We have had no communication outside - no telephone and this is the first internet and probably only one of three times that we will be able to access the net until we arrive in Cabo San Lucas. Turtle Bay is about 1/3 of the way down the west coast of the Baja. I am posting my up to date blog below, but I cannot download pictures right now as we are in an internet cafe.
November 15 2010
Motoring Cabo San Quintin to Cabo San Carlos
The lobster was well received and the next morning we awoke to pea sou fog. Lyle tried out the single side band and we were able to receive sketchy bits of “Don’s Amiga Net” weather blog and cruisers udate Much fiddling with dials and frequencies and referring to Downwind Marine’s guide helped us learn that the weather for the next few days was going to remain calm.
We all agreed to try a dinghy exploration despite the foggy conditions, but we took a hand held compass bearing to find Aleydabeth in case we couldn’t locate her again. We were anchored on a long shallow shoal so it was a good distance to shore at Cabo San Quintin. A speck had shown up on radar that morning, and sure enough we encountered another sailboat, Blue Rodeo anchored off our starboard side. They had crept in in the fog at night and dropped anchor. While trying to hail the sleeping crew, on VHF, we got a response from Silas Crosby who were anchored a long way up the inlet and learned that T’skala had gone on to the San Benito Island Group.
We went ashore in calm swells to a sandy beach. We spent lovely hours beach comb i8ng in half fog then full sun. There were truck/quad tracks on the ground and beach and signs of fire and trash. But also, a mixgure of lovely sand and rocks with ounding surf. The far side of the oint provided a wealth of abalone shells. Ii found a lovely blue piece that will make a pretty necklace.
We reboarded the tender and set off for a long ride int the channel to Silas Crosby, who because of her design can anchor in much shallower water. The ride took us about 40 minutes and we were welcomed aboard and got reacquainted with the crew and toured the boat.
There were grey whales in the shallows and we delighted in watching them blow and surface, their sleek grey backs slipping in and out of the water.
I had a nice visit with Meredith, the lone female crew member who was teaching herself how to knit and had a nice pair of socks on the go. The men had cervezas and talked SSB radios and boat design. My clothes were wet so we returned to Aleydabeth, via a short stop at Blue Rodeo, where we met Mike and Ann, a couple from the Pacific Northwest, bound for Puerto Vallarta. They had circumnavigated Vancouver Island last year. We had seen them on the police dock in San Diego with the other cruise boats and they had been entering Ensenada as we were leaving.
We struck out early again and were underway by 3:30 in dense fog and no wind, calm seas and high humidity. I was able to do biscuits for b reakfast and curried tuna wraps for lunch and have stood one daylight watch. The motor quit but Lyle was able to restart and get us on our way. An airlock of some kind I gather.
November 18, 2010 – Islas San Benitos from Cabo San Carlos
We anchored Tuesday night off of Cabo San Carlos. It was a bit windier and we had no fog. The setting sun played with light on the mesa toped hills that formed a semi-circle around us. The cacti were visible along the mesa top. Pelicans delighted us again. We had a very early night and were underway to the San Benitos Islands by midnight. The wind had died off and we motored through the night with Tony and Lyle sharing the watch and me fully dressed aslee on the settee. The forward stateroom that is our bedroom is bouncy and Ii feel a bit claustrophobic when we are underway, as the dinghy is over the hatch and the motor separates me from the cockpit. I feel happier curled up on the settee with half an ear to the goings on in the cockpit.
I took the 6 a.m. helm and kept it until 9 while Lyle tried to listen in to the SSB weather and raised the genoa to catch a bit of wind. By 11 am after lunch, I was once again napping and the sailors caught some wind and we remained under sail until just before our arrival in the San Benitos Islands around 3 p.m. The approach was interesting. More and more we recognize the importance of getting into our anchorage in daylight. On this chart we crossed ddirectly over land on the island to reach the bay where we dropped the hook. I got a picture of the Lowrance to post on the website for the enjoyment of navigators bound for Mexican waters! There was an outcropping rock that was unmarked and not mentioned in Charlie’s Charts either. Charlie has been our premiere tour guide to this point on the Baja. We encountered vast kelp beds on the approach and in the bay, and Lyle weaved his way amongst them with Anthony directing from the bow.. A steady wind of about 5 knots blew in the bay so we got the anchor down and set. A small fishing village again was off the beam and we were only there for about 10 minutes when a panga arrived with a father and son who were clearly fishermen. We assumed that they wanted to trade lobster for goods and we set about trying to negotiate in our broken Spanish.
It was a good lesson for me. We had assumed from the guide books and the cruising conversation that they would want something from us in barter. As it turned out, he gave us fish as a gift that he filleted as we watched, refused pesos or gifts and was obviously trying to tell us something that we didn’t understand. It turned out that he was asking for zip lock or plastic bags of any sort, so that he could refrigerate and store his fish until he got them to market. He had obviously run out of “bolsa”….bags. The father’s name was Francisco and his son was Camillo. They didn’t want beer or rum or candy, just plastic bags. This is a real outpost in Mexico, and the closest I could compare it to would be a remote logging camp in Canada. We had sailed all day out of sight of the mainland with only sea around us. Francisco had a digital camera that he snapped a picture of us with, and we joked later about our misconceptions and our confused paradigm. We laughed and thought he would return to his camp where he probably had a satellite phone, internet and a television dish!!
A second boat with a lively crew of 3 young men came alongside later. They spoke some English and told us that they ran a patrol at night, as divers were coming from a neighboring island San Cedros, and “stealing” their abalone. Anthony called it “Surf Wars.” He told us that the village lights went out at 10 p.m.
The anchorage had new and interesting bird life and a plethora of seals. Many of them were curious and came close alongside and popped their heads up to check us out. Lyle said he was reluctant to leave the dinghy alongside the boat, as one might jump in. I wondered if they were use to getting fish scraps from the pangas. Tony snorkeled for a while later in the day, and the seals came right up to him in the water.
After breakfast the following morning a group of Americans arrived in a power boat called Kona Lai and stopped by on their way to the island. They were looking for donkeys! They had heard there were some on the island. (I think someone was pulling their leg, or making a reference to the braying of the sea lion colony on the small island). They came back without landing and generously left us zip lock bags in case the fishermen returned.
Lyle and Anthony spent a few hours ashore and came back elated having spent a great beachcombing day. They discovered two light houses and a church. I remained aboard and tried my first round of Aleydabeth bread and had some quiet Lark time and washed my hair and bathed. I had hoped for sunshine and a sun tan, but even though I donned a bikini, it wasn’t quite warm enough to sit out for long. I hope that Anthony or Lyle will write something up about the island and I will post it with pictures here for you.
November 19, 2010 – Islas San Benitos to Baja San Bartolome (Turtle Bay)
We were away again by 4 a.m. Tony took the first watch, and I came up at 6 a.m. so that the men could tune in to the SSB for updates on weather. It was an uneventful but pleasant day. The sun came out and we were able to get into shorts by mid day. There is no wind, it was a motoring day, with the genoa poled out and a few vain attempts to get the main up.
The forecast is for 25-30 knot winds by Monday, so we will be planning our route accordingly.
I certainly underestimated the distances. We are at Turtle Bay tonight which is the one port with services since Ensenada. We will need fuel and could use water. The only other place that we will have availability to services is at Magdalena Bay which is still 3-4 days away unless we run 24-7. And then we still have about 1/3 of the distance to go to Cabo San Lucas. I haven’t had the rest and relaxation part of this sailing adventure yet! We are in bed just after dark and up just after dawn, the men hoisting sail, plotting courses, planning weather, securing the dinghy and raising and lowering the anchor. I am busy with food preparation and clean up – which seems to meld happily from one meal into the next!
We are becoming one happy cohesive family. I was waxing my legs in the cockpit yesterday morning, sure that everyone was asleep, and Anthony came up on deck but seemed unconcerned, thank goodness. I was glad I had finished with the bikini line!
As I write we are anchored in Turtle Bay. It is American Thanksgiving. There is a Mexican national holiday (Revolution Day) tomorrow. We can hear the Friday night music coming from the bars/restaurants on the shore. There are about 10 other cruisers at anchor. We met a single handed sailor, Andy, who started out from Victoria on October 10th, and stopped only once in Ensenada. He is anchored for a well deserved rest!
Tomorrow we will go ashore, and see what there is to see in Turtle Bay. I hope to get some internet access, get rid of garbage, find laundry and take on fuel, and prepare for the next leg of the journey to Magdalena Bay.
Cheers to all of you who are following our adventure!
November 12, 2010
Ensenada to Punto Santo Tomas
We were finally able to meet the last requirements of Mexico’s bureaucracy yesterday – after another wait for a computer system that was “down”. We toured the downtown streets – designed to attract and appeal to the new cruise ship crowd that was docked across from our very bumpy Baja Naval. We tried some back streets, found a good lunch spot, walked a little in the sun and returned to the boat for a quiet evening. We tried some phone calls home to Canada, as we knew that we would not be in touch for a while, and hooked up water hoses and sprayed out the last remains of the wine yeast that was happily growing in the bilge. Glad that is over with. I am much more careful with wine these days – in more ways than one!
We made our way from Ensenada to Punto Santo Tomas, a tiny Mexican fishing village about 22 miles down the coast. It was a pleasant mixture of motor and sail and we had light winds and sunshine for the trip. This is my kind of sailing – no more than 10-15 knots, no rain clouds and no storms in sight!
We anchored in a windy spot around a point of land, and had to re-set a couple of times as we were drifting toward a rather unkind looking rock. The charts were unreliable to say the least. When we finally dropped the hook, the Lowrance indicated that we were on land. The charts also managed to miss a small rock island, Rocas Soledad that rose 20’ out of the water off of the point we were rounding. Charlie’s charts noted it, although any sailor would be hard pressed to miss a visual sighting unless it was foggy or dark. I don’t know much about radar, but I am confident it would show up there too! All those warnings about charts in Mexico seem to be well founded.
The men toasted actually cruising in Mexico (with tequila of course) and we indulged in a fine ham dinner aboard.
November 13, 2010 – Long Run to Isla San Martin – Caletta Hassler Harbour
We started out at 3:30 a.m. I awoke to the men making coffee and prepping in the galley, donning headlamps and firing up the chart plotter and radar. We were underway quickly, just skirting around the numerous kelp beds that dotted the harbor with AJ again on the bow calling back information via me to Lyle at the helm.
I intended to make a hot breakfast enroute, but again the large swells and moving galley made it impossible for me. I either need to be on deck or asleep in the cabin at the settee or I succumb to the motion. So after sleeping through two watches, I finally got up and got half way through breakfast sandwiches when Lyle had to take over the galley duty.
It was a day of motoring, calm seas but big swells. I managed to do a 2 hour watch around noon. I really feel like I am not pulling my weight on the long run days. I am trying out the Mexican sea sick meds called sturgeron. It is another antihistamine group like the bonamine, but I need to take them more frequently.
While I was at the wheel and Anthony was taking a nap, Lyle managed to hook up the salt water pump in the galley. What a nice asset this is to clean up. With just a few pumps of your foot, you have a sink full of salt water to do dishes. I am very conscious now of our fresh water supply. I managed to take a sink bath in the bathroom in about a cup of water ( I think I invented a new yoga move, getting my foot up the four feet into a 6” x 4” sink!) That didn’t turn out to be a good idea in the end. When I drained the sink I spilled half of its contents on to the floor of the bathroom. Poor Lyle is now into another re-design of the sink drain.
It isn’t warm in the cockpit while sailing yet. I was wearing my swimsuit (still optimistic) shorts, t-shirt, long sleeved T-shirt, wind pants, wool sweater, hoodie, gloves and life jacket, socks and shoes while at the wheel. We are being affected by “La Nina” which is supposedly making the weather cooler than normal. I am promised that as we swing around Cabo we will suddenly be in the tropics! I hope so, we will cross the Tropic of Cancer around that time.
We were rewarded by our anchorage that night. We made it safely into Caletta Hassler, on Isla San Martin, and got anchored in calm water just before a beautiful sunset over a volcanic island. We managed to sit out on deck and enjoy it. The weather seemed milder. This has been the best anchorage so far. It is calm and as night falls we see the small fishing boats anchored. It is a fish camp and wildlife sanctuary.
November 14, 2010 – Caletta Hassler
Our internal clocks are synchronizing with the Mexico days and nights. We are often in bed by 8 or 8:30 and the men are up listening to weather reports on the SSB by 6:30 a.m. I am still tucked comfortably in my bunk, not asleep of course, just listening to the start of the day and the propane detector and coffee firing up.
We awoke to fog and Anthony cooking oatmeal. Around 8 a.m., a small fishing vessel with two young Mexican men aboard came alongside Aleydabeth. Their English was as good as our Spanish, but we managed to understand that they wanted to trade us for lobster. They are working lobster fishermen. They go out to their nets and bring lobster back to underwater storage cages in the harbor. We were unsure what they wanted to trade for, but they mentioned cerveza, then cookies. We had been advised by an American yachter in San Diego that the outpost fishermen don’t have regular access to groceries so we had purchased Halloween candy on his advice. We gave the two young men a bag of Hershey treats, and we got 4 good sized lobsters in return. (We had 5, but one very enterprising lobster managed to eject himself overboard with his tail, before we got him secure.) It was heartwarming to see how happy the two young men were with the treats. They sped away in their boat and we could hear them laughing. They had the bag open in moments and obviously thought they had the better half of the deal! I don’t think so!
Later on, two older men came and asked for “soda” so we gave them Coca Cola.
We packed a day pack and took the dinghy to shore. Our landing was much nicer than Santa Cruz island. We landed in a light surf on the sandy shore of a volcanic island covered in lichen and cacti. There are black igneous rocks everywhere and a lagoon with black and yellow sand beaches. The lagoon is open to the ocean through a small opening and the seals come in to languor in the sun. They have their heads poked above the surface and keep a close watch on us as we skirt them on shore, then duck under when we get too close. There is a rock breakwater that extends in a semi-circle, and of course a few rustic shelters that are the fish camp. Rumor has it that pirates constructed the breakwater.
There was still rolling fog and sun breaking through in patches when we landed. We got haunting snapshots of the boat through the fog.
I have never seen so many pelicans. I tried to get pictures of them in huge swarming flocks overhead. I have never seen them in groups of more than 3 or four flying in formation, but today there were hundreds of them overhead. There is a small island covered with guano that they seem to flock to. What is interesting is that they are so silent. It was a remarkable experience, so many birds around us and so quiet.
After a couple of well spent hours exploring the island and taking pictures, we returned to Aleydabeth in full sunshine and went for a swim. It was chilly, but we managed to don our swim suits and take our first dip in Mexican waters. A fresh water shower on deck to rinse out the shampoo and we are officially baptized as cruisers in Mexico!
After lunch we sailed and motored to Cabo San Quintin, another very calm anchorage, but the shore seemed very distant. I felt like I was anchored in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I can’t tell where the sky ends and the water begins. There are occasional huge swells that we can feel lift the boat, then watch as they make their way to the distant shore and crash in huge breakers on the rocks. I think they must have started in Japan!
While motoring today we had a pod of Pacific White Sided Dolphins playing on our bow and alongside us. Some of them were very big, and Lyle got pictures off the bow. They stayed with us for a long while, frolicking in our wake and dodging and diving under our keel. What an amazing day this has been.
And to end it all, Anthony the Terrible executed the lobster in boiling water in the galley and the crew feasted on fresh seafood in the cockpit!
The following are pictures of San Quintin:
November 15 2010
Motoring Cabo San Quintin to Cabo San Carlos
The lobster was well received and the next morning we awoke to pea sou fog. Lyle tried out the single side band and we were able to receive sketchy bits of “Don’s Amiga Net” weather blog and cruisers udate Much fiddling with dials and frequencies and referring to Downwind Marine’s guide helped us learn that the weather for the next few days was going to remain calm.
We all agreed to try a dinghy exploration despite the foggy conditions, but we took a hand held compass bearing to find Aleydabeth in case we couldn’t locate her again. We were anchored on a long shallow shoal so it was a good distance to shore at Cabo San Quintin. A speck had shown up on radar that morning, and sure enough we encountered another sailboat, Blue Rodeo anchored off our starboard side. They had crept in in the fog at night and dropped anchor. While trying to hail the sleeping crew, on VHF, we got a response from Silas Crosby who were anchored a long way up the inlet and learned that T’skala had gone on to the San Benito Island Group.
We went ashore in calm swells to a sandy beach. We spent lovely hours beach comb i8ng in half fog then full sun. There were truck/quad tracks on the ground and beach and signs of fire and trash. But also, a mixgure of lovely sand and rocks with ounding surf. The far side of the oint provided a wealth of abalone shells. Ii found a lovely blue piece that will make a pretty necklace.
We reboarded the tender and set off for a long ride int the channel to Silas Crosby, who because of her design can anchor in much shallower water. The ride took us about 40 minutes and we were welcomed aboard and got reacquainted with the crew and toured the boat.
There were grey whales in the shallows and we delighted in watching them blow and surface, their sleek grey backs slipping in and out of the water.
I had a nice visit with Meredith, the lone female crew member who was teaching herself how to knit and had a nice pair of socks on the go. The men had cervezas and talked SSB radios and boat design. My clothes were wet so we returned to Aleydabeth, via a short stop at Blue Rodeo, where we met Mike and Ann, a couple from the Pacific Northwest, bound for Puerto Vallarta. They had circumnavigated Vancouver Island last year. We had seen them on the police dock in San Diego with the other cruise boats and they had been entering Ensenada as we were leaving.
We struck out early again and were underway by 3:30 in dense fog and no wind, calm seas and high humidity. I was able to do biscuits for b reakfast and curried tuna wraps for lunch and have stood one daylight watch. The motor quit but Lyle was able to restart and get us on our way. An airlock of some kind I gather.
November 18, 2010 – Islas San Benitos from Cabo San Carlos
We anchored Tuesday night off of Cabo San Carlos. It was a bit windier and we had no fog. The setting sun played with light on the mesa toped hills that formed a semi-circle around us. The cacti were visible along the mesa top. Pelicans delighted us again. We had a very early night and were underway to the San Benitos Islands by midnight. The wind had died off and we motored through the night with Tony and Lyle sharing the watch and me fully dressed aslee on the settee. The forward stateroom that is our bedroom is bouncy and Ii feel a bit claustrophobic when we are underway, as the dinghy is over the hatch and the motor separates me from the cockpit. I feel happier curled up on the settee with half an ear to the goings on in the cockpit.
I took the 6 a.m. helm and kept it until 9 while Lyle tried to listen in to the SSB weather and raised the genoa to catch a bit of wind. By 11 am after lunch, I was once again napping and the sailors caught some wind and we remained under sail until just before our arrival in the San Benitos Islands around 3 p.m. The approach was interesting. More and more we recognize the importance of getting into our anchorage in daylight. On this chart we crossed ddirectly over land on the island to reach the bay where we dropped the hook. I got a picture of the Lowrance to post on the website for the enjoyment of navigators bound for Mexican waters! There was an outcropping rock that was unmarked and not mentioned in Charlie’s Charts either. Charlie has been our premiere tour guide to this point on the Baja. We encountered vast kelp beds on the approach and in the bay, and Lyle weaved his way amongst them with Anthony directing from the bow.. A steady wind of about 5 knots blew in the bay so we got the anchor down and set. A small fishing village again was off the beam and we were only there for about 10 minutes when a panga arrived with a father and son who were clearly fishermen. We assumed that they wanted to trade lobster for goods and we set about trying to negotiate in our broken Spanish.
It was a good lesson for me. We had assumed from the guide books and the cruising conversation that they would want something from us in barter. As it turned out, he gave us fish as a gift that he filleted as we watched, refused pesos or gifts and was obviously trying to tell us something that we didn’t understand. It turned out that he was asking for zip lock or plastic bags of any sort, so that he could refrigerate and store his fish until he got them to market. He had obviously run out of “bolsa”….bags. The father’s name was Francisco and his son was Camillo. They didn’t want beer or rum or candy, just plastic bags. This is a real outpost in Mexico, and the closest I could compare it to would be a remote logging camp in Canada. We had sailed all day out of sight of the mainland with only sea around us. Francisco had a digital camera that he snapped a picture of us with, and we joked later about our misconceptions and our confused paradigm. We laughed and thought he would return to his camp where he probably had a satellite phone, internet and a television dish!!
A second boat with a lively crew of 3 young men came alongside later. They spoke some English and told us that they ran a patrol at night, as divers were coming from a neighboring island San Cedros, and “stealing” their abalone. Anthony called it “Surf Wars.” He told us that the village lights went out at 10 p.m.
The anchorage had new and interesting bird life and a plethora of seals. Many of them were curious and came close alongside and popped their heads up to check us out. Lyle said he was reluctant to leave the dinghy alongside the boat, as one might jump in. I wondered if they were use to getting fish scraps from the pangas. Tony snorkeled for a while later in the day, and the seals came right up to him in the water.
After breakfast the following morning a group of Americans arrived in a power boat called Kona Lai and stopped by on their way to the island. They were looking for donkeys! They had heard there were some on the island. (I think someone was pulling their leg, or making a reference to the braying of the sea lion colony on the small island). They came back without landing and generously left us zip lock bags in case the fishermen returned.
Lyle and Anthony spent a few hours ashore and came back elated having spent a great beachcombing day. They discovered two light houses and a church. I remained aboard and tried my first round of Aleydabeth bread and had some quiet Lark time and washed my hair and bathed. I had hoped for sunshine and a sun tan, but even though I donned a bikini, it wasn’t quite warm enough to sit out for long. I hope that Anthony or Lyle will write something up about the island and I will post it with pictures here for you.
November 19, 2010 – Islas San Benitos to Baja San Bartolome (Turtle Bay)
We were away again by 4 a.m. Tony took the first watch, and I came up at 6 a.m. so that the men could tune in to the SSB for updates on weather. It was an uneventful but pleasant day. The sun came out and we were able to get into shorts by mid day. There is no wind, it was a motoring day, with the genoa poled out and a few vain attempts to get the main up.
The forecast is for 25-30 knot winds by Monday, so we will be planning our route accordingly.
I certainly underestimated the distances. We are at Turtle Bay tonight which is the one port with services since Ensenada. We will need fuel and could use water. The only other place that we will have availability to services is at Magdalena Bay which is still 3-4 days away unless we run 24-7. And then we still have about 1/3 of the distance to go to Cabo San Lucas. I haven’t had the rest and relaxation part of this sailing adventure yet! We are in bed just after dark and up just after dawn, the men hoisting sail, plotting courses, planning weather, securing the dinghy and raising and lowering the anchor. I am busy with food preparation and clean up – which seems to meld happily from one meal into the next!
We are becoming one happy cohesive family. I was waxing my legs in the cockpit yesterday morning, sure that everyone was asleep, and Anthony came up on deck but seemed unconcerned, thank goodness. I was glad I had finished with the bikini line!
As I write we are anchored in Turtle Bay. It is American Thanksgiving. There is a Mexican national holiday (Revolution Day) tomorrow. We can hear the Friday night music coming from the bars/restaurants on the shore. There are about 10 other cruisers at anchor. We met a single handed sailor, Andy, who started out from Victoria on October 10th, and stopped only once in Ensenada. He is anchored for a well deserved rest!
Tomorrow we will go ashore, and see what there is to see in Turtle Bay. I hope to get some internet access, get rid of garbage, find laundry and take on fuel, and prepare for the next leg of the journey to Magdalena Bay.
Cheers to all of you who are following our adventure!
November 12, 2010
Ensenada to Punto Santo Tomas
We were finally able to meet the last requirements of Mexico’s bureaucracy yesterday – after another wait for a computer system that was “down”. We toured the downtown streets – designed to attract and appeal to the new cruise ship crowd that was docked across from our very bumpy Baja Naval. We tried some back streets, found a good lunch spot, walked a little in the sun and returned to the boat for a quiet evening. We tried some phone calls home to Canada, as we knew that we would not be in touch for a while, and hooked up water hoses and sprayed out the last remains of the wine yeast that was happily growing in the bilge. Glad that is over with. I am much more careful with wine these days – in more ways than one!
We made our way from Ensenada to Punto Santo Tomas, a tiny Mexican fishing village about 22 miles down the coast. It was a pleasant mixture of motor and sail and we had light winds and sunshine for the trip. This is my kind of sailing – no more than 10-15 knots, no rain clouds and no storms in sight!
We anchored in a windy spot around a point of land, and had to re-set a couple of times as we were drifting toward a rather unkind looking rock. The charts were unreliable to say the least. When we finally dropped the hook, the Lowrance indicated that we were on land. The charts also managed to miss a small rock island, Rocas Soledad that rose 20’ out of the water off of the point we were rounding. Charlie’s charts noted it, although any sailor would be hard pressed to miss a visual sighting unless it was foggy or dark. I don’t know much about radar, but I am confident it would show up there too! All those warnings about charts in Mexico seem to be well founded.
The men toasted actually cruising in Mexico (with tequila of course) and we indulged in a fine ham dinner aboard.
November 13, 2010 – Long Run to Isla San Martin – Caletta Hassler Harbour
We started out at 3:30 a.m. I awoke to the men making coffee and prepping in the galley, donning headlamps and firing up the chart plotter and radar. We were underway quickly, just skirting around the numerous kelp beds that dotted the harbor with AJ again on the bow calling back information via me to Lyle at the helm.
I intended to make a hot breakfast enroute, but again the large swells and moving galley made it impossible for me. I either need to be on deck or asleep in the cabin at the settee or I succumb to the motion. So after sleeping through two watches, I finally got up and got half way through breakfast sandwiches when Lyle had to take over the galley duty.
It was a day of motoring, calm seas but big swells. I managed to do a 2 hour watch around noon. I really feel like I am not pulling my weight on the long run days. I am trying out the Mexican sea sick meds called sturgeron. It is another antihistamine group like the bonamine, but I need to take them more frequently.
While I was at the wheel and Anthony was taking a nap, Lyle managed to hook up the salt water pump in the galley. What a nice asset this is to clean up. With just a few pumps of your foot, you have a sink full of salt water to do dishes. I am very conscious now of our fresh water supply. I managed to take a sink bath in the bathroom in about a cup of water ( I think I invented a new yoga move, getting my foot up the four feet into a 6” x 4” sink!) That didn’t turn out to be a good idea in the end. When I drained the sink I spilled half of its contents on to the floor of the bathroom. Poor Lyle is now into another re-design of the sink drain.
It isn’t warm in the cockpit while sailing yet. I was wearing my swimsuit (still optimistic) shorts, t-shirt, long sleeved T-shirt, wind pants, wool sweater, hoodie, gloves and life jacket, socks and shoes while at the wheel. We are being affected by “La Nina” which is supposedly making the weather cooler than normal. I am promised that as we swing around Cabo we will suddenly be in the tropics! I hope so, we will cross the Tropic of Cancer around that time.
We were rewarded by our anchorage that night. We made it safely into Caletta Hassler, on Isla San Martin, and got anchored in calm water just before a beautiful sunset over a volcanic island. We managed to sit out on deck and enjoy it. The weather seemed milder. This has been the best anchorage so far. It is calm and as night falls we see the small fishing boats anchored. It is a fish camp and wildlife sanctuary.
November 14, 2010 – Caletta Hassler
Our internal clocks are synchronizing with the Mexico days and nights. We are often in bed by 8 or 8:30 and the men are up listening to weather reports on the SSB by 6:30 a.m. I am still tucked comfortably in my bunk, not asleep of course, just listening to the start of the day and the propane detector and coffee firing up.
We awoke to fog and Anthony cooking oatmeal. Around 8 a.m., a small fishing vessel with two young Mexican men aboard came alongside Aleydabeth. Their English was as good as our Spanish, but we managed to understand that they wanted to trade us for lobster. They are working lobster fishermen. They go out to their nets and bring lobster back to underwater storage cages in the harbor. We were unsure what they wanted to trade for, but they mentioned cerveza, then cookies. We had been advised by an American yachter in San Diego that the outpost fishermen don’t have regular access to groceries so we had purchased Halloween candy on his advice. We gave the two young men a bag of Hershey treats, and we got 4 good sized lobsters in return. (We had 5, but one very enterprising lobster managed to eject himself overboard with his tail, before we got him secure.) It was heartwarming to see how happy the two young men were with the treats. They sped away in their boat and we could hear them laughing. They had the bag open in moments and obviously thought they had the better half of the deal! I don’t think so!
Later on, two older men came and asked for “soda” so we gave them Coca Cola.
We packed a day pack and took the dinghy to shore. Our landing was much nicer than Santa Cruz island. We landed in a light surf on the sandy shore of a volcanic island covered in lichen and cacti. There are black igneous rocks everywhere and a lagoon with black and yellow sand beaches. The lagoon is open to the ocean through a small opening and the seals come in to languor in the sun. They have their heads poked above the surface and keep a close watch on us as we skirt them on shore, then duck under when we get too close. There is a rock breakwater that extends in a semi-circle, and of course a few rustic shelters that are the fish camp. Rumor has it that pirates constructed the breakwater.
There was still rolling fog and sun breaking through in patches when we landed. We got haunting snapshots of the boat through the fog.
I have never seen so many pelicans. I tried to get pictures of them in huge swarming flocks overhead. I have never seen them in groups of more than 3 or four flying in formation, but today there were hundreds of them overhead. There is a small island covered with guano that they seem to flock to. What is interesting is that they are so silent. It was a remarkable experience, so many birds around us and so quiet.
After a couple of well spent hours exploring the island and taking pictures, we returned to Aleydabeth in full sunshine and went for a swim. It was chilly, but we managed to don our swim suits and take our first dip in Mexican waters. A fresh water shower on deck to rinse out the shampoo and we are officially baptized as cruisers in Mexico!
After lunch we sailed and motored to Cabo San Quintin, another very calm anchorage, but the shore seemed very distant. I felt like I was anchored in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I can’t tell where the sky ends and the water begins. There are occasional huge swells that we can feel lift the boat, then watch as they make their way to the distant shore and crash in huge breakers on the rocks. I think they must have started in Japan!
While motoring today we had a pod of Pacific White Sided Dolphins playing on our bow and alongside us. Some of them were very big, and Lyle got pictures off the bow. They stayed with us for a long while, frolicking in our wake and dodging and diving under our keel. What an amazing day this has been.
And to end it all, Anthony the Terrible executed the lobster in boiling water in the galley and the crew feasted on fresh seafood in the cockpit!
The following are pictures of San Quintin: