Lungta Life – Kathy and Dan's Cruising Blog

Once again I’ve been reminded that another month has passed without a posting to our blog. Forgive me, dear reader. It has been a busy time, although nothing particularly noteworthy has happened since our encounter on New Years Eve, when we ran into that storm that tore our sails.

After that, we made our way north back to Barra de Navidad. We took our time, though, enjoying ourselves in Caleta de Campos and Maruata. Both places had somewhat rolly anchorages that we had to ourselves, small towns with beautiful scenery that were completely authentic and rarely saw gringos. We played in the surf at Caleta de Campos and went for a walk along the beach/coast in Maruata. The surf at Maruata was intimidating for a dinghy landing so we anchored the dinghy 30 feet off the beach, just outside the breaking waves and swam to shore. The coast just north of Maruata is punctuated with huge rocks, perhaps you’d even call them hills. These rocks had internal fissures through which the waves would come roaring. The unusual thing about them, though, is that although you couldn’t see around the rocks to the ocean, you could hear the water crashing around inside. Some of the rocks apparently had big cavernous spaces inside, generating a loud rumbling growl. In between these hills there were small patches of beautiful sandy beach, mostly unoccupied.

Once we got back to Barra, we looked up Bob Hogin, a life-long sail-maker who has now set up shop here. He mostly does sail repair now, and we were lucky to find that he didn’t have much work that week. We piled three of our sails into the dinghy, and Bob met us at the Sands hotel. He does business in the large yard of his home. We discussed our various options with him, and were pleasantly surprised that he was able to repair all of them. The worst damage was to the mainsail, which needs to have an entire panel replaced. He quickly repaired the first two, and we are now waiting for some additional sail-cloth to be delivered from the States before he can complete the last one. We have left Barra, though, and headed north again. He will ship it to us in La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta) via bus when it is ready. In the meantime, we are able to sail (although slower than usual) and that makes us happy!

When we left Barra, our next stop was Tenacatita. We’d loved it on the way down, and we loved it on the way back north! This time, there were lots of boats there, and some social structure too. There’s a guy who is called “the Mayor of Tenacatita”, Robert on Harmony. He manages the morning radio net and organizes a steady stream of activities; well, actually, he’s sort of a clearinghouse for those activities. He also does a weekly gathering of boaters on their dinghies, rafting up together for a pot-luck and an opportunity to meet the others in the “neighborhood”. Every day, there’s a swim from their boat to shore, and that is just the beginning. Some days someone will set up a volleyball net for a rousing game, some days there will be a talk or a dominoes game in the palapa restaurant, some days there will be yoga on the beach, etc. In the evenings there are many gatherings on different boats, ranging from an open invitation to all for cocktails on a large catamaran down to an intimate dinner of two boats in someone’s cockpit. We pulled out our sailing dinghy and kept it busy for a few days, and enjoyed boogie-boarding in the surf. We took the dinghy up into the local estuary one day, and were amazed at how peaceful these bodies of water can be, although they’re so close to the rough-and-tumble surf. We ran into some old friends and made some new friends at Tenacatita – we hope to spend more time with Bruce, Jen and the kids on Northern Passage in the future. On leaving, one boater said “you’re never too old to enjoy a happy childhood at Camp Tenacatita”. 🙂

After Tenacatita we continued heading north, but each time we approached an anchorage we changed our minds and kept on going. As we got close to Cabo Corrientes, the winds got stronger and stronger, and we got nervous that we might be about to repeat our mishap, so we turned around and went back to anchor in Chamela until conditions were better. The very next evening the winds seemed benign so we decided to try again. Unfortunately, the winds picked up uncomfortably -again- just north of the anchorage and were blowing right on our nose. But they stayed steady, so we motored through the night towards Cabo Corrientes, rounding the cape and entering Banderas Bay at first light. We saw lots of whales that day, some of them breaching repeatedly. We breathed a contented sigh, though, when we dropped the anchor in La Cruz. It’s interesting how different pulling into a new place feels from returning to a place that is already familiar. Although we’re not really looking for a place to set down roots (right now), it is nice to come to a place where we know we can relax and find friends. Arriving at a new place brings with it the process of discovering the lay of the land, local hang-outs, and new people who may become friends. It’s exciting, and also sometimes a bit daunting.

Back in La Cruz, we reconnected with several of our friends from last year. Hooray! One day we took a field trip out to go snorkeling at Los Arcos. We hadn’t been there before, and were glad for the excuse to get out for a day of fun. It turned out that 10 people went, mostly younger so there was a lot of energy. We took a bus (actually 2 buses) to Puerto Vallarta, then walked around the corner and got on another to the town of Boca de Tomatlan, where we had some lunch at a beachside palapa. Our original plan had been to swim from shore out to the big rocks that form the attraction, but we changed our minds and rented a panga (complete with panguero!) to take us out there instead. Los Arcos is a group of about 5 big rocks located about a quarter of a mile off the shore. Most of them have swim-thru arches, and at least one has a cliff that is high enough and steep enough that some of us were discussing cliff-diving (but no one actually did 🙂 ). We all enjoyed snorkeling around the rocks. There’s quite a bit of wildlife there, perhaps because it’s designated park space, perhaps because tour operators feed the fish to attract them, perhaps because it’s perfect habitat – as pinnacles often are. Whatever the reason, we spotted lots of types of reef fish, several types of eels and a some beautiful eagle rays that were doing circles around the area, rather than just flying by as they usually do. We were all pleasantly tired on the bus(es) back home. Coincidentally, Kathy found a couple of old photos from Los Arcos that same week when scanning some family scrapbooks – her parents took a “second honeymoon” trip (celebrating 15 years) to Puerto Vallarta in 1978. Who knew that one’s parents were ever that young!?  With mixed emotions, we parted ways with MaryJo. We introduced her to Ali, who you may remember had left La Cruz with us 6 weeks earlier. Ali is living in La Cruz, and just happened to have an extra room in the house she’s renting. The two of them hit it off nicely, and now MaryJo is once again land-based – but not for long, I suspect! She’s already hooked up with a few boats who are participating in various races around the area and had a few offers to crew on longer passages. Her biggest difficulty at this point is deciding just which path she wants to follow (first!). Ultimately she hopes to buy her own boat and go cruising, so we hope to see her again down the road, and likely sooner rather than later! It was a treat to have her with us for the last month, and we wish her all the best in her travels!

On Saturday we had dinner with some friends – and decided to join them for a driving trip up to Phoenix the next week! They had rented a mini-van in order to bring back some new sails, so there was plenty of room for more – or so they thought! We moved the boat into a marina Monday, to keep her safe and sound while we’re gone, and 5 of us hit the road on Tuesday morning. We’ve just now returned from that whirlwind trip. It was fun to get to know Mike & Marie better (and to meet Ron, an additional traveling companion). We drove straight through the 26-hour trip, and spent the week with Mike’s mother, who lives in their house while they’re away. We especially had fun playing with Charlie, a 4-month “golden doodle” puppy that she is taking care of until he’s old enough to be trained as a diabetic assistant dog. He’s cute as can be and has an endless supply of puppy energy. He’s also quite bright and is beginning to learn basic commands. If he wasn’t valued at $3000, he just might have found a spot in our luggage! The trip was also successful, in that we managed to get the fancy paint that we’re going to use to redo our hull in April. The last round didn’t adhere well, so we’re going to try again, this time stripping off all the layers down to raw concrete and reapplying the epoxy undercoat. This paint has so much copper in it that the bottom will be copper-colored, including turning that lovely green. We also picked up some epoxy paint to do the top-sides, and have decided to change the color again, this time to a sand color. So don’t be surprised the next time you see the boat and she looks a bit different! We spent one day driving to Southern California and back, and ran into a bit of snow on the way. This contributed to our sense of culture shock: all the traffic, abundant “stuff” for sale, and people everywhere you look! The drive back through Mexico was also beautiful, first the wonderful desert and then the verdant hills and valleys between Tepic and Puerto Vallarta. It’s great to be back, but we’re not staying long. This afternoon we leave for our next “excursion”, which we’ll tell you about next month. Happy trails to all!

We’re exploring a new region of Mexico, and although there are many differences, there are also similarities to our experience up in the Sea of Cortes.  We’re traveling from Banderas Bay down to Zihuatenejo, stopping in various anchorages and a few towns along the way, typically only staying a few days in each place before moving on, but allowing our schedule to be fluid and easily-changed.
Shortly before we left La Cruz, we met a young man who was “hitchhiking” down the coast by boat; this is often called “crewing”.  Many boaters appreciate an additional hand around to help share the chores of sailing and daily life, creating a niche for flexible travelers to travel on the cheap.  James had been in La Cruz for a couple of weeks, looking for his next opportunity, and we met him at a “Half Moon Bonfire”.  He works summers fishing salmon in Alaska, and during the rest of the year often works with his father in Santa Barbara, mostly catching lobsters.  He asked about bringing a friend along, and we were delighted when it turned out to have been someone that was already a friend of ours.  We met Alyssa (Aly) last season in La Cruz, when she was doing some jazz and fire-dancing performances at our favorite restaurant.  She had gone back to the States last spring, but decided that she wasn’t quite finished with La Cruz, so she has come back for 6 months or maybe more.  Last summer, like James, she had hopped on a southbound sailboat in San Francisco and sailed down the outside of the Baja peninsula (a little too fast if you ask us!).  Now she’s living on land and was thrilled at the opportunity to spend more time on the water.  Both of them have been great traveling companions, and we’ve had an opportunity to think about what it would mean to take on crew for a longer duration.

We left La Cruz late morning and had a wonderful sail, including an overnight, to Chamela.  We spent a couple of nights in this lovely anchorage.  Once again we’re in beautiful clear water, and although it’s a little bit chilly we’ve enjoyed snorkeling around the rocky points around the various anchorages.  There are lots of lovely fish – and occasionally one becomes dinner.  There are a number of rocky islands in Chamela Bay, and we anchored in between a pair of them.  We drove the dinghy over to an interesting beach, the end of which turned rocky and formed a point.  Waves came over a small stretch of this sandy beach from both sides of the point, and we had fun rolling in the surf and being batted from one side to the other.  The next day we had a short sail to Paraiso.  Although this place is beautiful, and the name is evocative (it means “paradise”), we spent a very rolly night at anchor.  In the morning we puttered around the bay to look at the sea caves, a blow-hole and some impressive crashing waves, before continuing on our way.

Our next stop was the bay of Tenacatita.  This is a big bay, with three places one can anchor – and we ended up visiting them all!  When we pulled into the main anchorage, there were three boats there, and two of them were friends that we were happily looking forward to seeing again.  We spent the next day snorkeling with our friends on Anon at the second of the anchorages, the one called The Aquarium.  It was a really beautiful site, and we were all reluctant to call it a day when the sun began to get low.  There is a resort hotel on the beach which fronts the main anchorage, and this evening there was a wedding going on.  Afterwards, and late into the night, there was music wafting across the water.  They lit candle lanterns which then rise up into the sky propelled by the heat of the candle.  I’m not sure how high they go, but we watched perhaps 20 of them drift out across the water before extinguishing themselves.  It was like a temporary constellation created in honor of the occasion.  The last day we headed over to the third anchorage, in front of the town called La Manzanilla.  We landed the dinghy in the surf in front of the town, amidst fishermen, swimmers, and crowds of pelicans. Unfortunately there were also some rocks, and our dinghy’s wheel found a couple of them.  The strut snapped in two, and the dinghy now has a limp.  🙁  Actually, we’ve found it easier to pull it up the beach with no wheels than with one out of balance.  We’ve ordered a replacement strut, and it will catch up with us in March when Kathy’s mom comes to visit.  On Aly’s last night with us, we had dinner at a small restaurant that served teriyaki food, scouted the town out for the bus stop, and spent an hour or more sitting in the town square watching the locals play with fireworks and walk laps around the square while socializing.  The next morning after dropping Aly at the bus stop, we visited a crocodile preserve at the end of town.  We paid 10 pesos (about 80 cents) for the privilege of walking a board-walk along the estuary.  We saw more than a dozen large adults, although they were pretty fat and lethargic – probably part of the trade-off for keeping them in a penned-off section of the estuary.  It was very cool!

As we moved on, we had another silly encounter with nature, where nature won the round.  We were traveling with a couple of fishing lines in the water.  We heard a funny noise and looked back to see what had happened.  There was a dorado leaping in the water, so we thought perhaps he was on one of our lines.  When we went to figure out which line it was, though, we noticed that one of the hand-line spools was missing.  Somehow the knot securing it had come undone and the whole package went into the water when this unfortunate fish bit.  We saw him leap 3 or 4 times, and each time the brilliant pink lure leaped out of the water with him.  🙂  Dan hopped in the dinghy to see if the spool was floating, and if so then perhaps to try to recover it, but the dorado stopped jumping and there was nothing to do.  We’d like to believe that we’re getting better at this, but we’ve clearly still got a little ways to go!

We spent the next few days in Barra de Navidad.  There’s a good-sized bay here, with a large lagoon that feeds into it.  The lagoon has a narrow channel that is just deep enough for our boat, so we went through at high tide just to make sure.  You really have to be careful here that you pay attention to the depths because there are sand bars all over the place.  We ran our dinghy aground more than once, surprised to discover that we were in ankle-deep water.  We were tickled (and perhaps just a little bit unnerved) one day when we drove the dinghy back to the boat and we passed a guy standing in waist-deep water fishing with a net – he was almost a quarter of a mile off shore and only about 10 feet from the channel that we’d taken the big boat up just the previous day!  Early in the morning, the fishermen in their pangas head out of the lagoon, but first they stop to catch a little bait.  Since the fish tend to school underneath boats (I couldn’t tell you *why*), the fishermen throw their nets quite close to the sailboats that gather in the lagoon.  Here’s an early morning photo of some pangueros at work.

There’s a funky old hotel in Barra, called the Sands, which caters to the cruising boaters.  They provide a dock to park your dinghy while you go into town, and they allow us to all hang out at their pool and enjoy the sun.  We enjoyed a few afternoons of sunbathing and wi-fi internet there.  There is also a fancy resort hotel, the Grand Bay, on the other side of the entrance channel.  Some of our friends stayed a few nights in their marina, and hosted us around the fancy pool with waterfalls and coconut drinks.  Ah, the good life!

We wanted to do something to celebrate the winter solstice, and our friends on Anon told us that they were planning to spend it back in Tenacatita, so we backtracked a bit to join them.  We liked Tenacatita so much that there was no arm-twisting required!  We all participated in a worldwide meditation event for an hour starting at the moment of the solstice, which local-time meant 5:11am, and another hour in the midafternoon.  Even though none of us felt a different connection with a collective consciousness, we all felt that it was a wonderful way to acknowledge the morning (and we all vowed to do it more often!).  That evening, there was a dinghy “raft-up”, with an hors d’ouevre pot-luck, and we organized a fire on the beach afterwards.  The dinghy raft-up was an event designed to help the folks in the anchorage (there were more than a dozen boats during most of the time we were there) to meet one another.  The first person to arrive anchored his dinghy at the designated location, and as everyone else arrived we tied our dinghies to his or to someone else who had already joined the floating party.  The guy who organized the event (for some reason, the community calls him “the mayor of Tenacatita”) gave a short speech and had people around the circle introduce themselves.  It was a pleasant gathering, and it was nice to connect a few more names and faces to the names of their boats.  About half of the attendees also joined us on the beach for a fire and more conversation.  We brought our fire-pit because we weren’t sure if it was legal to build a fire on the beach, but when we got there we found a beautifully arranged ring of rocks with a stack of dry brush nearby.  A lovely way to end the day, even if the world didn’t come to an end.

A day or two later we returned to Barra (de Navidad) to participate in another cruiser event: a Christmas pot-luck held at the Sands Hotel.  We were skeptical that we could find a place inside the lagoon that was large enough for our boat, since so many boats had arrived for the event, so we decided to stay off the beach of a nearby town named Melaque.  This town is (not-so) fondly referred to as “Rocky Melaque”.  🙂  So we tucked into the shore as close as we could, and set out a second anchor from our stern, to help keep our boat from swinging in the wind in such a way that the waves would hit us broad-side.  If they come from the bow of the boat then the pitching motion feels much less dramatic than if there’s also a side-to-side rolling action.  We enjoyed our stay in Melaque.  We did some shopping and wandered the town’s streets one day, took a bus to Barra another, and rode our dinghy the two miles to the Christmas party.  Kathy was invited to be the “Magic Elf” who runs the progressive gift exchange, where everyone comes with an anonymous gift and goes away with something that someone else brought.  Sometimes you get a gift that you unwrapped yourself and sometimes you can “steal” something that you like from someone else.  It’s a fun way to spend a couple of hours with a congenial crowd.  The gifts that were “stolen” the most included a bottle of red wine, a set of bongo drums, a conch shell that you can blow into to get a lonesome sound.  The other gift that was in really high demand was the six-pack of Fat Tire beer that we brought.  It’s impossible to find in Mexico and is very highly valued.  While we were at the party, James met up with a young woman who was crewing on one of the boats.  They struck it off, and before you know it we had another crew mate!  MaryJo is sweet and perky, cute as a button, and learning whatever she can to make real her dream to buy her own boat and circumnavigate the world.

We left the next day, intending to get as far south as Zihuatanejo, which is roughly 300 miles south-west.  This stretch doesn’t have many anchorages, and the ones it does offer (with one exception: Manzanillo) are not well-protected, so there’s a lot of motion at night it can be uncomfortable.  We decided to make a straight shot down and consider stopping on the way back if it seemed like the thing to do at the time.  🙂  It’s fun to have vague plans that are flexible and written in sand.  Our first couple days offered really nice sailing.  We weren’t sure how long the journey would take, since we
wanted to do it all under sail, if possible.  When we were traveling quickly, it looked like we might get there in as short as 3 full days (and nights), but when the wind was lighter a full week seemed more likely.

On the second afternoon, a brown booby (with green feet!) made a clumsy landing on our deck.  We talked to him and watched him off and on all evening and into the night.  The next morning he hopped off and swam in the water for a while before launching into flight.  Unfortunately his flight wasn’t very successful, and he couldn’t really get airborne.  He tried 3 or 4 times, and the last time came back to the boat.  His first attempt to land on the boat again could have been taken out of a slapstick cartoon like The Roadrunner.  He tried to land on the rail of the boat, but chose a stretch that was crossed by a big chain (attaching one of the stays for the mizzen mast to the chainplates on the hull).  He slammed into this chain and slithered down the side of the boat into the water.  The next attempt, although not very graceful, was much more successful.  We were worried that Bobby the Booby (as Kathy nicknamed him) was not very healthy.  Fortunately his strength did eventually return, and he was able to successfully fly off towards the shore later this same afternoon.  Perhaps he had an injury to one of his wings?  We’ll never know, but we sure are glad that this story didn’t end in tears!

On New Year’s Eve we were still underway.  The skies had been pretty cloudy for this passage, and they continued to fill in over the course of the day.  In the afternoon the winds picked up and we started to get a little bit of rain.  We were enjoying the sail, but the rain kept us inside.  There was a little bit of lightening, not on top of us, but kinda close.  Then without any warning the winds picked up suddenly, and the boat heeled dramatically to almost 45 degrees.  Chaos reigned for a little while as things on counters found a more comfortable place on floors.  The cap rail was submerged and green water was flowing over the decks on the downwind side of the boat.  We tried to furl the mainsail, but the winds were blowing too hard – about 50 knots!  The sail jammed and was flogging loudly as the wind howled and the boat heeled strongly to port.  We eventually got the other sails pulled in, but sustained varying amounts of damage to 4 of the 5.  After about 20 minutes the winds subsided to a much more manageable 30 knots.  We decided to head in to the nearest anchorage, to regroup and spend the night out of the worst of the weather, so we motored a couple of hours to the nearest anchorage, which is at a town called Caleta de Campos.  This turned out to be a sweet town, and we stayed there a few days to enjoy playing in the surf and to wait out the weather.  We dinghied ashore the first night to get some dinner for New Year’s Eve, only to find that most places were already shut down.  (We never did really figure out why that was!)  There was a boisterous group in one of the beach restaurants, though, that turned out to be about 10 20-something guys playing with a “beer bong” and chanting as each one took a turn chugging as much beer as could be poured into a 5 foot 1″ hose.  Some of them were seriously drunk!  But one of the guys emerged from the crowd to welcome us to Caleta de Campos and he encouraged one of the restaurants to open up for us to have dinner.  A few young families played nearby with sparklers, as the little children danced with glee.  We spent the next three days in this very authentic beachside town, and never saw another gringo face.

Friday morning we took James to shore for the last time, as he went to catch a bus further south.  His intent is to go to a language-immersion class in a town called San Cristobal, and then resume his sailing adventure down the coast a few weeks later.  It was sad to see him go – he proved himself to be a wonderful traveling companion, easy-going and full of life, and willing to lend a strong hand whenever it proves useful.

Now we’ve turned north again, to find a place (or two) where we can get a sail (or two) repaired and perhaps get one (or two) new replacement sails built.  We’ll need some professional guidance on which sails are salvageable.  We’re motoring north, but we’re enjoying ourselves and we’re not in a hurry.

Life is good, even when it looks different from the plans that we had created!

>> Kathy & Dan

This posting is being written as we sail down the Pacific Coast, and will be posted in the first town we find internet access. After our glorious summer in the Sea, we stayed in La Paz for another week or so until we found what we thought was a good weather window to cross the Sea of Cortez: a full week of winds in the right direction at a reasonable speed. We calculated that we’d be able to mke it all the way to Banderas Bay in four days, assuming the conditions held. This helped us decide to go directly there rather than heading straight across to Mazatlan and hopping down the coast. The first two days of our travels went according to plan, and we sailed along beautifully day and night. As expected we made it halfway across in the first 48 hours.  However, the winds petered out after those first two days, and we bobbed along slowly for the next five days, occasionally getting an hour or two of nice breeze.  This provided a nice opportunity to reflect on the contrasting  perspectives of life as a journey or as a race to reach a goal.  As we had hoped, our relationship with time is changing and evolving.

Rather than despair or turn on our motor, we pulled out a home renovation project.  🙂 We unbundled some flooring planks that we had purchased in Portland two years ago, and redid the floor in the master stateroom. We also began laying out flooring on two other surfaces in that room, but ran out of time before this part was finished. It’s looking quite nice, and we’re enjoying having the extra space on the deck where the bundles of flooring have been sitting ever since we left Portland last year.

On the 6th day of our trip we noticed that there were lots of fish swimming alongside the boat, including half a dozen dorados. Dan wondered if we could catch one by hand (because they didn’t seem to be biting on our fishing lines which are continually being trailed behind the boat).  First we tried to gaff one, by lining the hook up underneath it as it swam within arm’s reach of the boat and then quickly pulling up on the long handle of the gaff. Although Dan touched one, he was unable to hit it quickly enough to hook it.  Next he pulled out the spear-gun.  He carefully sighted one and pulled the trigger.  The spear shot out and hit the fish squarely on the side of the head, a perfect shot.  The fish jumped and with a huge surge snapped the “keeper line”, then swam off taking the spear with him.  Somewhere out there is a dorado with quite a headache!  Although we were unsuccessful in figuring out how to get a fish using these unconventional techniques, we did happen to catch a large dorado on a regular fishing line a couple of hours later.  It was by far the largest fist we’ve caught to date – 48 inches! It’s the kind of fish that deep-sea fishermen might take a prize photo of, hanging alongside them on the dock, but we weren’t set up for that.  So here’s a less dramatic photo of the critter on our deck, before it had completely given up the ghost.  Dorados are spectacularly beautifully colored, with shimmery blues and greens and brilliant yellow tails, especially when they are excited by the hunt. The moment they die, though, the color drains out of them, turning to drab silvery greys – even the golden eye goes silver.  They are also amazingly delicious.  We cut this one into fillets which we popped into the freezer, and we’ll enjoy them at half a dozen meals over the next few weeks.

We stayed in contact with the ham radio network, and heard of a story brewing that we soon played a small role in.  “So there was this guy, see…” who was sailing across the Pacific.  He started in Australia in June if I remember right, but ran into some troubles on the way, mostly of the lack-of-wind variety, but also including dead batteries, torn sails, and eventually low supplies of food and water.  Since he only had an electric motor for propulsion, the dead batteries left him at the mercy of the winds.  He detoured a few hundred miles to Hawaii in August (with the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard)  to regroup, and resumed his travels in September – only to repeat the story.  As it turned out, we were about 5 miles from him on the morning of the 7th day of our trip.  He was becalmed again, but then we had been too for several days.  We decided to make a minor detour, for humanitarian purposes.  So we started our motor and put together a care package of enough food and water to get him through the next few days in case the winds didn’t pick up.  We powered over to his boat and pulled up alongside him long enough to toss two bags of food and two jugs of water. He says we brought the wind with us as well. As we pulled away, we turned off the motor and put our sails out again.  As it turned out, the winds delivered us all safely into the Bay that evening – and then died out again once we got in the shadow of the hills.  We were glad to drop anchor and get a good night’s sleep.  Except for this minor diversion, we sailed for 8 days continuously, our longest passage so far.  We enjoyed the time together, and we’re glad to be slowly ramping up our level of experience.

The next day we moved the boat into a marina, packed our bags and the following morning we flew to New York to visit Dan’s family for Thanksgiving.  We spent most of our visit with Dan’s mother, in her new apartment in New Jersey. We helped her with the last of her unpacking and hung some artwork. We found some surprisingly good local restaurants, and satisfied (temporarily) our desire for foods we’re unable to find in Mexico, especially Thai and sushi. Who knew Hackensack, NJ was such a culinary mecca.  The weather was chilly of course, but mostly clear and mild. We went into New York City a few times, once to listen to Dan’s sister Beth read a few selections from her newly published collection of short stories. We visited B&H Photo Superstore, which was quite an experience. It’s two stories in the heart of Manhattan packed with electronics and customers speaking every language you could imagine. The place must be owned by a Hasidic family, because all of the employees wore yarmulkes and many spoke with a Hebrew accent and wore the traditional garb, including tassles, underneath their work-shirts. We bought ourselves a pair of Android tablets and of course a few other items. Wisely we also got the extended warranty insurance, because one of them already got damaged when it fell off the bed later in the week. It’s on its way back to the manufacturer for repair, and we hope to see it again in February when Kathy’s sister Jean comes to visit. We also spent a few days in up-state New York at Aunt Nancy’s big old farmhouse with 16 lively family members.  It was a wonderful time, from catching up on everyone’s news to enjoying the wonderful meal to the traditionally contentious annual Scrabble game.  Back at the apartment in New Jersey we visited with a high-school girlfriend of Dan’s, now a professional photographer, and collected together all of the packages that we’d ordered on-line before heading back home to our boat. (For those keeping track, we also received the mariner’s credentials – captain’s licenses – that we applied for in San Diego in July!)

Now that we’re back in Mexico, we’re heading south down the Pacific coast for a few months.  We sold our motorcycle.  It turns out it doesn’t do all that well in salt-water, and Mexico has a really good bus system which we use frequently.  Down the road when we wish we had it back, we can purchase another bike.   We installed another two 235 watt solar panels. It turns out we didn’t have quite enough to keep up with our power demands when up in the warmer waters of the Sea of Cortez, mostly because of our large refrigerator and freezer; life is full of trade-offs!) Now we are ready for some new adventures.  We’ll start with Christmas in Barra de Navidad (seems appropriate, doesn’t it?), along with a dozen of our newest best friends. Who knows what else the winter will bring…

>> Kathy & Dan

We’re close to the one year anniversary since starting this adventure.  This time last year we’d left Portland and traveled down the California coast.  We crossed over the border into Mexico in late November.  We were excited and nervous and waiting to see how the cruising life would play out for us.  Some of that edge has worn off, but we’re still excited – and occasionally nervous.  So far, the cruising life has offered an amazing combination of experiences, and we’re still happily curious about what lies around the next corner.  In some ways we feel far more experienced than we were a year ago (and not without reason), but we also recognize that there’s still a lot for us to learn: about sailing, boat repair, weather, radios, fishing, Spanish, and the list goes on.

One thing that’s a bit of a surprise is the balance that cruising strikes between being on vacation and living an everyday life.  Cruising offers us the opportunity to live in some amazingly beautiful places, and to change the location periodically and spontaneously.  We get to see wondrous natural events, and have the time to notice the wonders that are always happening around us.  We have been lucky to have a number of visits from people that we care about, and when they come they are undoubtedly on vacation.  We share that vacation mindset and spend a bigger part of our time “playing”, which usually means snorkeling, kayaking, hiking, and fishing.  This last month we had two sets of visitors: first was 12-year-old Noah with his father Adam, organic farmers from Colorado, followed by Cap’n Ron and Ashley, long-time friends of ours from Portland who run a boater’s assistance business and a boat-cleaning service.  Both visits included a few days of lazy recreational fun.

The other side of the coin is “everyday life”, which apparently creeps up on one no matter where you live or what you do.  You still have to deal with taking care of your body (eating, sleeping), your home (laundry, shopping), your possessions (maintenance, repair, new purchases).  These activities can take more time and energy (and money!) when you’re in unfamiliar places and don’t know your way around, don’t have “regular” sources, don’t have a personal vehicle, don’t speak the local language, etc.  But that’s also part of the fun, not knowing how it will all play out.  I’ve probably already mentioned the boater’s quip that the definition of cruising is “boat repair in exotic locations”, but it’s definitely a fact of life.  When Noah & Adam came to visit, we had them bring a replacement circuit board for our watermaker and then spent the better part of an afternoon getting it installed – but the simple pleasure of having clean water again made it worth every minute!  When Ron & Ashley were here, our windlass stopped working after a brass key sheared.  Another couple of hours and a new one was in place.  Every time something needs attention like this, it makes us appreciate the role that it plays in keeping up the life that we are choosing to live.  Kathy spent most of the week before our visitors arrived making “chaps”, a cover for the dinghy to protect it from the sun.  This might extend the life of the dinghy by as much as a decade.  It might also protect it from stray fishing hooks and chafing from docks and other boats.

Every day presents this contrast between luxurious leisure and mundane maintenance.  Perhaps that is just what we wanted to experience when we left.  The relationship between the work we do and our quality of life is so much clearer than it was when we worked in cubicles.  We still have to make choices but we are choosing between various labors of love.  Do we go skin diving and get dinner or do we replace a fraying mizzen sheet or just lay on the deck with a good book?  Either way our life is richer as a result.  Vacation or “every day life”?  The lines are blurring deliciously.

No matter where you go, a frequent topic of conversation seems to be the weather.  That’s certainly true of the cruising world as well.  This summer has been the wettest they’ve seen in the Sea for several years.  The climax to the season was Hurricane Paul, which came barreling through the area in the middle of our visit with Noah & Adam.  Although the forecast kept showing a predicted track that turned north and then northwest before hitting the Baja peninsula, each time they updated the forecast the track was a little bit further east – and closer to us!  We’d hung around Loreto, and inched closer to Puerto Escondido for a few days, but on the day it was due to come through, we decided to run the last couple of miles for cover, arriving less than an hour before the winds kicked up.  It was kind of odd, running directly towards the storm, but that’s what we needed to do in order to get through the tiny entrance to the hurricane hole.  We got in safe and sound, and sat out a few hours of gusty winds and sporadic rain.  Lungta handled it beautifully, increasing our confidence in the vessel we’ve chosen to keep us and others we love safe and sound.  Eventually patches of blue sky appeared, and we wondered if this was the eye of the storm.  As it turned out, the storm hit just a little bit north of us and then turned to the left as expected.  We got some of its edge, but didn’t get winds much more than 35 knots.  It was an exciting experience, and we come out of it somewhat more knowledgeable and confident that we know what to expect and to do, but all-in-all it was “the hurricane that wasn’t”.

The weather is changing here, as with the rest of the northern hemisphere, rapidly turning from summer to fall.  The hurricane season is essentially over, as the last of the tropical storms spins down well south of the Baja peninsula.  The temps have cooled into the 70’s at night, and we’ve finally put a blanket back on the bed.  The water temperature has also dropped notably in the last few weeks and we’re swimming far less often.  The change of season brings about a new chapter in our travels.  We’re preparing to head back across the Sea to spend the winter on the mainland coast.  We’re in La Paz now, waiting for a good “weather window” to sail over.  This year we plan to head further south, not staying put in one place for so long.  We hope to get as far south as Zihuatenejo (Ixtapa).  But first we’ll leave the boat for a couple of weeks while we fly up to New York to visit Dan’s family for Thanksgiving.  Should be a nice vacation!  🙂

>> Kathy & Dan

We’ve found paradise (well, except for the lack of dancing girls Dan’s been hoping for).  We’ve spent the last two weeks toodling around several islands that are near Loreto.  We’ve had some wonderful sails along the way, and only motored a little bit.  This is exactly what we have been seeking!

The first stop we made was to a small island just a few miles north of Loreto, called Isla Coronados.  It’s a 950′ volcano, with steep cliffs on one side and white sandy beaches alternating with shallow rocky reefs on the other.  There’s a long sandy spit running west, and you can anchor either north or south of this.  Because the winds tend to come from the south this time of year, we chose to anchor on the north side – along with 6 other boats that had arrived before us!  We spent 4 days here, swimming, exploring the beaches, and of course, doing boat-work.  Other boats came and went; because it’s so close to Loreto, there are day-trips for tourists, although in the summer the tourists tend to be locals.  The water was spectacularly turquoise, forgive me if I say that every time I write!  There were schools of fish jumping in a way that reminded Kathy of a line of ballerinas in toe-shoes, but perhaps you just had to be there.  🙂  We also saw several turtles over the course of the day, but they didn’t ever stay for long, just up for a breath and back to wherever the turtles go when in paradise.  There were quite a few leaping rays, throughout the day, and most concentrated in the mornings.  They were making multiple jumps in a row, and seemed to being doing it in small groups.  The third morning we were there, we were treated to an amazing “ray show” (to quote a woman that we talked with later that day).  There were hundreds of rays jumping all around the bay, each landing making a splash which began to sound like applause.  Most of them were landing flat on their bellies, with a loud “splat!” but some were actually doing flips.  We haven’t seen that before, although we’ve heard of it.  These rays were similar to manta rays, with two long fins on either side of the mouth for funneling in plankton-rich water.  They were a good bit smaller than mantas, though, and are apparently called mobula rays.  It seemed obvious to us that this was a mass courtship event, and we speculated that the jumpers were the males and that they were trying to make the loudest sound, typically by jumping the highest.  A number of times after a string of jumps, there was an additional behavior at the surface that we were convinced was mating: we could see the very tips of the wings above the water’s surface, usually two pairs, swirling around and splashing for 30 seconds or so and then going back underneath for a cigarette.  We did a little research on-line, and found that there are numerous theories about why they might be doing this, ranging from parasite removal, a cooperative feeding technique, or just in play.  It was a real surprise to us that mating was not mentioned as a possibility!  Perhaps there are multiple behaviors that look similar but have different purposes…  At any rate, the “show” was a truly amazing sight to see.  It was not repeated the next day, and we haven’t seen anything like it since.

   LeapingMobulas Video

The last day we were there, we hiked to the volcano’s summit with a couple from another boat that was anchored near us (Jaye & Irwin on Winsome).  We thought we started at the trail-head, but it petered out pretty quickly and soon we were scrambling over huge boulders from a lava flow.  It was very slow going and getting hot, and we hadn’t even begun gaining any altitude!  So we decided to change course, and we wound over to a flatter sandy area that came closer to the base of the mountain.  This was a good move, because we happened to find the real trail, which we could tell because it was outlined on both sides with a perfect row of cabbage-sized rocks!  Our friend Irwin said that we’d found the yellow brick road!  Once the trail came back to the lava rock, it was marked with cairns, although they were fewer near the top and we got off trail again before summiting.  We spent a bit of time at the top enjoying the 360 degree view of the Sea of Cortez, the Baja peninsula, and a few neighboring islands.  It was worth the work, but it was mid-day and getting hotter, so we headed back down.  The trail was much easier to pick out, but we ran out of water and came close to heat exhaustion.  As soon as we made it to shore, each of us waded right out into the water to cool off – delicious!  Then we hopped in the dinghy and came back to Lungta for some serious rehydration.

Our friends were heading south, and we decided to travel together for a few days.  First we popped back to Loreto to visit the Sunday Farmer’s Market and get some fresh fruits and veggies.  While there, we met up with two other boating couples and stopped at a restaurant for brunch together.  Then we sailed across the channel to Isla Carmen, a large island with a dozen or so anchorages all around it.  We spent the next week or so circumnavigating Carmen.  First we sailed to the closest anchorage, named Puerto Ballandra.  We had a beautiful sail, including a drive-by visit by a huge pod of leaping dolphins.  Late in the afternoon, just as our friends were dropping their anchor, they called us on the radio and said that there were tons of bees all around and they’d prefer to go somewhere else.  Some people in the local boating community like to call this place Bee-landra, but this isn’t unique to this spot.  Apparently there is a type of honey bee in the Sea of Cortez that spends lots of its time in search of fresh water.  The scouts travel far and wide in search, and when they find some (like in a boat’s shower) they bring back a whole swarm of their friends and family.  Although we’ve seen a few bees here and there, we have yet to see a swarm.  They don’t seem to be aggressive at all, but nonetheless they can be pretty annoying.  They come inside and buzz around, they land on your sweaty back or legs, and you need to watch out that you don’t step or sit on one as you move around your regular life.  A woman we talked with more recently told us that these are called Mexican Sweat Bees.  So we decided to head to a place on the northern point where none of us had been before, Puerto de la Lancha. 

This was another amazing stop!  We both sailed right in on 15 knot winds and easily found a spot to anchor.  There were cliffs all around, broken up with cuts and shallow caves and even an arch or two.  The island is made up of the wonderful colored layers that we’ve raved about before, reds and greens, whites and browns, greys and yellows.  This anchorage had bits of all of them, including some really cool “lacy” rock formations with lots of holes and interesting shapes.  Underneath the surface was the best snorkeling we’ve seen yet, both in quantity and variety.  There were lots of sections with boulders piled up, and other sections with craggy walls.  Kathy spotted an octopus and Dan a turtle.  One day we took another hike, but were cut a bit shorter than we’d planned.  This island was once home to a big salt operation, and there’s a trail to the salt pond a couple of miles away.  We left the dinghy at a spot that had been used as a boat ramp, which had a road leading from it into the interior of the island.  This bay had been used to bring workers in from Loreto.  The beginning of our path wound up and around some sandy dunes and rocky hillocks with a few deep arroyos cutting through.  At one overlook, Dan spotted a bighorn sheep, which spooked when he called to the rest of us.  We all watched it bound across a high plateau.  A couple miles further down the road we encountered a jeep with two men in it who told us that we needed to turn back, that we couldn’t go any further.  Apparently the land where the salt operation had been was sold recently, and the new owners didn’t want visitors.  The bighorn sheep had been brought to the island a number of years ago, and the jeep had the insignia of a hunting outfit on its door.  A few days later, as we were sailing on the western coast of the island, both Dan and I heard a loud crack that we thought sounded like a gunshot. 

Our last night in this anchorage, Dan and Irwin caught three (yummy!) fish from the dinghy and Jaye showed Kathy how to make Pad Thai without *too* many exotic ingredients – we had a feast!  There were a few dolphins swimming around the bay with us this evening, and at various times they were doing some exciting acrobatics.  Kathy thought they were pretending they were whales.  At least one of them was doing repeated tail-slaps on the surface of the water, 4-6 times in a row.  We’ve never seen this from dolphins before, but we did see a few whales in Alaska do this.  It appeared that another one started imitating him before the evening was out.  There were also a few instances of spy-hopping, where they peek their heads up above the surface and then back down, another unusual behavior for dolphins.  They stayed within sight of the boat for more than an hour.

Then we went our separate ways: Winsome headed south towards La Paz and we headed east the other direction around Isla Carmen.  We had a typical day sailing, which these days means that we start out with a bang, have an hour or two of splendid wind, then sit in the doldrums for another couple of hours until the wind picks up again in the late afternoon.  We changed our anchorage plans several times over the course of the day, and ended up in a place on the northeast side of the island called Painted Cliffs.  Not surprisingly, this place has lots of interesting rock walls with all the colors and craggy formations that we love to poke around.  The terrain underwater was also quite rocky and made our dinghy exploration more challenging.  🙂  We love to poke along the shoreline in the dinghy looking at the more interesting features up close.

We’re expecting guests, Dan’s father and then youngest son with his girl friend, in a few weeks, and we’re scouting out places to take them.  So we’re visiting lots of different places in the Loreto area to get the lay of the land, but no longer staying anywhere for long.  We continued around the island, and stopped at two more along the way (Isla Monserrate and Isla Danzante, for the cartographers or geographers out there).  Then we decided to make a quick trip to Loreto to catch the Sunday Farmer’s Market again.  We stayed the night just off the shore there, although it’s an open roadstead anchorage.  That night there was a lot of storm activity which blew over from the mainland.  We watched lightning off in the distance, but were convinced that it had died off before we went to sleep.  We made sure things were secure on deck just in case.  At 5am – boom, boom – a big crack of thunder woke us from our sleep.  We jumped out of bed and saw that a storm was pretty close, with lots of lightning and thunder.  We were in quite shallow water and unsure if this storm was going to include much wind, so we pulled up our anchor and moved out into deeper water.  Of course since we were in a hurry, nothing went as smoothly as usual.  The anchor chain kept getting stuck in the pockets of the chain-wheel, the engine didn’t start on the first try, etc.  But in the big picture, everything went fine.  We saw some pretty exciting lightning, some very close with the thunder co-incident with the bolt.  We got a little bit of rain, but still not enough to wash the layers of dust off the sails and decks – just enough for a fashionable pattern of overlapping dots.  And now we feel more comfortable with some of the more intense weather patterns that happen here; not complacent by any means, but more confident that we know what it will look and feel like, and we know what to do.  As we were motoring along, Dan put out a fishing line as he often does, and a dorado bit.  These fish are one of the sportfisher’s favorites: they’re tasty, they’re beautiful, and they put up a good fight with a big show of leaping.  We didn’t know it was a dorado until it was right up alongside the boat, because it was very passive, but just then it began zigging and zagging, and it managed to shake the hook off.  So we got to see this beautiful green and yellow fish swim off into the deeps.  A little disappointing, but exciting nonetheless.

We’re going to spend a few more days in the Loreto area, and then head north for a couple of weeks.  We hear lots of good things about the San Juanico area, so we want to check that out before our guests arrive

>> Kathy & Dan