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Published: February 18th 2008
Goodbye San Diego
Thanks to our precious supporters who came to the dock that day. We love you:)Hello everyone. It's been a long and interesting 16 days to reach Banderas Bay, specifically we are sitting at achor in La Cruz, a soImewhat small fishing village with lots and lots of gringos living out their retirement here. I am on the boat and getting free wi-fi from a fancy hotel on shore, so I will write swiftly before the tide drops and I lose my connection. Side note: Yesterday I took the laptop into the beach to a resturant with wi-fi. Was writing along for over an hour, and as I was saving the text, the internet just turned off! I was quite upset, let me tell you. So here I am again, hopefully I can get in all the little stories before it gets dropped again. Ahh, the life of a vagabond.
As we were leaving SD, it was a feeling of excitement and a little nervousness. We had gone to Catalina overnight many times, so I was pretty aware of what the overnight watches would be like. I had it in my mind that instead of one overnight, there would be many. I had my ipod all charged up and was dutifully taking the prescription sea
What a relief!
I couldn't wait to drop that cell phone overboard! sickness pills. I was truly looking forward to throwing that damn cell phone overboard. It was amazingly liberating. I didn't fling it like I thought I would, I simply dropped it over and waved goodbye as we got outside the harbor channel. Robin kept his cell phone for a few days, don't know why exactly, but he eventually dumped in the garbarge bag in Turtle Bay.
As we were heading south the seas were quite mixed up. the breeze was light, but seas choppy. I felt confident because i WAS TAKING OFFICIAL SEA SICKENESS MEDS. I know you know where I'm heading... yep I got seasick. It was during the second evening of travel. I came out of the boat for my watch and headed straight for the bucket. Did I feel better after...hmmm....kinda. But I was fuming about that med that I was taking. I stopped taking it after that and haven't since, and no more seasickness...interesting tibit I though.
Anyhow after that incident, Robin decided that we should anchor for a night behind Cedros Island, so we changed course and started heading for the island. It was getting darker and darker. Soon it was pitch dark
Goodbye SD
Watching Pt, Loma in the background, a dream that is finally coming true and we were just rounding the northern point of the island. All we saw was one feeble little light blinking. We had a latitude (lat) and longitude (lon) to anchor at, so we went into a new working mode. I was radar girl and Robin was GPS man. He would be down below giving me directions and I would be driving and watching the radar and depth. As we turned behind the island, it was REALLY rolly and no visibility. I told Robin, "We better hurry and get to some calm waters, because I',m starting to feel nauseous again!" Before I really got bad, we got to calmer waters, Whew! As we slowly, slowly drove closer and closer to the side of the island, Robin finally decided to drop the achor. As it came out, too quickly, it came all the way out, with the line (rope) attached to the anchor chain. As Robin tried to retreive the line, it got stuck in this chute like thing the achor enters into the boat. So we had to fix that with flashlights and Robin crawling down below and me atop to try and move this stuck rope. It took abouot 45
It is cold outhere!
Robin in his foulies. Isn't he cute? min, and we were exhausted... like so close to sleeping soundly, but Oh No...not yet! Finally it was cleared I turned off the motor. These strange noises were all around us. Snorting and blowing in the water, and when I used my flashlight to see, only saw splashing. Then on the beach was more strange noises, like the boys from Lord of the Flies were doing their pre-war dance. It was the strangest thing. I heard a cow groan a couple times, then these kind of like screeching, moaning sounds. It was so dark, we couldn't see anything. My imagination was going....it was like Dr. Moro's Island, or some twilight zone thing. We crashed out and in the morning I was so curious. I peeped my head out and it was a typical Baja landscape with seals all over the beaches. They were some strange sounding southern seals, I must say.
We left the next morning and heading south to Turtle Bay. It was going to be an all day sail, and we were really hoping to make Turtle Bay before dark. Didn't enjoy driving in the dark too much. I wasn't all the enamored with my new moniker "Radar Girl".. The sail down was pretty uneventful until we entered a passage between Cedros and the mainland where the two currents met. The Pacific Ocean and the Bay of Vizcaino met with quite a bit of turbulence. I kinda knew this was going to happen. Most of the current and waves were somewhat behind us, but it was very rocky and splashy. As we were going through this part a fishing panga was coming the opposite way and they were crashing into the waves. It was like those boats on the discovery channel "America's deadliest catch" They were in their foulies (foul weather gear) and so were we. We waved as we passed and were glad we were going in the opposite direction. Up to this point we were wearing foulies all day everyday outside of the boat, and using our tethers and hooking ourselves in. It was rough and cold.
Again at dark, we pulled in to Turtle Bay. We went to a waypoint Robin had and set the anchor and crashed out. The next morning we saw we were a little far from the town, but we felt good. A fisherman came by in his panga (skiff) and asked if we wanted to buy fuel and asked why we were so far outside town? Duh! It was dark and we didn't know the place. NO, I didn't say that, only smiled and said it was night.... He smiled back, and left.
We stayed in Turtle Bay for a couple days, went to town and got a few things, like some bread that was probably the worse bread I've ever had in Mexico. Usually they are known for their panaderias (bread shops), but the bread had chunks of flour in them and were pretty well flat, hard to slice to make a sandwich. It was a pretty typical dusty little Baja town, non descript, and I was ready to leave and get to some warm water and warmer days.
We headed out around 10am and started sailing south. Robin put up this big head sail called the Asymetrical. It looks like a colorful Spiniker sail, but different. We read and lazed ourselves up that day, Then that night the wind started to pick up over the land, NOrth Easterly, not from the open ocean, but over the land like a CA Santa Ana. We changed sails often, until we had a small head sail and a small main sail. It started blowing more and more. Soon we had only the head sail up and it was small. Because the usual current is coming northwest, it was smashing up against the wind waves being produced from the land wind. Ah... again another fun ride for Jean, the novice. Sleeping downstairs was a joke. The wires in the mast were banging constantly and the floorboards were squeaking loudly. We would be in our bunks jumbled up, bouncing too with all this noise. It was not RELAXING to say the least!!! I came out on deck for my morning watch at 6am. Robin was beat too, and went below. As I am crouched up under the dodger (a cover we have over the companionway) to try and stay warm from the cold wind. The boat is screeching and rolling and the autopilot is really working overtime. I'm thinking, I would hate to have to hand-steer in this weather. About an hour later, the wind is really howling and the wind is streaming across the waves. Now I have read many books about terrible weather from some famous races were people were killed during bad weather, and what I saw behjind us looked really familiar to me from some of those pictures. I opened the hatch and said to Robin, "Robin I need some emotional support up here" He got up and stood in the companion way and said, "yep, it's blowing like snot out here" (or something to that effect). We rolled up the head sail so It was as small as a little postage stamp and we were still hauling ass . Robin said to go below and try to rest, I may need you later. Of course I couldn't sleep, but I went below even though I was pretty anxious. When I got up later ( a few hours) it had calmed down a lot, and I was a happy sailor again. We could only go forward, there was nothing else we could do at that time. But it was not pleasant at all. I think it was the motion of the boat and the noise that was really unnerving, and you could't rest, you were on edge the whole time. But we got through it, and it's an experience to chalk up and hopefully not have to go through again, but you never know.
After that we headed to Santa Maria Bay. We arrived that morning to fog! Again Radar girl got her act together and Robin was at the GPS station. As we got closer and closer the fog began to burn off so we could see. We pulled into a big bay with a little fishing village at one end, and dropped the anchor and felt good. Yeah we came in during the day.....A little while later a fisherman came by with some lobster and a turtle in his panga. He asked us if we wanted some lobster. He didn't want money, he wanted things. I gave him two beers (Robin wasn't happy about that) and the fisherman said,"only two?" We gave him a t-shirt and he didn't seem to happy about that, and one of the t-shirts Robin gave him had some stains on it, and he said, "it's dirty" and handed it back and gave us a strange look. I was smiling insdie. Then he asked for some candy, so I gave him a small bag of starburst, and then he handed over 3 lobsters. I cleaned them and cooked them. We had some lobster sandwiches, which were good, but we decided we won't do that again!. We had been trolling for fish but no luck, And, as of this moment, we still haven't caught a fish! We bought some fish last night in town to cook!
I baked some bread and muffins and Robin was crawling around in the transom (end part of the boat) to secure our autopilot, which appeared to have moved a little with all the rough seas so far. His crumpy meter was escalating as he was wiggling and worming himself in there. It was an all day project as he had to fabricate a piece that either broke and fell off or went missing from a long time ago. We decided to head south the next morning. Some fisherman came bay the next day but we said "no gracias" to the lobster...
The next leg of the trip was pretty uneventful. Clear skies, warm breezes off our stern quarter. As you say, fair winds and following seas. The foulies came off and shorts and t-shirts came on. It was so nice to put those huge jackets away and not be cold. We saw lots of dolphins and whales. The night skies were awesome, so full of starts. Some meteors burning up and satallites, and tried to figure out the constellations. The dolphins would come zooming by the boat and leave wakes of sparkles. It was really beautiful. There were definitely more smiles on my face at this time.
The last night of travel before we reached Cabo I was sitting out in the cockpit listeneing to my music when I saw this huge lighted "thing" behind us. I check the radar and it was some kind of boat directly on the same course as us. I kept watching it and watching it.Soon it was about a few miles away. It was one of those 10 stort cruise lines heading for Cabo, same heading as us! I started to veer off to the left, then veer off to the right and it seemed it was doing the same. I woke up my sailorboy, and he was rather grumpy. I said, "Aren't I supposed to wake you if something happens, or I need your help?" He ungrumpified then. We watched the behemouth approach, then headed out to sea and slowed down. It passed us and zoomed forward at high speed. Man, that thing is huge. We went back on course, Robin went back to sleep, and I continued my star gazing, dolphin watching and listening to music.
We reached Cabo the next afternoon and anchored near the entrance to the harbor where a couple other yatistas (cruisers) were anchored. That place is quite the Disneyland for adults. Two huge cruise ships were there, parasail boats zooming every which way, tourist charters, music blaring, dancing, partying . it was really crazy. My first time to Cabo, and if I was back in College, I would have been in like flint, but not now. After a couple hours of walking to check in with the port captain and immigration, we ate something , went to the boat, and the next morning got fuel and water and ice and headed out towards the mainland mexico. Everyone in Cabo only wanted to sign you up for activities or sell you a timeshare, or condo. No one knew where their offices for foreigners were. It was rather confusing for a while. We were glad to leave, to say it mildly.
As we headed out at 10:30am, the skies were clear and the breeze light. After about an hour or so, the wind seemed to be coming from the south. Robin says to me, "This breeze is very unusual" This meant to me that some type of weather was coming towards us, for when we semi-studied the weather in SD, whenever a system was coming into SD, it came from the south as the system was circular. I asked Robin, "Well, what should we do?" The weather man we listened to on the Single Side Band (SSB) said the weather for the next 3 days would be light and nice. Well,. we just kept going. The two currents, one from the Sea of Cortez, and the Pacific Ocean, met about 15-20 miles offshore and it became rocky and rolly again. I was not looking forward to an evening as such, since it is noisy and hard to sleep downstairs. The wind finally swung back around from the northwest, and the swell corrected itself so it was behind us. We are pretty sure it was the "cape effect", as two large bodies of water meet. That night and the following day was pretty uneventful. Lots of star gazing, and not much else. We again put up the bimini cover for shade, and on the second day had to motor. We wanted to make sure we made it to Banderas Bay before dark. The second day, it was really calm. As we were nearing the mainland we saw all these turtles just floating in the water. Sometimes a bird would be hanging out on it's back. Then, that afternoon we saw our passage into Banderas Bay. It was between the headland, Punta Mita, and three little rock-type islands called Tres Marietas.
As we were heading for a course through this 3.6 mi passage, the engine stops! Robin ducks into the boat and does all kinds of things to get it started. I open up the headsail so we are sailing slowly, but moving forward, as time is getting later in the day. Between this passage are a couple spires that come up to 3 feet under the surface. I was thinking, oh, this will be fun, sailing in and trying to avoid these spires, great! Well, Robin got the engine started and what had happened is that we ran out of fuel in the large tank! We had enough in a smaller tank, which brought us to La Cruz about 1/2 hour before dark, so that was good news.
Now we sit infront of the little (actually not so little) town of La Cruz with about 20 other yatistas anchored here for free. We have gone shopping for food, had some beers here and there, and today we went to a huge supermercado and stocked up. We have met a few other cruisers who have been at this gig for years. We are planning on getting our teeth cleaned here in a couple days, get some fuel and water, then head south to Barra de Navidad. There are quite a few cruisers here that are heading south also, so we will probably run into them again and again. This whole area is so gringoized. Tons of retirees from the US and lots from Canada. The prices for things is OK, but not that great of a bargain. We also want to go fishing here soon, and haven't done any snorkeling yet. The water is warm, but not that warm.
Will add more when we leave and arrive at a new destination, unless something really interesting happens to us. Will try to add photos more often. We have this great internet connection on the boat, so it's so easy now, or easier , I should say.
Hope you enjoy this story. it;s the second one I've done.... first one was lost...Until later, Chao, hasta luego mis amigos y familia
Robin & Jean
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Margaret
non-member comment
So good to hear from you
The adventure has begun. Thanks for taking the time to document. Some day you'll be glad you did and now, you bring joy to your friends back home.