What's in her name?

What's in her name (Salish Aire)?

Salish
from her new home the Salish Sea

Aire as in a melody of song.

Salish + Aire = The melody of the Salish Sea.

Salish Sea:
In the late 1700's Captain George Vancouver wandered around the waters of what are now known as British Columbia, Canada and Washington State, USA. He did the usual 1700's explorer thing and put names he chose on everything he saw. The names stuck and are recognized and used to this day.

New lines were added to Captain Vancouver's charts in 1872 (after a near war with Great Britain over a pig) which made waters on one side of the line Canadian and those on the other side of the line American.

It wasn't until 1988 (officiated in 2009) that someone finally realized that fish and various critters, (to say nothing of the water itself) were never involved in the boundary treaties and really ignored them completely. (This is best illustrated by the problems that Homeland Security has with Canadian Canada Geese and American Canadian Geese - it seems they refuse to carry passports and have been known to poop on the head of any border patrol person who tries to challenge their right to cross the border when and where they choose!) In reality the waters from Olympia to the well up the East side of Vancouver Island are pretty much one ecosystem.

The Coast Salish are the indigenous peoples who live in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington state along the Salish Sea and share a common linguistic and cultural origin. The Salish Sea is named in honor of the earliest recorded peoples who plied her waters and learned to live in harmony with her.


Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Northbound back to the USA


December 17, 2019

Clarice has written about the specifics of our travels since we left Puerto Vallarta about 10 days ago so I will wax philosophical and you can read her travelogue notes below.  We are currently holed up in Bahia Tortuga (Turtle Bay) waiting for high winds to abate.  We had hoped they would settle by noon today but since we just clocked a 40+ knot gust we think we are here until at least tomorrow.  Our thought was that we are next to a small village with phone service on the boat and Wi-Fi service at cafes in town we should have plenty to explore but instead we didn’t get off the boat after Jarvis’ morning walk yesterday and today may be the same as the choppy water doesn’t make it likely we would get to shore without a good dousing.


Boats waiting in Turtle Bay for the winds to calm so they can continue north or south 
Turtle Bay Village

 
Most boat fuel in Turtle Bay is delivered by this boat.
The owner charges anywhere from 8-11 US$ / gallon as the market will bear

If all goes according to plan we will leave Mexico for good after January 1st the date when California collects property taxes on all boats in its waters (no matter if they have paid taxes in another state or not).  I look forward to being back where I am culturally comfortable and can get things like boat parts without having to order the item to be sent to someone who can then send it to the next person we know heading south or looking for weeks in poorly stocked Mexican marine stores.  I’m really really glad I’ve got a smattering of Spanish under my belt but it will be nice to quit trying to think in two languages (although Clarice and I now find that we are more and more spontaneously thinking in Spanish with our internal voices). Perhaps most it will be nice to be in the USA for at least one day of the Christmas season as I am a bit of a “Christmas Nutcase”.  I’m the one who goes to the busy malls just to people watch (while Clarice starts shopping on January 1st for the following year so she doesn’t have to deal with crowds and gets the after Christmas specials).  This has been our second Christmas season in Mexico and it just isn’t the same – even Christmas in San Diego will not be likely to have snow on evergreen (as in fir – not palm) trees but I will take what I can get. Clarice did put up our traditional Christmas garland today with most of the Christmas balls hanging from it (she left off the ones that might get broken in high seas yet to come).

So what about spending a year in Mexico?  What was good, and yes, what was bad (I often have to remind people that no matter how interesting the adventure there is likely never a year in your life where everything is “perfect”).  On the good side the scenery has been spectacular – I’m one who grew up in the Evergreen State on the green side of the Cascade Mountains where evergreen forests abound so I always need to get back to the smells of a rain forest but I love the shear geologic nakedness of deserts.  Here we watch as Earth shows her colors ranging from red sandstone to dark black lava flows while we float past.  The ever changing sunrises and sunsets will always stick in my memory.  The Sea itself has become a friend and a foe.  She can be lovely to swim in with her 90 degree F water full of amazing creatures.  I hope to get an artist to paint my memories of nights with phosphorescent waters as my cameras could not capture the magic.  Nights of no moon with stars from horizon to horizon and nights with full moons casting shadows on the deck.  She provides us with a highway in any direction we want to go with our floating home. As a foe she cares not how much she bounces us when we head into her steep sided, short, short period waves whenever the wind goes much over 10 knots.   On one hand the Mexican concept of “un minuta” meaning anything from “in one minute” to “a week from now” grates on my cultural baggage of “timeliness is Godliness” but it reminds us that relationships are more important than hurry.  And that hurry only leads to always feeling rushed – why would we do that to ourselves?  Walking with family on the Malecon in the evening and saying “buenes tarde” to strangers passing by brings me back to a more people and family centered time than we usually experience in the USA nowadays. I had hoped to make close friends among the Mexican people but can’t say we really did, likely because they don’t expect us to stay long enough to become implanted in the community with the links of friends and extended family that small town life encourages and expects.  On the other hand we seldom met Mexican folks who were not friendly and happy to tell us about their country and families. Generally taxi and Uber rides led to long discussions in broken English as the drivers practiced their language skills, and Spanish as we practiced our language skills along the way.  I’m just now getting comfortable with the Mexican cultural expectation that a “hola” or “buenes tarde” should be accompanied by a firm handshake (and possibly a hug and an air kiss) and an “adios” by a handshake and pat on the shoulder but I will miss these human touches that have been lost in our current culture afraid of “offending” everyone.

We were both disappointed that we didn’t find the incredible scuba diving we had been told to expect (but when you measure all of your warm water diving against Bonaire – are you being fair?)  The day we had a whale shark come to swim among the boats and folks in the water and eventually bumped into me was amazing. Watching hundreds of rays swim by in formation at 1 AM through phosphorescent water was like watching a Disney animation only in real life.  Even the mundane task of cleaning the boat is kind of enjoyable in 90 deg F water and if we got bored we could look down at all of the fish enjoying the bounty of whatever scraps we were sending their way.

The mission churches from the 1800s are almost worth a driving trip on their own. I missed singing in a group, on the other hand when I would sing full voice in the old stone buildings they would resonate so that it sounded like they had joined me in song.

Our trip from Mazatlan up into the mountains to Durango was a highlight of the year both for the natural scenery and for the adventure of driving on one of mans’ recent engineering marvels.  The other jungle trip was our recent trek along a trail alternating between tropical rain forest and private pocket beaches.

On the negative side I will never forget the heat of August and September when our thermometer reached 110 deg F and our only hope for comfort was to get into the water or stay in a marina with power to run the air conditioners.  I really look forward to walking in the hills around the anchorages but after 9 AM it was simply too hot and I felt trapped in the boat.  I missed spring, fall, and winter as to me even though it is December 70 – 80 deg is still summer (and the summer heat described above was just this side of hades).  I know I will be singing a different tune soon as we get further north (Jarvis is already shivering in the morning and is now sleeping on his heated pad) but for now the idea of a thick sweater sounds like another winter tradition I am missing.

There is also the reality of the practices of other cultures and climates that feel very wrong and leave a bad taste.  Garbage left on otherwise pristine islands and on streets in villages.  Bumpy, dusty roads that never seem to get fixed. Disabled folks having to put their wheelchair in the middle of an intersection begging for money until the light turns green not because they can’t get by on what the system offers but rather because there is no system (I believe – maybe I’m wrong). 

We are both saddened that the police feel obligated to always carry automatic weapons because the cartels are very real.  We are also saddened that even though we found the streets here to be as safe for us we were frequently asked about safety as our own government actively works to create a perception of all Mexicans as “rapist and murderers”.

What would we change in hindsight?  I don’t know about Clarice but I would NOT be in the country for the months of July – September but instead would join the multitude of boaters who leave their boats and go north.  Insurance is a challenge in that the requirements of our underwriter affected our decisions of where to be when and I’m not sure that the decisions they forced us into (if we wanted to have the coverage we had paid for) were the best for us nor kept us safer.  Clarice might have left Jarvis behind as traveling with him can be a hassle with mandatory vet checks, challenges in leaving him alone in the heat, dog hair everywhere, etc..  On the other hand his personality has been perfect for me as I need something to cuddle with, laugh with, and run with.  He has helped us be welcomed by strangers with his smiling face and constantly wagging tail and in reality I think he entertains Clarice a lot more than “farmgirl Clarice” likes to admit.

We would NOT change the boat.  As we found in Alaska, Salish Aire is made for adventures and does well in both northern and southern waters.  I don’t know how many times we looked at each other in times of calm and stormy waters and commented to each other how glad we are that we have a stout ship that we know won’t let us down.

One thing I think we both will miss is almost daily visits by dolphins.  It is seldom that we are underway that we don’t see at least on pod ranging from 3 animals to a couple hundred.  Today we are waiting in a bay for a storm to pass and sure enough 3 large dolphins just swam next to the boat.  I am also amused for hours watching the antics of pelicans.

So are we glad we came – YES!  Will we come again – likely but possibly by land rather than sea but then again we now are much more comfortable with long passages and we never know what the future holds until it happens.

January 8, 2020

After the last note we finally left Turtle Bay on December 18th.  Looking back at our tracking notes (https://share.garmin.com/NormanGregory )  we had a pretty rough ride again as we continued to “bash” north.  We arrived in Ensenada at daybreak on the 20th in smooth seas.  We settled in to Cruise Port Marina which was pretty nice by our standards.  We were concerned about the published daily price for moorage but the staff pointed out that if we stayed over 5 days it worked out the same to pay for the month so we did that and it was quite reasonable.  The nice thing was that since we were in a shared port with the cruise ship terminal anyone wanting to come into the port area had to pass through a security check station about 1 block before our marina.  The result was that we didn’t have any noisy local traffic.  The cruise ships had loud announcements and horn honking periodically but in general the marina was a nice place to stay with a number of long term cruisers to visit with.
On our arrival in Ensenada we learned we didn’t need to prepare dinner as the marina management had provided a turkey and fixings to go with a cruisers’ potluck for a Christmas celebration.  It was a pleasant surprise as I was really hungry after doing light foods for 2 days to avoid sea sickness and we had time to meet the other cruisers. 
 
Christmas Cruisers' Potluck (thank you Marina Cruise Port for the Turkey!)
We spent the next day doing some final work on our windlass that was refusing to lift our many hundreds of pounds combination of anchor and chain except when it felt like it.  (We found that the nuts holding the wires to the motor had vibrated loose making for bad connections that were getting worse AND it looked like a factory assembly issue with the motor had caused it to overheat and melt some plastic parts.) The sad part is that it was a brand new motor several years ago that we purchased and installed thinking it would last as long as we owned the boat.  The good news was that I did some refurbishment on the original motor and had it on board as a spare so it was ready to be installed and should work until we get another new motor and time to install it. We made a trip to get food supplies to hold us until we went north (after a night of hard rain and flooding) and went to Advent services at the local cathedral.

4th Sunday of Advent in the Ensenada Cathedral 
   
Finding a road to the grocery store that wasn't flooded was a challenge after a night of hard rain

Christmas was lovely as we drove a rental car the final distance to San Diego where we made a mad dash to get some supplies before stores closed for Christmas Eve and then headed to our motel for the night where we gorged on Hallmark Channel Christmas special shows. For Christmas we joined our friends Jerry and Holly Gray in church (where the service was in English!) and then enjoyed feeling like part of their extended family for Christmas dinner.  We even caught up with our Christmas gifts from our kids (along with some supplies we had ordered) that had been sent to Grays in anticipation of our arrival. We headed across the border on the 26th of December and once again were not even stopped for a passport check at the Mexico border
We continued to hang around Ensenada until January 3 (after New Year’s AKA California tax day) when we headed the last 10 hours on calm seas into San Diego and brought Salish Aire and Jarvis back to the USA.  This was the first time we had used the border patrol’s ROAM application on our phones to check in and thus everything was cleared over the phone (after some tech issues on Border Patrol’s end).  This is a nice feature if they can smooth out the bumps in the system. 
Our current issue is weather.  We are have been looking at a number of different scenarios to get the boat to Moss Landing in Monterey Bay but frequent high winds are providing only short periods of smooth travel opportunities.  At this moment we are making our first jump to Dana Point where the Nordhavn headquarters has made a slip available for tonight.

CLARICE’S NOTES:

December 7. 2019

We departed Puerto Vallarta around 10 or 1030 and headed west. Around 2 pm I saw the back and tail of a large whale, then we started seeing turtles. Norman had put the fish line in and around 3 pm I looked in the back camera picture and saw we were dragging something. AT  LAST, I got the Dorado I’d been trying for. Beautiful fish and not too large. Managed to figure out how to filet it out and ended up with 3 large packages of fish in the freezer. We’ll have to try that again.

December 9, 2019

After an afternoon with higher than predicted winds and moderate bashing for a few hours ( to the point that I’m bouncing off the V Berth mattress thus not sleeping) we decided to head to Cabo and anchor for the night. We anchored further away from the marina area and between that and fewer people, we ended up with a pleasant anchorage and slept like rocks all night. This morning we departed as two huge cruise ships are anchoring. Perfect time to get out of Dodge ( alias Cabo).

12/13/19

The Ham nets are great to access for information. We were trying to figure out how to manage “the Baja Bash” and the participants on the Chubasco net were so helpful. Helped up figure out if we were reading the weather files incorrectly (NOPE, we weren’t) and gave us suggestions for anchorages that would be suitable for the north, northwesterly winds that are coming our way. Spent last night in San Juanico, on the Baja side, which interestingly enough  is west of the San Juanico on the sea of Cortez side of Baja.

It had a main drag that was paved, a fair tienda and so much greenery ( trees, Palms, flowers). Pretty amazing for a Baja village. We got an offer to purchase lobsters, but were still working on the lobsters we bought the other day in a village further south. Guess it’s lobster season. Hopefully we’ll get a few more offers before we hit Ensenada. We managed to get lots of sleep yesterday during the day and night last night so feel refreshed and ready to deal with the next 25 hr or so run to Turtle Bay ( Bahia Tortuga). We’ll need to hole up there for a few days as a front is heading this way and we should get there at the beginning of the winds. Its pretty sheltered so we’ll do some things like make water, rinse off some layers of salt, housekeeping and maybe some baking. I am beginning to put the back cockpit canvas surround back up as it’s very moist and cool at night. With the wind, it should make us a little warmer. I snorkeled the boat yesterday and with my 3 ml suit, the initial shock of the water was BRRRR. It’s down into the 70’s already. I scrubbed the beard off the water line and checked the underside. Looks pretty clean, but if we can, in Turtle bay it would be great to do a quick all over scrape to stay ahead of the barnacles that love to attach themselves to the hull. We keep dragging the fishing line in hopes of more Dorado or maybe some tuna. I’ll figure out how to store it if we get too much!!

12/16/19

Headed out of San Juanico to get to Turtle Bay on another overnight run. It was just getting dusk and we snagged a pot ( it did have a large bouy, however it was half black and dusk). Thought we had pushed the line out of the way, but I realized we were only going 4 knots once we powered up again so we were still dragging the darn thing. We stopped again and managed to see the floating polypro line but couldn’t get it pushed down under whatever it was hung up on. Decided we needed to cut the line, which we did in pretty short order. Thankfully, the buoy went one direction and the line to the pot another. Relief…we had NOT wrapped the line around the prop shaft. Diving in the dark out in the little bit choppy water was not our idea of fun. We powered up again and headed on our way. The next day we managed to catch a yellow fin, but the wind was picking up so it had to be dealt with once we managed to get into Turtle bay and securely anchored. Also managed to break our fish dip net in this process.

A quick dinghy ride into town for lunch…a few groceries and a good dog run. Came back to the boat and repaired the net and slept off and on for the next day or so.

There are 4 cruisers in the anchorage as of the 16th, waiting out some very windy weather. One of the sailboats is a delivery and the delivery crew are from Vashon Island. Had an afternoon visit with them and discussed the weather among other things. A trawler came in last night with alternator failure issues. We happened to have a brand new spare so sold them our spare and will pick up a new one in San Diego.

Decided to make water and top off batteries this morning. We found some leaks on the high pressure side of the membranes. Cleaned connections, checked for cracks, replaced sealant and it still leaked. Finally decided to try joint tape instead of the sealant and guess what, we solved the leaks. The sealant is a Mexican brand and obviously was not doing a good job of sealing the joints. We now have a happy watermaker and no leaks. The wind continues to build with gusts in the high 20’s so we are just doing household things and puttering for now. Hoping to leave on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday if the current predictions still hold tomorrow.

12/18/19

Opted to Head out of Turtle Bay this morning. Yesterday Norman needed to get off the boat so we managed to get the dinghy to shore and walk into town with Celia from the delivery boat in the anchorage. When we came back to the dinghy, it was upside down resting on the motor cowling, everything tossed out and the motor leaking oil. The wind was so strong it just flipped the dinghy over. Oddly, it flipped into the wind, and we couldn’t explain that one. Managed to get the motor started and got back to the boat, but it’s out of commission until the motor gets a once over.

We had tried to leave yesterday afternoon after the delivery boat took off. However, our windlass decided to not lift the anchor- no power at all. Managed to get it up, only to find out the conditions were too bad outside the bay and the delivery boat was turning around and coming back in for another night. We worked on the Windlass and thought we had it fixed. That’s the key word here, “thought”.

Next morning wind and waves were down so we decided to run for it. Got the anchor almost all the way up and the windlass failed again. Managed to manhandle the gargantuan anchor aboard and secure it. Norman is tearing apart the motor and trying to figure out what’s going on. Good news is he had rebuilt the old motor we replaced and we can bolt it in place and keep on keeping on.

We expect a lumpy trip, but it’s tolerable so will just do the two day run to Ensenada and get this over with.

12/19

Last night was pretty lumpy. Swells of 10 ft or more and high winds in the high 20’s. Neither of us slept much. This morning the wind finally started dying down. Opted to get the paravanes out of the water and get some more speed. Most of the day was in 10 kn or so of wind and long swells. This morning we noted the deposit of a number of squid that must have been tossed aboard with all the waves that crashed over the rails all night. Got them removed and headed to San Quintin, but the water kept improving so we opted to continue all night and arrival in Ensendad is for early morning, after day break.

Some friends from Mukilteo Yacht Club just made it south to Ensenada so we’ll get to meet up before we head in opposite directions.


The first time we are aware of Mukilteo Yacht Club members meeting in Mexico


In Ensenada we ran into friends from our yacht club in Everett.  We were both happy to meet up with friends from home.  They were glad to get information about what to expect as they headed south and we were pleased that they offered to dog sit when we drove north for Christmas.