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.
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Boats waiting in Turtle Bay for the winds to calm so they can continue north or south |
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| Turtle Bay Village |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 4th Sunday of Advent in the Ensenada Cathedral |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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