night playing Farkle.
Kat
We are back in one of our favorite places in Mexico, the small town of La Cruz “the place with the cross at the Huanacaxtle tree.” It sits in the well protected NW corner of Banderas Bay, NW of the city of Puerta Vallarta. La Cruz has all the charm and feeling of small town Mexico, has a busy and popular town square just off the marina entrance, is close to everything, has great restaurants, easy bus routes and is extremely cruiser friendly. There is a good (free) anchorage along with the very popular Riviera Nayarit Marina de La Cruz. The marina hosts cruising seminars, a kids club, movie night in the amphitheater, potlucks, bonfires, happy hours, offers propane pick up days, cooking classes, morning yoga, Wi-Fi, a fuel dock, showers and bathrooms and even concierge services. The town stole our hearts last year and we couldn’t wait to come back again for the Holidays.
The anchorage can be a little rolly and uncomfortable at times so our second day out we deployed our trusty Flopper Stopper. A Flopper Stopper helps keep the boat from rolling. Basically it is a heavy metal rectangular frame about 24”x 36” with a piece of plastic in the middle that has been cut with a big X that hangs off the side of your boat. You pole out your boom or a spinnaker pole far off to one side with a line that trails the Stopper down six to ten feet below the surface. When the boat rolls in the waves the pole tips the Flopper Stopper deeper into the water and then the split plastic baffle creates drag on the counter roll that keeps the whole roll on a smaller arc. It stores flat and out of the way but it along with the fact that we weigh in at 32,000 pounds can make the difference between a comfortable anchorage and ka-chinging around like a pinball.
Three days ago as we motored back through the anchorage we could see that though our pole no longer had a line attached to our Stopper. On closer inspection we could see that the yellow nylon line we had suspended from the pole end was frayed and flapping empty in the wind! After the fact it was impossible to tell if our line had simply split from chafe or if it had been cut by someone coming too close to the boat. The second option would seem impossible except for the fact that the locals routinely fly through anchorages alarmingly close to anchored boats. If the line had chafed it should be simple to retrieve –all we need do was look for the floating tail of yellow line that should be floating a 25foot stream up from our Flopper on the sea floor. If the line has been snagged it could be just about anywhere by now. We ran a slow circuit around our boat in the dinghy hoping to glimpse the telltale yellow line a few feet below the surface but gave up in the waning light and bumpy seas.
Early the next morning we grabbed our snorkel gear while the tide was at its daily low and the current was at slack. The plan was to swim a grid in a circle around Island Bound to try and find the wayward line. Chris from Espiritu came over to offer topside support but the cold, murky water gave us no help at all. Eventually we decided to don our dive gear then use a line to swim increasingly larger circles along the bottom. We would dive with the line and then literally draw a 100 foot line off the point where the anchor chain touched the bottom. This would create a 200 foot circle ringing out from the point where our anchor sat. We hoped this technique would help us search all the possible ground the boat had been covering when the Flopper dropped and save us a load of time and trouble. By the time we assembled and safety checked all our dive gear the tide had begun to run and the current was strong. The visibility at the bottom proved to be much clearer than we had expected but the current was running so strong that it was impossible to make any headway on our grid so Bill called no joy. Off came all the dive gear and everything had to be rinsed and set out to dry to wait for the mornings calm and slack.
News Years Day broke with blue skies and calm water. It took us far less time to suit up and slide in and the slack made things much easier and down we went. After even just the one dive under our belts our buoyancy control had improved and we descended the 30feet down quickly and nearly effortlessly.
Sheesh, once again we were thwarted. The visibility now was so poor we had to be touching bottom with fingertips before we could see clear to anything along the sea floor. Once again we ascended, with such poor visibility we would have literally had to crawl along the bottom inch by inch to cover our 200 foot circle. Frustrated at the lack of any progress we were about to call it quits when Bill said he was going to try to snorkel and dive to look for the line. Off came the dive gear and down we dove with snorkel gear. Bill, Chris and I off at all points of the compass. No plan or discussion just one last attempt at a needle in a 200ft haystack.
By this time my ears were tender and my nose was clogged with salt water but I began to dive. Once, down, kick, kick, nothing and surface. I looked around to place the guys as they surfaced and dove. Twice more I dove thinking “this is not going to work it is just a waste of time and trouble all for a $30 piece of metal and plastic,” down, kick, kick, nothing and surface. OK, “I am going to make one more dive and then swim back to the dink and climb out.” Down, kick, kick……Yahoo…there it is - the yellow line only about ten feet below the surface and trailing off into the depth just 20 feet SE of the boat! I swam to the surface grinning like an idiot and whooping out a hurrah. A moment or two later I had caught Bill and Chris’s attention as tried to stay treading over the line. Within just a few minutes Bill had successfully dove to grab the frayed end and he and Chris drug it back to the boat and tied it off to the side of the dinghy!
It all seemed like a lot of work for a $30 piece of equipment but it would have been difficult if not impossible to replace it in Mexico before we leave for the South Pacific and even if we could buy one the size and especially the weight would have made it impossible to ship or even to hand carry it in our luggage when we made our upcoming trip back to Seattle in January. My success made it almost possible to forget how soundly I was trounced last night playing Farkle.
Kat
12/23/2011 Back to Banderas Bay
It is December 23rd and we are just short of a left turn into Banderas Bay. We’ve been motor sailing the last few hours under blue sky hazed with wispy white clouds with a healthy roll nicely pushing us along. Despite a forecast for 40+mph winds we managed to stay ahead of the winds that will soon be rolling twelve foot waves down from the Sea of Cortez. I am already picking up bits of chatter on the local crusiers channel and we should be settling into the anchorage at La Cruz within the hour.
Our three weeks in Mazatlan was night and day different from lasts year. Amazing how much difference a year makes. This time last year everything was new and well, foreign. Learning the bus routes and fumbling for correct peso coins, twisting our tongues around a new language and simply making a purchase were all a part of making our way around Mexico. Last year we were overwhelmed at times by feeling apart from everything and mostly sat quietly by as the stream of returning cruisers filed into Mazatlan. All around us folks seemed to be meeting old friends and heading off to dinner or gathering in small groups in cockpits up and down the docks. No one was unfriendly they just all seemed preoccupied. This year when we arrived in the Mazatlan channel there were friendly waves from the docks, shouts of hellos, calls on the VHF to welcome us and even a heads up warning on the channel dredge. Then when we pulled into our Mazatlan slip we had piles of hellos, hands taking our lines and hugs all around.
Incredibly and completely unknown to us our friends on Espiritu who we had hoped to meet up with in La Paz were making their own passage from the Baja peninsula to the mainland. They heard the radio calls and were barely an hour behind us! Then their arrival was our turn to warn about the harbor entrance buoy and the mid channel dredge before being there to take a line and give out hugs.
As a Mazatlan bonus our planned haul out was made much more bearable by our Seattle friend Sheri from M/v Mi Casa. She owns a condo at the marina and had graciously offered us her spare room. It gave us the time to take a trip with her to the Juarez market, share several meals and gave a heaven that allowed us to dodge most of the usual boatyard toxins.
The yard work we managed to complete helped jump start or to-do list for our upcoming Pacific crossing. This was our third time to try a fix on our rudder tube leak. The first time out of the water for a fix was during our original passage down the US coast more than 12 months ago. That first attempt didn’t fix things at all so we hauled again in Mazatlan this last April with some improvement but soon the leak was back in force.
It is incredibly expensive to pull the boat out of the water for work. Each trip involves hundreds of dollars just for the trip out of the water, up on blocks and back in the water. They price it out according to how big you are and how much you weigh. The lift and splash in California was over $700 and Mazatlan cost us $400+ twice. So when on our last crossing from La Paz to Mazatlan our bilge pump was cycling on every five or six minutes . This time we were determined to get it right.
Water can only come from a couple of sources and since none of our water tanks was leaking it meant only one thing: salt water! We were in no danger, our pump worked diligently and we have a backup manual pump and a high speed pump at the ready but the sound of that pump cycling on and off made for poor sleep during our off watch hours: your mind just can’t help but register, catalog and respond to the sounds around it. Your mind soon learns to set most noises aside but a cycling pump seems to click into a very primitive part of your brain, a sort of oh $*&% sound.
The boatyard haul out went smoothly enough. We had the hull stripped down to fiberglass and then covered with three good coats of Comex -Mexico’s miracle bottom paint, the rudder work was complete (keep your fingers crossed!) and I had managed a considerable start in my spring cleaning.
I had decided it was the perfect opportunity to begin the preparations for our upcoming Pacific crossing. So when I wasn’t working with Bill on projects I spent my time house cleaning. Virtually every locker aboard was emptied, cleaned and repacked in process that gave me free, open space. In all I managed to free up three and a half empty cupboards and a shelf and a half of shelf space in the main saloon along with a large locker in the galley and an even larger locker under our settee. Next up will be sorting through piles of hardware, spare parts and bits and pieces of boat projects to come. We are going to need every inch of space I can find when it is finally time to provision for our next big jump.
Once the repacking was done it was time to try and get things in order for our crossing to La Cruz. I always try to take off on a passage with a clean boat. That means clean laundry, clean sheets, everything loose stowed and the fridge stocked with passage foods. I also washed most of my upholstery, the bedding, the lovely Mexican blankets I use to “save” our cushions, scrubbed floors, cleaned toilets and washed counters all while high in the air on blocks and without the use of freely running water. When we are out of the water you can’t just pour things down the drain. If you forget and use the sinks the water pours out of your thru holes and over $1600 worth of still wet bottom paint and ~ick~ over the heads of the crew working on your boat.
Typically I wait until we are off the hard then spend about two days getting everything clean and settled again. This trip out we were severely delayed which closed the gap we had left ourselves for making our passage to La Cruz. By the time we had a concrete splash date we were going to need to literally splash and dash. So it was my job to figure out a way to get the job done without the use of running water and a day or more on the outside with my trusty hose.
The yard promised they would have a crew power wash us early on the morning of our launch. It wouldn't be as thorough a job as mine but I could live with that. The rest I did with many trips up and down and back and forth on the ladder. The actual cleaning was by sauce pan and rag with the dirty water being tossed into an empty lot off the bow of the boat.
I also needed to coordinate cleaning the condo. Sheri had graciously allowed us to stay on after she flew home but that meant I owed her a clean condo and needed to follow her check list for closing things down. OK, getting moved out of the condo and onto the boat while getting both clean would take some brain power and a few tricks to organize but it was do-able. When a notice appeared in the elevator saying the condo water would be turned off at 9am the day of my planned assault I cringed.
Sheesh, OK more water issues. Wide awake at the condo at 630, kick Bill out so I can clean, clock is ticking; scrub the bathrooms while the water is running, fill the sinks and buckets with water in case they shut it off early. Clean a section, mop the floor, make the bed, mop some more, clean the kitchen, mop, shut off water and spray for bugs. I finally locked the door at 1030 with bits of wet water lines still railed on the tile floors. Back at the boat I scrambled to stow things while we waited for the lift driver to arrive. Once the lift driver arrives we splash and go. Bing, bang, boom. No waiting around or time to put anything else in order.
Now nearly 200 miles south and I can see the point at Punta Mita ahead of me and the islands of Tres Marietta’s sitting low at the mouth of Banderas Bay. The high smoke grey mountains circling the bay rise in the background welcoming us to our favorite place. The passage went smoothly and again it hits me hard how much things have changed. A two day crossing no longer wipes me out. As we motored into the bay I still have enough left in me to pull out my Christmas decoration and add some festivity to our main cabin. Then with the water smooth and glassy I grab my recipe box and start working on the potluck dishes we will need to a couple of upcoming parties. If I start pies now.......?
Merry Christmas. Kat
Our three weeks in Mazatlan was night and day different from lasts year. Amazing how much difference a year makes. This time last year everything was new and well, foreign. Learning the bus routes and fumbling for correct peso coins, twisting our tongues around a new language and simply making a purchase were all a part of making our way around Mexico. Last year we were overwhelmed at times by feeling apart from everything and mostly sat quietly by as the stream of returning cruisers filed into Mazatlan. All around us folks seemed to be meeting old friends and heading off to dinner or gathering in small groups in cockpits up and down the docks. No one was unfriendly they just all seemed preoccupied. This year when we arrived in the Mazatlan channel there were friendly waves from the docks, shouts of hellos, calls on the VHF to welcome us and even a heads up warning on the channel dredge. Then when we pulled into our Mazatlan slip we had piles of hellos, hands taking our lines and hugs all around.
Incredibly and completely unknown to us our friends on Espiritu who we had hoped to meet up with in La Paz were making their own passage from the Baja peninsula to the mainland. They heard the radio calls and were barely an hour behind us! Then their arrival was our turn to warn about the harbor entrance buoy and the mid channel dredge before being there to take a line and give out hugs.
As a Mazatlan bonus our planned haul out was made much more bearable by our Seattle friend Sheri from M/v Mi Casa. She owns a condo at the marina and had graciously offered us her spare room. It gave us the time to take a trip with her to the Juarez market, share several meals and gave a heaven that allowed us to dodge most of the usual boatyard toxins.
The yard work we managed to complete helped jump start or to-do list for our upcoming Pacific crossing. This was our third time to try a fix on our rudder tube leak. The first time out of the water for a fix was during our original passage down the US coast more than 12 months ago. That first attempt didn’t fix things at all so we hauled again in Mazatlan this last April with some improvement but soon the leak was back in force.
It is incredibly expensive to pull the boat out of the water for work. Each trip involves hundreds of dollars just for the trip out of the water, up on blocks and back in the water. They price it out according to how big you are and how much you weigh. The lift and splash in California was over $700 and Mazatlan cost us $400+ twice. So when on our last crossing from La Paz to Mazatlan our bilge pump was cycling on every five or six minutes . This time we were determined to get it right.
Water can only come from a couple of sources and since none of our water tanks was leaking it meant only one thing: salt water! We were in no danger, our pump worked diligently and we have a backup manual pump and a high speed pump at the ready but the sound of that pump cycling on and off made for poor sleep during our off watch hours: your mind just can’t help but register, catalog and respond to the sounds around it. Your mind soon learns to set most noises aside but a cycling pump seems to click into a very primitive part of your brain, a sort of oh $*&% sound.
The boatyard haul out went smoothly enough. We had the hull stripped down to fiberglass and then covered with three good coats of Comex -Mexico’s miracle bottom paint, the rudder work was complete (keep your fingers crossed!) and I had managed a considerable start in my spring cleaning.
I had decided it was the perfect opportunity to begin the preparations for our upcoming Pacific crossing. So when I wasn’t working with Bill on projects I spent my time house cleaning. Virtually every locker aboard was emptied, cleaned and repacked in process that gave me free, open space. In all I managed to free up three and a half empty cupboards and a shelf and a half of shelf space in the main saloon along with a large locker in the galley and an even larger locker under our settee. Next up will be sorting through piles of hardware, spare parts and bits and pieces of boat projects to come. We are going to need every inch of space I can find when it is finally time to provision for our next big jump.
Once the repacking was done it was time to try and get things in order for our crossing to La Cruz. I always try to take off on a passage with a clean boat. That means clean laundry, clean sheets, everything loose stowed and the fridge stocked with passage foods. I also washed most of my upholstery, the bedding, the lovely Mexican blankets I use to “save” our cushions, scrubbed floors, cleaned toilets and washed counters all while high in the air on blocks and without the use of freely running water. When we are out of the water you can’t just pour things down the drain. If you forget and use the sinks the water pours out of your thru holes and over $1600 worth of still wet bottom paint and ~ick~ over the heads of the crew working on your boat.
Typically I wait until we are off the hard then spend about two days getting everything clean and settled again. This trip out we were severely delayed which closed the gap we had left ourselves for making our passage to La Cruz. By the time we had a concrete splash date we were going to need to literally splash and dash. So it was my job to figure out a way to get the job done without the use of running water and a day or more on the outside with my trusty hose.
The yard promised they would have a crew power wash us early on the morning of our launch. It wouldn't be as thorough a job as mine but I could live with that. The rest I did with many trips up and down and back and forth on the ladder. The actual cleaning was by sauce pan and rag with the dirty water being tossed into an empty lot off the bow of the boat.
I also needed to coordinate cleaning the condo. Sheri had graciously allowed us to stay on after she flew home but that meant I owed her a clean condo and needed to follow her check list for closing things down. OK, getting moved out of the condo and onto the boat while getting both clean would take some brain power and a few tricks to organize but it was do-able. When a notice appeared in the elevator saying the condo water would be turned off at 9am the day of my planned assault I cringed.
Sheesh, OK more water issues. Wide awake at the condo at 630, kick Bill out so I can clean, clock is ticking; scrub the bathrooms while the water is running, fill the sinks and buckets with water in case they shut it off early. Clean a section, mop the floor, make the bed, mop some more, clean the kitchen, mop, shut off water and spray for bugs. I finally locked the door at 1030 with bits of wet water lines still railed on the tile floors. Back at the boat I scrambled to stow things while we waited for the lift driver to arrive. Once the lift driver arrives we splash and go. Bing, bang, boom. No waiting around or time to put anything else in order.
Now nearly 200 miles south and I can see the point at Punta Mita ahead of me and the islands of Tres Marietta’s sitting low at the mouth of Banderas Bay. The high smoke grey mountains circling the bay rise in the background welcoming us to our favorite place. The passage went smoothly and again it hits me hard how much things have changed. A two day crossing no longer wipes me out. As we motored into the bay I still have enough left in me to pull out my Christmas decoration and add some festivity to our main cabin. Then with the water smooth and glassy I grab my recipe box and start working on the potluck dishes we will need to a couple of upcoming parties. If I start pies now.......?
Merry Christmas. Kat
10/24-2011 Baja Road Trip
A Quick Trip Back to the States
Most people might think that Bill and I are seasoned travelers who move about hither and yon packed light and ready to explore. Well, we are, sort of. But after just completing a trip north to California I was reminded of one of the reasons why I was drawn to this sailing life to begin with: I don’t have to pack. We have become so spoiled, wherever we go there we are, our home following along with us ready for whatever comes next. Sometimes at night when I am sitting all cozy below in the saloon an odd feeling rolls over me: we could just as easily be tied to the dock back home in Seattle as to be bobbing at anchor thousands of miles away.
From my vantage below my world is the same. I sit with Bill reading quietly into the night, my fridge is full of fresh nutritious food and the sheets on our big bed are clean and crisp. Everything we own is already here. I don’t need to worry about whether or not I packed my toothbrush or brought along the right charger for my camera. It doesn’t even matter if it is 90 degrees out or blowing a chilling cold all I need is to reach into the right locker to find flip flops or wool sweaters.
Life transpires even in Mexico and we learned we needed to make a quick trip back to the states. Hurricane season is still in full swing so this would have to be a pretty quick in and out. I packed for both of us, everything we needed in one bag and off we went across the Baja dessert. Friends in Santa Rosalia wanted their SUV back home in California so we had the luxury of a borrowed car for the trip up. Getting north to Santa Anna was pretty simple: sixteen hours of dessert, one coyote, 100’s of road side shrines and about a million cacti. We weren’t at all worried about traveling Baja. We knew we had the correct paperwork for the car, our passports were up to date, we had our TIP(Temporary Import Permit) with us in case we brought anything back with us and our visas were clear. What we weren’t sure about was how we were going to make it back to Island Bound since we had been unable to find a bus schedule for our return trip anywhere. We decided it couldn’t be that hard so armed with a head full of suggestions from other cruisers based on their own trips and a mindset of being flexible off we went.
The hundreds of miles unfolded as Bill did his best to avoid the potholes, the cattle, the unbanked corners and the many steep cliffs sans guard rails. In places we could see down the ravines into the twisted metal of the wrecked cars still scattered over the rocks below. We were glad to have had the cruiser advice to get gas in certain towns or risk running out between stations because there was in fact a long stretch where there were lots of little towns but no gas. Who would have thought looking at the map that all those towns wouldn’t have gas station?
Having lived my whole life in Seattle I often forget that in other countries moving about from place to place isn't always so simple. One look at the half dozen 18 year olds with automatic weapons at any of the many check points reminds you of that pretty fast. Every so often you are required to stop for a military peek-a-boo. They sometimes just flag you through but more often they have you stop for a question or two and a vehicle inspection. The inspections seemed cursory at best: they never asked for papers of any kind and at least with us they were not really looking at anything or into anything. About half the time they had us open our tailgate and one fellow seemed to chuckle over our two folding bikes but mostly they looked like they were just going through the drill.
There is a job to do here -and the local papers are filled with the murder news of the many still dying in the drug wars every year- but it’s clear we are not their target. They simply serve as gatekeepers of the roads: a low tech response to the ongoing war on drugs. Evidently the US Border patrol isn’t looking for tired worn out 50 something smugglers either because we barely rated a look. Getting into the US felt like a formality though I know they take their jobs very seriously. We arrived at the border at 10:30 on a Saturday night and had to wait in a slowly inching line for over two hours.
The most interesting part of the crossing was definitely the living, moving open-all-night market held in the staging lanes of the border. The ever industrious Mexicans run a market of immense size right there amongst the lanes of inching cars. Even in the middle of the night you can buy tacos, sodas, chips, candy, coffee, fruit cups, ice cream, empanadas, flan, blankets, velvet last supper paintings, huge carved Jesus’ nailed to wooden crosses, Chiclets, hair clips and headbands, magazines, baseball caps, sombreros, serapes, Miss Kitty dolls and teeny tiny puppies.
They cater to the always moving throng right down to the billboard with a number to call for duty free alcohol delivered right to your car. Oh and if you had a driver and a runner one of you could jump out of your car step just out of the lanes to any number of pharmacies for a prescription-less prescription of Viagra, Oxycontin or Rogain. Commerce at its best! We saved our pesos and scanned the internet for a hotel room. Finally at 1:30am sixteen hours after we left Santa Rosalia we pulled into a parking spot at the Comfort Inn San Diego. Whew!
The rest of the trip was pretty straight forward. A trip to West Marine in San Diego, a stop to pick up some friends mail, a rental at the Santa Anna airport, drop off the borrowed car and a quick visit with fellow cruising friends set to leave this season . Time flew by and we still had a three hour drive north to Santa Barbara where the kids live. It was nearly midnight when we made it to their place and luckily they’re young and resilient so were still up to welcome us in. I was pretty much at just the nodding and hugging state by then but after several more hours of visiting I finally found my head on a pillow at about 200am. After so many months of up with the sun down with the dark two night of travel and I was definitely out of steam.
We had a nice visit with the kids but with such short notice it’s a marvel they were able to spend any time with us at all. Josh is nearing the end of his PHD work at UCSB so his days are very full and it just happened that our last minute visit fell during a week he was obligated to help teach a diving class. Dianna had her work during the days but shared her free time with us and she and I even worked our way through a neighborhood pumpkin patch corn maze. Bill opted out but stood by heroically waiting to rescue us if we couldn’t find out. Still even with the busy schedules we found time for a some nice meals and lots of late night and early morning visiting before we had to say good bye.
The trip home was a slow slog. We dropped off the rental car at the San Diego airport and caught a ride to the Greyhound station with one of the Hertz guys. An hours’ wait landed us on the bus to Tijuana with a quick cattle call border crossing: off the bus, grab the bags, stand in line and then a red light/green light push of the button tells your future. Either you get a green and you pass right on through or hit a red and bags are searched, papers checked and rechecked, receipt a must and tariff due. We both hit the green and climbed back on the bus to Tijuana.
The bus station at Tijuana (by the way Tijuana is pronounced “tea wanna” not “tea a juan a”) was bustling and with a bit of help we managed to buy our tickets to Santa Rosalia. Again our wait wasn’t long and soon armed with sandwiches and bottled water we stepped –along with three drivers- onto the 4:00pm ABC bus. Soon we were stretched out in the front seat settled in for the 16 hour ride.
The inter town buses in Mexico are really quite nice. They have everything you could need: big seats that recline, curtains, air conditioning, a bathroom, evening showings of Spanish language movies, and short layovers at bus stations where you can stretch your legs. At dinner time our bus driver jumped out and was first in line at a roadside taco stand. By then there was only one drive in sight and we figured the other two had gotten off at one the many stops along our way. Then Bill was astonished when at 3:00am as he stood next to the bus stretching his legs the original driver stepped off the bus, opened the luggage compartment and switched places with another driver! Viva Mexico!
We finally arrived in Santa Rosalia a little before 8:00am. Tired and a bit stiff from curling up like pretzels in our seats and frozen to the bone by the continuous air conditioning we were finally dropped off a mere block form the marina. It was good to be home and great to see Island Bound bobbing serenely in her slip.
Kat
kat
Most people might think that Bill and I are seasoned travelers who move about hither and yon packed light and ready to explore. Well, we are, sort of. But after just completing a trip north to California I was reminded of one of the reasons why I was drawn to this sailing life to begin with: I don’t have to pack. We have become so spoiled, wherever we go there we are, our home following along with us ready for whatever comes next. Sometimes at night when I am sitting all cozy below in the saloon an odd feeling rolls over me: we could just as easily be tied to the dock back home in Seattle as to be bobbing at anchor thousands of miles away.
From my vantage below my world is the same. I sit with Bill reading quietly into the night, my fridge is full of fresh nutritious food and the sheets on our big bed are clean and crisp. Everything we own is already here. I don’t need to worry about whether or not I packed my toothbrush or brought along the right charger for my camera. It doesn’t even matter if it is 90 degrees out or blowing a chilling cold all I need is to reach into the right locker to find flip flops or wool sweaters.
Life transpires even in Mexico and we learned we needed to make a quick trip back to the states. Hurricane season is still in full swing so this would have to be a pretty quick in and out. I packed for both of us, everything we needed in one bag and off we went across the Baja dessert. Friends in Santa Rosalia wanted their SUV back home in California so we had the luxury of a borrowed car for the trip up. Getting north to Santa Anna was pretty simple: sixteen hours of dessert, one coyote, 100’s of road side shrines and about a million cacti. We weren’t at all worried about traveling Baja. We knew we had the correct paperwork for the car, our passports were up to date, we had our TIP(Temporary Import Permit) with us in case we brought anything back with us and our visas were clear. What we weren’t sure about was how we were going to make it back to Island Bound since we had been unable to find a bus schedule for our return trip anywhere. We decided it couldn’t be that hard so armed with a head full of suggestions from other cruisers based on their own trips and a mindset of being flexible off we went.
The hundreds of miles unfolded as Bill did his best to avoid the potholes, the cattle, the unbanked corners and the many steep cliffs sans guard rails. In places we could see down the ravines into the twisted metal of the wrecked cars still scattered over the rocks below. We were glad to have had the cruiser advice to get gas in certain towns or risk running out between stations because there was in fact a long stretch where there were lots of little towns but no gas. Who would have thought looking at the map that all those towns wouldn’t have gas station?
Having lived my whole life in Seattle I often forget that in other countries moving about from place to place isn't always so simple. One look at the half dozen 18 year olds with automatic weapons at any of the many check points reminds you of that pretty fast. Every so often you are required to stop for a military peek-a-boo. They sometimes just flag you through but more often they have you stop for a question or two and a vehicle inspection. The inspections seemed cursory at best: they never asked for papers of any kind and at least with us they were not really looking at anything or into anything. About half the time they had us open our tailgate and one fellow seemed to chuckle over our two folding bikes but mostly they looked like they were just going through the drill.
There is a job to do here -and the local papers are filled with the murder news of the many still dying in the drug wars every year- but it’s clear we are not their target. They simply serve as gatekeepers of the roads: a low tech response to the ongoing war on drugs. Evidently the US Border patrol isn’t looking for tired worn out 50 something smugglers either because we barely rated a look. Getting into the US felt like a formality though I know they take their jobs very seriously. We arrived at the border at 10:30 on a Saturday night and had to wait in a slowly inching line for over two hours.
The most interesting part of the crossing was definitely the living, moving open-all-night market held in the staging lanes of the border. The ever industrious Mexicans run a market of immense size right there amongst the lanes of inching cars. Even in the middle of the night you can buy tacos, sodas, chips, candy, coffee, fruit cups, ice cream, empanadas, flan, blankets, velvet last supper paintings, huge carved Jesus’ nailed to wooden crosses, Chiclets, hair clips and headbands, magazines, baseball caps, sombreros, serapes, Miss Kitty dolls and teeny tiny puppies.
They cater to the always moving throng right down to the billboard with a number to call for duty free alcohol delivered right to your car. Oh and if you had a driver and a runner one of you could jump out of your car step just out of the lanes to any number of pharmacies for a prescription-less prescription of Viagra, Oxycontin or Rogain. Commerce at its best! We saved our pesos and scanned the internet for a hotel room. Finally at 1:30am sixteen hours after we left Santa Rosalia we pulled into a parking spot at the Comfort Inn San Diego. Whew!
The rest of the trip was pretty straight forward. A trip to West Marine in San Diego, a stop to pick up some friends mail, a rental at the Santa Anna airport, drop off the borrowed car and a quick visit with fellow cruising friends set to leave this season . Time flew by and we still had a three hour drive north to Santa Barbara where the kids live. It was nearly midnight when we made it to their place and luckily they’re young and resilient so were still up to welcome us in. I was pretty much at just the nodding and hugging state by then but after several more hours of visiting I finally found my head on a pillow at about 200am. After so many months of up with the sun down with the dark two night of travel and I was definitely out of steam.
We had a nice visit with the kids but with such short notice it’s a marvel they were able to spend any time with us at all. Josh is nearing the end of his PHD work at UCSB so his days are very full and it just happened that our last minute visit fell during a week he was obligated to help teach a diving class. Dianna had her work during the days but shared her free time with us and she and I even worked our way through a neighborhood pumpkin patch corn maze. Bill opted out but stood by heroically waiting to rescue us if we couldn’t find out. Still even with the busy schedules we found time for a some nice meals and lots of late night and early morning visiting before we had to say good bye.
The trip home was a slow slog. We dropped off the rental car at the San Diego airport and caught a ride to the Greyhound station with one of the Hertz guys. An hours’ wait landed us on the bus to Tijuana with a quick cattle call border crossing: off the bus, grab the bags, stand in line and then a red light/green light push of the button tells your future. Either you get a green and you pass right on through or hit a red and bags are searched, papers checked and rechecked, receipt a must and tariff due. We both hit the green and climbed back on the bus to Tijuana.
The bus station at Tijuana (by the way Tijuana is pronounced “tea wanna” not “tea a juan a”) was bustling and with a bit of help we managed to buy our tickets to Santa Rosalia. Again our wait wasn’t long and soon armed with sandwiches and bottled water we stepped –along with three drivers- onto the 4:00pm ABC bus. Soon we were stretched out in the front seat settled in for the 16 hour ride.
The inter town buses in Mexico are really quite nice. They have everything you could need: big seats that recline, curtains, air conditioning, a bathroom, evening showings of Spanish language movies, and short layovers at bus stations where you can stretch your legs. At dinner time our bus driver jumped out and was first in line at a roadside taco stand. By then there was only one drive in sight and we figured the other two had gotten off at one the many stops along our way. Then Bill was astonished when at 3:00am as he stood next to the bus stretching his legs the original driver stepped off the bus, opened the luggage compartment and switched places with another driver! Viva Mexico!
We finally arrived in Santa Rosalia a little before 8:00am. Tired and a bit stiff from curling up like pretzels in our seats and frozen to the bone by the continuous air conditioning we were finally dropped off a mere block form the marina. It was good to be home and great to see Island Bound bobbing serenely in her slip.
Kat
kat
9/9/2011 The Generosity of our Fellow Sailors
I have never met a more generous bunch of people in my life than our fellow boaters. I first experienced it when we moved aboard at Shilshole Bay Marina. A big group of live a-boards moved onto the newly rebuilt F dock one spring morning and it instantly felt like a real neighborhood to me. That neighborly feeling continued to grow around us all for the remainder of the four years we lived there. They happily gave both their time and expertise whenever it was needed. I was surprised the first time I walked into the ladies room and saw the giveaway books on the little wooden bookshelf and the counter that held gently used clothing for the taking. Then I started using the marina laundry and found a treasure trove of free stuff. Walking in you would see the big shelf over the machines full of a jumble of goods: boat parts and clothing, DVD’s, Christmas decorations, household items and books, books, books all for the taking My great finds have including a brand new sun shower, a very pretty sun dress, several pair of jeans, a sleeping bag, pillows, pots and pans and Tupperware, Christmas lights and piles of books, movies and music. Since then I have joined in the same practice in nearly every marina I have encountered.
Next to be discovered was the treasure trove at the dumpsters. If your timing is right you can find items worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Amazingly when the spring racing season ramps up it is not unusual to find piles of nearly new standing and running rigging that has been stripped off the big money boats to be replaced with new. It may be only a seasons old yet it is left at the dumpster! I don’t even want to think about the dollar amount represented in the piles of goodies we left on the ground next to the Shilshole F&G Dock dumpsters when we left Seattle to cruise. Even after giving away all we could to family and friends and taking loads of boat parts and pieces to the local second hand consignment store we still had mounds of stuff we left at the dumpsters. There were two fellows who lived on our docks who had become something of legend in their competition for the best finds. Some busy spring days you could watch them both running to a recently filled dumpster trying to stake their claim. It was a friendly rivalry that everyone joked about but you better believe -competition to the bone.
Now that we are cruising fulltime I am taken a-back again at the generosity surrounding me. It comes out in force of course with any kind of emergency: people offering up their experience along with their stored spares and supplies to help another boats distress. Luckily the emergencies are few but the sharing continues. The newest trend in sharing is I think a result of a cross between generosity, new technology and a wide spread interest in books and other forms of portable entertainment: downloaded electronic versions of books, movies, music, language programs, cruising guides and charts in electronic form. Now I realize we could simply be seen as the world’s biggest bootleggers and maybe I am rationalizing things in order to excuse the blatant abuse of copyright laws but frankly nothing I do or don’t do will stop the flow occurring all over the world and cruisers are a drop in the bucket compared to the pirating done in countries like Mexico and China. Here in Mexico first run movies that are just opening in US theaters are available on CD or over the internet within days.
Unknowingly we got a head start in things right before we left home though we thought we had simply received a very generous gift. We were at a party and a guy we hardly knew, a friend of friend, found out we were going off to sail the seas and offered us a bunch of music. We gave him an empty hard drive and he gave us back ¾ of a terabyte of recorded music: roughly enough music to listen to it 24/7 for an entire year! We thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Unknowingly we now had goods for trading.
Then in our first few months in Mexico we watched as a few boats sold electronic movie to help finance their cruising. Then a friend casually asked us if we had a Kindle saying if we did he had a thumb drive he would share with us that held almost 2000 books. We gratefully accepted his offer which we then passed on to other boaters who would appreciate them. All of this is facilitated by the new ridiculously small but tremendously capacious external hard drives available today. They are able to store literally thousands upon thousands of movies and audio books, TV series DVD’s and electronic books, they are larger and less expensive every year and they are readily available at Wal-Mart in Mexico. All you need is a friend, an ability to press a few buttons on your computer and enough free time to let the drives copy themselves over.
We left home with one Kindle with an array of free, legal out of copyright books and now have brought a second Kindle into the family and have more than fifteen thousand books, (when I wrote the first draft of this blog post we had two thousand books) nearly a hundred audio books and thousands of movies in our library.
Surprisingly until we left to cruise we had never even watched a movie aboard our boat. We gave up TV when we sold our home in 2007 and never put one aboard. So it is a big change now for us to have three hard drives full of blockbuster movies to fill our nights. We still both read voraciously but the movies are big hits with cruisers and we were swept up in the fad. We have yet to watch more than a handful or two of movies aboard though so only time will show if we become movie buffs in the South Pacific.
The books on the other hand we already treasure. Imagine preparing to set off in a small boat knowing your will be spending weeks and months at a time away from entertainment civilization and having a 15,000 book library and thousands of movies at your fingertips. Books are so prized by most cruisers that when we passed our library on to one friend who was preparing for her own two year cruise she was so overwhelmed that it brought tears to her eyes. Consider too another great friend who spends hours and days at a time downloading available libraries from the internet -and who has passed them on free of charge to us. We now pass on what we have too and the music we left home with is as we speak circling around the globe. Thanks Randy!
Happy reading. Kat.
Next to be discovered was the treasure trove at the dumpsters. If your timing is right you can find items worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Amazingly when the spring racing season ramps up it is not unusual to find piles of nearly new standing and running rigging that has been stripped off the big money boats to be replaced with new. It may be only a seasons old yet it is left at the dumpster! I don’t even want to think about the dollar amount represented in the piles of goodies we left on the ground next to the Shilshole F&G Dock dumpsters when we left Seattle to cruise. Even after giving away all we could to family and friends and taking loads of boat parts and pieces to the local second hand consignment store we still had mounds of stuff we left at the dumpsters. There were two fellows who lived on our docks who had become something of legend in their competition for the best finds. Some busy spring days you could watch them both running to a recently filled dumpster trying to stake their claim. It was a friendly rivalry that everyone joked about but you better believe -competition to the bone.
Now that we are cruising fulltime I am taken a-back again at the generosity surrounding me. It comes out in force of course with any kind of emergency: people offering up their experience along with their stored spares and supplies to help another boats distress. Luckily the emergencies are few but the sharing continues. The newest trend in sharing is I think a result of a cross between generosity, new technology and a wide spread interest in books and other forms of portable entertainment: downloaded electronic versions of books, movies, music, language programs, cruising guides and charts in electronic form. Now I realize we could simply be seen as the world’s biggest bootleggers and maybe I am rationalizing things in order to excuse the blatant abuse of copyright laws but frankly nothing I do or don’t do will stop the flow occurring all over the world and cruisers are a drop in the bucket compared to the pirating done in countries like Mexico and China. Here in Mexico first run movies that are just opening in US theaters are available on CD or over the internet within days.
Unknowingly we got a head start in things right before we left home though we thought we had simply received a very generous gift. We were at a party and a guy we hardly knew, a friend of friend, found out we were going off to sail the seas and offered us a bunch of music. We gave him an empty hard drive and he gave us back ¾ of a terabyte of recorded music: roughly enough music to listen to it 24/7 for an entire year! We thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Unknowingly we now had goods for trading.
Then in our first few months in Mexico we watched as a few boats sold electronic movie to help finance their cruising. Then a friend casually asked us if we had a Kindle saying if we did he had a thumb drive he would share with us that held almost 2000 books. We gratefully accepted his offer which we then passed on to other boaters who would appreciate them. All of this is facilitated by the new ridiculously small but tremendously capacious external hard drives available today. They are able to store literally thousands upon thousands of movies and audio books, TV series DVD’s and electronic books, they are larger and less expensive every year and they are readily available at Wal-Mart in Mexico. All you need is a friend, an ability to press a few buttons on your computer and enough free time to let the drives copy themselves over.
We left home with one Kindle with an array of free, legal out of copyright books and now have brought a second Kindle into the family and have more than fifteen thousand books, (when I wrote the first draft of this blog post we had two thousand books) nearly a hundred audio books and thousands of movies in our library.
Surprisingly until we left to cruise we had never even watched a movie aboard our boat. We gave up TV when we sold our home in 2007 and never put one aboard. So it is a big change now for us to have three hard drives full of blockbuster movies to fill our nights. We still both read voraciously but the movies are big hits with cruisers and we were swept up in the fad. We have yet to watch more than a handful or two of movies aboard though so only time will show if we become movie buffs in the South Pacific.
The books on the other hand we already treasure. Imagine preparing to set off in a small boat knowing your will be spending weeks and months at a time away from entertainment civilization and having a 15,000 book library and thousands of movies at your fingertips. Books are so prized by most cruisers that when we passed our library on to one friend who was preparing for her own two year cruise she was so overwhelmed that it brought tears to her eyes. Consider too another great friend who spends hours and days at a time downloading available libraries from the internet -and who has passed them on free of charge to us. We now pass on what we have too and the music we left home with is as we speak circling around the globe. Thanks Randy!
Happy reading. Kat.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Back In The land of Grocery Stores and Sidewalks
11/20/2011
Our seven months in the Sea of Cortez are almost at an end. We are currently at anchor in the “Magote” (the anchorage in La Paz) waiting to meet friends and also for the big Thanksgiving Day cruisers party. It feels somehow odd to be back in the land of grocery stores and sidewalks. La Paz is definitely jumping. By the looks of all the people out and about and the arrival of a giant new Mega grocery store and the opening of the new Liverpool Mall it looks like the economy is truly picking up -a real culture shock after the slow pace of the North Sea.
We came specifically for the chance at home cooked turkey. Club Cruceros at Marina de La Paz organizes the yearly event that is likely to attract nearly 200 cruisers for which they roast 25-30 turkeys! Amazing in that just a few weeks ago there were only a handful of boats in La Paz and now the marinas are all full and the Magote is filling up by the hour. I guess we all love our traditions even if we are far from home.
We arrived yesterday, spent a quiet night at anchor and this morning we were awakened by the sounds of music rolling over the water. Mexican LOVE their music. The louder the better and there are no qualms over multiple sources or overlapping noise. First thing in the morning still bleary without even a cup of tea to jump start me and I was assaulted with loud, simultaneous tunes including the Mexican version of Achy Breaky Heart. I didn’t like Achy Breaky Heart even when Billy Ray was warbling it. Well it turns out today is Independence Day and at 7:30 am the Malacon was already filling up with droves of waiting marchers and the audience was filling in along the parade route. So we grabbed the camera and our shoes, dropped the dinghy from the davits and headed into town.
The parade was not actually parading when we arrived on the Malacon. Instead there were tons of school age kids staging for the event. There were marching bands, dancing groups, traditional costumes and school uniforms. One group interestingly devised giant fabric balls: green, red and white for the colors of Mexico that opened up to disgorge the platoon of marchers. Then the ball closed back up and turned into the skirts of three girl who underneath were sitting on strong shoulders. The girls I think were supposed to look like they were wearing big skirted ball gowns but the idea I think was better in theory than in practice. The gals atop the hoop skirts were having trouble staying balanced and the boys below looked tired out already and the parade hadn’t even started along its two mile path.
There were also horses, lots and lots of horses. All dressed up with everything from traditional costumes and side saddles to one exceptionally gorgeous black stead decked out in silver saddle with and equally impressively clothed Caballero astride. The horse was right out of a picture book and the Caballero sat astride quietly running the horse through some very advanced moves all while holding a tiny tot in his lap.
The Military had a big contingent including both Navy and Army and of course two sparkling fire trucks along with the local Bombaderos (firemen are cute all over the globe by the way.) We actually had a great viewing spot right at the head of the parade route. We were able to watch as each new group assembled. Their truckload of speakers and blaring music would start up and off they go. A great way to start our week in La Paz!
After the parade it was time for a cruisers swap meet where we were able to catch up with a few people and see quite a few familiar faces. It is the start of a brand new season and folks are spilling in from all over. This year’s winter fleet is filled with lots newbies along with the part timers who start their trips from here in La Pa. Along of course with the local La Paz contingent who seem to stay here in Baja for the entire season. By lunch time we were back on La Paz time and a bit more in the groove with the local fleet.
Being at anchor rather than on the dock means the week will be pretty light. The big pre-Pacific crossing jobs mostly need power and dry land so there will be nothing much to do other than wait for our friends and do a few boat chores. A few trips to the grocery stores looking for the things we couldn’t find up north will fill some empty places in the boat and in my menu choices and I will have a chance to hit my first English speaking AA meetings in months. Then if we can get some internet out in the Magote I can finally sift through my back log of Blog posts and get caught up with everyone back home. Maybe I can even get some pictures posted?
Kat
Our seven months in the Sea of Cortez are almost at an end. We are currently at anchor in the “Magote” (the anchorage in La Paz) waiting to meet friends and also for the big Thanksgiving Day cruisers party. It feels somehow odd to be back in the land of grocery stores and sidewalks. La Paz is definitely jumping. By the looks of all the people out and about and the arrival of a giant new Mega grocery store and the opening of the new Liverpool Mall it looks like the economy is truly picking up -a real culture shock after the slow pace of the North Sea.
We came specifically for the chance at home cooked turkey. Club Cruceros at Marina de La Paz organizes the yearly event that is likely to attract nearly 200 cruisers for which they roast 25-30 turkeys! Amazing in that just a few weeks ago there were only a handful of boats in La Paz and now the marinas are all full and the Magote is filling up by the hour. I guess we all love our traditions even if we are far from home.
We arrived yesterday, spent a quiet night at anchor and this morning we were awakened by the sounds of music rolling over the water. Mexican LOVE their music. The louder the better and there are no qualms over multiple sources or overlapping noise. First thing in the morning still bleary without even a cup of tea to jump start me and I was assaulted with loud, simultaneous tunes including the Mexican version of Achy Breaky Heart. I didn’t like Achy Breaky Heart even when Billy Ray was warbling it. Well it turns out today is Independence Day and at 7:30 am the Malacon was already filling up with droves of waiting marchers and the audience was filling in along the parade route. So we grabbed the camera and our shoes, dropped the dinghy from the davits and headed into town.
The parade was not actually parading when we arrived on the Malacon. Instead there were tons of school age kids staging for the event. There were marching bands, dancing groups, traditional costumes and school uniforms. One group interestingly devised giant fabric balls: green, red and white for the colors of Mexico that opened up to disgorge the platoon of marchers. Then the ball closed back up and turned into the skirts of three girl who underneath were sitting on strong shoulders. The girls I think were supposed to look like they were wearing big skirted ball gowns but the idea I think was better in theory than in practice. The gals atop the hoop skirts were having trouble staying balanced and the boys below looked tired out already and the parade hadn’t even started along its two mile path.
There were also horses, lots and lots of horses. All dressed up with everything from traditional costumes and side saddles to one exceptionally gorgeous black stead decked out in silver saddle with and equally impressively clothed Caballero astride. The horse was right out of a picture book and the Caballero sat astride quietly running the horse through some very advanced moves all while holding a tiny tot in his lap.
The Military had a big contingent including both Navy and Army and of course two sparkling fire trucks along with the local Bombaderos (firemen are cute all over the globe by the way.) We actually had a great viewing spot right at the head of the parade route. We were able to watch as each new group assembled. Their truckload of speakers and blaring music would start up and off they go. A great way to start our week in La Paz!
After the parade it was time for a cruisers swap meet where we were able to catch up with a few people and see quite a few familiar faces. It is the start of a brand new season and folks are spilling in from all over. This year’s winter fleet is filled with lots newbies along with the part timers who start their trips from here in La Pa. Along of course with the local La Paz contingent who seem to stay here in Baja for the entire season. By lunch time we were back on La Paz time and a bit more in the groove with the local fleet.
Being at anchor rather than on the dock means the week will be pretty light. The big pre-Pacific crossing jobs mostly need power and dry land so there will be nothing much to do other than wait for our friends and do a few boat chores. A few trips to the grocery stores looking for the things we couldn’t find up north will fill some empty places in the boat and in my menu choices and I will have a chance to hit my first English speaking AA meetings in months. Then if we can get some internet out in the Magote I can finally sift through my back log of Blog posts and get caught up with everyone back home. Maybe I can even get some pictures posted?
Kat
Bussing Back Through Baja
10/24/2011
Most people might think that Bill and I are seasoned travelers who move around hither and yon packed light and ready to explore. We are, but after just completing a trip north to California I remember one of the reasons why I was drawn to this sailing life to begin with: I don’t have to pack.
As travelers we have become quite spoiled, wherever we go there we are –our home following along with us ready for our next adventure. In fact sometimes at night when we are sitting below in the saloon a weird feeling creeps into me as I realize that as I sit all cozy in my little spot at the dinette we could just as easily be tied to the dock in Seattle as to be bobbing at anchor in some remote cove somewhere. My surroundings are the same, I sit with Bill reading quietly into the night, my fridge is full of fresh nutritious food and the sheets on our big bed are clean and crisp. I don’t need to worry about whether or not I packed my toothbrush or brought along the right chargers for laptops and cameras. I know where the bathroom is and even where the spare toilet paper waits. It doesn’t even really matter if it is 90 degrees out or a blowing a chilling cold I just need to reach into the right locker to find the right attire. Everything we own is already here.
Then things unfolded and we needed to make a quick trip back to the states. It’s still hurricane season –until November 30th so this would be a pretty quick in and out. I packed for both of us, everything we needed in one bag and off we went across the Baja dessert. Friends were leaving for a five months trip to the Galapagos islands and wanted their SUV left back home in California so the travel up as far as Santa Anna was pretty simple. Sixteen hours of dessert, one coyote, 100’s of road side shrines and about a million cacti. We weren’t at all worried about traveling Baja. We knew we had the correct paperwork for the car, our passports were up to date, we had our TIP(Temporary Import Permit) with us in case we brought anything back with us and our visas were clear. What we weren’t sure about was how we were going to make it back to Island Bound since we had been unable to find a bus schedule for our return trip anywhere.
We decided it couldn’t be that hard so armed with a head full of suggestions from other cruisers based on their own trips and a mindset of being flexible off we went.
The hundreds of miles unfolded as Bill did his best to avoid the potholes, the cattle, the unbanked corners and the many steep guardrail-less cliffs(many with wrecked cars still scattered over rocks at the bottom of the ravines.) We were glad to have had the cruiser advice to get gas in certain towns or risk running out between stations because there was in fact a long stretch where there were lots of little towns but no gas-who would have thought looking at the map that all those towns wouldn’t have gas station?
Having lived my whole life in Seattle I often forget that in other countries moving about from place to place isn't always so simple. One look at the half dozen 18 year olds with automatic weapons at any of the many check points reminds you of that pretty fast. They do sort of feel weird though. Every so often you are required to stop for a military lookie loo. They sometimes just flag you through but more often they have you stop for a question or two and a vehicle inspection. The inspections seemed cursory at best: they never asked for papers of any kind and with us anyway they were not really looking at anything or into anything. They often had us open our tailgate and one fellow seemed to chuckle over our two folding bikes but mostly they looked like they were going through the drill. There is a job to do here (and many nationals are still dying in the drug wars every year) but it’s clear we are not their target. They simply serve as gatekeepers of the roads: A low tech response to the ongoing war on drugs. Evidently the US Border patrol isn’t looking for tired worn out 50 something smugglers either, we hardly garnered a look. Getting into the US was pretty much the same except we had to wait in a slowly inching line for over two hours even at 10:30 at night.
The most interesting part of the crossing was definitely the “open all night” market conducted in staging lanes of the border. The ever industrious Mexicans run a market of immense size right there amongst the lanes of inching cars. Even in the middle of the night you can buy tacos, sodas, chips, candy, coffee, fruit cups, ice cream, empanadas, flan, blankets, velvet last supper paintings, huge carved Jesus’ nailed to wooden crosses, Chiclets, hair clips and headbands, magazines, baseball caps, sombreros, serapes, Miss Kitty dolls and teeny tiny puppies. They cater to the always moving throng right down to the billboard with a number to call for duty free alcohol delivered right to your car. Oh and if you had a driver and a runner one of you could jump out of your car step just out of the lanes to any number of pharmacies for a prescription-less prescription of Viagra, Oxycontin or Rogain. Commerce at its best! We saved our pesos and scanned the internet for a hotel room. Finally at 1:30am sixteen hours after we left Santa Rosalia we pulled into a parking spot at the Comfort Inn San Diego. Whew!
The rest of the trip was pretty straight forward. A trip to West Marine in San Diego, a stop to pick up some friends mail, pick up a rental at the Santa Anna airport, drop off the car, a lovely visit with fellow cruising friends set to leave this season . Time flew by and we still had a three hour drive north to Santa Barbara where the kids live. It was nearly midnight when we made it to their place and luckily they’re young and resilient so were still up to welcome us in. I was pretty much at just the nodding and hugging state by then but after several more hours of visiting I finally found my head on a pillow at about 200am. After so many months of up with the sun down with the dark two night of travel and I was definitely out of steam.
We had a lovely visit with the kids but with such short notice it’s a marvel they were able to spend any time with us at all. Josh is nearing the end of his PHD work at UCSB so his days are very full and it just happened that our last minute visit fell during a week he was obligated to help teach a diving class. Dianna had her work during the days but shared her free time with us and she and I even worked our way through a corn maze at a nearby pumpkin patch. Bill opted out but stood by heroically waiting to rescue us if we couldn’t find out. Even with the busy schedules we found time for a lovely meal out and lots of late night and early morning visiting before we had to say good bye.
The trip home was a slow slog. We dropped off the rental car at the San Diego airport and caught a ride to the Greyhound station with one of the Hertz guys. Then we only had an hour wait for the short bus ride to Tijuana. Crossing the border back was simple once we figured out where not to get off the bus. All we had to do was exit the bus with the cattle call, grab our bag, stand in a short line and then push a button while a customs agent stood by. If the light flashed green we were on our way through if the light stopped on red it would mean a search through our baggage. We both green lighted and then back on the bus to the main Tijuana bus station. Again our wait wasn’t long. Armed with sandwiches and bottled water we stepped onto the 4:00pm ABC bus (along with three drivers) to Santa Rosalia and were soon stretched out in the front seat settled in for the 16 hour ride.
The long route buses in Mexico are really quite nice. They have everything you could need: big seats that recline, curtains, air conditioning, a bathroom, evening showings of Spanish language movies, and short layovers at bus stations where you can stretch your legs. At dinner time our bus driver jumped out and was first in line at a roadside taco stand. By dinner time there was only one drive in sight and we figured the other two had gotten off at one of our stops. So Bill was astonished when at 3:00am as he stood next to the bus stretching his legs the original driver stepped off the bus, opened the luggage compartment and switched places with another driver! Viva Mexico!
We finally arrived in Santa Rosalia, dropped just a block from the marina. We were a bit stiff from curling up like pretzels to sleep and freezing cold from the ever present air conditioning but it was good to be home and great to see Island Bound bobbing serenely in her slip just waiting for our next departure.
Kat
Most people might think that Bill and I are seasoned travelers who move around hither and yon packed light and ready to explore. We are, but after just completing a trip north to California I remember one of the reasons why I was drawn to this sailing life to begin with: I don’t have to pack.
As travelers we have become quite spoiled, wherever we go there we are –our home following along with us ready for our next adventure. In fact sometimes at night when we are sitting below in the saloon a weird feeling creeps into me as I realize that as I sit all cozy in my little spot at the dinette we could just as easily be tied to the dock in Seattle as to be bobbing at anchor in some remote cove somewhere. My surroundings are the same, I sit with Bill reading quietly into the night, my fridge is full of fresh nutritious food and the sheets on our big bed are clean and crisp. I don’t need to worry about whether or not I packed my toothbrush or brought along the right chargers for laptops and cameras. I know where the bathroom is and even where the spare toilet paper waits. It doesn’t even really matter if it is 90 degrees out or a blowing a chilling cold I just need to reach into the right locker to find the right attire. Everything we own is already here.
Then things unfolded and we needed to make a quick trip back to the states. It’s still hurricane season –until November 30th so this would be a pretty quick in and out. I packed for both of us, everything we needed in one bag and off we went across the Baja dessert. Friends were leaving for a five months trip to the Galapagos islands and wanted their SUV left back home in California so the travel up as far as Santa Anna was pretty simple. Sixteen hours of dessert, one coyote, 100’s of road side shrines and about a million cacti. We weren’t at all worried about traveling Baja. We knew we had the correct paperwork for the car, our passports were up to date, we had our TIP(Temporary Import Permit) with us in case we brought anything back with us and our visas were clear. What we weren’t sure about was how we were going to make it back to Island Bound since we had been unable to find a bus schedule for our return trip anywhere.
We decided it couldn’t be that hard so armed with a head full of suggestions from other cruisers based on their own trips and a mindset of being flexible off we went.
The hundreds of miles unfolded as Bill did his best to avoid the potholes, the cattle, the unbanked corners and the many steep guardrail-less cliffs(many with wrecked cars still scattered over rocks at the bottom of the ravines.) We were glad to have had the cruiser advice to get gas in certain towns or risk running out between stations because there was in fact a long stretch where there were lots of little towns but no gas-who would have thought looking at the map that all those towns wouldn’t have gas station?
Having lived my whole life in Seattle I often forget that in other countries moving about from place to place isn't always so simple. One look at the half dozen 18 year olds with automatic weapons at any of the many check points reminds you of that pretty fast. They do sort of feel weird though. Every so often you are required to stop for a military lookie loo. They sometimes just flag you through but more often they have you stop for a question or two and a vehicle inspection. The inspections seemed cursory at best: they never asked for papers of any kind and with us anyway they were not really looking at anything or into anything. They often had us open our tailgate and one fellow seemed to chuckle over our two folding bikes but mostly they looked like they were going through the drill. There is a job to do here (and many nationals are still dying in the drug wars every year) but it’s clear we are not their target. They simply serve as gatekeepers of the roads: A low tech response to the ongoing war on drugs. Evidently the US Border patrol isn’t looking for tired worn out 50 something smugglers either, we hardly garnered a look. Getting into the US was pretty much the same except we had to wait in a slowly inching line for over two hours even at 10:30 at night.
The most interesting part of the crossing was definitely the “open all night” market conducted in staging lanes of the border. The ever industrious Mexicans run a market of immense size right there amongst the lanes of inching cars. Even in the middle of the night you can buy tacos, sodas, chips, candy, coffee, fruit cups, ice cream, empanadas, flan, blankets, velvet last supper paintings, huge carved Jesus’ nailed to wooden crosses, Chiclets, hair clips and headbands, magazines, baseball caps, sombreros, serapes, Miss Kitty dolls and teeny tiny puppies. They cater to the always moving throng right down to the billboard with a number to call for duty free alcohol delivered right to your car. Oh and if you had a driver and a runner one of you could jump out of your car step just out of the lanes to any number of pharmacies for a prescription-less prescription of Viagra, Oxycontin or Rogain. Commerce at its best! We saved our pesos and scanned the internet for a hotel room. Finally at 1:30am sixteen hours after we left Santa Rosalia we pulled into a parking spot at the Comfort Inn San Diego. Whew!
The rest of the trip was pretty straight forward. A trip to West Marine in San Diego, a stop to pick up some friends mail, pick up a rental at the Santa Anna airport, drop off the car, a lovely visit with fellow cruising friends set to leave this season . Time flew by and we still had a three hour drive north to Santa Barbara where the kids live. It was nearly midnight when we made it to their place and luckily they’re young and resilient so were still up to welcome us in. I was pretty much at just the nodding and hugging state by then but after several more hours of visiting I finally found my head on a pillow at about 200am. After so many months of up with the sun down with the dark two night of travel and I was definitely out of steam.
We had a lovely visit with the kids but with such short notice it’s a marvel they were able to spend any time with us at all. Josh is nearing the end of his PHD work at UCSB so his days are very full and it just happened that our last minute visit fell during a week he was obligated to help teach a diving class. Dianna had her work during the days but shared her free time with us and she and I even worked our way through a corn maze at a nearby pumpkin patch. Bill opted out but stood by heroically waiting to rescue us if we couldn’t find out. Even with the busy schedules we found time for a lovely meal out and lots of late night and early morning visiting before we had to say good bye.
The trip home was a slow slog. We dropped off the rental car at the San Diego airport and caught a ride to the Greyhound station with one of the Hertz guys. Then we only had an hour wait for the short bus ride to Tijuana. Crossing the border back was simple once we figured out where not to get off the bus. All we had to do was exit the bus with the cattle call, grab our bag, stand in a short line and then push a button while a customs agent stood by. If the light flashed green we were on our way through if the light stopped on red it would mean a search through our baggage. We both green lighted and then back on the bus to the main Tijuana bus station. Again our wait wasn’t long. Armed with sandwiches and bottled water we stepped onto the 4:00pm ABC bus (along with three drivers) to Santa Rosalia and were soon stretched out in the front seat settled in for the 16 hour ride.
The long route buses in Mexico are really quite nice. They have everything you could need: big seats that recline, curtains, air conditioning, a bathroom, evening showings of Spanish language movies, and short layovers at bus stations where you can stretch your legs. At dinner time our bus driver jumped out and was first in line at a roadside taco stand. By dinner time there was only one drive in sight and we figured the other two had gotten off at one of our stops. So Bill was astonished when at 3:00am as he stood next to the bus stretching his legs the original driver stepped off the bus, opened the luggage compartment and switched places with another driver! Viva Mexico!
We finally arrived in Santa Rosalia, dropped just a block from the marina. We were a bit stiff from curling up like pretzels to sleep and freezing cold from the ever present air conditioning but it was good to be home and great to see Island Bound bobbing serenely in her slip just waiting for our next departure.
Kat
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