3/8/2010

High time I updated our blog, right? :-)

We’re in La Cruz marina off a little town called La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, which is in the same big bay (Bahia Banderas) as Puerto Vallarta but much more laid back and "real Mexico". No condominiums, time share hawkers, Chicklet selling kids, etc. :-) We just ordered a new main sail and some associated hardware to make raising and lowering the big sail easier so it looks like we'll be in the area for the next few weeks. That's alright, for the next 2 -3 weeks this area is going to be the center of a massive sailing event! The San Diego to PV race finished last week and the "big boys" (really really fast ocean racers, they hit max speeds of 30+ knots on the way down!) are assembled just down the dock from us, there are lots of other races scheduled in the bay with a boat show in the same marina from us next week. The president of Mexico has even been visiting and I think we saw him getting off a mega yacht (or some other big shot waving for the cameras surrounded by many men with AK-47's). La Cruz has been transforming itself with everything getting new colorful paint, all of the streets, fences, walls, etc repaired, new plants and flowers everywhere. It's becoming quite a pretty little town.

When last I updated the blog we were still in Mazatlan. Before we left Mazatlan we spent a day at the aquarium. I was expecting just a few tanks and water displays but it’s actually a fairly nice aquarium and zoo. In addition to lots of large tanks of marine stuff, there was a seal show, lots of displays of crocodiles, monkeys, reptiles, and insects. Everything you would expect to see in a midsized tropical zoo. We watched a funny bird show (wish we understood more Spanish as most of the jokes went over our heads):

Beautiful shaded paths among tropical plants between the displays:

But my favorite was a walk-in aviary with a waterfall, creek and lots of birds:

Here Tom’s made some new friends, would a parrot work on the boat?

A nice day for only $6 apiece.
One last view of the beautiful Mazatlan beaches:

On 1/25/2010 we sailed overnight from Mazatlan to Mantenchen bay, just south of San Blas. Mantenchen is a large shallow bay ringed with palapa restaurants along the northern end. It’s evidently a surf mecca in the summer and is listed in Guinness as having the longest surfable wave break in the world. In the summer when the wind and waves come from the south there is no anchorage, but it was nice and calm while we were there, though the “no see em” bugs were pretty bad.

Inland of San Blas and Mantenchen there is an extensive estuary, La Tovara, which is also a protected national nature reserve. One day we went on a wonderful “jungle tour” in a panga (small boat) with a local guide. We took our dingy to the beach and walked about ½ mile inland where the estuary starts. There we boarded the small boat (just Tom & I with the driver) and proceeded up the estuary into the “jungle”

We saw lots of life, iguanas perched in tree tops:

A few crocodiles (no swimming here!)



And lots of cute turtles

There is a crocodile sanctuary in the estuary where they breed the severely endangered crocodiles, as well as other local endangered Mexican natives.

What big teeth you have

Quick! Take the picture, he looks hungry!

At the end of the estuary is a fresh water pond where we had a refreshing dip (with fencing that went to the bottom of the river to keep out the hungry crocodiles).
It was a wonderful trip, though a tip for anyone else going on the San Blas jungle tour; get to the pangas as early in the morning as you can. We left at about 7am and had the peaceful river to ourselves for the whole morning. But by about 1pm as we had turned around to go back, the river turned into a zoo with dozens of full pangas speeding down the river, threatening to run into each other and scaring all the wildlife away. We were happy to get back alive and glad we saw the jungle in its quiet time.
We had one last beautiful sunset in Mantenchen bay

On 1/30/2010 we had a nice sail to the small cove of Chacala. It was a rolly anchorage and we set a stern anchor so we would point into the swell, but it was very pretty. Chacala is a popular beach resort for well to do locals

We only spent one night in Chacala, the next morning we got up early and motor-sailed to La Cruz. We’ve just been hanging out in the marina with occasional exploration trips. Just like in the rest of Mexico, the local busses are a cheap and interesting way to get around, though it takes awhile to learn the routes and occasionally we get on the wrong one :-)
One day we took a long multi-bus trip to the botanical gardens. This is a beautiful park in the “mountains” south of Puerto Vallarta. We had a wonderful day exploring the well tended grounds.

This bridge was scary, especially with Tom shaking it when I was half was across!

The shady "forest" paths were especially nice since it’s pretty hot and humid here

Another day we watched a demonstration of the Mexican coast guard doing a “search and rescue” just outside the marina
Update: 3/20/2010
We had a bit of weather related excitement a couple of days after we got to La Cruz; we got hit by what they're calling a "weather bomb" This is a real meteorological phenomena more common in New Zealand where you get a rapid drop in pressure coupled with a fast upper level jet stream (or some other technical jargon). All I know is that we were sitting down below, we had just finished dinner and were thinking of bed when the wind and rain suddenly went from a gentle breeze and drizzle to a howling downpour.

The boat started bucking and jumping and rain was pouring in from open ports. We struggled to get all the ports closed while the boat was healing over and thunder/lightning was crashing all around us. For about 40 minutes we huddled down below listening to the wind howling (the noise was incredible), the boat shuddering and sounds of things crashing and canvas ripping above (we couldn't tell if it was our boat or the neighbors) We also were listening on the radio to the chaos in the anchorage; boats dragging anchor and running into each other, others screaming they're headed for the rocks, we felt helpless but there was nothing we could do.

After about 40 minutes the wind and rain moderated a bit and we put on foulies and went above to access damage and see if we could help anyone. Luckily we only had a little damage, mostly debris on our deck, a thoroughly soaked cockpit with some water below, and a ripped off flag halyard. Other boats in the marina weren't so lucky, we saw lots of torn sails, ripped canvas enclosures and floating debris (surfboards, kayaks, shoes, gas tanks, etc). After doing what we could to help better secure ours and neighbors boats, we went back to the boat and fitfully slept.

By the next morning we had more information, there were no boats lost but two went aground with one able to get themselves off and the other was pulled off the next morning still floating. Several boats crashed into each other with damage to rails and bow rollers but nothing catastrophic (though any damage is very evpensive). About 1/3 of the boats in the marina had ripped sails or other major canvas damage. Lots of downed trees and the power/water was off for several days. Unfortunately one woman broke her arm when part of the wall surrounding the marina collapsed on her, but considering the chaos and how quickly it hit I was surprised that was the only injury we heard about. Reports of wind speed varied but 65 to 70 knots in the marina was confirmed (about 80 mph). That was only category 1 hurricane winds for 40 minutes, I can't imagine 12 - 14 hours of that in category 3+ !! This was the most scared I’ve been on the boat, and we were firmly tied in a slip, I can’t imagine what it was like out in the anchorage.

We’re still here in La Cruz. The boat show is over and life here is resuming a slow pace. We really like this laid back little town, but we’re starting to get anxious to move on. Hopefully our sail stuff will be coming next week. Meanwhile this is a nice place to be stuck :-) Here’s the local park, freshly painted for the president’s visit (if you look carefully, you can see the marina in the distance).
Adios
Carolynn & Tom

1/21/10 Escondido to La Paz to Mazatlan

We’re currently in Mazatlan on the Mexican main coast. We have been here about a week so I figured it was high time I updated everyone on our little adventure :-)

When last I updated the blog we were just leaving Puerto Escondido to return to La Paz. Here’s one last picture I forgot to include in the last post, it’s a shot of the Mission in Loreto, established in 1697. It was the original in a whole string of missions going up the Baja and California coasts, ending in San Francisco Ca. I couldn’t tell what part of it was original and unfortunately the adjoining museum was closed (on a Monday?). We had a nice walk around downtown Loreto though.

We left Escondido on 12/29 for Puerto Los Gatos, an easy day sail. About a week earlier we had stopped at Los Gatos on the way north and it was a nice quiet anchorage, what a difference a week makes! We had an uncomfortable side to side roll that caused everything to threaten to go flying and made sleep difficult. We got up early and headed for San Evaristo. We had heard there was a strong north wind coming and Evaristo looked like it would be a good spot to sit out weather. We were in Evaristo three days, on the night of the first and throughout the second the wind howled overhead at 25 to 30 knots (about 29 to 35 mph) but we were very snug behind a big hill and hardly felt a thing. We could look out at the channel and see lots of white caps and were glad we had ducked into here.

After a few days the wind calmed down (though the seas were still lumpy) so we decided to press on. There were some spectacular geological striations in the cliffs along the channel (the pictures do not do justice to all the different colors of reds, pinks, tans and greens):

We sailed south to Ensenada Grande where we were the only boat in a lovely calm bay with a nice sandy beach. The beach inspired us to find our golf clubs and play in the giant sand trap! Here we are in a rousing golf game at the four starfish rated course of Ensenada Grande. This is truly a links style arrangement with much of the natural landscape intact. It is a fairly short layout, about 400 yards for the first three holes and really only requires a couple of wedges (52,56,60) and a putter. Carts are required to remain at anchor, though kayaks are allowed for dealing with water hazards (snorkels recommended), and there are few amenities compared to most U.S. clubs. We’ve heard rumors of a new resort being added, but doubt the island infrastructure will be able to support the traffic anytime soon, until then it will remain a special place to play.

Here’s Carolynn lining up on the first shot:

Here’s Tom:

Here’s the first hole, a bit of a misnomer as, according to the signage there are no bathroom stops on this course:

The second hole had a little water hazard:

A few of the locals didn’t quite make it:

A final shot of our secret golf course :-)

We returned to La Paz for a few days of provisioning and boat work before starting the trip to Mazatlan. It was starting to get rather chilly, one morning I saw one of the marina security guards dressed in a parka, a wool knit cap, heavy boots and heavy gloves! He looked ready to face a blizzard (it’s not really that cold).

We decided to take several stops to get a little closer to Mazatlan before we made the jump across the sea so we went to Bahia San Gabriel the first night then back down the Baja peninsula to Bahia De Los Muertos before jumping to Mazatlan. This would make it only a 190 nautical mile trip which we could do as a single overnighter (as opposed to 250 nm and probably a two night trip from La Paz).

We left Muertos at first light and had a smooth quick motor sail across the sea and got into Marina Mazatlan early the next day. What a difference 190 nm makes! Baja was dry and chilly; Mazatlan is warm and tropical with plants and flowers blooming everywhere. One day we took the kayaks up the estuary through the El Cid resort ($$$) and spotted a whole bunch of Iguanas perched next to the water, some as long as 5 feet:

As well as lots of fancy houses:

In Mazatlan the main drag along the beach is set up for the cruise ships but the rest of the city feels like Mexico, the people are friendly. They have little taxis here that have no windows or doors built on old VW chassis, they call them pulmonias (literally pneumonias). The other transportation option is the bus system which is very effective at getting almost anywhere for 6 pesos (old bus) or 9 pesos (new bus w/air). We plan on staying in Mazatlan for a few more days then start working our way further south.

Hasta luego
Carolynn & Tom

12/27/09
We’re currently on a mooring in Puerto Escondido; an almost completely landlocked harbor about half way up the Sea of Cortez (just south of Lareto). Towards the west the Sierra Gigante mountains go almost straight up and wrapped around the harbor are large hills, a very snug place to be. Here’s what we’ve been up to since last I updated this blog:
12/18
We left La Paz with plans to make a small jump north to the Isla Espirto Santo but La Paz wasn’t going to let us go easily! We cast off the dock lines with a little help from our neighbors (thanks Mary & Ken from Kachina) and motored out of the marina into the channel when suddenly silence.... our motor had quit! Oh ##&%$##@* I grabbed the wheel while Tom ran below to try to figure out what went wrong. Now with a car when the engine dies, the car slowly glides to a stop; you pull to the side of the road, and commence troubleshooting. Not so with a boat. I knew that unless we got restarted quickly, or we found a spot to throw the anchor out, we would be drifting into lots of other anchored boats. I looked around for a spot we would fit but there was nothing except the middle of the channel, so as we slowly lost steerage, I abandoned the helm, ran to the bow and dropped the anchor. I believe this was a record for how fast I got it untied and dropped. People on the nearby boats were popping out wondering what the heck some fool was doing anchoring in the middle of the channel. We settled only about 20 feet from another boat (who were glaring needles at me) and as I was hastily tying fenders around the boat, I yelled over that our motor had died. The glares disappeared and they started offering suggestions and readying their fenders.
Meanwhile Tom was trying everything he could, switching the fuel filters, switching the tanks, bleeding the fuel system, running up and down and sweating bullets. Eventually he got the engine started and we cautiously restarted our journey. Later he found a very tiny air leak in our fuel filter system, only a small bubble every few minutes, but enough that over time we got enough air in the system that we lost vacuum and the fuel stopped flowing. Once Tom discovered the leak, he tightened the nut and it (hopefully) has stopped leaking.
We motored past Isla Espirto Santo, which had spectacular red bluffs:
We spent the next two days at Caleta Partida and Ensenada Grande:
The islands were dry and rocky but with interesting worn sandstone sections and some very tenacious plants:
There was a nice beach we landed on:

We then went to beautiful Isle San Francisco. I think this is one of the most photographed anchorages in the Sea. It’s a semi-circle white sand beach surrounded with rocky bluffs (we're the boat on the right).
One morning we hiked up the southern ridge. Sections were very scary, the trail only seemed a foot wide with (probably) fatal falls on both sides. The views though were spectacular.


Once back at the beach we saw some very big crabs. They were very wary and wouldn't let us get to close to them.
On the last night we were treated to a nice sunset
Overnight, the wind started blowing hard from the North-West which made for an uncomfortable rolly anchorage, so we pulled anchor and headed north to Puerto Los Gatos. We stayed on the boat but there were some incredibly red sandstone sculptured rocks onshore.
In the morning the anchorage was “invaded” by a National Geographic ship. Maybe one day we’ll be watching a special and be able to say “That's us, we were there”!

The wind was blowing harder (of course from the north, the direction we were going) so we were anxious to get to a more secure anchorage so we bashed our way up to Bahia Agua Verde (Green Water Bay). We holed up in AV for a couple of days while the wind blew, the water was calm and protected though.
In the afternoon I decided I wanted to go ashore. I had heard there was a little tienda (store) that sold excellent local goat cheese. Tom wanted to stay on the boat so off I went on my own. I motored over to the shore and checked out the waves, they didn’t seem too bad so I went ashore. Once I landed they seemed a little larger than they looked from the ocean side, but not too much for me to get the dingy back out so I dragged her up onshore and went in search of cheese. The little “town” at AV was much more spread out and a little bit more ramshackle than I had thought it would be after reading the guide books. About 45 minutes later I hadn’t found the tienda, but I had bought some cheese from a local so I went back to the dingy.
Once back on the beach I saw the waves had seriously increased in height and frequency! While they were only about 1-2 feet high, they were coming at less than 1 second intervals, and there were no slack periods. I tried to get the dingy re-launched for about ten minutes and ended up soaked and bruised. I would just get it pushed out into the waves, jump in and grab the oars when a wave would swamp me and the dingy. It was clear that there was no way I could get her out on my own. I walked over to a guy on the beach just pulling his panga (fishing boat) further up the beach and asked for help. We went back my dingy and watched the waves crash in, they were increasing by the minute! After much discussion in my pidgin Spanish, smiles and hand waving, he said it would be impossible to get out here but he could load my boat onto his suv and drive it to a nearby cove that was much calmer (and closer to Sunny). We put everything that could be taken out of the dingy into the back of his suv then put the dingy on the top and tied it as securely as we could. Even though our dingy is rather small, it’s pretty heavy and awkward.
We then proceeded to drive up, up, up and around a mountain to get to the cove. Tom was able to get a few shots of us coming down into the cove:



Once unloaded, it was easy for me to get back to the boat in the relative quiet. Once again I am just astounded at the kindness and generosity of the people we have been meeting. We have yet to find a surly Mexican (other than a few government officials).
A few days later, after the wind calmed down, we sailed to Puerto Escondido. Other than a small marina, tienda, expensive restaurant, and a cruiser’s net, there is little here. It is well protected though. We did meet Deb and Alex on Nu Moon and had a nice visit on Christmas day. Deb and Alex were our dock mates in Alameda. We knew they were coming down a little after us but this was the first we’ve been able to meet up. It was great seeing them and I hope we cross paths again.
This is Tom smiling (seriously, this is his smile :-) ) Behind you can see the "windows", it's hard to see from this picture but there's a ridge of land between the humps to make this a well sheltered hole.:

The impressive Sierra Gigante mountains (more impressive in person):

We’re leaving tomorrow morning to make our way back to La Paz then probably cross the Sea to Mazatlan, it’s getting a bit cold here :-) Happy New Year.
Carolynn & Tom

12/17/09
Since last I updated this blog we went from Bahia Los Muertos to La Paz and have been in La Paz the whole time. La Paz is nicknamed one of the “fly paper” harbors since cruisers tend to sail in and get stuck. While in Spanish "La Paz" means "The Peace", Tom says that the name is really spelled “La Paws” since the city grabs onto you and sinks its claws into you. It really is a nice city that had everything we needed. We got everything fixed on the boat that was broken, met lots of new friends, renewed friendships with many cruisers we’ve met along the way, and enjoyed exploring the town.
The trip from Muertos to La Paz was tiring but uneventful. Because of fast currents in the Cerralvo channel, we wanted to time our passage so that we would ride the tide through the channel rather than fighting it the whole way. Unfortunately this meant leaving in the afternoon for a night passage. We left Muertos around 2 pm with only a light breeze (on our nose of course). Around the corner we spotted this building going up, we wondered if it’s going to be a house or a hotel, either way quite an impressive structure for way out here:
We had a quick passage, which meant we were estimated to arrive in La Paz at midnight. We don’t like entering any unfamiliar harbor in the dark so this meant we idled out in the bay until the sun came up. We pulled into Marina La Paz, right in the middle of the city.
La Paz is a very pretty city and not at all like Cabo. The bay is too shallow for big cruise ships, the sport fishing fleet hasn’t discovered the nearby banks, and there are no fancy beaches so it’s not a “touristy” town. There are no street vendors or time-share hawkers. I got so tired in Cabo of having to say “no gracias” (no thanks) every five feet as soon as we left the boat. And some of the vendors in Cabo were very aggressive, following you down the street and shouting at you if you didn’t buy their cheap trinket.
My favorite section in La Paz is the Malecon, a wide tiled, palm lined walkway along the waterfront. Every two hundred feet or so there is a wide spot featuring a bronze statue or other art. There are also sculptures scattered throughout town. Here is Tom along the Malecon:

Here’s the view looking back towards the marina:

Here are a few of my favorite sculptures (there are probably over 100 scattered around town):
Old man with a paper boat

Here is the translation for the inscription:

The old man ..... and the sea?

I have a paper boat
It’s made from a page
On which I have written my dreams
It has neither anchors, nor mooring ropes
I want to sail in it
On the seven seas; in the eighth
Where I know I will run aground in the port of my desires
... Has someone ever seen the light shining from his lighthouse?

Even the trash cans are colorful

Just around the corner from the marina is our favorite taco place. They have a grill right on the sidewalk where they grill the most wonderful arrachera (marinated flank steak).


And a full tray of all the condiments:
Sunset and sunrise from Sunny in the marina

And a buddy that visits us

The people here are wonderful, both the locals and the cruising community. There is a radio net each morning where new arrivals introduce ourselves, we can get the weather, local news and events, and ask for help troubleshooting issues or finding parts. The net was very helpful in getting our alternator(s) working. There is also a cruisers club that has a book exchange, a DVD lending library, and has free coffee each morning where cruisers gather to meet.
As much as we have enjoyed La Paz, we need to leave before we grow roots :-) Tomorrow we’re off to visit the local islands and try to find some quiet anchorages. We’ll be out of internet range for awhile so Happy Holidays to all.
-Carolynn & Tom

12/2/09:
The definition of cruising: “Fixing your boat in exotic locations with no parts.” But I’ll get to that later.
When last I updated this blob we were headed out of the Cabo marina to spend a few days anchored off the beach. Cabo is the vacation destination for more than 500,000 tourists each year and since the water is a major attraction, there is a big industry in renting jet skis, ski boats, and taking people parasailing. The Los Cabos bay was an absolute zoo and our boat was continually rocked and buzzed by all of the above as well as fishing pangas, water taxis, large sleek fishing trawlers, sailing boats, etc.
At one point there were three gigantic cruise ships anchored in the bay. It was fun at first people watching but got tiring quickly. The water was a tempting 82°F so we tried swimming off the boat, but we didn’t dare get more than a few feet away. After two days we had enough of that and decided to head towards a quieter anchorage.
We left the Cabo anchorage early in the morning on Wednesday 11/25 headed for Los Frailes, approximately 50 nautical miles (nm) away (1 nm = 1.15 land miles so this would be about 57 “statute” miles). After leaving the anchorage I checked our batteries and discovered the charging system wasn’t charging our batteries! Just like in a car, when we are running the engine the alternator should be making electricity and using the excess to recharge the batteries. We were worried about our electrical system since earlier we had lost the tachometer readout. We did some troubleshooting on the tach in Cabo but decided it would have to wait until La Paz to fix since parts would be more readily available and cheaper there. Now though with the charging system on the fritz it was a different matter. We discussed limping our way all the way to La Paz (170 nm) using the generator to top off the batteries each night and pulling up the anchor by hand, but decided that wasn’t the prudent decision and changed course to a marina about 20 miles from Cabo called Puerto Los Cabos.
Puerto Los Cabos is a brand marina advertizing all the amenities of a first class resort; showers, laundry, swimming pool, spa, golf course, restaurant, etc and one day it might be finished but at this point there was only one section of slips and some very nice landscaping. They had converted a trailer for the showers but the plywood floors and walls wouldn’t last too long. While slightly cheaper than Cabo, at $111 per night it was disappointing. The staff though was very nice and the maintenance manager helped Tom to determine that there was something wrong with our main alternator, but we discovered that there were two alternators on our engine and Tom got the smaller one working (after lots of swearing and burnt knuckles). We would have to be careful of power consumption but this smaller alternator should allow us to get to La Paz to do a better repair. Keep your fingers crossed for us. The last night in the marina we were treated to a beautiful sunset.
Leaving early in the morning, we made our way to Bahia Los Frailes. The wind was on our nose the whole way and the seas were choppy so we had to motor and bash our way up the entire trip. Without a tachometer we were guessing at how much we were pushing the motor and were worried the whole way about overheating. Going into the wind and seas sometimes it felt at times that the whole boat would come to a shuddering stop while it broke through a wave, not a pleasant journey.
We finally made Bahia Los Frailes (the Bay of Friars, so called because the rock formation on the point looked to mariners of old like Friars climbing the hill). We spent two nights in Los frailes to recover from the beat up. During the day we went snorkeling by the point, there were quite a few colorful tropical fishies and some coral. Around the other side from the anchorage is Cabo Pulmo Reef marine sanctuary, the only living hard coral reef on the west side of North America, and supposedly very good diving. We briefly though of trying to arrange a scuba dive there but decided that we were over budget at this point so diving would have to wait. Once we were rested we set out for the next stop; Bahia de Los Muertos. Once again the wind was on our nose and we spent the whole trip bashing into steep waves. If anything this was worse than the previous jump to Frailes. We averaged a bit under 4 knots and barely got into the anchorage before full dark, exhausted and cranky.
Bahia de Los Muertos ("Bay of Dead Men"; so named for the giant “dead-men” anchors used here to moor barges in the early 1900 while offloading ore from the silver mines at El Triunfo), is a nice wide pretty bay with a small fancy resort at one end and the Giggling Marlin restaurant (of Cabo fame) at the other. Developers don't like the name so they are renaming it Bahia de los Suenos (Bay of Dreams) but that sounds so cheasy that most people continue to call it Muertos. There are no other facilities but it’s well protected and there were lots of cruising boats anchored out. We found a good free internet wifi signal and spent several days just relaxing and recovering. We started to run a little short of beer so one day we loaded the bicycles in the dingy, landed on the beach, then bicycled the 6 miles to the nearest small town. On the way there was a palm farm.

We also stopped to look at the Cerralvo channel, our next jump before the La Paz area. According to the guide books, this channel can have fast currents and the wind tends to funnel down the channel, great..... It didn’t look too bad from 20 miles away :-)
The small tienda (store) had what we needed and once back at the bay we had a nice lunch at the Marlin and took some pictures of the pretty bay.
You can’t really tell but our boat is the farthest one out.
It’s now Wednesday, December the 2nd and we are running our generator to charge the batteries and plan to leave in the afternoon at the beginning of the rising tide so we will (hopefully) be able to ride the current up the channel. Hopefully this won’t make the wind chop too steep as it will be dark by then. It’s going to be a long night but hopefully by tomorrow we’ll be in the La Paz area. We plan to be in La Paz for a few weeks, refilling our provisions and repairing everything broken.
-Carolynn