Santa Rosalia - Blog update via SSB

This entry is a test to see if I have figured out how to update my blog using our ham radio. Up to now I have only been able to post a new entry when we have internet but I think I have figured out a way to post while we are out of internet access. I can only post short messages and no pictures but it's better than nothing. We're still in Santa Rosalia and plan to be here at least another week.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

7/19/2010 La Paz to Santa Rosalia

We’re in the little town of Santa Rosalia, about ½ of the way up the Sea of Cortez on the Baja side. This is the first marina and the first wifi signal we’ve had since we left La Paz about a month ago. Here’s what we have been doing since then:

After leaving La Paz we island hopped up the same path we had taken last December, though before it was cold and rainy but now it’s hot and muggy! We didn’t spend too much time in any one place since we had heard that there was a big 4th of July party up in Conception bay. There are lots of small fish camps in most of the anchorages, though for the most part we stayed on the boat.

Tom is working on learning how to fish and coming up the coast we caught something:

We finally got it on board (not easy to do since our deck is about 5’ off the water). We had no idea what it was but it looks good:


Following directions in a book, we filleted it and had fish for dinner, but it wasn’t very good and we thought that we had not bled/filleted it correctly :-( Later though we described the fish to another cruiser who told us we had caught a “Skip Jack”, he confirmed that they’re not very good for eating and the only thing he uses them for if he catches them is bait or for his dogs. If we catch another Skip Jack we’ll let it go.

We saw lots of marine life; huge pods of dolphins and many jumping rays. One afternoon in Isla Coronado the jumping rays were so thick that it looked like the ray olympics! There would be the 500 meter dash with 20-30 rays jumping and racing ½ way around the anchorage. Then a few minutes later there would be an aerial display with rays leaping and flipping only a few boat lengths away from us. I saw numerous 360’s and a few double flips. When a ray jumps and flops back into the water it sounds a little like popcorn popping. At times in the anchorage it sounded like a whole bag of popcorn being popped. They’re not easy to capture on film though, they’ll be popping up all over the place but as soon as I get the camera focused, none would jump until I set the camera down then they would start popping out again. I got mainly splashes and a few blurry pics but couldn’t quite capture how many there were or how much they would jump and flip:

We spent a few days at Isla Coronado, snorkeling and dingying around. This is a dramatic and forbidding volcanic island, though the anchorage is well protected.

Also at Isla Coronado we took a hike up the hill. Initially the trail was pretty level and led through the sandy brush. Eventually though the trail led up the side of the hill and consisted of medium volcanic rocks perfect for tripping over or turning an ankle.

The only way to know you were on the trail were periodic “cairns” of 3-4 rocks piled on top of each other.

It was a hard hike but the views from ½ way up the hill were good (I didn’t make it all the way up):

On our way into Conception we saw a whale shark! It was early in the morning so it was hard to get a decent picture since the sun was reflecting off the water. He was about 12 feet long (a little one) and we didn’t want to bother him too much. The whale shark is the largest fish and can grow up to 46 feet long. The name “shark” is a bit of a misnomer as they eat only plankton.

We showed up in Bahia El Burro a week early for the party so got our choice of spots. When we got in there were only 5 other boats in the anchorage but at the height of the party there were 35!

One morning we decided to hike to the top of the hill overlooking the anchorage. From our boat the trail looked obvious and while steep and rugged, not too bad:


Once on the hill though the trail wasn’t so obvious and much of it was a scramble up rocks more suited to goats! The cruisers guide calls this hike “strenuous”, they weren’t joking. There was little shade on the trail for rests but we made do with any little bush we could find:

We finally made it to the top of the hill (felt more like a mountain) and the views were spectacular!

The day before the party a group of us went on a desert tour with Salvador, a wonderful local guide. We would periodically stop and Salvador would talk about the local history and medicinal uses for the desert plants.

We also visited a river bed where there were lots of petroglyphs (symbols and animals carved into rocks). Archeologists estimate these were done around 1100 B.C.

Coyote:

Rays:

We also visited some cave paintings (Pictographs). Our guide claimed that the oldest paintings have been carbon dated to 14,000 B.C., but I’m not sure I really believe they’re that old. The hike was nice though especially since we had to swim through a cool refreshing pool to get to the cave :-)

The party on the 4th was great; it’s interesting to meet many of the cruisers we had been talking to over the radio for the last few months. Sorry but no pictures, I was having too much fun to bother with the camera.

After the party we slowly made our way north to Santa Rosalia. Santa Rosalia is a played out Copper mining town established by the French in the 1860’s. Most of the town is built of wood instead of stucco and has a much different “feel” to it. It is well laid out with sidewalks and street signs and many corners even have painted handicap ramps (very rare for Baja). On at least one of the ramps though they didn’t quite get the concept of a wheel chair ramp :-)

There are many reminders of the town’s mining past:

Santa Rosalia is also known for the Iglesia Santa Barbara church, designed by the architect Gustave Eiffel, creator of the Paris Eiffel Tower. Eiffel originally constructed this church in France in 1887; it was intended as a prototype for missionary churches built to withstand the climate in France’s equatorial colonies. Two years later it was exhibited in Paris, together with the Eiffel Tower, at the 1889 Paris World Exposition. Eiffel took first prize for the church’s modular, tropics-proof design.

When a French official later heard the church had been warehoused in Brussels, he purchased it and had it shipped in sections to Santa Rosalia, where it was reassembled in 1897.

Opposite the church is a “world famous” hot dog stand; Chuyitas, featuring bacon wrapped hot dogs on a soft bun with the works. Almost all the cruisers show up there every few nights for their dog fix
It’s been hot and muggy so we try to spend the hottest part of the day lounging in the pool and meeting new folks.

We’re not sure how long we’ll be here, we have three months of hurricane season to kill up here and we like the town so we’re not in a big hurry to leave, though we wouldn’t want to ride out a hurricane on these docks.

When we do leave though we’ll probably be out of internet access for quite a while.
Cheers,

Carolynn & Tom

6-14-2010: La Paz

We had some wonderful days of motor sailing from La Cruz to La Paz. There were a few times we could have turned off the engine and sailed but each time it would have slowed us down enough that we probably would have had to come into the next anchorage in the dark so we motored along. The first few days the wind was mostly on our beam, but then it slowly clocked around until it was almost behind us. Other than the risk of an accidental jibe (the wind getting on the wrong side of the main sail and having the boom come flying across the deck), running with the wind is a very comfortable way to sail. I was even able to sleep well underway when I was off shift, rare for me. For a while we were sailing “wing and wing” with the wind directly behind us and the jib of the other side from the main, very sweet:

The weather here is wonderful, warm in the middle of the day (mid 90's) but the humidity is low so it doesn't feel too hot and it gets almost cold overnight (mid 50's but with a 20 mph southerly breeze, perfect sleeping weather).

There is a (quasi) joke in the sailing world that boat stands for “Break Out Another Thousand”. We’ve decided in our case it is “Break Out Another Tool”. When we left La Cruz we discovered our autopilot wasn’t working. It took us a while to decide it had a problem since all of the lights lit up and under sail the boat is well balanced and she stays pointed in the direction we set her up. Intermittently the autopilot would work then suddenly we couldn’t make any course corrections so eventually we went to hand steering, though the conditions were so nice it only took an occasional correction (but you don’t dare leave the helm), this made for long nights though. When we got to Mazatlan, Tom found not one but two problems; a cracked relay switch and one of the solder joints on the circuit board was cracked. He was able to fix both, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that this solves it. Then the afternoon before we left Mazatlan, Tom got a funny feeling and decided to run the engine a while at anchor. After just a few minutes we heard a sparking sound, opened the engine door and saw sparks coming out of our alternator. Lucky we had a spare alternator but it took more than an hour of swearing and bloody knuckles to replace it. We were in a calm anchorage; if it had happened underway it would have been 100 times worse.

On the passage from Mazatlan to la Paz, both the autopilot and the alternator worked great!

We'll leave La Paz Wednesday morning and will probably be out of internet access for at least a week or two (or longer if we find a wonderful anchorage :-). We’ve heard rumors about whale sharks spotted further up the Sea, that would be so cool to spot one of those gentle giants.

Carolynn (& Tom)

5/31/10 Escape from La Cruz.

We’ve dug the tunnel, paid off the guards and we’re making our escape out of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle :-)
We have a new main sail, a new track system so the sail goes up and down easier, re-did our reefing system so one of us can put in or take out a reef by ourselves in the cockpit (reefing is the processes of making the sail smaller by gathering material around the bottom), and a “taco shell” to hold the sail in when it’s down, rather than having it flop all over the deck. It took a lot longer than we anticipated, but this will be much safer for us to sail with so we’re happy.
Here’s the new main in its final fitting and our test sail, isn’t she pretty?:

We also got our wheel custom covered with leather, much nicer on the hands than the bare metal. Here’s Westin the leather guy just finishing up:

The only one of who’s not ready to leave is our cat; Ginger. She likes life at the dock where the boat doesn’t move much and the humans don’t turn on that scary engine.
What are you looking at?

Our plans are to retrace our path back to the Sea of Cortez and spend the summer in the mid to northern Sea. We’ve heard that it will get pretty hot but should have less humidity than down here (being broiled versus poached). Keep your fingers crossed for us that the hurricanes stay away.
Carolynn & Tom

4/25/2010
Well; we’re still in La Cruz, same spot we’ve been in for the last 2 ½ months! As I mentioned in the last blog, we’ve ordered a new main sail and a fancy track system for raising, lowering, and stowing the sail. We knew it was going to take a while to get here and be installed, but it’s been longer than we had imagined, thus is life in mañana land. We are making progress though, Mike the sail maker took our mast away, thus guaranteeing that we couldn’t leave even if we wanted to :-)

It’s going to be an awesome system though once it’s done, and should allow one of us to raise, lower, and reef the main from inside the cockpit, a much safer system than what we currently have.
I’m not quite sure what we’ve been doing these last months, though it seems like the time has flown by. We did take a one week trip back to California in a whirlwind visit with family. I wished we could have taken longer but we had left our cat, Ginger back on the boat. We had a couple of friends looking after her but we still didn’t feel we could be gone for too long.
It hasn’t all been lounging at the beach drinking beer (though there has been a bit of that). We’ve several times taken the bus up to Sayulita, a popular surf beach. Tom bought a bogie board so we either bring that, or he rents a long board and hones his surfing skills.

Here’s Tom riding a wave (it was bigger when he started)

Sunday’s are pool day at Los Arroyos Verdes, a beautiful 20 acre resort up in the Bucerias foothills. Lupe, the owner/designer is a fellow sailor and sends a van down to the marina to pick up anyone interested. We can explore the grounds, swim in the pool, or eat at the wonderful restaurant/bar. Other than the food and drink, everything is free. The landscaping is gorgeous and there are eclectic touches everywhere. Los Arroyos Verdes is completely organic, fully runs off solar power and was made from natural building materials (stone, brick, etc). It’s a very beautiful and tranquil place.

Well, that’s about it for now. When and if we get our main sail finished, we’ve decided to sail back up to the Sea of Cortez for the summer. We’ll have to keep a close watch on the weather for possible hurricanes, so keep your fingers crossed for us :-)

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