February 28 - Under sail ... getting nowhere

Today we set out at 6am.  We have 35 miles to travel and would like to sail some and maybe arrive early enough to enjoy our next anchorage.

As we motor our way out of Puerto Refugio, the wind starts to pick up.  This gets us excited as we want some wind to be able to sail.

But the wind is from the SSW and continues to increase.  Pretty soon it is in the teens, and we put a reef in the main.  Then it climbs some more and we put a second reef in.  Pretty soon it is blowing 18-20 knots gusting to around 25, and coming from exactly where we want to go.

Although we move at a decent clip, we cannot sail directly at our goal, and steep choppy seas start to kick up, making our forward progress difficult and unpleasant.  After an hour where we have made one mile of progress towards our goal, so we decide to head back to Puerto Refugio.

There is no reason to beat us and the boat up since we have no schedule to keep.  Instead we spend the rest of the day back at that morning´s anchorage.  We read and hang out, and Patrick goes out spearfishing, and manages to catch himself a big California Sheephead fish.

They look something like this

But unfortunately we´ve lost the GoPro in the process, so our photo montages and action shots will no longer grace your screens.

Next stop is Bahia de los Angeles, so hopefully we'll be able to upload some of these posts soon.

Day 6: Puerto Refugio

After a long passage the previous day we decided to take a layover day at Puerto Refugio. We moved anchorages after  breakfast, about a mile to the west. We wanted to get a different view. Lots of lazing around and Patrick went spear fishing for the first time. Caught a little fish, not sure what type, but was happy to be succesful on his first hunt.

Here is a view of the boat from the dinghy.

February 26 - Reaching Steinbeck-Rickett´s trail

Today we travelled from Bahia Willard to Puerto Refugio on the northern tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda (roughly "Port Refuge" on "Guardian Angel Island")

We hooked several Sierra while leaving Bahia Willard but only managed to land the one on the meat hook.  The meat hook is simply some paracord tied to a cedar plug dragging behind the boat.  The fish are hungry enough to strike the plug and then we just pull them in.  It is very passive fishing, but the fish don't get away.  Patrick has nicknamed the plug "Old Faithful."

Here is old faithful:

Unfortunately we had to motor the whole way, even with a 6am departure.  We had 50nm to cover and the wind kicked up a chop from dead ahead.  If we wanted to make it before dark, we had to punch it at the whopping (near) top speed of 6knots (7mph). 

It proved to be important to get there with plenty of time to spare as our charts claimed our final anchorage was in the middle of the island!

Isla Angel de la Guarda is pretty impressive, over 40 miles long and up to 10 miles wide without a single freshwater source.  The only visible inhabitants are nesting pelicans and they are allegedly joined by many rattlesnakes.

Here is an image of the barren island behind the boat:

The water is clear, there are sea caves on the island and we will enjoy lounging about tomorrow.  On top of that, we are now in Steinbeck and Ed Rickett's footsteps!  Puerto Refugio is as far north as they got aboard the Western Flyer in the Log from the Sea of Cortez.  It is great fun to read of their experience here and imagine them walking the beach collecting specimens. 

Well, time to have some dinner: Chorizo and Quinoa, our first non-fish dinner of the trip.

February 25 - Hanging out in Bahia Willard

Not much to report on down here.  We're still the only cruising boat that we've seen.

We spent the day fishing from the Dinghy in Bahia Willard.  Despite numerous small fish caught, the only worth keeping was a 3lb corvina.  Other than that it was simply a lounge-around day, just why we came out here.

Patrick with his fish

There were a few lights visible on shore, and a few folks out fishing, but otherwise this place was deserted.  They just finished paving all the way here from Mexicali, and it makes one wonder how it will change.  It used to be a 6-8hr bone crunching drive from San Felipe and now it is an easy 90min.  These may be the final years of its desolate isolation.

Here is Blue Eyes with the "Settlement" of Papa Fernandez in the background.  All you see is all there is.

Day 3: Isla Miramar to Bahia Willard

Early rise today and a quick prep to get underway. Passage to Bahia Willard was 20ish miles so we planned to get in early. Uneventful the first couple of hours as we passed to the West of Las Islas Encantadas until we noticed that all of a sudden we could see the bottom and it was shallow! Somehow, despite being in the middle of the channel we managed to travel over a reef that extended from Isla San Luis. None of our charts showed its location or any danger whatsoever! Gotta love these Mexican charts.

After recovering from the scare, we continued on and made Bahia Willard before noon. Set up the dinghy and headed to the nearby villages to look for fuel. Turns out the nearest fuel was about 3 km, so we needed to hitch a ride. Thankfully we met some older male gringos at Alfonsino’s who were heading that direction and agreed to take Patrick along. Boy was he in for a wild ride! They had been drinking all day and were horsing around and insulting each other left and right, but all in good fun! It made him feel like he was riding in the car with the Big Lebowski and his buddy. A chore that should have taken maybe 45 mins took nearly 1.5 hours as the guys made their way through more beers in the car and spoke their “Tequilese” spanish. Thankfully they shared some beer with Patrick so he was able to relax a bit and enjoy the ride. Finally met up with David again and hauled the gas back to the boat.

Lunch was the ceviche from the Sierra yesterday, and boy was it tasty! Fresh homemade ceviche!. The rest of the afternoon was spent fishing, with no real luck other than a couple small halibut and lots of spotted bay bass. A beautiful sunset was had and another good day in the Sea.

Day 2: Puertocitos to Isla Miramar

Day 2: Puertocitos to Isla Miramar

After yesterday’s early start and long distance, we decided to take it easy. Patrick read in his fishing book there was good fishing around the Islas Encantadas, so we found a nice little bay off the northernmost island, Isla Miramar. On the way, we caught the first fish of the trip: two beautiful Sierras. Not sure what they are called in english, but this is what the guidebook calls them. They were both caught on the meat hooks trolling behind the boat. Patrick filleted them and used one fish for ceviche and one for grilling. Delicious!

Upon arrival at Isla Miramar, the anchorage however proved to be dicey, with a steep slope preventing us from putting out the proper scope on the anchor rode. This made for an uneasy night. However, we cautiously stayed there and enjoyed our lazy afternoon.

We both swam to the island and explored a little bit, walking through a seagull nesting area and pissing them off. The only downsides to being close to an island with birds were the smell of guano and the pesky flies. Tons of little flies that swarmed, but at least didn’t bite!

Our first day underway · Feb 22

Under way at last!

It seems like its taken forever, but at last we're off.  We start today at 4am.  It is approximately 50 nautical miles (57+ normal miles) to arrive at our first stop for the trip: Puertecitos.  Puertecitos is a small town south along the coast from San Felipe.  There is not much there except a few houses and a shallow cove.  But that cove is a fine goal as it will provide more shelter than anything else along the coast on the way from San Felipe.

We intend to leave at 4:00am, but when we turn on the running lights not all of them come on. Running lights are safety lights every boat should use when it is dark, a red one for the port side of the boat (left), a green one for starboard (right), a white one for the back of the boat, and another one while one is motoring. 

Although we expect that many Pangas (small mexican fishing skiffs) will not have more than a flashlight, we want to be sure they can see us coming.  So, after some adjustments to the electrical connections, all the lights turn on an we are ready to depart by 4:30am.  Something must have worked its way loose during the jostle of the trailer ride south.

We managed to take some time lapse footage of this first sunrise here:

Hopefully, our pre-dawn departures will be few and far between, it is simply not as safe as moving during daylight.  We do not have radar and Mexican charts can be off by a couple of miles.  But we'd rather leave a familiar anchorage early in the dark than arrive at an unfamiliar one late in the dark.

The winds never pick up and the sea remains glassy calm, perfect for waterskiing but we do not have enough horsepower.  Nothing is biting either.

With flat seas, we arrive at Puertecitos by mid-afternoon, find a spot to anchor and sit back to have a beer,  Soon an old dude in a small fishing boat comes by.  There is a big "species reintroduction ceremony" at the single launch ramp (no dock), so he is busy waiting for it to end so he can take his boat out.  Turns out he's originally from Redding, but has been living here for 45 years. 

Hard to believe he's not sick of the place yet, but I guess the fishing is really good.  He has 6 fish in the bottom of his boat, including a 15lb yellowtail.  He offers us a 3lb Corvina, and we gratefully accept.  We may not have caught it ourselves, but we are happy to cook up some fish tacos for dinner.  Soon the sun starts to set, and we head to bed soon after.  Having been up since 4, we're pretty beat.

Off at last, but not without protest

Last post for a little while.

By the time most of you read this, we will have finally set sail.  Months of planning and weeks of prep work have prepared us for this. (we hope)

We're heading south to Puertecitos and then San Luis Gonazaga.  Up first are the islas encantadas, and later Bahia de Los Angeles.

We have no idea what kind of cell data reception we are going to find, so it may be several weeks before we are able to post again.  However you will be able to track our near daily check-ins via the link on the right.

Amidst our final provisioning (buying supplies) we were "lucky" enough to witness a confrontation between hundreds of fisherman protesters and the Mexican EPA (PROFEPA) backed by the Mexican Marine Corps and Navy.

This happened right after we had bought and started drinking some "crappy" beers.  Not only were they Tecate, but the store was totally covered in bird poop:

The core of the protest issue was fisherman anger with environmental regulations and punishments up to and including seizure of fishing boats.  Each boat seized typically had 4-5 fisherman depending on it.  Adding their dependents, each seized boat impacted 20-25 people.  We noticed a series of boats inside the fenced EPA enclosure next to the Navy base.

The protests culminated today in a storming of the docks where we were located.  We were busy storing food when we looked up to angry shouts and a mob pouring towards the docks.    There were a couple of EPA boats (with marines aboard) and one confiscated fishing boat on the dock.

The marines formed a barricade, automatic rifles ready, and prevented the protesters from reaching the boats in question.  Instead, the protesters swirled around us, shouting angrily, but leaving our boat alone.  They clearly had no beef with tourists.

Eventually, the protesters made their point, the EPA agreed to release one of the boats, and the fishermen left.

We were quite safe, but very interested to see the confrontation, as it reminds us of some disputes between the EPA and blue collar folks in various industries in the US (fishing, logging, oil, etc.)

Here is the crowd leaving the dock:

Here are the protest signs left in front of the EPA office, with some impounded boats behind:

But we were still able to enjoy the rest of the day.  We had awesome fish tacos and micheladas in town, and there was a lovely sunset over the boat:

Well, off we go, into the wild blue (wet) yonder...

Trailering through California

We left Capitola on Monday the 17th at 7 AM only to realize in Watsonville that Patrick left some paperwork in the storage unit. So we turned around and headed back.

After regrouping we hit the road again at 8:30. Destination: Calexico. Everything went smoothly. The trailer was working fine and the brakes were activating on the trailer when requested. The drive was pretty un eventful, and the truck handled all the hills with aplomb! The drive through the valley was beautiful with all the almonds and peaches in full bloom!

We ran out of daylight in Palm Springs and spent the night in the WalMart parking lot. It was fun to be camping in the boat again!

The next morning we noticed the front trailer axle had shifted a little bit to starboard. But since everything was fine the day before we decided to continue. However, our first stop we noticed the brakes were sizzling hot. Clearly they were stuck on. So we stopped in Calexico, just a mile or two from the border to investigate. Not sure exactly what has happened, but the brakes keep getting stuck on. Maybe the old brake actuator has given it up. So we decided that with only 120 miles to San Felipe and our destination we will disengage the brakes and try our luck. There are no hills to go over so we are fairly confident it will work.  We also bought a spare tire to have on the roads in Mexico. With additional paperwork Patrick needed to copy, we did not finish our errands until 2 pm. Too late to cross the border and make it to San Felipe before dusk. So we headed to a Starbucks and worked on some other internet chores. We ate at an Olive Garden and both had big cesar salads, the last fresh veggies for a while! We then headed to the local Walmart only to find that they don't allow overnight camping there! WTF? So we found a lot at the Holiday inn and parked there for the night.

We got up and after a quick trip to Starbucks hit the road at 8 AM. Baja bound! Crossing to the border was easy, but the paperwork was not. Our first stop was at immigration. David took the passports and got our tourist cards secured. Meanwhile the customs guy wanted to inspect the truck and boat, so Patrick allowed him to do a cursory inspection. It took a while, but David found out that we had crossed at the wrong crossing to get our Temporary Import Permits. So we drove along the border east to the other crossing area.

 After a long wait to talk to the right person, we had to maneuver our truck and trailer through a maze of cones and narrow passages to arrive at the inspection area. Finally after a cursory inspection we had completed our paperwork, but it was noon already!

We pushed on to San Felipe and the drive was a breeze. The highway was in such good shape, better than I-5 in California! The drive was beautiful and desolate, but only about 2.5 hours. Upon arrival at San Felipe we investigated the boat launch and registered for our slip in the tiny marina. By then it was 3 and the race was on to raise the mast and get the boat launched before dusk. So we worked hard and fast and managed to launch with no real hitches! Check out the video!

 After working hard, we worked up a thirst and an appetite. So we headed into town and sat ourselves at a bar and ordered Micheladas and fish tacos! Yum! Sleep came quickly and we headed for an early night on the boat, happy to retreat to a lively, gently rocking boat!

Here's a shot of the marina the next morning.

Happy Birthday Elena!

Today is Patrick's girlfriend's, Elena Rossman, birthday! Happy Birthday Elena! I hope the next quarter century will bring many more amazing adventures and life experiences!

Below are a couple videos from their Valentine's Day adventure in Big Sur last Friday.

Surfing

In between errands to get the boat ready for Mexico, Patrick managed to do some surfing with his girlfriend Elena. Here are some fun little vids of those adventures.

Getting the trailer ready

Well, as many of you know, we're going cruising in Baja, specifically the Sea of Cortez (aka Gulf of California).

First, many of you have been unfamiliar with the term "cruising." This is a type of traveling by boat where the goal is to visit interesting locales, both inhabited and uninhabited.  One can go great distances, such as a circumnavigation, or sail in a small area, like around the Monterey bay.  It is distinguished by the other two main types of sailing: daysailing and racing.

But it is a long way and sometimes rough passage to get to the Sea of Cortez ("The Sea") via the open ocean.  If we were to sail straight there, we would need to travel 1,250 miles across open ocean just to reach Cabo San Lucas.  Then we would need to turn the corner and go north to head up into the Sea.

That would take long enough, probably 10 days without stopping.  Throw in stops for food, fuel, and shelter for bad winter weather and we'd probably take 3-4 weeks.  That's long enough, but the return is against the prevailing wind and currents and might take twice as long.

Rather than spend 2-3 months getting to and from our cruising grounds, we decided to take advantage of a handy feature of our boat: its trailerability.  Only 26ft long and less than 5000lbs, we can take our boat wherever we can drive, and at 55mph!

So, we are trailering the boat to San Felipe, Baja California, at the northern end of the Sea

where we'll splash it and take off on our nautical journey.

But first, we needed to do some overdue maintenance on the trailer. Many components were in a sorry state so we spent a couple of days overhauling and replacing the axles/bearings/brakes/suspension: basically the entire undercarriage.  Below is a time-lapse of a couple of days of us working on it. alas, much of our work is not visible, but check out the old axles and brakes on the left.