March 23: Flying the kite

We have moderate to light winds today, and our course takes us dead downwind.  So we push past our hesitation and pulled out the "dangerous" sail - the spinnaker.

Hoisting the spinnaker

We have three hands aboard (e.g., three crew members with one hand each for themselves and one hand for the boat).

We rummage around the boat looking for all the sheets and guy-lines to control the spinnaker.   After about 30minutes of unfamiliar prep-work, we are ready to raise the sail.  The wind is a gentle 4-7 knots, so there is minimal risk at this time.

A full spinnaker pulling us along

Long story short, we get the spinnaker set and are able to make 5.0-5.5 knots of speed in about 7-8 knots of wind.

Its the first time this trip, and is pretty satisfying!

PS - anyone else notice that our spinnaker is good for the Mexican colors.

March 21: A Panga Harangue: Isla Coronado to Puerto Escon"gringo"

Fishing regulations in Baja?? Who knew?!

Woke up and quickly went snorkeling/spearfishing to take advantage of the beautifully clear water. We had 20-30 ft of visibility, the best in a long while. Motored around the southeast point of Isla Coronados and started diving. We some some huge Cabrilla and grouper and Patrick and David started employing a group hunting tactic to herd the fish towards the spearer. A panga stopped by wit dive gear to tell us that we were near a thoroughfare for pangas and to be careful. We had seen them coming and avoided them by a good distance. After Patrick speared a nice spotted cabrilla, another panga stopped by again telling us that we were in a dangerous place and should have a dive flag. It is true, we should have a flag, and were not aware this was such a panga highway. They saw the spear gun and got a little upset with us for it was forbidden to use a speargun in the national park. We had no idea we were even in a national park, let alone a rule allowing regular fishing but not spear fishing. That must be why there are such big fish around… David saw the lady on the panga hop on her phone and feared that she was calling the authorities, whatever that would be in Mexico. So we scooted to our dinghy and quickly motored back to Blue Eyes. A couple passing pangas gave us a little bit of elevated blood pressure, fearing that they were the “authorities”, but after quickly getting underway, we left our fears at the anchorage. It took a little to shake the tone and attitude the lady in the panga had towards us, but we justified her behavior by this: how would we feel if we found someone hunting in Yosemite and simply said they didn’t know it was forbidden or that they were in a National Park?

Very important provision

Whale shark stare down

So we headed the 6 miles to Loreto for some re supplying. Loreto is a bustling town compared to Mulege, with the largest super market Justen has seen in Mexico. We stopped at a well supplied fishing/chandlery store. Secured a dive flag and some more fishing gear, but no hose for the dinghy. 

After finishing up groceries we headed south to Puerto Escondido to anchor for the night. It was surreal entering the nearly enclosed natural harbor, as we saw some 50-75 other sailboats anchored/moored. We are no longer in the desolate Nortern Sea. Some cruisers calls this port “Puerto Escongringo” and listening to the radio chatter and seeing the boats we now see why. We anchored in the larger bay and turned in for the night, to figure out paperwork tomorrow.

"America!": Repairing our gringo pride!

March 20 - rememberance

Remembering Marc at the cruiser's shrine

After Patrick spears us some ceviche ingredients this morning, we head ashore once more in San Juanico. 

San Juanico is home to a cruiser's shrine, in this case a tree where passing boats leave mementos containing boat and crew names.  We left our own, but we also took the time to hold a short memorial ceremony. 

A short while earlier we had received word of the passing of Marc Hersch, the husband of one of our mom's dear friends Monica and a long-distance cruiser.  So we dedicate a moment to remember him. 

Marc's guidance was integral to David selecting Blue Eyes.  Marc's teaching instructed Patrick on how to sail larger boats.  And Marc and Monica's  cruising to Panama and to Europe and Back over several years has inspired us to pursue this cruising adventure while we can.  We hope that Marc and family can be at peace in the to come.

We each take a (small) swig of rum, the traditional sailor drink, and then pour a swig for Marc and all other cruisers who have moved on to an eternal cruising ground.

Fittingly, we have fair winds and a following sea almost all the way from San Juanico to Isla Coronados, near Loreto.  We drop anchor in 15ft of water with crystal clear visibility, and enjoy beer and the ceviche that Patrick had speared earlier.

Marc and Monica were on to something with this cruising lifestyle.

March 19: Guest post by Justen - Sashimi and Kuub: The Dude Abides

March 19
San Juanico

Sashimi and Kuub: The Dude Abides

Sailing down to San Juanico, we snared a Kawakawa on the fishing line we've got trolling out behind us, a beautiful, hefty tuna-beast. Absolutely delightful. So we did the only natural thing and that's to kill and eat it, the meat's fine enough to eat raw,

Sea caves near Punta Pulpito

dipped in soy sauce and wasabi, the rich meat melts  in one's mouth with every bite. I can see why the cruising crowd returns every year to the Sea of Cortez. And when we pulled into anchorage at San Juanico, crowded, those were the other cruisers we met.

The further south one sails in Cortez, the more cruisers one meets. Here though, it's an older crowd, regulars for years or even decades, all aboard Catamarans or real nice 50-foot monohulls . One of the couples pulls alongside us in their dinghy and invites us ashore for beach games.

It's a cool contrast to our time spent with Eric & Pam, Cliff and & Giselle, twenty-something cruisers like us. Their spirit here is the same: jovial, friendly, and ballasted by drinking. It's a youthful way to live, and we play bacci ball and some sort of old Norseman's game, Kuub. While Patrick and David get serious about Kuub, I join forces with an older photographer named Jeff in the hunt for what they call Apache Tears, smooth chunks of obsidian buried in the sands around here. Jeff looks like if the Dude were skinnier, and references The Big Lebowski in the first five minutes of our meeting. He once was assigned a gig to photograph for a book about the Nevada desert, expected it to take a few weeks, roaming the deserts off-roading. After five years he finally finished, with a house in the

David and Patrick learning Kuub

Mohave. in the beach-side desert now, picking burrs from our bare feet and flicking them back in the sands, heat and the winds and the ancient geography, stratified layers of crumbling and unforgiving rocks in turn, and it's impossible for me to say whether the hills are coming down or climbing, all at a scale imperceptible to our short-lived eyes. I don't know if I've got words better than cliches for the desert, so I won't try to describe it. But I will say that, if one is patient and carefully observant, you can get a taste of the ecological richness so often totally missed behind car windows on drives through to Las Vegas or Phoenix. We find our Apache Tears, and although I can't tell if it's really all that good luck for white guys to be hoarding the supposed tears of native people (according to the myth), the obsidian mesmerizes us. We shake hands and will probably never meet again; quite literally two ships passing in the night, sans romance. The cruising life is curious in that regard, a long stretch of insular living with one or two companions, punctuated by a series of brief and fulfilling encounters with others living in the same distinct and quirky way.

   
Back at the shore, the older cruisers are departing, see you here next year, they say, shaking hands, hugs going round, stories they've told before and all heard before winding down. As they leave, the wife in the couple who invited us flashes us from their departing dinghy, with the world's fattest boat-dog weighing down the bow, and on the shore some of the guys moon back. I get the impression that maybe they've got the youth thing figured out better than I do, and they're all 3 decades or more ahead of me. Maybe it's a learned skill, and reassuring at that.

Patrick and David gather up the hollowed, skeletal pale wood of dead and dried cacti to make a Kuub set of our own, and we head back to the boat around sunset.

March 18 - Under. Way. Once. More.

We awaken early.  By Sunrise we have departed our anchorage in El Burro cove.  Still under motor, we soon head north, toward the entrance of Concepcion bay.

Conditions are calm. The seas lie flat and windless.  We pass through a pod of dolphins, jumping through the water, escorted by diving sea birds.

Nothing hits the lines.  The dolphins dash in and play around us.  Despite their animal presence, or perhaps because of it, we catch no fish this morning.

The wind picks up.  Wind and seas build from the southeast, our destination.  Although not too extreme, conditions force us to motor, much water sloshes before tonight's goal.

Early evening arrives.  Our destination rears up from the horizon.  Providing shelter, Punta Pulpito towers to the southeast, calming the near-empty anchorage.

We are not alone.  One other sailboat is anchored nearby.  Down south feels so crowded, tonight is almost lonely, only one other boat.

Back underway.  We see new sights and sounds.  As we head farther south, we feel once more at sea, living our dream.

Day 24 Farewell to El Burro and New Friends

Today is our last day in Playa El Burro. David and Justen headed into Mulege to refill water and buy some last supplies. Additionally, they used the internet to upload blog posts.

Saying goodbye to Batwing our neighbor junk

Meanwhile back in the cove, Patrick had a leisurely morning. He searched in vain for the blue dinghy pump hose that we lost when the dinghy flipped in the storm the day previously. He was encouraged by our friend Cliff finding his oars one cove down, but alas, no hose which means no way to re-inflate it. 

After his search, Patrick joined Cliff for some spearfishing. They dove the sailboat wreck in the bay, about 20 ft deep, and supposedly full of big fish. They saw some decent ones, but nothing huge so they moved over to Punta Ballena, known spearing grounds. They each netted a few dog snapper and Patrick caught an unknown fish. All this fish was to be used in the farewell potluck tonight. All the young cruisers are getting together to have one final meal together and celebrate our new friendships. (while writing this blog post I was interrupted by the cry of “Fish on the meat hook!” and we pulled in another Black Skip Jack, our fourth, but unfortunately not good eating) 

One of Justen's many friends

David and Justen got back around 3 and all three had afternoon beers at Bertha’s the on the beach restaurant in the anchorage. Headed back to the boat around 5 for late naps and to prep the fish for the potluck. Eric and Pam hosted us on Emma Belle our first look at their 32 ft boat. They shared more of their story and cost of their outfitting and spent $4000 for the boat and $2000 on extra outfitting gear for cruising. So for the bargain of $6000 (and of course many hours of do it yourself maintenance) they had a boat ready for cruising, truly inspiring on the low cost of cruising. In addition, with fish so plentiful through spearing and groceries cheap in Mexico, it can be quite inexpensive to live the cruising lifestyle. Eric and Pam were great examples on the merits of budget cruising.

The potluck consisted of fried and bbq’d fish with chips and guacamole. Oh yeah, of course healthy servings of margaritas made by Eric. It was a very enjoyable evening spent chatting, looking up fish in Eric’s ID books, and of course eating and drinking. As the night progressed, someone got the idea to jump in the water, being as the moon was full and providing bright illumination. So everyone stripped quickly and dove in for a very pleasant skinny dip. What was most spectacular was the bioluminescence. Every paddle, kick and even wiggle stirred up the plankton and phosphoresced, creating the illusion of a ghost like motion or a covering of lights reminiscent of being “beamed aboard” in Star Trek. Magical. After exchanging fond farewells, we began to pack up and return to our boat.

As we headed back to our boat we stopped at Sound Discovery and scrounged an o-ring from their extra pump nozzle to go with the extra pump Eric gave us for the dinghy. As Eric told Justen, we were getting an introduction to cruising 101, improvising materials. At least now we had a way to inflate the dinghy to motor, but not plane. 

We turned in late after a fun evening despite a planned 6AM departure the next morning.

The local Firefighting department

Damage at Bertha's from the gale force winds

March 16 - a big blow

We were up all of last night.

It blew like snot.  That's the expression, though it is unclear where it comes from.

The wind picked up in the middle of the night and boats started dragging their anchors.

We had to periodically re-anchor during the night to avoid some of the unattended boats that were dragging towards us and around the anchorage.

The maximum wind speed in our cove was around 60-65mph (54kts), but a nearby cove clocked gusting windspeeds over 70kts - those are hurricane force winds.  Sheets of water were blowing across the water, just plastering everything in their path.

Our dingy flipped in the wee hours, dunking the motor and spilling the contents.  But we were amazingly fortunate that we caught it shortly after it happened.  We were able to flip it back over, give it a fresh water rinse, and get our two stroke outboard running again later that morning.  Hopefully no major damage, only a lost pair of flip flops and a pump hose.

We had to keep a close eye on everything the rest of the morning until the winds died down later that day.  Finally at the end of the day we were able to go ashore and walk around.  There was debris everywhere, and a couple of homes had lost their roofs and patio furniture.

Here is a picture of Patrick once the winds died down a bit and we could take some pics:

On Tuesday we hope to leave early and head farther south to Loreto and Puerto Escondido.  But we will be stopping along the way, so dont be surprised if we dont have any new blog posts for a while