La Paz north to Loreto by Sea, and back - May 2010

May 17, 2010

(Note, some of this is written in shorthand, underway, so forgive my grammar mistakes, sloppy sentence structure, sentence fragments, and the omitted word or two.)

Left La Paz Marina at five minutes before noon check out time, even thought Judy got it extended to one pm. Daylight was burning. What a nice marina. So friendly, with lots of interesting boat people on the dock who are still sailing and exploring. A cad named Boomer who is on a boat named Boomer came over to talk and, it seemed, mainly to tell us, and without us asking or wanting to know, where the local whore houses were. Boomer wasn’t a big hit.

We motored with dingy and motor in tow. I don’t like doing this, especially in a new area where I'm not familiar with the daily weather patterns, but didn’t have enough time to get it aboard before leaving, only had a week and it just didn’t work out to get it done.

Once clear of the channel, and the four Mexican Navy ships standing guard at the entrance to La Paz Bay, I slowed to engine idle speed to maintain our into the wind heading and used the outboard motor crane to bring the outboard motor aboard. I decided to take a chance and tow the dingy to Balandra. The wind gradually came up to 19 or so as the day went on, out of the NW. Sailed close hauled and had to tack several times to make it to Balandra. The dingy did fine. There were two other boats in the anchorage for the night.

I anchored in the middle of Balandra to have a clear exit if the predicted westerly winds come up tonight. Everything is tied down and ready to bail if it gets ugly and the dingy is onboard. Since I’ve never sailed here before I’m nervous about everything weather related, especially as this anchorage is noted in the guide books as not being protected from SW corumel winds. The compass heading to bail in the dark is 300 degrees, maybe 310. And a thanks to Fatty Goodlander for suggesting that one should always have bail out compass heading determined before it gets dark, tapped on a paper to the compass so you don’t forget it.

After anchoring I jumped in (naked, yeah baby!) with a mask, snorkel and fins and continued my bottom cleaning job and worked until my putty knife scrapper broke. I was actually impressed by how much got done in Paradise Village, where I couldn’t really see crap, maybe one foot vis. Here, it is 15 feet at least, as I could almost see the bottom which the depth finder says is 15 feet down. 80 feet of chain out. Sand bottom. And while scraping the bottom here I noticed something very interesting, specifically weird lines on the bottom of the hull that could only have been made by dragging a fishing net. Thinking back to the crossing from PV, to the night that the engine overheated, and remembering that we had been discussing how damn slow we were going motoring, I said “Ah hah!”. I believe we picked up a net in the dark and dragged it for hours, overheating the engine, and that when we stopped it fell off.

Air temp was 88 degrees most of the day, with a tiny little breeze blowing. Some sort of flies coming out to visit, but they don’t bite and are tiny. Just try to fly around your face.

A beautiful anchorage. A very real looking fake fiberglass mushroom shaped rock has been installed by the locals to replace the original real rock one that fell over a few years ago. White sand beaches, cactus on shore, beautiful geologic rocks.

Had some (3) real margaritas - tequila, triple sec and lime juice. Got sorta smashed but was sober by 6 , or 7 or 8 or whenever.

About 9 or so, after dark, the corumel came up, over the ~500 foot high rocky hill that was due south of us, about 300 yards or so away. It blew about 20 all night, with higher gusts. We were actually getting whitecaps in the 300 yard fetch, but the waves were only 6 inches high! This was the first windy anchorage night we had spent on Freyja, so I wasn’t as relaxed as maybe I could have been. Spent most of the night awake, fake sleeping in the cockpit. Worried the old anchor chain would break or the anchor snubber would bust or that the bottom was rock not sand and we would drag, etc., etc. Anyhow, nothing happened and the wind quit about 9 am. We had breakfast and left for San Evaristo, motor sailing to charge the batteries, cool the refer, and until the wind gets over 12 knots or so…. Blowing ten now, not enough to give us much speed…. I hate having to run the engine to replenish the batteries after wasting all that electricity on the stupid refer/freezer box.

The next day, the 18th, at 1015 we headed for Puerto Evaristo. That morning, before leaving Balandra, I turned on my HF radio and tuned in the Sonrisa net. I was excited by how much better the radio worked and by how clearly the net came in. I could hear all sorts of different boats checking in, and tried to check in myself. Nobody responded to me, despite repeated attempts at giving my call sign, KE7WSA. I finally gave up and just listened to the boats gossiping to their friends and Gary the weather guy giving a detailed forecast. I decided that maybe my radio wasn’t transmitting, that I’d have Dustin check it out in Paradise Village.

For most of the day we had a north wind, coming down the San Jose channel as we motored up it with the mainsail up and serving as the VDS (Vertical Dacron Stabilizer). Sailing here isn’t so much different than in Puget Sound, the wind either goes north or south, and the sound runs north and south. Judy and I and Freyja got to Evaristo at 1900 or so. The morning net had mentioned that the space station, with shuttle docked, was passing over at 1944 or so, and that there would be an Iridium flash at 2004. The guy talking about it was a couple of hundred miles north of us. With the anchor down and cocktails in hand, we watched but saw nothing so maybe it was already east and inland by the time it was at our latitude. We saw nothing, that is, but the splendor of the Sierra de Gigante range, all around us – huge sedimentary mountains, raw and exposed and red and brown, with cactus and various strata of rock exposed. Evaristo is a neat little circular natural harbor, well protected for most weather. Not much in the way of supplies or shore action, really just a fishing camp. Having said that, we didn’t go ashore and check it out, so maybe there is a tienda. The guide books say you can get desalinated water and there is a tienda. We ate the mahi mahi I caught a couple of days before. It was very tasty, with garlic and lime. We made great fish tacos, too.

Got up the next am, the 19th, and tuned in the Sonrisa net. I had figured out that the problem with me communicating yesterday was that I had forgotten to set the channel to simplex, so I hadn’t been transmitting on the right frequency. This morning I was able to check in, crystal clear. My first HF radio check in! It was excellent to confirm that Freyja’s HF radio gear is working. And the M710 is cooler as it has a big digital screen as opposed to the M700 knobs. The next step is to get the Pactor IIPro modem working so I can send email, position report, blog over the radio, etc. Being out of the marina with all the interference caused by the masts around turns out to make so much difference to reception.

We upped anchor in Evaristo after a peaceful night’s sleep under the billions of beautiful stars and headed back to Isla San Francisco, where we anchored off a beautiful white sand beach in clear turquoise water, in a well protected harbor except from the south and west. I took Judy to shore in the dingy so she could beach comb and snorkel and then started dingy fishing for the barracuda I could see patrolling the shore along the beach. I saw quite a few 4 footers, and of course some smaller ones. One of the big ones grabbed my lure, then in a fit of surprise and anger leaped out of the water and shook the hook out. I caught a little blow or puffer fish and let him go. He didn’t like being caught and accordingly did what puffer fish do and blew himself up into a big cute spiky spinney ball. I felt a few more strikes but nobody took the bait. It was very cool, though, to be sight casting to the barracuda, and I wished I had my Seychelles fly fishing gear with me. Most of the day was spent productively changing lures, fishing the rocks along the edge of the bay, trolling the flats, drifting and casting to barracuda, etc. I’d meant to snorkel and stuff, but the fishing was so fun and I was all charged up after hooking that one barracuda that tail danced for me.

Freyja spent the night anchored with a gentle north breeze at Isla San Francisco under the billions of beautiful stars, peaceful despite the weather guy on the net predicting a strong corumel blowing northwards out of La Paz. Maybe there was a corumuel but it didn’t make it up to our southerly exposed anchorage. Upped anchor at the crack of 0700 and headed north to Los Gatos. We had 9 or 10 knots of wind from the south for awhile so were able to sail. The wind kept its heading but died to about 5 or 6, so motor sailed the rest of the way up the San Jose channel. About 0900 or so I caught a nice little tuna, maybe 5 pounds, on a big green and white squid with two chunks of lead in its head. Managed to net it and hold it overboard while I tied a line through its gills and out its mouth, and then cut the gills so I could bleed and gut it without bringing it aboard, and thus avoid the blood mess and cockpit cleaning. Probably wouldn’t work on a much bigger fish, but once again I didn’t get in trouble for blood in the cockpit!

Passed a boat at the north end of San Jose channel, Qualchan, named after a Yakima Indian of legend. He said that the corumel doesn’t normally make it as far as San Francisco, and I told him about the tuna as he said he was fishing.

We sailed for awhile even though only 6 knots of wind was blowing from astern. It was so beautiful and we weren’t in a hurry as the day’s run was pretty short. We motored the last bit to Los Gatos, a stunningly beautiful anchorage. The rocks, the cactus, the sagebrush smell blowing off the land, nobody on the shore, no village or fish camp and only two other boats in the anchorage. Freyja went to sleep with a SE gentle breeze, anchored in the north lobe in 15 feet. Yoga bees came out to visit, searching for fresh water as they do all along Baja. The icy cold margaritas had condensation dripping down the outside of the glasses, but not enough to cause the bees to stick around. They were very peaceful and calm, but pesky, so we had to put the screens in all over the boat. Freyja came so well equipped. The billions of stars and the almost full moon. Cunningham’s Baja book nailed the entrance pretty well.


May 22, 2010

Upped anchor at 0630 or so, and scooted out of Los Gatos. Met a nice little breeze suitable for sailing, which was especially welcome as we are low on diesel. Remind me to never pass up a diesel dock again, even if I am “pretty full”. Freyja gets really good mileage, but I was getting darned low, almost to the point of running on fumes. Also, running the engine for six hours per day, mas o minos, at anchor just to keep the refrigeration system cold burns a lot of diesel. The breeze gradually built to 25 knots apparent, we threw in a reef and sailed on for Aqua Verde, which was about 15 miles to the north. We got our anchor down about noon but quickly decided to move into a little cove to the east when we saw the only boat that had been in it was leaving. It took that much time to get to Aqua Verde as the breeze died around 10 am or so, and since we are so low on diesel so I didn’t really want to motor hard.

Aqua Verde is a neat place. There are a lot of reefs and rocks outside, the new book by Om Shanti really was helpful with GPS steering waypoints establishing the route through the reef. The book “King of the Moon” is about Aqua Verde under an alias. KOTM gives a great view into the life of a Mexican pangero and is actually well written, fun and easy to read.

As I said, we finally anchored in the eastern most southern lobe as the northern lobe was a little crowded. Beautiful clear turquoise water, anchored in 15 feet sand bottom. There are lots of little fish, and large schools of little puffer or box fish. We were fairly sheltered from the breeze that was blowing today, which was from the north. No swell got to us, even though it looked like it should have. At 2100 the south breeze was coming over the little hill just 500 yards south of us. This was a perfect nighttime anchoring breeze as there was no swell and lots of protection from the hills at the foot of this little tiny lobe on the bay. We took a dingy ride and then strolled to the village beach and walked around until we found the tienda. Nobody spoke English, but we got some directions and made it to the tiniest thing that could ever possibly be called a tienda. Basically it was somebody’s house and their front porch had a few vegetables and some pop in an ice chest. Everybody was friendly and it was a real step back in time from modern suburbia. Goats and pigs were walking around, cows were penned up to the house wall. It was 93 or so during the day, with hot hot sun. Being the desert, it cools off nicely to the low seventies as soon as the sun hits the horizon. It is so beautiful here in the Sea, along the Baja coast. The rocks, the colors, the cactus, the huge raw young mountains, all just blow your mind. This area is so big and empty.

May 24, 2010 - We arrived in Puerto Escondido, went into the inner anchorage and took a mooring ball. Our friends on Carefree II, a California 42 motor trawler were already there. John and Jan Cone are two retired psychology professors in their late 60s who drove their boat down Baja in the FUBAR. They live in San Diego.

Spent the next couple of days here, rented a car for $50 with Carefree and went to Loretto for a day, and went back the next day to get groceries. John and Jan came along with us and we had a great day together in Loreto, enjoying each other’s company.

I hit the water dock and took a nice chunk out of the hull down through the gel coat as the dock has sharp metal edges protruding from the corner. Totally misjudged the wind and momentum. Patched it with gel coat the next morning, but it will take another layer to get it flush. Filled the water tanks at the dock and went back to our mooring ball. The marina administrator lady says the water is from a spring in the hills. Everybody seems to be using it and drinking it, as it supplies the entire water system for the little development at PE. I had filled fuel tanks the day after we got into PE. Much to my relief and joy I could now run the engine 6 hours per day to keep the stupid refer cold.

May 28, 2010

We left Puerto Escondido and headed back to Aqua Verde. Got there and anchored the southern lobe. Beautiful place. Swam around the hull with a Scotch Brite scouring pad and cleaned slime off the water line, etc. We are now heading slowly back to Puerto Vallarta.

May 29, 2010

I woke up still anchored in Aqua Verde, with an acute case of diarrhea and spent the day feeling really crappy, headachy, sore and stiff. We upped anchor and headed south towards San Evaristo. I just lay in the cock pit all day feeling wiped out. Motored most of the day as either no wind or later on it was coming from dead ahead. Was this from the water in PE?

During a particularly windless part of the day a pod of dolphins came by. Amongst their numbers was a baby, maybe three feet long. He and his mom played in the bow wave, left, and then came back maybe 10 or 15 minutes later and played some more. You could hear some clicking/squeaking dolphin noises between mom and her baby. Judy was really all wound up about how cute it was. I said, seen one baby you’ve seen them all and went back to feeling sick. Secretly, though, I think he was sorta cute, too.

Arrived San Evaristo at 1815 and dropped anchor.


May 30, 2010

Spent the night of the 29th and 30th on the hook in San Evaristo. I anchored in the northern lobe even though I was worried about swell, but was just too sick and exhausted to go to the southern lobe 500 yards away. Sure enough, a horrible swell came in from the south and kept us mostly awake all night. The swell quit maybe around 6 am or so and I woke up, pretty much recovered, around noon.

Just laying around today, the 30th, doing boat chores, reading, and planning on moving the boat to the southern lobe for tonight. We didn’t move it, being too lazy, and also because I’d remembered the flopper stopper was aboard and deployed it. While we suffered from swells again the flopper stopper helped us get more sleep than the night before! That thing really does help, it isn’t a gimmick. It is the sort of thing that could be sold on late night TV or the shopping channel – a magic tool to make your life better!

It is worth noting that all of these little anchorages – Los Gatos, Evaristo, AV – have a lot of scallops and abalone on the rocks within easy range of a snorkeler. I didn’t take any as we were in popular anchorages and they could easily be wiped out if everybody helped themselves, not to mention that it is illegal for gringos to take shell fish. It will be interesting to see if there are as many in the more remote anchorages. Scallops and abalone are so damn tasty.

May 31, 2010

Went to Amortajada on Isla San Jose, anchored and took the dingy into the lagoon. What a beautiful place. There is a big lagoon, very shallow, lots of mangroves. The lagoon is teaming with fish and birds. It is protected on the southeast by a narrow strip of beach and small rocks, covered with beautiful sea shells. It was great funny riding around it in the dingy looking at stuff, and getting off and wading and exploring. I grabbed a handy hammer (a rock) cracked open some oysters and ate them on the spot. Small, succulent, clean beautiful little things. Oh, sure, I cut my hands on their razor sharp shells but what the hell. It was so worth it. And there were thousands and thousands. Our friends on Valerie K, and Jane, a cruiser who has swallowed the anchor and bought a condo in Paradise Village, both told us to find chocolate clams here. We really looked around, but saw no clam spoor.

After a few hours, and with me still under the weather, we upped anchor and motored and sailed the couple of miles down to Isla San Francisco where once again we dropped anchor. I like this little place a lot. Tomorrow we jump off and cross the bay heading for La Paz.


June 1, 2010

Upped anchor about 9 am or so and left for La Paz feeling cocky that it was only about 5 miles or so to the marina. Right away we ran into and got beat up by 30 knots of headwinds, true, with gusts to 35, true, with a hundred miles of fetch. The wind was coming on the nose, so we had to make tacks that were many miles long, back and forth, making very little headway on the unfavorable tack. There was just too much power in the headwinds and seas to make any progress motoring and sailing was taking forever. We were burying the bow under water from time to time, with huge bursts of water running down the decks. One wave came into the cockpit and I had about a foot of water around my feet for the minute or two it took to drain out. Luckily it was warm water! Freyja just doesn’t have the power to make any progress motoring to windward. The weight of the fully loaded boat, the Maxi-Prop, the small 43 horse power engine, all combine to make you want to avoid motoring into the wind. Finally around 11 pm we made it to just off Balandra, just north of La Paz. We were still battling the 25 knot head winds and fairly large 4 to 5 foot seas. As I was happily getting ready to drop the sails to enter Balandra for our night’s anchorage, we were dead tired. Then, I noticed that the motor had quit running. The wind was making so much noise you couldn’t hear it. I had a hard time getting it out of gear, but did. I restarted it and as soon as I put it in gear it stopped running. Instantly I knew that we were fucked. A line was around the prop and shaft. A moment’s investigation and I found the port midship mooring line had been left on the cleat and had been washed overboard by the huge amounts of water that had been sluicing down the deck every time the bow had gone under water.

We turned tail and ran downwind back to Isla San Francisco. It was pitch dark, too dark, too stormy, too unknown to try to anchor under sail in Balandra or to try to sail down the tiny miles long channel into La Paz anchorage. I knew San Francisco and felt confident that I could sail into the harbor, even in these conditions, and anchor with out the engine. I didn’t know the La Paz area, which is tricky and shallow and rocky and was a lee shore in this wind.

I am kicking myself for not having practiced heaving to before, as doing that might have been a better way to ride out the night, instead of sailing 40 miles back to San Francisco. I actually tried it, before deciding to run back to SF, but the boat kept sailing forward. Either I had too much headsail or mainsail, or had the rudder the wrong way. We had two reefs in the mainsail, the genoa was partially rolled up, it was pitch dark, the wind was still blowing 25 to 30 true, we were dead tired and stressed by the engine being out of commission, so turning tail and running was the choice I made. There weren’t any anchorages between Balandra that were sheltered from the direction of the wind and waves, nor had I been in any of those anchorages anyway. I didn’t want to try to anchor in an exposed unknown anchorage in the dark.


June 2, 2010

We arrived at Isla San Francisco before dawn, so sailed by with a 15 knot wind following us and made a large multi mile circle waiting for dawn’s early light to illuminate the small bay for our entrance.

With winds blowing 15 to 20 into the bay, and for the first time in my life, I sailed into an anchorage and dropped anchor on a lee shore. Successfully to my great relief, as the beach was only 100 yards away and there were no second chances. I had to weave, under sail, around a couple of boats to get to where I wanted to be. As soon as we got to the spot where I wanted the anchor to be, I told Judy to kick it over and once she said she had launched it and the chain was running I dropped the main sail and released the genoa sheet. I hadn’t wanted to drop the sails and lose my power and control until I was sure there wouldn’t be a problem with getting the anchor down. I knew the anchor would hold as we had spent three days here before and determined that the bottom was all nice holding sand.

There were some open areas to anchor on the north side of the bay, but that side had a lot of big rocks and was on the leeward side of the bay. I finally dropped anchor a little too close to two of the boats, but I needed to be closer to the windward side and with a sandy beach behind me instead of all those rocks. So, to those two boats, apologies for squeezing in but that was the circumstance.

We went to sleep for a few hours, after dropping the flopper stopper into the water. I sure love that thing, as it really dampens the rolling and rocking of the boat caused by swell and wind waves. I only wish I had two of them, one for each side!

We woke up, happy to still be alive, drank coffee, laid around reading, waiting for it to warm up from the 68 degrees it still was at 11 or so, dozing some more. Ate some lunch. Geared up with fins, snorkel, mask, gloves and a sharp knife, and then jumped overboard to inspect the situation. The mooring line was bar tight from the midship cleat to the prop shaft. I took a couple of deep breaths, and then a giant one, and went under. Luckily the water was crystal clear. Right away I could see the line wrapped around the shaft. At first glance it looked like I could just unwind it without any cutting, as the bitter end was trailing aft. Hope arose in my breast, or where ever it is that hope resides. And sure enough, all on my one big breath of air, I was able to unwind it, with only one hard tug required where it was especially caught up. Seeing no damage, and having the line free, I surfaced with a big “Yipeeeee!”. The engine fired up and the transmission worked fine with no shuddering or shaking. Next, with a screw driver and some big channel locks I pried the blankety blank line off of the cleat to which it had been too permanently attached.

The importance of keeping the decks cleared and all lines well secured and off the decks is reaffirmed! Batten down the hatches! Secure the ship for sea! Everything in its place and a place for everything! Trust but verify!

June 3, 2010

Woke up 0030 and set sail for La Paz, again. The wind was blowing maybe 20 knots or so, right into the little bay so I couldn’t raise the anchor without motoring towards it. Conditions were better this time, as the noserly winds were down to maybe 20 to 25, at the most and the swells weren’t as bad.

Sailed a lot of the way, tacking, as there was too much wind to motor directly and still make more than a knot and a half of speed, and then the wind died (for a while) so we jumped on the chance to motor straight towards La Paz. I called Marina La Paz on the radio to make sure they had a spot for us, and they did. The gal on the radio, Cyntia Villegas Velazquez, the marina administrator had pretty good English but I was really confused by her directions. Not by her speech but because I had a certain memory of how the marina was laid out and had never noticed either the fuel dock or the slips next to it, so couldn’t figure out what she was talking about.

So, a bit later I was leafing through the Om Shanti guide book to the Sea and stumbled across a nice map of Marina La Paz. Instantly Cyntia’s directions made perfect sense!

As we were working out way to down the channel into La Paz, I spotted a big floating root ball or stump in the water, close to the markers for a fishing net. I detoured around the net, and then decided what the hell, I better go all the way around the stump in case the net was tied off to the stump. So, as I was rounding the stump, I was surprised to see it roll over, go “Ork, ork” and slide under the water with its tail in the air revealing that it really had been a sea lion dozing with his fin in the air! Next, a very cool ~5 foot manta ray swam by right next to the boat.

Got to the entrance of La Paz Marina around 7 pm to find the guard waiting for us, waving his arms to indicate which slip was ours and to catch our lines. I’d been worried about docking as the corumel was blowing about 15 knots T, but Cyntia, the marina gal on the radio, had given as a slip that allowed docking bow into the prevailing breeze.
It was a slam dunk docking. Our neighboring slip boat, Irish Diplomacy, grabbed a dock line, too, so it appeared to all that I was a seasoned boat handler! I didn’t mention to the guys on the dock the chunk I’d taken out of the hull on the Puerto Escondido water dock, the one with those damn sharp metal edges sticking out where I had misjudged the wind, the boat’s momentum, etc.

Took a shower in the marina facilities, walked up to Rancho Viejo and had a nice arrachera steak, and a margarita which was yucky.

Went to sleep. Ahhhhhh. It had been hard work getting to La Paz twice in two days!


June 4, 2010

Slept like the dead, woke up feeling happy, went to the office to pay up and then to breakfast, then to the chandlery just across the street. Monthly moorage here would cost about $550 or so, US. Compared to the annualized average in Paradise Village of ~$650 ($850 for 7 winter months, $450 for the 5 summer months.

A guy knocked on my boat and asked if I wanted to hire him to wax the hull up to the gunnels. For 800 pesos or $62 US at today’s exchange of $1 US for 12.88 pesos. I jumped on it. The same job costs 1500 or more pesos in PV. Remember, too, that the excellent mechanic at the La Paz marina only costs $35 per hour, compared to the excellent mechanic in PV who charges at least $75 per hour.

So far, in cruising the west coast of Mexico, I have to say that I like La Paz the best. It is the portal to the Sea, where the water is crystal clear unlike the murky waters in PV and south. There are more anchorages and islands and beaches in the Sea, as compared to almost none from Mazatlan south. The mainland anchorages are all more exposed to the ocean and just generally less hospitable. The Sea is more like the protected coast of BC and its many islands. There is more weather in the Sea, too, I think, than along the coast. My sense is that along the coast the weather is simpler and thus more predictable.

La Paz is a small town and Marina La Paz is right downtown, everything is within walking distance, prices are half of PV. It really feels like you are in Mexico in La Paz and it is just so convenient for walking. Too bad La Paz gets slammed by hurricanes with such regularity. I still have to check out San Carlos, in terms of hospitality to boaters. I don’t enjoy Mazatlan so much, maybe just because the town center isn’t within walking distance. In Puerto Vallarta none of the marinas are located near the core downtown area. Paradise Village is beyond a doubt a first class marina, perhaps “the” first class marina on the west coast of Mexico, but it is located in a gated condo and hotel community and doesn’t really feel like you are in Mexico. Paradise Village is a wonderful secure place to leave your boat, and Dick Markie, the marina manager, is really on top of keeping it that way.

La Paz has a big live aboard community, with lots of them living on the hook. There are a lot of full time live aboards sailing up and down the Sea. A couple of them have mentioned that they lived aboard in the states or Canada, and thought they had really figured out the live aboard thing, but that once they got here they realized they had previously been in the high school of living aboard and that they were now in the University of Living Aboard. The live aboards are rich and poor, in big and small boats, from all walks of life. Very interesting people. It's amazing, but perhaps not surprising, that places like Bainbridge Island near Seattle, and the towns on the water in Florida, are so suppressed and narrow minded that they are trying to evict live aboards.

Puerto Vallarta to La Paz - May 2010

Okay, its time to go sailing.

May 4th and 5th – We spent these two days taking care of business, before leaving town. I checked out of PV with the Port Captain. We made sure we had enough groceries and beer. Got the stuff out of the storage locker (Judy's Durango) that we wanted to take with us, and put the stuff into it that we didn't want. The crew caroused on shore.

Freyja sucked up a bunch of electricity to cool off the stuff in the refrigerator and to make a lot of ice. It takes my one year old Seafrost refer compressor a very long time to cool things off because of what seems like the lack of insulation around the refer box and freezer compartment. The insulation around the box is from 1983 and many Passport owners say they have found that it doesn’t completely surround the refer box. Refrigeration is the single biggest user of electricity on Freyja, it uses way too much and is a huge PITA. The compressor uses 7.7 amps per hour when it is running in 90 degree weather. It literally wants to run full time, which translates to almost 200 amp hours per day. Getting that box torn out and rebuilt with modern insulating materials and attention to detail in closing all the gaps is the top priority. Maybe I’ll just grab some blue foam board and line it around the inside of the freezer and refer as a temporary fix.

May 6th - Day One: Left PV at 9:50 am on May 6th, 2010. Rick Gaines, Dave Gray, Judy and me. There was a little 10 to 12 knot breeze blowing, so raised sails and set off for Punta de Mita and then north to Isla Isabella, heading for La Paz. I estimated it would take four to five days to get there.

We started motor sailing when the wind dropped to about 8 knots around 2 pm. We were beating into the little breeze and the foot or two high wind waves and swell, and they were slowing the boat down a bit to 3 to 4 knots. It felt like there was some current against us, too. Dragged a fishing line, but as usual had no reward. There is a hazy cloud cover. I used the Fleming wind vane instead of the Autohelm 5000 while sailing and it seemed to hold the course pretty well. It takes a little practice to dial it in and to learn how to tweak its settings before it will hold the course for more than a few minutes.

Judy made chicken fajitas for dinner, very tasty. Rick has a 43’ Serendipity built for two tonner racing and thus has lots of sailing and racing experience. I let him be in charge of trimming the sails and while most of what he did I was able to anticipate in advance he did show me a thing or two.

I really had to laugh, though, when it came time to talk about our course settings with Rick. He kept looking at the charting software and saying, look, the land is here, so we have to go there. I’d say, no, look out of the cockpit, the land is there, so we have to go here. He wanted to know what was wrong with my charting systems and really had a hard time believing that the land is not placed accurately on the charts! Really blew his mind.

I’m setting 3 hour night watches, with Dave 9 to 12, Rick to 3, and then me. I saw a meteor and a billion stars. It was a pretty uneventful night, w/ 8 knots of wind on the nose. Dave and Rick both are competent watch men, which is really nice.

Got to Isla Isabella. The guide books all talk about the rocks on the bottom here capturing anchors and not releasing them. In fact, the bottom looked very rocky and not great for anchoring, so we hung out looking and then carried on. The guys wanted to continue onwards, Judy had on her snorkeling gear and swimming suit and was ready to abandon ship into the clear beautiful water. She was right, we should have anchored and snorkeled…… In hindsight, we should have anchored. It was a chance to check out a really neat place. Maybe it was that the guys wanted to have the sails up and to feel the wind driving the boat.

May 7th - Day Two: Sailed close hauled after about 1130 or so in about 15 knots of breeze. Wound up about 50 miles off Mazatlan, then quit sailing around 2030 and started motoring towards La Paz. I used the Fleming wind vane all day, it worked perfectly. Rick had the boat really nicely balanced so the helm was light and steady and I sorted out the control lines and dialed in the wind vane. Fleming held us steady for hours at a time. Having it working is so exciting and important. The Autohelm 5000 sucks up a bunch of electricity and is old and could break sometime, so having the Fleming working as the first up system on ocean passages is really important. Dolphins came and played with us.

Caught a small mahi mahi and cooked it right up. It was maybe two feet long. To avoid the usual complaints from Judy about fish blood getting all over the cockpit, I killed it with a knife to the gills in the ice chest cooler thingy. As we didn’t get a drop of blood in the cockpit Judy was happy. Most of the women sailors I’ve met seem to get really crabby about fish blood in the cockpit, so it is a blue/pink issue. But what are you supposed to do? There aren’t a lot of options on a little sailboat. And somebody always washes the blood away afterwards, so it is just a temporary thing.

Freyja has nice motion close hauled and bashing into the wind waves resulting from the 14 knot wind that blew all day. Dave had the first watch starting at 2100.

May 8th - Day Three: The wind died off in the night so we motored for awhile during the night. Dave woke me up from where I was sleeping in the cockpit to let me know the engine was overheating and the oil pressure was really low. We stopped and shut down the engine. Dave and I cleaned the raw water intake filter, though when we inspected it it seemed clean enough. I checked the oil and water levels and they were fine. Turned the engine back on and ran at 1800 instead of 2200 and everything seemed fine. We shut the motor down and sailed from maybe 0900 or so. SW to W winds so we made some good north-westing. Nice day, uneventful. Ate, slept and read. Cocktail hour at 1700 with the requirement that everybody be sober by 1800. Judy made the drinks a little stronger than that, but not too bad, so everybody was sober by 1900. We saw no other boats or ships so I got teased for warning everybody repeatedly to keep a watch for ships. I rigged the preventer for sailing with the wind abaft the beam, broad reaching. Sails down, engine on at about 2000 or so. More dolphins.

May 9th - Day Four: started sailing on a broad reach just after midnight, following seas, preventer, made a lot of northing, which we needed but not so much westing. Still having trouble with battery bank 2 over voltage when charging, up to 15.5 or so. Had about 11 to 13 knots of wind all night, boat pretty rolly. Getting ready to gybe to the port tack about 9 am. Heading mostly northerly and gradually forced more westerly through the day. Had 17 knots true of wind steady, some periods of 19. Saw GPS boat speeds of 7.0 knots and not as rolly by afternoon. Freyja really responds to the wind, she leaps forward eagerly and wants to move.

The Fleming has really come into its power. I’ve got it dialed in so we can sail for hours in roll-ey 4 foot seas on our broad reach without touching it. It worked nicely on day 2 when we were close hauled, too. Rick was impressed with it, I suspect but didn’t confirm that it had been his first exposure to a windvane steering system.

We had a major dolphin show. They were leaping two body lengths out of the water, three together, 30 or 40 or 70 in a big feeding and sporting pod.

Turned on motor around 7 pm as the broad reach wind died to about 9 knots around 6:30 pm and that isn’t enough to power Freyja to any decent speeds. The crew broke out cigars and margaritas, following the ship’s rule of getting drunk as you want at 7 pm but being sober by 8 pm.

May 10th – Day 5: Entered the San Lorenzo channel with winds of around 20 or so, and sailed down along Om Shanti’s way points to avoid the reefs. Very brisk and rousing sailing, great fun was had by all, with Rick forgetting that he wasn’t racing and constantly trimming the sails and urging us all to sit on the windward side of the boat to squeeze an extra eighth of a knot of speed out of her. I enjoyed his sail trimming and learned a little from him. He was a great asset on the trip, as, of course, was amigo Dave. Made it into the Costa Baja marina, a first class marina and the first one you come to as you begin the long narrow approach into the La Paz channel. The inner harbor of this marina is the best one around La Paz to be in if you are going to weather a hurricane, but otherwise it is a bit out of town and isn’t surrounded by cool little local bars and restaurants and local color and chandlery stores. Awesome infinity pool and dynamite mojitos at the Costa Baja resort bar!

We checked out of Costa Baja the next day and went down the channel to the Marina La Paz and checked in. They handled the port captain formalities, as do all the official marinas that I have checked into so far, other than Paradise Village. Life is good. We are in the core downtown area, with lots of local color, bars, restaurants, boat supply stores, all within walking distance. The Malecon is right there, too, to stroll along after cocktails and dinner.

The weather is perfect here this time of year. Deliciously cool from the time you wake up until about one pm, then too too hot until about 6 pm, then the evening breeze always comes up and cools things off so you need a couple of shirts or a jacket to stay warm enough, and a blanket a night to sleep.

I like it here in Marina La Paz. And many thanks to Dave and Rick for coming along with me and Judy and making the sail easier and more enjoyable.

Another Quickie Trip

Judy and I arrived at the Paradise Village Marina on January 11, 2010. Freyja’s old aluminum exhaust mixing elbow had given up during the summer or fall during a routine engine running by my boat minder. He took it off and FedExed it up to me. I had National Marine Exhaust in Marysville, WA, make a new one from stainless 316L, which I carried back down in my suitcase. It raised a few eyebrows at Seatac, but none entering Mexico, even after passing through their scanner. No red light, I was in.

Got it installed, fit perfectly. Vavoooooom. However, didn't leave the dock. The rest of the trip was devoted to maintenance and getting the car repaired. The outboard wouldn't shift into forward or reverse, so took it to the new little chandlery in Paradise Village. They charged me $100 US, I think a flat fee, for a simple grease job, felt ripped off. Don't like their prices. The bottom didn't look to furry.

Went home to wind up some work I'd taken on when it looked like my mother would be with me indefinitely.

Haul Out in La Cruz May of 2009

I came down from Seattle in May of 2009 to haul the boat out at the new La Cruz haul out facility for a bottom paint job. Turned out it needed new barrier coating too. The yard was staffed with great competent people who delivered a great job on time and on budget. The cost of the job was about $400.00 US for the labor and about $1,000.00 for the Interlux barrier coat and bottom paint. I can’t remember what the haul out and lay days cost, but it was pretty fair. Total was maybe $2,000 or so. Maybe more than one would think it should cost in Mexico but cheaper than in the US and cheaper than the quote by Opeqimar at Marina Vallarta. The La Cruz yard had a nice new TravelLift, the yard was brand new with fresh asphalt on the ground. The La Cruz town center was only a few blocks away. They wouldn’t allow me to sleep on the boat, so I stayed at Philo’s. Philo’s was fun and convenient, with great live music, but the room for $35 US per night left a bit to be desired, stuffy, poor A/C, etc. Not sure what else was available in town, but will look around next time.

I spent a few days before and after the haul out in the La Cruz anchorage and went single handed sailing each day. Spent the night on the commercial mooring ball at the Tres Mariettas Very relaxing, lots of stars. Freyja is laid out so that single handing is very easy, except for the manual anchor windlass and need to go up to the mast to reef.

My visit for a week in mid-July, 2009, was dedicated to putting the boat into a deep sleep in anticipation of not being back until I was able to get my mother’s house sold and move her out of my house into a nursing home. She moved into my home on May 1, 2009. My brother Barrie came home from Arabia to help for a couple of months, and then went home to Arabia in late July 2009. I soldiered on singlehanded, caring for the 92 y/o semi-paraplegic 24/7. Finally the house tentatively sold and got her placed into a nursing home in the end of December, 2009. Then the sale flipped. But I left her there.

Sent all the halyards up to the top of the mast so they wouldn't be exposed to UV for the summer and for however long they'd be up there. Used some strong but crappy stuff as sacrificial messenger lines. Told the bottom cleaning guy not to clean the bottom. I thought I'd be down in two or three months and being really cheap wanted to save the money and also to see how much would really grow. Doubled up the mooring lines and the fenders and flew home to Seattle.

Tenacatita to Manzanillo - January 2009

We spent the night anchored in Tenacatita and then the next day, after doing the jungle ride, in a panga because the outboard wouldn’t start, we upped anchor and headed down the coast 15 miles to Barra de Navidad.

I remembered where the channel through the lagoon was from my time here last year, so we found a spot in the anchorage with no problems. Only 12 boats were there before me. It gets crowded with 45 not being unusual during the season, and somebody mentioned the record is around 70 boats at one time. Bottom is mud, poor holding. There are a lot of problems with boats dragging anchor when the wind kicks up. The wind comes right into the lagoon from the ocean, straight down the channel.

We had a gas hanging out in Barra. It is a neat little funky town, nothing pretentious and a lot of eateries and bars and hangouts and street vendors and street markets and flea markets. I think a lot of Mexican families come here to hang out when they are on vacation. The Grand Bay Hotel is on the south side of the inlet to the lagoon. It is really a pretty grand place, as is its Marina, which is new and well up to US standards.

On the 8th Spike and Carol took the bus back to Puerto Vallarta to catch their plane home. The bus is a nice comfy bus, maybe once it would have been called a luxury bus, and is cheap and runs on time.

The practice when anchored in the lagoon is to either dingy over to town or to VHF hail one of the many, and cheap, water taxi pangas, which run frequently and maybe all night. It is so easy to catch a taxi to town, hang out, and cruise home pleasantly stuffed and groggy. And lots of fun to be zooming along at high speed through all the boats and harbor traffic.

We took a water taxi into town one day and walked to the Port Captain’s office to check in. It was easy, took only a few minutes, and if memory serves it was free. Nothing tricky in Spanish, they did the paperwork. Ditto on the check out. Vilma later explained to me that it was impossible for her to have checked me out from Paradise Village, that the yacht Captain has to sign papers personally. That may only be true in PV, or may be true everywhere. However, the Barra Port Captain didn’t even raise an eyebrow about my lack of paperwork from PV.

In the morning the French Baker can be heard on the VHF, letting you know his location and when he will get to your area in his panga, and asking for your order for that morning and for special orders for the next morning. He is a great baker in the true French style, using quality ingredients including a lot of butter. Amazing how cheap his stuff is, too. Bread, pastry and pies. Yummmmm. He pulls up in his panga and displays his wares, daring you to buy only one or two things.....

The lagoon is one of the main anchorages on the Gold Coast of Mexico. It is very shallow and tricky, and it is at least a weekly occurrence that somebody goes aground until the tide changes. Since the bottom is mud, there is usually no damage to the boat if you just relax and wait for the tide. Don’t go aground at high tide, though. That said, a friend of mine got stuck in the lagoon close to what is called Dog Island (because of all the dogs that live on it) and asked a big panga to tie onto the bow of his old Formosa 56 (54 or 58?) and spin him around 180 degrees. His boat spun all right, but his rudder didn’t spin as fast as the boat. He bent his rudder controls and thereafter couldn’t really steer properly. He could turn to port or maybe make a degree or two to starboard. A bunch of fellow sailors showed up with tools and managed to straighten out things enough so that he was able to limp to Mazatlan for a haul out and repairs.

As a note, I was really amazed at how soft the shaft coming up from the top of rudder was. Really soft metal that, under the force of the dragging, had developed a big twist. Also, the emergency tiller's connection to the rudder post was so incredibly lame, dangerous even, but was probably the state of the art in the mid-1980s for Chinese made boats. I don't think it would have worked out in a big storm at sea, either.

Paradise Village to Tenacatita January 2009

We spent New Years eve w Spike and Carol, Judy’s friends from Michigan, at their hotel in the romantic zone in PV, on the hill just above Ondela’s and Los Arcos. We all had fun watching fire works, drinking some beer, hanging out, watching the people, ringing in 2009, etc. I must have had a lot to drink because I remember walking up to Ondela's donkey and smacking it really hard on the ass as it stood there on outside on the sidewalk, thinking (drunkenly) that it was a wooden donkey. I was so surprised when I felt warm donkey flesh. To its credit, it didn't kick me or even acknowledge that I'd smacked it hard enough to bruise it.

Next day we hung around the boat getting it ready to check out of the Marina. I took Gina at the Paradise Village marina office up on the marina's deal that if you leave for a month or so your slip cost is reduced to $10 per day while you are gone and you get the same slip back. We loaded up with water and groceries. Gina reminded me that we were supposed to ‘check out’ of PV with the Port Capitan as we were going to another Port Captained city, but by then Vilma’s Documentation Services was closed and the Port Capitan was also closed, so I emailed Vilma all of my documents and asked her via email if she could do it while I was gone and email me the ‘check out’ document.

Anyhow, we left Paradise Village and sailed over to La Cruz with S and C. Saw whales, of course, and lots of dolphins. Anchored out, went to shore to eat and explore. Spike and Judy and Carol are very old friends – Spike and Judy in particular are birds of a feather when it comes to partying – every night all night wouldn’t be too much for either. Carol likes to stay home and go to bed early. Same as me. Thanks to Spike and Judy prodding us we had some fun! Spent the night on the hook, and did shore again the next day. We left the anchorage around 1 pm or so on the 3rd and set sail for Tenacatita, about 120 miles south.

Cabo Corrientes was relatively calm when we rounded it. This was Judy’s first overnight sail, and it was a rousing one. We had 17 to 19 knots of wind on our tail all day and all night, until maybe 4 or 5 am when it dropped to 10. The swells were not huge, maybe 5 or 6 feet, but they were coming from astern, too, and pitching the stern around, throwing us off course. Due to the wind angle we had to run on the edge of gibing. I rigged a preventer, but it was still touch and go as we were sailing right on the edge of gibing with the coastal wind dead astern. The helmsperson had to be on their toes. I heard one big crash while I was dozing in the cockpit and Judy was steering, but no harm, the sail crashed right back to the proper side without breaking anything. I wound up steering most of the night, because we continued on the edge of gibing, too close to let the autopilot steer. S and C slept through the night, as did Judy for the most part. The stars were really really amazing after the moon went down. The sky was clear and of course there are no lights on this part of the coast. I think the Southern Cross was out, but I need to see a photo of it to be sure as to whether or not this was it. We are still about 20 degrees North, maybe too far up to see it.

We kept going the next day, with me at the helm steering because of the following seas/gibing situation and because I was the only one that was comfortable steering. We got into Tenacatita around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I don’t remember exactly as was pretty groggy by then. We anchored and I went right to sleep after being at the helm for 26 hours straight.

I love Tenacatitia. It is a wonderful beautiful anchorage, well protected except from the odd and unusual south wind/wave pattern. Good holding, sand, and a nice hill blocking the prevailing northerlies. Not much on shore, one palapa restaurant/bar that serves the auto campground there, but which is only open from 8 to 5 or so. A two mile dingy ride up the jungle river takes you to the town of Tenacatita, which is really tiny. It has maybe 12 beach front palapa restaurant/bars and a little tiny grocery store. There might be more to the town, but if so it is over the hill and a long hike. We spent the night anchored there and then the next day, after doing the jungle ride in a panga because the outboard wouldn’t start, we upped anchor and headed down the coast 15 miles to Barra de Navidad.