BAJA HOPPERS

Punta Chivato, April 20/21, 2010

2010-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

From Santa Rosalia, we said good-bye to the northern Sea of Cortez and headed back south around the outside of Isla San Marcos towards the multi-pronged headland around Punta Chivato. When you read the guidebooks, you'll see that the water gets a little skinny between the headland and the low-lying, reef strewn Santa Ines islets. Reefs and shoals extend from both the shoreline and the islets, making the passage a little "interesting." The low point seems to be about two fathoms of water around Punta Mezquitito. It's a pretty passage with the wild, rocky desert all around you, but a little nerve-wracking until you've done it once. And, of course, just as the water was getting the skinniest, we had dolphins show up to relieve the stress. We had two or three dozen dolphins doing their version of a Sea World show, leaping and dancing all around us. It was hard to tell who squealed louder, us or the kids. To quote Kelly “It was like going to Sea World without having to pay the admission.” These dolphins put on a show. It was almost as if they were all competing to show us which could do the best aerial maneuver. We anchored in 15' over sand next to the luxury hotel on the point and in front of the beautiful homes on the beach around the private, dirt airstrip.

One of the better acrobats that we saw

It was blowing pretty good when we anchored and we were debating whether we should go ashore when one of the other cruiser boats brought their dinghy up alongside our boat and told us we had to go ashore for if no other reason then to collect shells.

Just to give you the scale of the size of some of these shells

There's a picture in the Sea of Cortez Cruiser's Guidebook (which we call the "Om Shanti" guide after the authors of the guide’s boat's name) of the shells in this anchorage, but even that doesn't do the place justice. There's at least a mile where the shells are stacked up 3' deep, and go inland for 20 or 30 yards. 20 minutes on this beach and you'll have enough perfect shells to fill your bag.

We decided to search for the restaurant in the Om Shanti book, but were told by a couple of local construction workers that it has closed. Never fear, across the dirt runway, over a couple of barbed wire fences, and through the dirt golf course, there's a great little restaurant that's taken the other one's place. On the way there, we met "Baron", a dog belonging to one of the gringo families on the beach. He's only a puppy, but at 75 pounds or so, he was a bit too aggressive for the kids' taste. The restaurant is posted as "pet friendly", so those with pets feel free to bring them along. Maybe that's why Baron tagged along with us? Anyway, according to the bartender, Baron gets his own burger at the restaurant when his owners take him there. No telling if he gets his own Margarita or not. The food was excellent and the margaritas icy-cold. It was getting close to dark, and there were no other customers, so the bartender even gave us a ride back to our dinghy. How cool was that?

Even cooler was the fact that the same couple that stopped to tell us about the shells came by later to drop off some used movies they no longer wanted and they brought to our boat what would come to be the BIGGEST hit ever – JOHNNY ENGLISH. Over the course of the next month our kids would make every other kid boat endure that movie. I never want to see it again.
The unusual east winds continued through most of the evening, bringing swells curling around the point towards us. It made it a bit rolly last night, but the anchor held nicely in sand. I know it held because the anchor alarm went off twice last night, waking even the Phil out of a dead sleep. Phil had to get up to check the anchor at 3 AM and 5 AM. And, yes, it was seriously dark then, but the stars were gorgeous. Turns out that Phil had the alarm set to go off if we moved more than 60' from our position. Well, with the better part of 100' of chain out there and shifting winds, we drifted over our chain about 150' from one extreme to the other. Yup, that's more than enough to set off a 60' alarm! Of course, it was sunrise before the cobwebs cleared enough for Phil to figure that one out. Chalk one up to reviewing all those default settings on your electronics.
West winds predicted for tonight so that wipes out our plan to go to Bahia Santo Domingo just inside the entrance to Bahia Conception since Santo Domingo is wide open to the west. Come to think of it, Santo Domingo is pretty open to everything except in calm weather. Looks like we'll be heading deeper into Bahia Conception to Playa Burro. That'll be an extra 10 miles into the bay today, and an extra 10 miles out tomorrow morning on top of what already was supposed to be a fairly long day. Hmmm, that sounds like we'll be getting underway early tomorrow since those extra 10 miles will take an extra 2 hours against the tide coming into Bahia Conception. You've just gotta love it.

Santa Rosalia, April 18-April 20, 2010

2010-06-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Santa Rosalia(27 20.24'N, 112 15.67'W) is as far north as we went on our trip. Phil fixated on the copper mines, the old buildings and, of course, those "exquisitos" for so long that we were going to sail here if there was a hurricane brewing. So, it was up early to get underway for another 45 mile day.
It was flat calm until nearly noon, when the north wind finally started to build up to a whopping 5 knots. Phil likes to think he's an optimist, so I guess we'll look at it positively and just say that the batteries were well-charged by motorsailing most of the day – that made the crew happy. We went around the outside of Isla Santa Inez and Isla San Marcos looking for wind, but didn't find any. Although we didn't find any wind, about 300 dolphins found us and swam around Sabbatical for 20 minutes until they got bored, then sped off in search of more fun.

In the late afternoon, the wind finally kicked in with 10 miles to go and as his his S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) just as we were about to get somewhere early, we had to sail the rest of the way which means we got in about 5 o’clock. We sailed towards the coast looking for the tell-tale chimneys of the old copper smelters that point the way into the harbor, picking them up in the afternoon haze at about 8 miles. If nothing else Phil was fixated on those hot dogs and that stand does not open until 6 o’clock so why rush into port.

We tied up to a slip in the Singlar marina around 5 PM. The marina is right inside the break wall inside the harbor. It is the freakiest harbor I have ever seen. Right in the middle of the lane is a giant rock marked with a flashing light. You would think that the rock would have been removed to make passage into the harbor easier – but no the rock just sits blocking the channel and boats have to maneuver around it. No telling how long the obstacle has been there.

Well, we've talked about them long enough, so we'll get to it: How were the "exquisitos"? Exquisite, of course! That and messy as all get out. We made a bee line for Chuyita's hot dog cart as soon as we got everything tied down. It's on a side street off the main square, just around the corner from the Eiffel-designed church. OK - take a double dose of your cholesterol pills and get the defibralator ready - here goes: You start with a bacon-wrapped hot dog, grill it in a little bacon fat from the previous 10,000 hot dogs, stick it in a warm bollilo bun from the French bakery in town, add some minced, raw onions, squirt on ketchup, mayo and Philly cheesesteak-style melted cheese, and you have the basic dog. Add some fresh salsa verde, a little mustard, some cooked, spiced onions, and, finally, lay a couple of grilled "Caribe" chilies on top. Need you ask? Of course the chilies are grilled in the bacon fat too! Oh, man! We're talking heaven on a bun! The entire crew feasted on 2 dogs each, all for about $1.25 per dog, Rolaids not included. And, conveniently located just across the street from Chuyita's, is an ice cream shop where you can really bump up the daily caloric count with a double dip, soft-serve ice cream cone. Good thing we had to walk back to the boat - it kept us moving after that gut-bomb of a dinner. We'd have gone into a major food coma if we'd sat down.

The sign marking the corner where these dogs are actually sold

Phil's masterpiece - remember he ate two of these

Ryan loved the buns as much as the dogs

The family that runs the stand

The ice cream shop across the street from their stand

Yep Ryan had a cone after two dogs!

The Eiffel church is an interesting structure. A metal buliding that is barely surviving the harsh environment of a sea-side town. The church is meticulously cared for by the local community and I suspect it will be held up with scaffolding if necessary.

The front of the church - it's not that big

The inside of the church

One of the many stained glass windows that grace the walls of the church

Ryan took a picture of Phil and me

The history (in English) of Santa Barbara Parrish

Santa Rosalia really was a company town. Everywhere you turn, you see the French colonial architecture and the grid-like layout of the city. If you squinted, you'd wonder if you were in Southeast Asia, Polynesia, or on the set for the movie "Indochine." Many of the old company buildings are still in use, often by the Mexican government. Who knows, however, how long that hundred-year old lumber will last.

Phil and the kids in the main square

Main Street Santa Rosalia

Ryan posing on the main drag. The old men on the bench got a kick out of Ryan.

The pavillion in the main square

There is a great produce market on the road between the marina and the main square. The colors alone tell it all.

The company built a hotel to accommodate visitors to the mine, and the hotel is still in business and still serving a great breakfast. The old company administrative offices are just down the street from the hotel, and along the way you can climb on an old steam engine, ore cars, and other remnants from the mines. The Administrative offices are now a museum, complete with original furniture, some old office machines, old photos and other displays. The kids asked me what one of the machines was and I had to explain what a mimeograph machine “was.” It's an interesting visit and well worth the time. The old power plant and smelter are down the hill from the hotel and general offices. Unfortunately, they haven't been maintained and are in a sad state. They're rusting away and collapsing on themselves. Still, it's interesting to see the old ruins and imagine what it must have been like here when the mines were in operation.

The train found at the town's center

Visiting the mine with Christopher and Barry from Grumpy

Family photo op

Inside the old company hotel for breakfast

The museum

The kids investigate an old accounting machine

Kelly at the helm (this is a "little" larger then the wheel on our boat)

Ryan looking at the tools of the trade in mining

The scale used at the mine to measure the ore

The history of the mine in English

The manager's old office

Most of the yachtistas we met here were heading across to San Carlos for a few more weeks of cruising before they haul their boats for the season. They take the summer off when it can be so brutally hot down here, head home for a few months or go do other things. They'll be back around November 1st when hurricane season ends officially.
We were the only kid boat in the marina, but we know more will be heading this way after Loreto Fest at the end of the month. At least we'll cross paths with them again before we continue south to La Paz.

A shot of the town from the museum up on the hill

After two nights here, it was time to fuel up and go. We decided to wash down the boat and get rid of all the salt crystals that accumulate on the boat. We went to bed with a clean boat and awoke to a boat that had been officially bombed by the local fowl population. There are more kinds and gross numbers of birds here then in any other location we have visited.

The turkey vulture tree in the center of town down near the pier

This picture was taken in the cockpit of the boat - "our hood."

It took us an hour before we could get underway. In spite of that we still think Santa Rosalia is a great town. I'm glad we visited.

Next stop: south to Punta Chivato.

What makes a wake like that? April 18, 2010

2010-05-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

As we were leaving Sanispac for another long day of sailing up to Santa Rosalia - the northern most point on our trip -we were coming around the headlands near Santo Domingo when Phil got concerned that we were going to run into a reef. We could see all this white water in the not too far off distance and when you see white water, water has to be breaking over something.

Phil ran below to get his binoculars and then he turned to me and said it's not a reef. It's a pod of over 1,000 dolphins feeding. Here are some pictures of what that looks like.

What is that out there?

The wall is getting closer

Here they come!

I can see some of them

Feeding frenzy - birds and dolphins

Playing in the water

There are even more coming

Along side the boat

Playing the the wake of the boat

The orange is Ryan's shirt as we stood on the bow of the boat to take pictures

Gliding along side

We captured one all by itself

Dolphins coming along side

Dolphin fun

This was to be the first of about 4 such pods that we ran into over the course of the next week between Bahia de Conception and Santa Rosalia. The best display of acrobatics we saw was when we entered Punta Chivato - about a week away - stay tuned for more on that one. We discovered that there were several varieties of dolphins in the different pods we came across. Kelly would sit with the mammals book for hours trying to figure out just which type of dolphins we had run across. She got pretty good at identifying the species by the middle of May.

Stay tune for more on our adventures.

Sanispac in Bahia de Conception, April 17-18, 2010

2010-05-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

From San Juanico, we wanted to head north about 45 miles to Bahia Santo Domingo (26 51.96'N, 111 50.85W), just inside the entrance to Bahia Conception. We normally motorsail around 5.5 knots to stretch our fuel, but around Punta Pulpito noticed that our speed over the ground (thank you, GPS, for giving us too much information to play with!) had fallen to less than 4 knots. What the heck??? Oh yeah, we're on the ocean and it sometimes has contrary currents!! That slowed us down for a couple hours, but we continued up the coast and eventually rounded the corner into Bahia Conception, a 100-square mile bay with loads of anchorages and beaches. Since it is the Baja, however, those beautiful, dramatic islands and volcanic peaks you see often extend well off-shore underwater. In the middle of the bay you end up in water that is only 24 feet deep.

Baja's major highway, Route 1, runs down the western side of the bay, so there are loads of RV sites, vacation homes, and campsites along the shore. I know it's hard to believe, but it's getting late in the season here and most of the sites were empty. As a result, it's very quiet here except for those 18-wheelers that have to come down this steep hill with their breaks screeching the whole way and then when they hit the bottom of the grade they have to accelerate to climb back up on the other side of the mountain. All night long you not only hear the waves lapping against the boat but the piercing wail of those breaks.

The wind and swell continued strong right into the Santo Domingo anchorage, so we made the decision to continue further into the bay in search of a more sheltered spot. That's not a decision to be taken lightly, since it's another 8 miles into the bay to the next anchorage. But, even after 45 miles, with that much wind blowing, it was a no-brainer. After a nice sail down the bay (yeah, Phil made us shut off the engine for a while just to remind him how beautiful water sounds rushing over a hull), we ended up in Playa Santispac (26 45.78' N, 111 53.17 W) with a bunch of other boats that were also trying to hide from the wind. So after 9 hours and over 50 nautical miles we finally had arrived. Kelly and dad inflated the dinghy so we could go ashore.

Kelly bouncing on the pump to inflate the dink

There's a restaurant at Santispac called Ana's, and we felt like a break from the galley, so we dinghyed ashore to check it out. Well, the place was hopping! Apparently, we arrived on one of the big nights in town. As we ate dinner, more and more people (aka RVers) kept arriving until every table and bar stool was filled. There were probably 80 people in the place. There were two or three groups just waiting for us to finish so they could take our table. They figured it was a safe bet that with kids we weren't going to be staying till the bitter end. The place jumps until 10 PM when it shuts down cold.

Phil and the kids in front of Anna's (and the Pacifico sign)

Walking into the popular restaurant - we were about the only one's that came by boat - see all the SUVs!

We have another long leg to Santa Rosalia in the morning, so we hit the sack early, dreaming of those "exquisitos". More later.

What was behind us as we were leaving Sanispac

The islands that dot the coast in Bahia de Conception

Caleta San Juanico, April 14-17, 2010

2010-05-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

We had a gorgeous sail from Puerto Ballandro to Caleta San Juanico. Several folks we've met have told us this is their all-time favorite place in the Baja, and now we know why!

Since we had winds from the north, we chose the northern anchorage between the rocks known as "The Spires."

The "Spires" - from the crazy camera that makes everything blue

One of the rock formations in the anchorage where you can snorkel

There were about 10 other boats in the area, so anchoring is always fun. We found a spot a few hundred yards off the beach and were only in 15 feet of water. You have to balance your desire to get "tucked in" to the best spots with the need to not get on top of your neighbor. The "Golden Rule" we all learned in kindergarten still applies: Don't anchor any closer to your neighbor than you would like them to anchor next to you! Still, there's plenty of room, even if you have to move out a few yards. The worst you'll have is a bit of swell from the Sea of Cortez to deal with. With your basic "land and sea breezes" predicted for the days we would be here, all we'd have were some 10-15 knot, on-shore breezes in the afternoon that die off as the sun goes down. We could deal with that.

The north side of the anchorage where you can also snorkel

Our first trip to shore was to walk around and see the "Cruiser's Shrine" that's tucked up into the corner of the northeastern beach. It's more informal than the name implies, but it's still fun to see all the signs, markers, and art projects from prior cruisers. Some folks put their boat names on wooden boards, others carve them into rocks, others make flags, etc. Then they hang them all over the one tree on the end of the beach. Some of the markers are quite the elaborate art project, while others are simply messages tucked into wine bottles. Some of the markers note visits for 5 or 6 years in a row! Kelly and Ryan grabbed a Magic Marker and immediately wrote our names on a flat rock, but who knows how long that will last before the sun fades it into obscurity. I wanted something more permanent and gathered shells to make a mobile. Our boat's name is now spelled out in shells that hang down from a branch on the tree. Hint, hint: There's plenty of room for you to come down and add your name!

The gang in front of the shrine

The first item we left at the shrine

Our second addition to the shrine

One of the cruisers was celebrating a birthday while we were here, so we had a pot luck dinner on the beach in his honor. The cruiser community is amazing: On a few hours notice for the party (literally, one of the cruisers went around in her dinghy announcing the event to each boat at 1 PM, for a party at 4 PM), we ended up with a chocolate mole chicken salad, a couple of curry dishes, pasta and rice salads, cabbage dishes, salamis, cheeses, an award-winning salsa with jalapeno AND serrano chilies (muy caliente, but muy bueno!!), chocolate brownies and a hot peach cobbler! Wow! The variety and creativity was amazing! One of the cruisers even brought her fiddle to play "Happy Birthday," as well as that other birthday classic, "Turkey in the Straw."

Sabbatical brought a bocce ball set and that was as popular as ever. But we were most intrigued by a new game we tried called Coob(?) (Who knows how to spell it,we wouldn't know an umlaut if it bit us in the butt!). It's supposedly a Viking game of some sort, with each team tossing foot-long, 2-inch diameter dowels at opposing blocks of 3" x 3" wood about 10 yards apart. No, you don't have to wear horned helmets to play the game, but for such a "casual" beach game, suffice to say that folks' competitive natures came out just a wee bit. We may have to make a set to add to the boat's equipment list.

Of course, one of the great benefits of the pot luck is the chance to meet your fellow cruisers. It turns out that one of our neighbors Claudia from Pelican is a no-kidding geologist and told us about the obsidian rocks that were right above our heads in the cliffs. They're called "Apache Tears" by amateur rock hounds, and they were fun to find and dig out of the hillside. They range in size from a pea to a golf ball.

Kelly rock hounding for "Apache tears"

Mom pointing out one of the obsidian rocks aka "Apache tears"

Ryan has found one too!

Terrie, another cruiser from the S/V Circe taught Kelly about a dozen tricks with string (aka cat's cradle).

We also met one of the semi-locals, Frank,a guy from Taos, New Mexico, that comes down here each winter to ride his mountain bike over the dirt roads. He simply parks his camper on the beach and settles in for the season. He's a great guy and gets invited to all the pot lucks. In fact, he was the one that brought the award-winning salsa dish. Man, we need to get that recipe! Frank was fun but his dog “Babe” was a hoot. She would dig up crabs on the beach and throw them in the air. She was more fun to watch then the local pelicans.
Our days here have passed too quickly and we want to come back on our way south. We haven't even had a chance to explore all the other beaches in this beautiful bay or look for quartz in the southern hills. San Jaunico has turned into one of our absolute favorite places in all of Mexico!

Our next stop: The entrance to Bahia de Conception for a night, then on to Santa Rosalia. We met some friends from Old Moon that were coming back south and they raved about the "exquisitos," the legendary, bacon-wrapped hot dogs with all the trimmings in Rosalia. Hmmm, we may need to try a few of those and see how they compare to the infamous "Cubi Dogs," another legendary hot dog, but this one from the Cubi Point Officer's Club in the Philippines that the Cap'n used to love in his mis-spent youth in the Marine Corps. And, since it was a French mining town for so many years, Santa Rosalia should provide our first real baguettes since the legendary French Baker in Barra de Navidad, some 600 miles ago. Maybe they'll have croissants too? Oh, dare we hope?

The kids playing on the beach in front of Frank's camp

Ryan posing at the base of the hill where we did our rock hounding

Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen, aka/ the Death March, April 12-14, 2010

2010-05-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

It's a quick sail from Puerto Escondido to Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen - less than 20 miles. Some cruisers try for Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante since it's only 4 miles from Escondido, but it's fairly small and won't hold more than a few boats. Several boats were already there, so we figured we'd stop at Honeymoon Cove on the way back south. Islas Danzante, Carmen, Coronados, Monserrate and Catalina make up a National Park and are patrolled by rangers.

It was another warm, clear, perfect day in the Baja. The nights are still surprisingly cool, but that will probably end in the next few weeks as summer approaches. By then, the water should start to warm up as well. Water temps over the past few weeks have been fairly steady at 70 degrees according to "Fred", our yellow duck pool thermometer that we tie off the back of the boat. Time to break out the wet suits! Yeah, we know that's as good as it gets at Catalina Island by late summer, but we sure miss the 85 degree water we had over 500 miles south of here. It's hard to believe how far we've sailed since we got down here!!

Puerto Ballandra is a nice-sized bay, maybe a half-mile across, but a submarine canyon runs down the middle of it, forcing boats to anchor along the edges. Most of the bay is sand, but some of the bottom is covered with loose rock with poor holding, so be sure to check the set of your anchor. Once the hook is set, though, it's a pretty anchorage, with plenty of rugged hills and cactus. There are even a few, hardy trees near the brackish ponds and along the arroyo where flash floods seem to be the only source of water for the plants up there. There are plenty of birds, including more than a few seagulls that come looking for handouts.

Sabbatical at anchor in the northwest corner of Puerto Ballandra

Kelly at the trailhead with the anchorage in the background

The hike begins

Some of the kinds of things we saw on the hike

Kelly and Ryan in the dried up arroyo

Are we there yet?

We made it to the ridge line and could see Salinas on the other side of the island

Kelly and Ryan with the salt pits in the far off distance

The town we hope to visit on the way back was just too far to hike to

The gang on the ridge line overlooking Salinas

Looking back on where we had come from

For lawnboy - purple wild flowers blooming on ballandra

Heart-shaped bush we found on the island

The "bee" tree had hundreds of bees in it

The little paper lanterns that Phil really liked

The paper lanterns up close

Ryan climbing the rocks on the way back

Yeah, we made it back!

Carmen, as part of the Loreto national park system has some great hiking up the arroyo on the eastern edge of the bay. You can hike from the anchorage all the way to the other side of the island to the abandoned salt-making town of Las Salinas, but it will take you all day to get there and back. It took us two hours to hike up the arroyo to the ridge line where we could finally see the town, but it would have been at least another hour to get down there. Add a couple of hours to explore the ghost town, plus the return trip, and let's just say our smaller crew members would not have been very happy. Nor would the larger crew members that would have had to carry the smaller ones back. (We actually ended up anchoring on the other side of the island on the way back so we could visit the ghost town.) Still, the hiking was fun and was our longest march since we've been in Mexico. There were plenty of cacti, thorn bushes, interesting vegetation and a surprising number of blue, white and yellow wild flowers. (We’ve included some pictures for the benefit of our friend lawnboy who told us we would find nothing green in the Sea of Cortez.) The Phil’s favorite was a bush with seed pods that looked like miniature Chinese paper lanterns. How something so delicate survives in such a harsh environment is beyond me. We saw plenty of signs of goats and rabbits ("Yes, Ryan, those are rabbit pellets again."), walked next to loads of bees in search of fresh water and, in general, had a grand time. I wonder why everyone went to bed early that night?
We spent only two nights in Ballandra since we wanted to keep moving north. The next leg will be 25 miles to Puerto Juanico, a spot that several cruisers have told us is their favorite spot in all the Baja. We'll see...

Wish you were here to enjoy this!

Loreto, April 2010

2010-05-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

Loreto is 14 miles north of Puerto Escondido and is an open roadstead, so anchoring is recommended as short-term only. In settled weather, you could anchor off Loreto and take your dinghy into the panga docks, but you wouldn't want to be there in any kind of breeze. You're better off keeping your boat in Puerto Escondido, but that presents the question: How to get to Loreto? You can a) rent a car from one of the chains at the airport (they'll actually deliver the car to you at the marina), b) hike about 30-40 minutes out to the main road and hope to flag down the express bus, or c) hitch hike.

The first day we got a ride to town with some folks who we met while out walking the night before. Right outside the marina is the most high-end RV park I’ve ever seen and a I grew up camping with my grandparents. This RV park outside the marina has a great tienda and a hotel with pool that the cruisers can use if they eat a meal in the restaurant. This RV park is a walk though and when we were walking back the first night we got in we met a couple who decided to turn around rather than walk all the way to the RV park. We got to talking with them and they told us that they had rented a car and would be willing to take us into town for a day of sight seeing. We jumped at the chance. We almost missed our free ride when to our dismay we found out that Puerto Escondido “sprung forward” on the clock and we had the wrong local time. We had to make a mad dash for the dinghy dock in order not to miss our ride.

We had a great day touring the mission, the museum and the town with Sam and Corrine from Alluvium.

We made it to the "first" mission

All of us standing in the museum's courtyard next door to the mission

Ryan in front of the mission

The alter inside the mission

The front of the mission from street level

The mission's bells

The pot used by the padres to make a porridge for the natives

Some of the early tools used by the missionaries

Ryan and I explore one of the early sailing vessels used by the local native people

The courtyard at the museum which is next door to the church

What the early cowboys would have used who worked the mission and the neighboring ranchero

We visited the mission, then spent an hour and a half in the museum next door. It's definitely worth a visit. We also spent a couple of hours combing up and down the touristo street looking at ceramics, woven blankets, jewelry, cheap trinkets, etc. It's all there. The Cap'n also continued his routine of checking out the local ferreterias (hardware stores) in search of light bulbs for the engine instruments, and various bits and pieces to finish the never-ending boat projects.

The next day was the real adventure. Given our three choices and being the irresponsible parents that we are, we introduced the kids to the time-honored tradition of hitching a ride. Don't bother to call Child Protective Services though, we merely asked one of the resident cruisers in the parking lot if we could bum a ride to town with them.

We got a ride from a great couple (Gail and Doug from Native Dancer) who have been coming here forever. They worked for themselves and had winters off, so they started cruising in their 20's and either trailered their boat down here or kept their boat in Mexico!!! Wow! Why didn't we learn that lesson when we were 20? During our 30-minute ride to town, we had a great, rambling conversation with them and learned that many of the old-time cruisers wonder about the lack of new cruisers. There are plenty of older cruisers, but they believe the lifestyle needs fresh, young blood to keep growing. Once in town, they gave us a great tour up and down the two main streets, showing us everywhere we needed to go.
The Sabbatical gang definitely marches on its stomachs, so we needed some re-provisioning. We went to the supermarket ("El Pescador") for staples and Juarez Market for fresh cut meats. There are 2 or 3 other places to get fresh fruits and vegetables, and plenty of tortillerias. You certainly won't go hungry here.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a road trip without some street tacos, would it? Our "guides," Gail and Doug gave their highest praise to "El Rey del Taco" on Juarez Street, so we had to give it a try. Wow! Are we glad we did. They serve two things, and two things only: fish tacos and beef tacos. You walk in and the owner greets you by asking how many you want of each! A couple minutes later and he brings them over to you. All the "fixin's" are on the side table: cabbage, limes, crema, avocado sauce, hot sauces, salsa, jalapenos, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, etc. Just help yourself and heap 'em on! Washed down with a fresh limonada, it's a meal fit for a king, or at least folks out buying groceries.

We were here two years ago while on a cruise ship and couldn't help but notice the difference. Back then, cruise ships made regular stops here, and the town had plenty of folks walking around. Fast forward through the economic downturn, the H1N1 scare and it's a much quieter town today. The cruise ships have stopped coming and tourism is way down. Quite a few stores were closed. Some still had tape on their windows from a past storm warning, but it looked like the owners never came back to open the shops. Back in better economic times, a number of civic projects were started, including paving some of the dirt streets, putting in new sidewalks, and converting the "tourist street" into a pedestrian-only walking street. The projects are almost done, waiting for more tourists. We hope the improvements pay off since Loreto is such a charming, old town.

Our next stop is Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen.

80, Loreto mission sign; 4, Ryan in front of the mission; 2, inside church;6 front of church; 10 bells from church; 17, The pot in which the padres made the gruel for the native workers; 21, Tools used at the mission;27, canoe used by early natives at the mission; 74, courtyard at the missions museum; 65, vaqueros work room; 75 Kumpis family in front of the sculpture in the mission’s courtyard;

Puerto Escondido, April 2010

2010-05-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

We spent 3 pleasant days at Puerto Escondido, the "Hidden Port," and nearby Loreto, the former capital of Baja California Sur and site of the first mission in Baja California. In case you need it, the Loreto International Airport is between the two.

The Hidden Port has 3 parts: the "Waiting Room" (the anchorage outside the harbor), the "Ellipse" (another, smaller anchorage, just inside the harbor), and the main bay with the marina (only 10 slips) and dozens of mooring balls. There is some skinny water (less than 10 feet) as you pass the narrow (30 yards wide) entrance into the main harbor, but after that, it's 30+ feet deep. There's fresh water and a fuel dock, but you'll need to wait for an open slip to fill your tanks unless you want to jerry jug it in your dinghy. Then, it's out to the mooring balls. Overall, the marina follows the standard Singlar design and has nice facilities (the Harbor Master's office on the second floor; a mini-tienda selling beer, sodas, some veggies and some staples; a cruisers lounge below the Harbor Master's office; an on-site restaurant; a small pool upstairs; and a nice restaurant and large pool at the RV park about a 20 minute walk away) and a friendly staff. Some long-term cruisers have swallowed the anchor here and store their boats in the marina yard while living ashore. Others keep fishing boats on trailers and launch when they need something for dinner.

Apparently, someone had great plans for this area many years ago. There are wide, paved streets, pedestrian bridges over Italian-style canals, and a couple of lighted roads leading a few hundred yards to nowhere. But, that's as far as anyone got. The place has been unfinished for 20 years.

Escondido is home to the Hidden Port Yacht Club, a great group of folks, with a large book exchange (especially one for kids), a DVD lending library, and a surprisingly active social calendar. They also host "Loreto Fest", the annual cruiser event at the end of April/beginning of May. We plan to be back for the Fest the first weekend in May.

We happened to be in town for one of the weekly Sunday afternoon pot luck suppers and had a great time. One of the sport fishing boats donated tons of fresh fish (yellow fin tuna and swordfish) to the party, and each boat brought a side dish or desert to share. The mini-tienda at the marina sold beer and sodas, and no one went hungry! We met folks that drive down here each year from Canada and the US, as well as cruisers like ourselves. Luckily, we met one other kid boat from Canada that had a boy and a girl the same ages as Kelly and Ryan. The boys spent the days playing what else - video games - while the girls hung out and learned to play about a 1000 versions of "cat's cradle" from one of the cruiser ladies. It was hard to tell who was having more fun, the girls or the ladies who were re-living their childhoods and sitting on the floor playing.

While we were in Escondido we managed to get into Loreto - see the next installment of the blog

Sunrise on the west side of th anchorage at Puerto Escondido

The eastern side of the anchorage and all the mooring balls at Puerto Escondido

The northwest corner

The North side of the anchorage that if you walked across would open up to the Sea of Cortez

Life under Sail – on the way to Puerto Escondido

2010-05-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

Now that we are on the move, we spend a lot of time sailing/motoring our way up into the Sea. That means that some days we might be moving for over 6 hours. The kids will tell you that there’s not a lot to do while we are moving. Now that they both have their sea legs, they actually prefer to stay below and read, play games or sleep. Of course neither of them is too bored to do extra homework. Many days we just look out at the sea.

Kelly haning out on our sail north to Puerto Escondido

Kelly likes to listen to music while we move and when Phil forces her to listen to John Coltrane she plugs in her i-pod which is usually sorely in need of a charge. Ryan, sleeps, reads (yes even Ryan has resorted to reading on the longer passages), or devises major battles with his legos. Phil watches – for whales, passing boats or interesting things ashore.

Dad looking for landmarks so we know when to turn

Ryan reading one of he Percy Jackson books below

The flippers of a sleeping sea lion that we passed on our trip north

That's a blue whale over there in the distance right in front of the other boat

If you click on the picture above you can see the whal trolling along looking for food.

I usually read. What is truly sad is that now that we have been at this for a while the kids don’t even want to come up and look at whales or other things we see in the ocean. On our passage to Puerto Escondido we came upon a whale feeding and neither of the kids came up to see it, both of them yelling up to me that “we’ve seen them before.” In this world of computer animation, the real thing just isn’t that interesting. Oh well I guess that when given the choice as a kid of watching Marlin Perkins Wild Kingdom or The Wonderful World of Disney I probably choice Walt over Marlin every time.

Agua Verde – April 5- April 8, 2010

2010-05-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

We set out for Agua Verde on Monday and got in about noon. This is another one of the “must go to spots” in the Sea of Cortez. Pictures from this location grace the covers of several of the cruising guides we are using here in Mexico and everyone tells you that you must stop here.
Agua Verde - whether it really means "turquoise," "green water," or something else, we ended up staying here for three days. At first we anchored off the main beach. We arrived from the south, which meant we had to choose either the inside passage between the shore and the reef, or the outside passage around the mile and a half long reef. The various guidebooks all give different directions, of course, but if you decide to take the route inside the reef, be sure to hug the coast - like within 100 yards of the rocks on shore. If not, and, like us, you try to "eye-ball" about a third of the distance between the reef and the shore, you may find the water a tad "skinny" - like 20 feet, going to 15 feet, then to 12 feet, all in less than 30 seconds. Yikes! Time to turn back and head outside the reef! This is definitely a place when local knowledge helps, or at least watching some folks take the inside passage before you do. The outside passage around the reef adds at least an hour and 1/2 to the trip. (We found this out when we came back the other way on the trip south and it took us a whole 15 minutes to take the short cut rather than go around the island.)

However you get here, Agua Verde is desolate and beautiful. The water is every bit the blue and green you picture in your mind, and you can see the sand and the rocks on the bottom as you anchor. (Even though you can't see it in these pictures. I'll get some with the good camera when we stop here on the way back south.)This really is "the desert meets the ocean" as the steep brown hills navigated primarily by the goats that are kept to make all the local goat cheese and sprinkled with cacti remind us every day. And it never fails to amaze when, on one cactus, you see a turkey vulture and, on the next cactus, you’ll see a seagull or a pelican.

The spit of land at the north end of Agua Verde

The north end of the bay where you tuck in when the wind blows out of the north

Ryan on the road above the anchorage

We spent a pleasant night off the main beach before the north winds cranked up and combined with the swell that curled around the point to create a rolly anchorage. On our second day, we moved over to the northwest cove for some shelter from the wind and waves. We weren't the only ones with that idea as we were joined by 4 or 5 other boats. Luckily, everyone was extremely considerate of the each other and left plenty of room to swing at anchor. You may be surprised at how close you can get to shore and still have 15 feet of water under you.

The "town" consists of a few dirt roads, a few houses, and lots of cacti. All the guidebooks mention "Maria's Tienda" and tell you that you can re-provision there, including the local, fresh goat cheese ("queso fresco"). Maria's is still here, and she does have a decent, if small, selection of stuff. We bought some drinks for the kids, but what the Cap'n really wanted was the fresh goat cheese since he's such a sucker for it. Maria keeps a nice block of the cheese in her cooler and you just cut off as much as you want. It was more the texture of firm tofu than the soft, creamy cheese you probably get back home, but it was still pretty good. In fact, it tasted even better the second day. Sadly, there won't be a "third day" since Phil ate the last of it this afternoon.

There's also a small, blue house with a front porch and a fence with a hand-painted "Restaurant" sign. We wandered in and were served cheese quesadillas and frijoles refritos. They were pretty good (yeah, lard really does make the tortillas taste that much better!), but some might wonder whether they were really worth the $5 (US dollars) per plate that we were charged. We'd heard from other cruisers that prices were a bit steep here, so maybe it was to be expected. I guess that's the price of paradise.

I'll bet that we've hiked more here than we have since we got to Mexico. There are goat trails up into the hills, an old graveyard to visit, and a deserted beach over the hills to wander. We followed the goat path over the hills past the graveyard to get to the beach and found it wild and deserted. The only living things we saw were a few crabs and a baby calf that was wandering in the brush. We hiked for a couple of miles to the end of the beach in search of some caves with Indian petroglyphs, but, unfortunately, never found the paintings. I guess local knowledge might have helped there too. Still, we had a great time searching for shells, sea glass, and drift wood, and arrived back at the boat 4 hours later, tired, but happy. Who would have guessed that flip-flops make such great hiking shoes on the goat trails?

On the way to the graveyard

We made it over the goat trails to the old graveyard

The kids playing with driftwood they found on the north beach

The last night we were in the anchorage a boat ran aground trying to make it through that skinny passage I talked about above. The single-hander actually fell asleep at the wheel – yep it happens on boats more than on cars since that rocking motion lulls you to sleep a lot faster than speed-bumps. The six boats that were in Agua Verde when it happened tried to help but to make a long story short, after a week of trying, they managed to get the boat off the rocks – there was a hole in the bottom that had to be patched – but the mast was snapped in the process of trying to drag Little Fawn back into the water. The boat is now in dry dock in Puerto Escondido.

When we left Agua Verde we headed north to Puerto Escondido, the nearest anchorage to the Loreto area unless you want to anchor in the open in front of the town where the cruise ships used to drop anchor and tender people ashore. We plan to make this a short trip as we expect to be back in Puerto Escondido for "Loreto Fest" at the end of April. That said, in order to see all that we want to see, we need to keep moving north. With any luck, we'll still make it to Santa Rosalia, with its old, French copper mine and Eiffel-designed church from the World's Fair just before the turn of the 20th century. Apparently, the building was built in France, exhibited at the Fair, then dis-assembled, stored in Brussels, and ultimately, shipped to Mexico and put back together. Can you imagine anyone doing that today?

There is so much to see down here and so little time to see it.

San Telmo/Punta Prieta – April 4-April 5, 2010 – Easter Sunday

2010-05-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

After an absolutely calm night with cool temperatures, we left San Evaristo at 7 AM for a fairly long day's run to Punta San Telmo. It's also known as Punta Prieta, but there are two or three places by that name that we've seen so far, so we'll just use San Telmo. It's only a mile past Puerto Los Gatos, a very popular anchorage, but it seems everyone goes to Los Gatos and we had San Telmo to ourselves. Well, except for Manuel, but we'll get to him later.

We enjoyed a peaceful motorsail up the coast. We passed cliff after cliff of the Sierra de Gigante mountains. We passed broad alluvial fans where the rains are slowly washing the mountains down to the beach and where giant cacti grow to 20 feet. We saw the remains of old ranchos and a few houses scattered on the shoreline.

We anchored in our usual 20 feet over sand and set about to enjoy the solitude. Phil (in his wet suit) snorkeled around the bay for an hour and learned that the middle of this bay is basically an underwater desert. It's gently sloping and sandy, and you can see the occasional puffer fish trying to hide in the sand ripples, but nothing else, not even a plant or a rock. The edges of the bay, however, are teeming with life. Between the sandy beaches are rocky out-croppings of volcanic rock that lead to reefs in 6 to 10 feet of water. There you'll find huge schools of fish rushing along in streams like they were on the freeway. Some of the fish even turn to look at you. Every now and then the school goes nuts and splits into a thousand directions as a large grouper darts in for his lunch. It's your basic "Wild Kingdom" moment, and you have a front row seat. There are smallish clumps of coral, sea fans, starfish, sea urchins, etc. - all in 10 feet of water. The Cap'n eventually swam ashore and walked up one of the arroyos to see what he could find. The only tracks he saw were from lizards and coyotes. Did I mention that while he was frolicking ashore the anchor alarm started going off which meant we were actually dragging our anchor in the bay. When I waved to him on shore and then started using a flash light to do morse code for SOS, he just waved back. He finally realized something was going on and came back to the boat.

We were originally anchored in front of these rocks and then we moved around them to be behind them after the anchor dragged

The area on shore where Phil was wandering around

More of what we saw from the boat

The dragging of the anchor coupled with the wind starting to pipe up from the southeast, the only direction from which this bay had no protection..... . . let's review the bidding: we've got the wind coming up, the swell building, shallow water, the anchor dragging slowly through very soft sand, and a rocky, lee shore just 100 yards behind us. OK, time to move!

Up came the anchor for a 15 minute trip around the point, where we anchored on the backside of the rocks along a gravel beach where we were more sheltered from the wind and swell. It's a bit of a pain to haul up the anchor and move once you've settled in, but this one was a no-brainer. The story has a happy ending though: Manuel (remember him?) and his son were just getting ready to leave a beach shack in their panga when they spotted us dropping the hook. Well, well, well, what do you know, Manuel had a few lobster to sell to the yachtistas. Let's just leave it at this: the kids now love lobster as much as we do. The night ended up being quite pleasant and we had a great day before we set out north for Agua Verde.

Kelly trying her Eastert lobster

Dad and Ryan licking their fingers

The last bite

All that was left of Shirley, Stephen and Al (what the kids named the 3 lobsters)

Does it get any better than this? We wish you were here to enjoy it.

San Evaristo - April 3-4, 2010

2010-05-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

San Evaristo - the South end of the beach

The center of the beach

The north end of the beach in San Evaristo

Phil checking the water temperature as reported from out trusty mate - Fred the duck.

San Evaristo is a true, Baja fishing village, exactly the kind we'd imagined and hoped to see. No one speaks English and the folks in this town rely on the sea for everything. There are about 20 families living in the little bay, and it looks like every one of them has a panga: a big, fast, carry anything and everything panga. Because were starting out in the sea during a local school vacation there were lots of families camping along the shore enjoying the sunshine. The water temperature is cold for us spoiled by the warm waters of southern Mexico. Fred our trusty duck thermometer is telling us it is only 72. That does not seem to bother the kids. Jumping in the water is fun anywhere we go.
The little village extends only about 100 yards in from the beach, with one dirt road in and out. There are the usual fishing shacks and lean-to's along the beach made of scrap plywood, driftwood and old galvanized roofing, and even a few tents. The houses range from shacks to cinder block. The one palapa was easy to spot - it has the only awning in the whole place. Well, that and the "Pacifico" beer logo on top.

Dad managed to find the "ballena"

Kelly standing on the beach - this camera had a little accident down in Chamela and it makes everything blue when it is really sunny - no matter how much I try and override the colors.

Main street in Evaristo (same camera)

The sign for the "mini-mart"

We rowed the dinghy ashore and spent an hour or two wandering around and practicing our bad Spanglish with the residents. They were super friendly and tried to help us find the local tienda – “casa rosa.” The little store was surprisingly well stocked, although some of the tomatoes looked a little long in the tooth. We passed on them, but picked up a few other things for the galley. We eventually stopped by the palapa and enjoyed a beverage while watching the fishermen make ceviche with giant clams. Who knows where they get their supplies, but they use a lot of limes in their ceviche, then pour it into big glasses and top it off with bottles and bottles of Clamato juice. The fishermen called it a "Cocktel de Ceviche." Call it what you want, it looked great.

The anchorage is small and well protected from the north and northwest and, for once, the swell didn't curl around the point very much - perfect sleeping conditions. The Nautical Almanac said the moon wouldn't rise until about 2300, so we had an amazing display of stars after dinner. The crew collapsed long before then, tired, but happy.

As Easter Sunday was quickly approaching, the kids realized that we had not brought our traditional “Easter baskets” with us on the boat. Ryan did not seem to care and he wrote a note to the Easter Bunny explaining what had happened. Kelly on the other hand insisted that there would be no candy if she did not have a basket. She proceeded to make her own. She was rewarded with a little more candy than Ryan got. We think it was because she had a basket but we’ll never know as the Rabbit did not leave an explanation.

This was Kelly's work in process

This was the final product which actually held candy

Sun setting over the bay in San Evaristo (picture by Ryan)

Back in La Paz

2010-05-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

After six weeks exploring the Sea of Cortez we are back in La Paz to deal with our immigration issue. The problem is that we are nearing the 180 day limit that we are allowed to stay in the country. We have to get extensions on our visas before we can head out again. We hope to have it all cleared up in a day or two but in the meantime, it gives me a chance to catch up on the blog which I have not been able to do while we have been anchored in remote locations up in the sea. Hope you enjoy what will follow trying to catch all of you up on what we have been doing down here in Mexico.

2010-04-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

Our next stop was just 40 miles north – Isla San Francisco. This island is also part of the nature preserve and we actually had some local rangers stop by our boat to collect our fees allowing us to go ashore. One of the most photographed anchorages in all of the Sea of Cortez is on this island. It is affectionately referred to as – The HOOK, as it does resemble a hook when you climb up the mountains and see it from up high. It is very protected and for us made a great stop to go hike and explore. On the way there we ran into our friends on Black Dragon who were on their way back to La Paz to drop their friends off. I have to say that this one of the prettiest places we stayed and lived up to all the hype it gets in all the guides we read.

Finding Black Dragon at Sea

Passing Black Dragon up close and personal

Phil driving the boat to Isla San Franciso

What Ryan normally does while we're sailing

There is always time, no matter where we are to make brownies. They sure do taste good on a boat.

Hiking up the hill in The Hook - Zoom off

Same picture with the zoom on

Mom and Dad trying to catch up to the kids who are already at the top of the hill

The view from the top. Sabbatical is in the center of the anchorage. If only I had a panoramic camera I could have gotten the whole Hook.

Sabbatical in the Hook

Phil, Kelly and Ryan near the top

Kelly and Ryan making their way across the ridge line

Dad made it to the top

The other side of the island as seen from the top

One of the varieties of cactus living on the islan

Kelly and Ryan with the cairns they built to mark the trail we took down

Phil and the kids walking on the salt flats

The salt pond up close

Salt sure does look like ice

More salt sculptures

An ice pond

Phil and the kids touching the salt

Looking for more shells on the beach

Look what I found mom!

What is truly amazing is that there were not many boats in the anchorage but while we were ashore exploring we ran into a family from of all places – Manhattan Beach. Their daughters go to school at American Martyrs with the Phillips kids who live on our street. It is a VERY small world.

Caleta Partida – March 30 – April 1, 2010

2010-04-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

Our first stop in the Sea was at an island called Espiritu Santo and the location was Caleta Partida. It is a beautiful cove with crystal clear water. The entire island is a nature preserve.

We were there for the full moon which I was able to capture.
We went ashore after spending a night with almost no swell. We tried to find the trailhead – which was clearly marked but there did not appear to be any “clear” trail. We met some other hikers who had tried for over two hours to find a trail with no luck. So instead we just had fun chasing the fiddler crabs back into their holes. We also took our dinghy through a narrow islet that separates the north and south sides of the island. At one point they were connected but one side of the volcanic crater that created this island collaped in creating this opening between the two parts of the island. Traveling through this inlet is very sporty as it was close to low tide and with the four of us in our dinghy there was not much between us and the sand. We spent two nights here before heading north to Isla San Francisco – The HOOK.

Sabbatical at anchor

Ryan on shore looking for crabs

Ah, the trailhead

Okay, where does it start?

One of the locals

A fiddler crab

A fiddler crab up close

A big piece of driftwood

Kelly heading back to the dinghy which you can see in the upper left of the picture. All of the bumps you see on the shore behind her in the lower left corner are fiddler crabs that have come back out after she passed.

Back in La Paz

2010-04-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

We ended up back in Marina Palmira with Black Dragon and some of the other boats we have seen along the way. The stay here was pretty uneventful except for my one day shopping excursion with Tracey. We ended up finding a place to have our hair colored. After four months I definitely needed it. I can tell you first hand it is really an adventure trying to explain to someone what color hair you want when your Spanish is not great and the person listening does not speak English. In the end it all worked out and my family much appreciated that I no longer looked like Grannie.

Tracey getting blonder

Me getting darker

We did one more trip to tour La Paz and then we started getting ready to head north.

We had to say good-bye to Black Dragon as they were meeting friends and staying in La Paz longer than we wanted to. We reprovisioned and after meeting up again with the Pond family from Qualchan and the folks on RockStar for a quick dinner at Bandidtos - we left La Paz on March 30, 2010 bound for our northward trek into the Sea. We headed out at the same time as our friends on Qualchan. They were heading out for a one night stay up the coast before heading back into La Paz to reprovision. We got some great shots of them sailing as we were both heading north.

The art imitators in La Paz

Banditos - Ryan and Luke

Qualchan heading north out of La Paz

Qualchan moving away from us in Bahia de La Paz

The Push North to Mazatlan

2010-04-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

It was HELL. We had 30 knots of wind on our nose and swells that were 8-10 feet for about 15 straight hours. We still made it into Mazatlan in a day and ½ but it was the worst overnight passage we had on the trip. We were all happy to get back to Mazatlan. We stayed at El Cid Marina which is an AWESOME resort. We also ended up being docked next to a boat that we had seen a lot but had not actually met – Black Dragon. We are all in love with the Dolling family from Black Dragon. Tracey, Steve and Foster (and Scupper the dog) are wonderful. We ended up spending a week with them in Mazatlan. I had my best shopping day ever with Tracey trying to find the bowls you need to make molcajetes.

Turns out that we decided to buddy boat across the Sea back to Bahia de los Muertos. We had a great trip across. We could not have had better conditions. There was a group of four sailboats all going the same way – us, Black Dragon, RockStar and Sapphire. We made it from Mazatlan to Muertos in 32 hours. We anchored in Muertos and spent a great couple of days on the beach there exploring one man’s resort (a former San Diego real estate developer – complete with giant model train collection) and the shoreline. The kids also had a lot of fun learning to sail in Foster’s sailing dinghy. Next stop back to La Paz to reprovision for the trip north into the Sea.

The Dolling family sailing to shore in Muertos on their dinghy

Kelly and me ashore in Muertos

Ryan just above the dinghy dock in Muertos

The walk into Muertos

Everyone, including Scupper is glad to be ashore

Lets hug a cactus but not too close

Climbing the awesome sand dunes in Muertos

(our camera makes everything look blue in bright sunlight)

We have conquered the hill

This picture does not do justice to layout of trains at this small resort on the south shore of Muertos

Kelly, Ryan and Foster playing with the slot cars in the resort at Muertos

I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this one for my mom

A picture taken from the second floor of the resort looking back down to the beach

Kelly coming down the slide

Kelly in the infiinty pool

The gang resting back at the beach before making the big push back to the dinghy dock

Steve Dolling and Phil walking back up the beach past the pangas

The colorful pangas

One of the locals in Muertos we found trying to hide under the rock.

Matanchen Bay to San Blas

2010-04-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

We left La Cruz and headed north. We spent one night in Matanchen Bay and then we decided to sneak literally around the corner and go up into the estuary and dock for one night in the marina at San Blas. San Blas is a historical city for many reasons. It was where the Spanish built ships in the 16th century that they loaded with Aztec gold and shipped back to Spain. It has a great fort and an old church made famous by a Longfellow poem. The Bells of San Blas, a famous poem was written about the bells found in the original church built in town. We were in San Blas for less than 24 hours but boy did we get our money’s worth.

Kelly and Ryan on the pier in San Blas

The old church in town with the new church under construction next door

For all of you California 4th graders studying the missions, this plaque is on the old church in town.

The first sign we've seen of Juan Diego, along with Our Lady of Guadalupe

The inside of the new church in town

This was unprompted but we thought we'd add it for the grandparents and Father Ray!

Kelly, Ryan and Phil standing between the old and new churches

One of the local ladies selling her fruit

Another vendor selling her fish

Ryan at the entrance to the Fort and the original church in San Blas

The first church in San Blas where the bells for which the poem was written originally hung. Again for the fourth graders out their studying the Spanish colonizing of California and Mexico, this church is only a few hundred yards below the Presidio - aka Fort.

Kelly and Ryan on one of the cannons in the Fort

The view from the Fort. You can see why they picked the spot they did. You can see the "new" church in the center of the picture and all the sticks - aka masts where the marina is in the background.

Phil and the kids on the road into the marina - you can see just how busy this place is.

We wanted to leave you with some pictures of what we saw on the way out of San Blas. The channel into this estuary is so silted in, they send a panga out to the break wall to guide you into the marina so as to help you from avoiding going aground. These were some of the boats that did not fair so well in the last hurricane that swept through here. Ryan thought it looked like "Shipwreck Cove" in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. We were just happy that we did not end up anywhere close to where they were.

Besides the bugs in San Blas - Ryan was eaten alive here- we really liked the place. Off to new adventures!

Cuesta Comate to Banderas Bay, March 1st to March 11, 2010

2010-04-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

We decided to make our first stop on the way north a short sail. We pulled into the “hidden anchorage” that is Cusesta Comate a short 1 ½ hour sail north of Barra. We needed to get our sea legs back. We were there with of course Sabbatical Verde and Oya. The first night we spent there was very calm but the second night had lots of swell so we pulled up anchor and headed just another short distance to Tenacatita. We did not go ashore in either anchorage. Then we made the long overnight passage around Correntes back into Banderas Bay.

Cuesta Comate

We left Tenacatita at 7:00 a.m. on March 4th and arrived in La Cruz to anchor at 5:20 a.m., after sailing all night. We anchored out in La Cruz for three nights and then went into the marina for five nights. While we were anchored out we witnessed a mother humpback whale breaching in the anchorage. We also saw the race for the Mexico Cup which was held while we were in La Cruz. The President of Mexico waved to us one day while we were at lunch and he was heading out to watch the races.

Mexico Cup - taken by Ryan in the anchorage in La Cruz

"Neck and Neck"

Mexico Cup - taken by Kelly -

"Making the Turn"

Mexico Cup

"The Dancers"

We also were in the marina to see the largest in-water boat show in Latin America. We got to see all the new power boats. We sent our roving reporters Kelly and her friend Maia out to investigate the boats. The kids also got to see exhibits put on by the Mexican Coast Guard and Navy.

Kelly and Maia (our ace reporters)

One of the boats our reporters said they liked

Which one shall we buy?

Ryan at the helm

Ryan and Maia in front of a replica of the Mexican training vessel

A life raft for 25 - a little cozy you think?

An officer and two young ladies

We also got some down time to actually just play in the park.

Kelly, Ryan and Maia in a park in La Cruz

Ryan trying to push Kelly into the tree

We had a lot of fun spending time with some of the families that are preparing to do the “Puddle Jump” to the Marquesas and beyond. We spent time with the families on Totem, Capaz, Mulan and Oso Blanco. We hope to read about their adventures as they make their way across the Pacific.
Our trip back to Banderas Bay was a fun one. No complaints from the crew here.

Leaving Barra - March 1, 2010

2010-04-10T16:53:00.000-07:00

Phil and MaryLou at Restaurant Maya in Melaque

After a long month in the marina it was finally time to set sail and head back north. We had planned to leave on February 28th but a little tsunami threw a wrench in our plans. So we delayed a day and left to head north on March 1st. We will all remember what a great time we had with friends in Barra.

Sunset over Melaque

Kumpis and Pond kids on the way to dinner in Barra

Phil, MaryLou, Margaret and Todd

on he water taxi dock in Barra

Phil and the girls on Sabbatical

The gang enjoying the pool bar in Barra

Caitlin, Fran, Colin, Phil, Jack, Cindy and ML

Phil and MaryLou

A Typical Day in Barra

2010-03-21T23:24:00.000-07:00

I thought you might want to see what a typical day of touring in Barra de Navidad was like for us so here goes.

First, we have to wait at the water taxi dock to catch a panga ride across the channel to Barra which is really across the state line in Jalisco. We are staying at the marina which is in the state of Colima.

Then our trusty panga driver takes us over to the "taxi aquatica" dock in Barra.

The driver in the back of the panga

Kids on the bow of the panga

At the dock

On the way over we passed the large scupture on the break wall that commemorates the four hundred years during which the Phillipines and Barra acted as trading posts for the Spanish empire.

Once we get to the dock the first thing we see is the local lime distributor making his early morning delivery of limes to all the local restaurants and bars.

As we walk down the street toward the center of town we start to see the local vendors carrying their wares to market.

On the way to the central market we stopped by St. Anthony of Padua's Catholic Church which is a block from the center of town.

The inside of the church is quite beautiful.

After leaving the church we went to "shop" in the market that is held every Thursday in the town square. We found all kinds of interesting things on sale.

Mexican Train characters

As Kelly has discovered, you can never have too much jewelry.

We left the market and wandered down to the water front where we explored the scupture before heading back over to Isla de Navidad.

Before we left Barra the kids went and climbed all over the scupture we had seen when we came across the channel.

Just another typical day here in Barra.

Tenecatita with Dr. Kelley

2010-03-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd try and catch up with the blog before we left Mazatlan and lost our internet connection.
While we were in Barra, Nicole's dad offered to take all of us up to Tenacatita for the day. With his power cat it only take about an hour and one half to get there. We set out in the morning and had a great day with the McGuinness family.

The kids on the front of SeaStar

Dr. Kelley driving the boat

Needless to say our kids were happy to be moving at over 5 knots. Captain Kelley even let Phil drive the boat. Phil was really happy to drive a boat that goes fast.

We even had some excitement along the way. We caught a couple of fish (both of which we threw back) and we ran into a pod of dolphins who had a great time playing in the wake of the boat.

Tossing one back

One of our friendly companions on the trip

We anchored off the aquarium and most of us swam to shore. Ryan opted to take the kyayak ashore. We had a wonderful time with yet another lunch at our favorite palapa restaurant - Cato. We made it back to the dock by about 5 o'clock. I have now decided that power is the way to go.

The Food

2010-02-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure you can tell from reading our blog a lot of our time is spent eating. That has not changed. The first thing we did when we got here was hail the French Baker who I have already written about. However I thought I'd let you all see what delivery by panga looks like.

Anton and the French Baker in the back row with Ryan, Charlie, Kelly and Luke getting their morning croissants. This is just about a daily occurance except for Wednesday's - French Baker is off that day.

As for dinners we've been having lots of Mexican food as you can imagine. One of our favorites is a meal made in a Mexican Molcajete Lava Bowl. The bowl is heated and stays hot for at least an hour after you are done. You can get fish, shrimp, steak, chicken or a mix. I had the steak, Phil had the shrimp and friends visiting had just about every other combination and we all loved them.

One of the other things that we decided we liked are tortas. They are rather large sandwiches made on a large roll and stuffed with meat, chicken or fish. I'm partial to the pork - carnitas tortas. We especially liked them at a restaurant we found in Melaque - the town at the other end of the bay here in Barra de Navidad.

You can get the sandwiches smothered which is the best way. You probably won't need dinner after eating this puppy. Our favorite place to eat these is a little sidewalk restaurant in Melaque.

You can see Ryan, Kelly and me sitting at the far right table.

But the place we have visited the most here in Barra is Thrifty's ice cream.

When we are out in anchorages it is hard to get anything with ice - especially ice cream so when we are in port we opt for eating our weight in ice cream.

Most of the time we eat our three meals a day on the boat. Shopping in little tiendas is easy here in Barra and in the small town where the marina is - Colimilla. The ladies in Colimilla now know Ryan and I since we do most of the shoppping. You can always find staples in the tiendas - milk, butter, eggs, etc... Some days the produce is better than others. Meat is very hard to come by and I've walked to Melaque a few times to get meat at the carneteria and to shop at the Hawaiian market. The Hawaiian market has some of those hard to find things like - bagels, tomato paste, and kiwi.

We've also dabbled in local "spirits." Our favorite is Controy. It is an orange flavored liquor that is similar to Contreau. We use it to make margaritas. We've also tried most of the beers. Pacifico still seems to be the favorite. We think Modelo is like Bud Light. We like a dark beer that Modelo makes which is called Victoria.

We have not gone thirsty or hungry here in Mexico.

Tsunami Survivors

2010-02-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

Well we had a little excitement here today resulting from the 8.8 earthquake in Chile. We received a tsunami warning for the Pacific Basin so in order to be safe we set to sea at 10:00 a.m. (CST) knowing that the tsunami was predicted to hit here in Barra at 11:09 a.m. local time.

We are safely back at the dock. We felt nothing out at sea but the bouys in the channel took a beating from the large waves that came in here. One bouy is completely gone and the current running out of the marina was pretty strong even hours after the event. Thankfully no one here was hurt and we all now have a good story to tell.

This is all that is left of one of the "green" channel bouys. It was washed into the marina by high currents.

COMPANY!

2010-02-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

The reason we decided to stay in the marina here in Isla de Navidad as long as we have was becauase we had several friends who were willing to come down and visit us while we were here. Our first visitors arrived on February 12th. Fran and her two kids Caitlin and Colin were ready for fun and adventure when they got here. The Baur family from Houston - Ron, Cindy, Jack and Kate also arrived that day. We had lots of fun playing with them in the pool and exploring the city of Barra de Navidad. But most of all we enjoyed sharing panga rides with them...

(Ron really wanted to be in the picture with the kids)

and eating all that ice cream from our favorite "Thrifty" ice cream shop.

Cindy and Kate sitting in front of Thrifty's

The McGuinness gang showed up on the 14th and they got in on the ice cream craze.

The kids also enjoyed getting into the spirit of the ethnic traditions of the town. Below is their rendition of "Dia des Muertos."

Check out the eyes. I couldn't have done that again if I tried.

We also enjoyed the hospitality of Nicole's dad - "Dr. Neil" - aboard his boat SeaStar.

Budding models

Dr. Neil even gave all the kids a spin in his dinghy.

The smiles on everyone's faces told us just how much fun everyone was having.

Our budding designer who saw beauty in the debris left behind by the trees. (Note picture two above.)

Caitlin and Colin enjoyed the pool

Kelly really like reading - in peace (Yes, that is Ryan under the towel next to her playing his DS - better to see the screen without the glare of the sun.)

He did finally come out from under the towel after he had beaten the game - sporting a smile!

Even a rainy day venture into town for shopping was a lot of fun.

We had a great time with everyone and we are soooooo happy they came to share some time with us in this great place that is Barra de Navidad!

Kelly's birthday

2010-02-26T06:52:00.000-08:00

Kelly turned 11 on February 5th. We decided that we had to get some dessert to celebrate the big day so we decided to enlist the help of the French Baker. The French Baker is a French gentleman who lives here in Barra for half the year with his family. He and his wife own a bakery in town and they make wonderful croissants in several varieties. The best part is that he delivers his treats directly to your boat via a panga he has outfitted. You simply have to call him on the radio. We had been hearing people call him when we were in Tenacatita and we made it our mission to find him as soon as we got into the marina. Needless to say he has been coming to our boat every day since we've been here.

So we thought it only fitting to have him make us something for Kelly's birthday. Kelly settled on a Chocolate Mango Ginger Marmalade Pie - that is a mouthful. He did a great job on the pie. In the end she didn't "love it" but she was very happy with the what he came up with for her.

We had dinner on the boat and some of our friends stopped by to wish her happy birthday. Anton and Rita from Royal Albatross brought her a small apple pie from the French Baker and gave her a gift. I don't think she'll forget where she was on this birthday.

RAIN

2010-02-26T06:42:00.000-08:00

Well we knew it couldn't last but we never thought our first encounter with rain would be the biggest storm of the century in this part of the world. It started raining on the morning of February 2nd. We were safely tied to our slip in the marina and we thought it would be a good chance to get ahead on school work since we couldn't really to to the pool. We had just put up our new awning the day before. We had never even used it until we got here but since we knew we'd be in this marina for a while we decided to put it up. Initially it helped keep the rain out while allowing us to keep the hatches open. That did not last long.

By the middle of the day the rain was coming down pretty hard so we decided that even with the awning up we had to close our four big hatches. This made it a little steamy down below but with the fans on it was bearable. After dinner it really started raining hard and the wind was really starting to pick up. At 10:00 pm Phil and I decided that we had to take the awning down or risk having it torn or worse still having something else break because we had tied the awning to it. So in the pouring rain we went out and took it down. We then had to shut all of our portholes because the rain was coming down so hard - and horizontally - that rain was coming in the sides of the boat. The wind gusts were getting to be 35-40 mph by about 11:00. That's when the show really started.

Lighting like I have never seen before began to light up the sky to the north. It lasted until about 1:30 a.m. The kids slept through the whole thing but the lightning combined with the torrential rain and the wind I didn't finally go to sleep til after 3:00 a.m. We awoke to another day of POURING rain which lasted the entire day.

After it was over and done we learned that where we were there had only been "intense" rain but that further south there had been "torrential" rain that had caused mud slides. North of us in La Cruz - one of the anchorages we had been in only a few weeks ago - saw the worst of the storm. One boat went aground when its anchor chain broke but the family on board was saved when a large wave washed them off the beach and they were able to start their engine. Another ship sustained damage when one ship slipped off its anchor and dragged into their boat bending the stantions and life lines of the boat that was hit by the boat that was dragging. In La Cruz the winds got to 70 mph. We heard from a couple that was in the marina there that their boat was heeled over in the slip so far that they were worried they would be in the water.

Our friend's on Qualchan were in Tenacatita for the storm. This is a picture of Qualchan taken by another boat in the same anchorage of what it looked like in Tenacatita. There boat was not hit by the lightning but it sure did look like it was.

Ryan has been learning about erosion and boy did he get a chance to see the real thing. Half of the hillside next to the marina came down with the rain. It took the marina days to clean up all the dirt that washed down. The water in the marina took longer to clear. No one is going to forget where they were for this storm.

Getting the lay of the land in and around Barra - February 2010

2010-02-24T21:18:00.000-08:00

After settling in and finding our where the pools were it was time to focus on the immediate needs of clean laundry and food acquisition. I was lucky enough to be invited by Annie from Oso Blanco to accompany her and Nicole from Ohana on a shopping expedition to Melaque, the next town over. Annie has a car here in Colima so the short trip over the boarder back into Jalisco and the town of Melaque was a simple matter of loading ourselves into the car and making the short 20 minute trip. I would come to find that with no car, the trip requires you to take a panga (aka water taxi) to Barra and then you can either walk up the beach to Melaque (which I did do) which takes 40 minutes or you can take a cab to Melaque from the water taxi stop in Barra (for 50 pesos ($4.25 roughly). Then you have to get everything you buy back to the boat. Trust me going in the car was a DREAM come true.

Laundry on the other hand required a walk into the town of Colimilla. It's not a far walk - about 1/2 mile - but it is all up hill and I do mean a "HILL." Who knew two little kids laundry could weigh so much but when you've been out at achor for three weeks and every bath towel, sheet and dish towel is dirty I will tell you carrying those bags up hill in 85 degree heat and high humidity is not for the faint of heart. In any event we managed to get our "chores" done in a couple of days.

The marina itself is not all that large. Small in comparison to Nuevo Vallarta's Paradise Village.

A picture of the Marina as taken from the sixth floor of the neighboring hotel. You can see the lagoon in the background. This is where many of the sailboats anchor to avoid paying the pricey slip fees in the marina.

Here is a shot of Sabbatical taken from the sixth floor lobby of the hotel.

If you look across the bay a little to the north you can see the town of Barra de Navidad located in the neighboring state of Jalisco.

That little waterway you see is the boarder between the two states. It takes less than 3 minutes by panga to cross that bay.

As I mentioned the grounds of the marina and hotel have 3 pools. One pool is just too hard to get to as you have to cross several bridges and take several different elevators just to get there. I think they did this on purpose to insure that the kids stay in the slide pool and allow this pool for those truly seeking a relaxing - quiet - vacation. The second pool is a kid friendly pool on the 1st floor which for lack of any other reason as it has to compete with the slide is just not that popular. You'd think more families would camp out here as it has this great dolphin mosaic but the kids thought it was boring. Kelly and our friends Caitlin and Colin Beale did at least venture to get wet in it one day.

The main attraction is the big pool which not only has two slides and a hot tub but also has what my kids loved which was a swim up bar where you could sit and have your nachos and drinks.

From the day we arrived Ryan had his heart set on sitting at the pool bar and having lunch so when we finally obliged his wish and let him order food and sit and eat it at the swim up bar he found that it was all he could do to keep from freezing in the water while trying to eat his lunch. His lips were blue by the time he was done but he could at least say that he had done it.

Nachos are good no matter where you eat them - or how cold you are!

Now all we have to do is wait for Kelly's birthday celebration and for our friends to arrive.

Kelly and Ryan outside the front door of the Wyndham Hotel in Isla de Navidad.

Bye-Bye Tenacatita - Hello Barra de Navidad - January 29, 2010

2010-02-24T20:39:00.000-08:00

Well we finally decided to make the whopping ten mile move south to Barra de Navidad. Our last day in Tenacatita proved to be fruitful one. We finally ran into Neil Kelley, Nicole McGuinness' dad. He just drove up to our boat the last day on a dinghy with some of his friends and introduced himself to us. He knew who we were by the hailing port on our ship "Hermosa Beach." He told us he would be in Barra during the same period we were there and that he was looking forward to seeing us and his family over the course of the next month.

The other memorable event about our last night was the dolphins. It got to be about 10:00 p.m. and Phil and I were reading when all of a sudden we heard the noise that boaters never want to hear - our anchor was dragging on the bottom. We could not understand how this was possible since it was a calm night and we had become experts on anchoring in this bay as we had up and moved anchor no fewer than 8 times during the course of our stay for various reasons mentioned in my prior blog. Kelly even jumped out of bed as she was sleeping right under the anchor locker and she too heard the noise. We all ran up on deck - except Ryan - who I'm convinced could sleep on a picket fence, and what did we see in the full moon but a couple of dolhins who were using our anchor chain as a scratching post. They spent the next hour dragging our anchor line with them as they played with each other. From what we heard from some of our neighbors the dolphins weren't just using our anchors as jump ropes. They were moving at least three other boats. They finally settled down about 11:30 - as did we.

Our trip to Barra was uneventful. Which means no one was sick and as further evidence that the kids now had their sea legs, they didn't even bother to come above decks during our transit south. Kelly stayed below and did what she does a lot - read books and Ryan played the DS. We arrived in Barra about 11:30 a.m. and were immediately invited to a dock party by some of the friends we had met in Puerto Vallarta. Annie from S/V Oso Blanco happened to be on the same dock as us as did another family who were from Hollywood Riviera. We ended up with a few kids on our dock which was enough to make Kelly and Ryan happy that they weren't alone.

The food at the dock party was excellent and the marina itself is set in a beautiful location. That said, this Marina has seen better days. It reminded me of Miss Havisham's wedding dress from Great Expectations. I'm sure that when it first opened and was shiny and new it was marvelous but this marina's time, like Miss Havisham's dress, has come and gone. It is now old and yellowing (literally.) The facilities are NOT well maintained and for what you pay and from initial appearances what you expect to get you will be sorely disappointed. However, there are a few positives. The water slide at the pool is to quote the kids "awesome." The quick panga rides across the state line - aka the bay to Barra de Navidad (the marina is actually in Isla de Navidad - a peninsula in the next state of Colima) which go faster than some of the rides at Disneyland and the overall location make it bearable. However the showers and mosquitos are AWFUL here.

Needless to say we were going to stay no matter what because we had lots of company coming from home and more than anything we were all looking forward to seeing familiar faces. So, with that in mind we settled in for a month in Isla de Navidad's Marina.

Two Weeks in Tenacatita til January 29th

2010-02-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

The trip down the coast from Chamela was beautiful. We had to deal with headwinds again to go south in the early morning, but the normal land and sea breezes built during the late morning and afternoon, and we ended up with a nice beam reach in 5-10 knots of breeze. The air was warm, and the sky was blue with big, puffy clouds . . . Ahh, this is what we signed up for. (This was taken from one of Phil's e-mails).

Along the way, there are huge stretches of empty beaches and palm trees, then little clusters of mansions scattered about. I don't know who is the architect, but there are a number of mansions that are built like castles - lots of turrets and ornate construction. One had a bridge into the property shaped like a full-on drawbridge. We even saw a structure that can only be described as the bottom half of a sphere. It had multiple stories and who knows if it was complete. Maybe the guys from Epcot Center live there. There are also a few nice-looking, smaller resorts. Highway 200 runs parallel to the coast here and apparently is how everyone gets to these remote sites.

Careyes was as beautiful as the guidebooks foretold (colorful homes on the hillsides, gorgeous topical flowers, snug little anchorages), but the kids were dying to go on the Tenacatita jungle cruise, so you can guess what happened - the Cap'n got out-voted! The good news is that it's only 10 miles from Chamela to Careyes, then another 25 miles to Tenacatita. Compared to some of the other passages we've had, this was a piece o' cake.

Entering Tenacatita is straightforward - just leave extra room around the rocks guarding the entrance. And, if you're going to anchor back by the jungle cruise river, be sure to keep Roca Central well to port. Anchoring was easy in 25-35' in sand right along the beach.

T Bay is very popular. The morning VHF radio net is more civilized here - it doesn't even start until 9 AM, and often is over in 15-20 minutes. People stay for weeks at a time, or use it as a place to escape Barra de Navidad for a few days before heading back to that mega-resort another 10 miles down the coast. Our friends on a large trawler shall remain nameless - they left Barra for the day because they couldn't get a decent DirecTV signal to watch football games. It was pretty entertaining watching them drive all over the bay looking for a signal. Then they headed back to Barra to make the 5 PM yoga class. I tell you, it's rough out here...

We had "kid day at the beach" yesterday since we have 4 or 5 kid boats here, with a dozen or so kids. All the squirt guns and water weapons were deployed while the big kids sat around and BS'd.

This picture was taken by PJ Baker on board S/V Capaz. The Baker's (along with sons' Bryce and Austin - the 4th and 5th from the right) are heading for the South Pacific this spring.

The kids had a GREAT day torturing each other in the surf.

We've got a a pretty good split of folks that are on a six-month cycle like us, some that are going to Puddle Jump this year, and others that are puddle jumping next season and will store their boats for the summer. Apparently the big topic of discussion with the puddle jumpers is whether to go to the Galapagos first, or to the Marquesas.

We did the jungle tour this morning with several of the other families that are anchored in the bay. We timed it to hit high tide.

It starts out pretty wide and narrows to ...

It takes 45 minutes to get through the jungle cruise. The mangroves are huge, with roots from branches reaching down 10-12' to find the water. Unfortunately, high tide was around 10 AM this morning, so most of the wildlife was well hidden. We saw a few birds and plenty of red, salt-water crabs, but nothing else. We'll try again if we can get an earlier high tide. Interestingly enough, even though the Tenacatita jungle cruise gets all the press, most everyone agreed that the jungle tours behind Paradise Village Marina or in San Blas were better. Maybe it's just that we saw lots more wildlife in those other spots.

You emerge in a lagoon and when you park the dinghy and walk across the road you are on the most beautiful beach that has a number of palapas from which you can choose lunch and libations. The town at the end of the jungle cruise is also the only place to buy food, so needless to say we had to make the trek a few times in order to replenish supplies. The one store in town is bears no resemblence to the local 7-11 or Vons. This small tienda has to outfit all the boaters, condo dwellers and RV owners for several miles. The woman who runs the store gets vegetables on Thursday, cheese on Saturday and meat on Monday. Trust me by Tuesday you won't want the few vegetables she has left in the store.

All in all, Tenacatita is a very popular anchorage. Some folks spend months here. They even elect an honorary Mayor for the fleet. His Honor stopped by our boat today to welcome us to the anchorage and to tell us about the weekly "Mayor's Night Out." Everyone is invited to dinghy over at 5 PM to "Good Dog Beach" where they raft-up together and share drinks, appetizers, and whatever else the Mayor feels like doing. Tonight was Talent Night, so folks took turns telling stories, jokes, playing musical instruments, singing, and providing other forms of entertainment. It sounded like fun, but would have been boring as can be for kids to sit in the dinghies for an hour, so we ended up having our own happy hour on another kid boat. Much as we would have liked to participate in the festivities, we figured the rest of the fleet probably wouldn't appreciate a half-dozen kids asking, "Can we go back to our boat now?" just as the entertainment was delivering their punch-lines.

The Z-Town Sail Fest (cruiser fund-raiser for local schools and orphans) is early next month, so people are starting to migrate south. Although our weather was not as bad as it was in SoCal, a number of south-bound boats got spanked yesterday with 20-30 knot winds as they passed Cabo Corrientes and came in here. A couple that left here came back and waited until things calmed down a bit this morning before trying again. The winds are supposed to calm down by Sunday, so we're going to hang here until next week before we head to Barra de Navidad. We had a bit of swell curl in from the ocean the last few days as the weather has built, so we moved to a calmer part of the anchorage and are tucked up against a little hillside. That gets us out of the reflected waves so, hopefully, everyone will sleep a little better tonight.

We anchored in as many as 7 places in the bay (some necessitated by harbor cruises (aka we have to empty the holding tank), weather conditions and proximity to other kid boats) while we were here, and each anchorage has had excellent holding in sand. But, even good holding can't help you if your anchor doesn't hold. We had a 45' catamaran foul its anchors and drag out of the anchorage yesterday, heading for the town across the bay. The single-hander had just landed his rowing dinghy ashore and joined in the daily bocce ball game when he noticed that his boat wasn't where he left it. Opps! Luckily, one of the other boats noticed it drifting through the anchorage and put out a radio call. Phil and two other neighbors put their dinghies in the water and responded. Phil always wanted to sail a big cat but I don't think this is what he had in mind. The owner never would have caught it with his rowing dinghy, so he was quite happy to see them on board. He lost one of his anchors in the process, but at least he didn't lose his boat. The best we can figure, his CQR might not have set properly and the boat sailed around in the wind or current, wrapping the other chain around the stock of his huge, Fortress anchor. When Phil and the others who responded pulled it up, the chain was wrapped around the stock at least 3 times. He anchors by the stern because the boat tends to sail at anchor when anchored from the bow, but apparently it drifts just fine whether facing forwards or backwards. I guess the lesson is: either wind or current can mess up our anchoring!

We just kept staying in Tenacatita to let the kids play with their buddies on the other kids boats. Well, that and catch-up on their school work. And the Cap'n is going to do some more fishing. We all caught fish in Tenacatita.

Some were better looking than others but we tossed 'em all back. The puffer fish were fun, but they weren't the guys that chewed up my lure. That took somebody with some big, sharp teeth. We've seen some nice dorado swimming around, so I'm hoping to hook one of them. They're great eating and I'm going to try and re-create a meal we had at one of the palapas: filet papillion. It's a fresh fillet stuffed with shrimp and veggies, then cooked in foil. Yum!!! OK, now I've made myself hungry. Where are those chocolate-covered raisins?

Tenacatita was by far our favorite spot so far. The bay is beautiful. The snorkeling is great and there always seems to be enough kid boats there to keep everyone happy. We found lots of shells.

This was all that Kelly found

Kelly got to hang out with some kids that taught her to get up on a wave board. She also spent some quality time working on her dive off the boat.

The kids spent the day kayaking and fishing off the back of the boat.

Kelly also agreed to be the "net controller" one morning. That required here to moderate all the traffic on the 9:00 a.m. Gold Coast Cruisers Net that keeps people in the know between Tenacatita in the North and Barra de Navidad in the South. She did a great job and was quite happy when all the adults she met for the next week congratulated her on her stint as net conroller. There is a career in broadcast news for her!.

One of the picturess of Tenacatita Bay - up near the wall - where you can see the water is "flat"

The view looking back toward the shore where the "jungle cruise" starts

The "pink palace" hotel that sits at the opposite end of the beach from the start of the jungle cruise.

We will definitely come back to this place!!!

Chemela - January 12-17, 2010

2010-02-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

After leaving Yelapa late in the day on January 11, 2010, we headed for Chamela. This meant that we had to do another overnight sail. This sail was different from the other overnighters in that we were sailing parallel to the coast but.... this part of the coast is pretty uninhabited which means no lights on shore to guide us. To make matters worse, there were no stars or moon so it was VERRRRRy dark. I was pretty "creeped out" and I must admit I made one of my big bloopers during my watch. When I got up at 5 o'clock to take over, (where we are the sun does not come up til 7:15), it was dark and there was wind. About 45 minutes later the sails started flopping around and I took them in and started the engine. Unfortunately I neglected to put the boat in gear. So while the engine was running we weren't going anywhere. After about twenty minutes I noticed that we were literally going no where. The chart plotter said we weren't moving and the time to our planned destination had gone blank. I woke Phil up in a panic thinking I had run over some long lines and tangled the prop. He opened one eye and asked me if I had put the boat in gear when I had turned on the engine. Feeling pretty dumb I admitted I hadn't. He rolled over and went back to sleep. I went back to my watch feeling pretty foolish and praying that the sun would hurry up and come out.

We arrived in Chemela about 11:30 a.m. We anchored up in the north west corner of the bay and started setting up to be in this anchorage for a while. Chemela turned out to be a great stop. We fished.

Phil getting ready to thow back one of the many fish we caught that we could not eat. This is a puffer.

We snorkeled. We played on the beach and swam every day (yeah, the water is still 80 degrees, so we know the El Norte's are still hatin' us).

We wandered through town and bought veggies, fruit and tortillas.

This is main street Chemela on Saturday afternoon. As you can see it is not a very busy place.

We ate in the palapas we found on shore. The fish is pretty good here.

We talked to ex-pats living in houses right on the beach, or in palapas built to cover their gigante RV's. We had neighbors over for dinner. No need for cars here. Claudia and Bill are on a boat named of all things - Sabbatical - same as our name. It has caused lots of confusion and sometimes fun for us in some of the anchorages. We have started referring to our boat as Sabbatical - con ninos and they have started calling themselves Sabbatical - Verde (since their boat is green - dubbed such by Sophie on Liberty). They actually have the right to the name since Bill really is on sabbatical from his teaching duties at UC Irivine.

We even had a brief storm pass over us and leave rainbows behind. It stopped our school lessons one morning - giving us a pleasant diversion from fractions and decimals. It's somewhat hard to see in these pictures but at 10:00 a.m. the sky was black and the rain was pouring down. Little did we know that this would be NOTHING compared to what we would see in Barra.

Our friends still up in Puerto Vallarta had a much rougher time: rain, winds, and water spouts. Ugh! That doesn't sound like much fun! It is a lot more fun watching rain from the comfort of the cockpit.

Some of the highlights of time in Chemela were 1) Kelly lost her first molar and the tooth fairy brought her 50 pesos (about 4 bucks); 2) We had these crazy dolphins rub their bodies along our anchor chain half scaring us to death one night that our anchor was dragging: 3) we had a whale pass right by our boat that I would have missed if Bill from Sabbatical - Verde had not shouted at me to look up (I was cleaning the cockpit at the time); 4) I got dumped out of the dinghy trying to get back to the boat one day - I can laugh about it now but my ego was bruised at the time; and 5) best of all was watching the baby dolphin (it was about two feet long) trying to get over to see our boat while it's mother kept trying to stir it away from our boat and the whole time the small dolphin kept trying to jump over its mom's back to get to our boat where our kids were making a lot of noise. Goes to show you that kids will be kids no matter what the species.

We spent a sweet 5 days in Chemela. The rest of this is taken from an e-mail Phil sent out after our stay in Chemela. He worte "It's more what I hoped Mexico would be like - a beautiful bay and a nice small town with awesome scenery. There are several mountain ranges that ring the bay. Photographers and painters would have a field day capturing the late afternoon light. The only downside has been the swell. We're tucked into the preferred anchorage in the NW corner, but the swell always seems to finds its way in here around Punta Rivas. We're quite a distance from shore, but even the boats closer in are rocking and rolling. With all the rocking, I've heard squeaks and noises I've never heard from the boat before. The swell is not all the large (most of the time), but it's fairly constant. You do get used to it after a while, and it might even help the crew get their sea legs." It definitely did. By the time we left Chemela no one was sick any more. We can now sleep with the boat pitching and rocking any old way.

We left Chemela on Sunday, January 17th, heading for Tenacatita. During the six hour short hop down the coast we saw over a dozen sea turtles - the full grown kind. We also saw some of the most brightly painted homes we have ever seen in some of the beach towns that populate this part of the Mexican coast. One of the homes even had its own golf course.

Yelapa - January 11, 2010

2010-02-07T19:57:00.000-08:00

After 3 days on the hook in rocky La Cruz, we headed across the bay for a short 3 hour sail into Yelapa. If you didn't pay attention to the maps you would miss this place completely. On the way across the bay we were treated to quite a show by a pod of whales. We saw three what I characterized as very angry whales who were flopping their tails against the water in an attempt to get three large whale watching boats - literally off their backs. Kelly told me that it was just three mother whales communicating with their calves. It sure did not look like happy mother's from where I sat on our boat.

Ryan getting friendly with one of the locals

We got into Yelapa at about 11 a.m. and picked up one of the few moorings they have their. A restuarant owner with a panga happily picked us up on our boat and deposit us on the shore in front of his palapa eatery. We obliged and had a great meal and the kids did some swimming on shore.

While we sat there, we watched our boat bobbing like a cork on the mooring and made the decision to set sail at about 5 o'clock and head for Chemela which would get us into that anchorage sometime around noon the next day.

In the meantime we had some time to kill so we decided to walk to the local waterfall that we had heard so much about. Yelapa is a town built into the side of the mountain. Terrain better fitting sure footed goats and mules than people. The town is perched on the hillside with circuitous paths where people haveconstructed homes where gravity and technology are waging a battle to see what will stay up and it is not always clear who is winning.

We hiked through town and after about a 700 foot elevation gain in less then 1/2 mile we made it to the waterfall.

Believe it or not but this is Kelly under the fresh waterfall

Kelly and Ryan were both brave enough to get in the frigid water but Ryan was a little less enthusiastic about actually "playing" in the water.

I think this face says it all.

On the way back down we walked through town. If you can call it a town. This picture of Kelly lets you see just how big this place is.

Kelly and I stopped in to check out the small Catholic Church that is not too far from the waterfall. It is in terrible shape but even so, the local folks have done a great job of making what they have beautiful.

Check out the water damage on the ceiling of the building.

We headed back down the mountain to our boat, a glimpse of which we caught from the hillside.

Sabbatical is the one in the background

We headed back to the boat, ate some soup and then got ready to set sail to Chemela. For me the trip was one of the toughest in that we had no stars or moon to guide us and the land between Yelapa and Chemela is sparsely populated with very little lighting from shore, so needless to say it was a very dark ride down the coast.

On the anchor in La Cruz

2010-02-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

Well we left Puerto Vallarta on January 8th, and the safety of the Marina to start our real adventure of anchoring our way around Mexico. Our first destination was La Cruz. A place we stopped for one night before going into Puerto Vallarta.
La Cruz is pretty cool. Well, except for the swell that seems to plague the anchorage. The initial swell is not that bad, but the reflected waves from the beach tend to mix things up a bit. Oh well, at least the price is right to anchor here, aka "free". It's better in the marina, but they still get some surge wrapping around the breakwater. We saw quite a few boats with extra spring lines.

After a little fishing and morning swim call (yeah, the water is still "only" 80 degrees and we know we're not getting any sympathy from our friends up in El Norte.), we spent the last two afternoons wandering around the town. It's definitely more of a small Mexican town than Puerto Vallarta, that's for sure. The old plaza is right out of central casting, complete with the requisite band shell in the middle of the park. The street signs (when you can find them) are enameled or hand-painted. There's a fair bit of construction, both commercial and residential, but it's not clear whether many of the projects will ever be completed. Some of them look like they haven't been touched in years. It's definitely a town of contrasts. Some of the homes are beautiful - they have small private gardens, amazing tropical flowers, and the wrought iron work that you only see in movies. Others buildings are falling down because the cement is crumbling and the chickens wander into the street. A block or two off the main road through town you'll find a few cobblestone streets, but a block or two beyond that and you're as likely to find mud roads. They finished the new marina last year, but there are still a lot of empty slips. Even though they have empty slips, they still haven't lowered the prices. Go figure. There are condos around the edges of town, so I suppose it's only a matter of time before some of the old homes disappear. La Cruz is on the road between Puerto Vallarta and the resorts at Punta Mita, so the town is getting squeezed on both sides.

We also visited one of the world's great crusier hangouts - Philo's - a combination restaurant, bar and recording studio. Philo is a great guy and rides his motorcycle into the restaurant to park it. He caters to the cruisers and the music crowd. They have live music most every night. And the food is pretty good too! Where else can you get a "Mexicana" pizza (complete with chorizo sausage and jalapenos) or a cheeseburger while watching American football via a Canadian satellite feed, all the while accessing the Internet through free WiFi, and then play a game of pool. No wonder the place is legendary. You can spend days in there.

Nothing against Philo's, though, but that would be a shame because there are other great places here. Banana Annie's is another music joint with live music, an open mike on Sunday afternoons, and standing room only after 5 PM. There were a lot of aging American and Canadian ex-pats wandering in with their guitars. (Note to self - if/when you start to go bald, shave it off like Lawn Boy. Admit the truth and do NOT grow a stringy gray ponytail.) Although we didn't get to it, we hear that Ernesto's Great Grub is worth the walk to get there. I guess that will have to wait for the next trip. And don't forget to try the local ice cream treats. Even with my mangled Spanglish, I managed to order frozen strawberries and cream that was amazing.

We ended up having to get fuel at the new marina when we topped off our tank, then we set off across Banderas Bay to Yelapa. The cove looks beautiful, but the anchorage is reported to be so-so. We'll see what it looks like before we drop the hook. If there's no room, we'll just continue around the corner (Cabo Corrientes) and aim for Ipala or Chamela. If we end up heading for Chamela, it'll be about 90 miles to get there.

(Note to reader's of the blog - most of this posting was lifted from an e-mail that Phil composed and sent to his loyal followers.)

Next Stop Yelapa.

- Phil

Made it to Barra

2010-02-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

Well we are finally back in civilization. That means we are hooked up to the wifi, can get our clothes washed, take real showers - instead of the sun showers we've been enjoying for the last month and walk to a store and buy what we need instead of having to take a 40 minute dinghy ride to get food. I'll be updating the blog for what we've done over the last month so stick with me while I try to catch everyone up.

Leaving Paradise Village

2010-01-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

January 7, 2009

Today is our last day in Paradise Village. We are checking out tomorrow and heading over to La Cruz to spend a couple of days. Then we will head to the southern end of the bay to visit Yelapa. There is supposed to be a great walk through an old fashioned Mexican village where no one has a car – transportation is by donkey or foot – to a freshwater pool that is fed by a waterfall. We’ll stay there a few days and then head around the point out of Banderas Bay toward Chemala. We’ll stay there a few weeks and then to Tenacatita where we’ll stay at least a week. None of these places have internet cafes so we will probably be out of communicado for a couple of weeks. We will be in Barra in time to meet those of you that are planning to visit during the February break. We may arrive early and anchor in the harbor since everyone is telling us that there is now way we can take a month to get from Banderas Bay to Barra. Everyone who has been here before says that we can probably find places to stop to fill a couple of weeks but not an entire month. So …. as soon as we land somewhere where we can post a blog we will.

We will miss all the great friends we’ve met in Paradise Village, LawnBoy from Washington aboard Wades Away, Anton and Rita aboard Royal Albatross and most of all the Pond family on Qualchan. In some cases we probably will see some of these folks again as we head south. We sure hope so.

Releasing Sea Turtles

2010-01-08T07:25:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2010 – Sundown – We, along with many of our neighbors on the dock, walked down the street here to a condo complex about ½ a mile away to watch the nightly ritual of the release of sea turtles that had hatched that day. We went last night but we got there too late to actually hear the lecture or see very much. So we decided to go back tonight. We all had a great time. Mexico has finally started a non-profit to try and save the sea turtles. Each night three men walk the beach and find all the turtles that have come ashore to lay their eggs. They harvest the eggs and take them back to the hatchery where they are protected until they hatch – which takes about 45 days. Most of the turtles that beach here on this part of the Bay are Olive Ridley turtles. However, during the last two years they have had four leatherback turtles beach and lay eggs.

The kids loved it. They had so much fun watching the little guys try to make it into the surf.

They really are small!

The Kumpis kids and the Pond kids around the pool with all the little guys that will be released tonight.

This is the non-profit that conducts the nightly release.

"I think I can, I think I can.."

Head for the light!!! The sad thing is that 1 in 100 of these little guys will actually make it.

More Sculptures

2010-01-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

This one we called "I'm all Ears." It is really still part of La Rotunda del Mar.

This is my favorite scupture on the Malecon. It is called "Nature as Mother." I took so many picures of this one that I had a hard time picking a favorite. I like this one with Ryan lounging on the wave. The next one is a picture from the front left side of the scupture.

This one we called "Riding the Wave."

This one is called "La Nostalgia."

There are so many sculptures here that I can't post them all but needless to say this was our art lesson for the week.

More Scupture from the Malecon in Puerto Vallarata

2010-01-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

I was afraid my time at the local Starbucks would time out so I wanted to post before I went down. Here are some more of our fun "art" impressions.

Ryan doing his best impersonation of one of her kids.

This one is called La Rotunda del Mar. Kelly and Ryan especially liked the crazy creatures that make up this set of scuptures.

Visiting Old Town Puerto Vallarta

2010-01-08T07:03:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2010 That’s the first time I had to write the new date and it sure seems funny.

We decided to take a trip to PV today and explore the City Center. We also had some errands to run. We had to visit the shopping center as the phone we bought two weeks ago has already died. We also had to go to Walmart and get Kelly a DS. As we will be leaving the marina this week Kelly decided she wanted her birthday gift early because we will be out of touch with computers for a few weeks and she needs something to keep her occupied - school work is not enough and she is plowing through books so fast I can't keep up. We also had to go and pick up a package that Alyce Matsui left for us at the hotel where they stayed when they were down here for the holidays which just happened to be around the corner from Walmart. THANK YOU TARYN BINDER AND ALYCE FOR GETTING US THE CARDS AND LETTERS FROM HOME. WE LOVED THEM. ALSO A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT WROTE TO KELLY AND RYAN.

Then after all the “chores” were done – (WE STILL HAVE NO PHONE AS THE WARRANTY TO REPLACE OUR PHONE WAS FOR 14 DAYS AND WE BROUGHT IT BACK ON DAY 16 – IT HAS NOW BEEN SENT TO GUADALAJARA TO BE FIXED) – we went to explore El Centro Puerto Vallarata and the Malecon.

We had a great lunch, walked around and used art on the Malecon to make more art and then we dropped in on the church here which is also named – Our Lady of Guadalupe. We explored the local flea market and finally broke down and bought a hammock. Then we headed back to the marina where he had plans to meet a lot of our neighbors to go and watch the release of sea turtles at sun down.

Browsing through the flea market where Kelly bought a new hammock.

Our Lady of Guadalupe of Puerto Vallarta. You can tell that when it was built there was nothing else around but boy have they encased it since it was first built. You can barely see it from the beach which is only two blocks away. The dome is a silver crown.

This is the alter inside the church it is beautiful and the pictures I took do not give it justice.

A rare family photo of us all with the "mother" in the scupture entitled "In Search of Reason." The next few pictures will tell you why it is called that.

This is the entire sculpture!. Both kids had to climb up on it and try it out.

New Year's Day

2010-01-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Eve. We celebrated with our new friends from Redondo Beach the Pond Family – Todd, Margaret, Natalie, Charlee and Luke. We had a great meal that Margaret prepared and then we went out to see all the fireworks and I do mean all the fireworks. From where we were on the Bay – which is about pretty much the middle - we were able to see fireworks all around the Bay from Punta Mita on the north point where the Four Seasons must have spent a fortune - all the way around to the south side of the Bay. It was really fun. We all stayed up til after 1:00 a.m. Needless to say we all slept in on New Year’s day.

The Jungle Cruise

2010-01-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

December 30, 2009 Today we took a jungle cruise with our slip neighbors Anton and Rita. Anton had done some exploring with his dinghy and found a great lagoon way up in the mangrove swamp. So we got up early to have the rising high tide that was expected at 8:00 a.m. carry us up the river into the lagoon. Did I mention that the marina where we’re staying borders a mangrove swamp where there are lots of “cocodrilos” (aka crocodiles) and surprisingly few mosquitoes. Some of our neighbors have seen them swimming by the boats but we haven’t. Instead we wanted to go hunting them.

We left as the sun was coming up. Here we are on central time so the sun does not rise until about 7:15 a.m. It is very strange in Nuevo Vallarta where the marina is. It is in a different state from Puerto Vallarta which is only five miles down the road but we have a one hour time change between the two states of Nayarit and Jalisco. So every time we want to do something we have to make sure what time zone we are operating on.

Anton took the lead and guided us up into this great lagoon where we saw all kinds of iguanas and birds – but to the kids’ disappointment - no crocodiles.

What we saw...

Anton and Rita lead the way up into the lagoon

Arriving in the lagoon as the sun is rising over the mountanins

One of the more interesting birds that we saw

Kelly and Ryan looking for crocodiles

Some of the birds that we spooked

Waiting for something to happen

Kelly and Ryan's new play house in the middle of the lagoon. When the tide goes out this lagoon is literally empty and the mud is pretty thick.

Going back through the mangrove trees to get back to our boat.

Christmas Day

2010-01-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Christmas day. Santa found us. Ryan and Kelly were happy with the computers that

Santa brought them. Ryan got two of the lego sets he wanted and Kelly really liked her Gryffindor sweatshirt. All in all it was a GREAT Christmas.

Note our beautiful Christmas tree in the foreground.

From the kid who almost never smiles!!

To the kid that smiles all the time.

Christmas Eve

2010-01-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Today is Christmas Eve. We planned to go to the big dinner at the hotel and celebrate with all the folks who are staying at the resort. We all got dressed up and went for a sunset dinner on the beach. We feasted on a shrimp bisque, salads of about 10 varieties, meats and fish of about a dozen varieties and of course the kids favorite – the dessert table. In fact we decided to go to this venue for dinner based on the dessert they were serving.

This is just a piece of the dessert table that Kelly and Ryan really found to be the best part of dinner.

Our Christmas Eve picture in front of the Paradise Village Hotel

We headed back to the boat to get ready for a visit from the guy in the red suit. The kids were quite concerned that he would deliver presents to our house and forget that we were on the boat.

2010-01-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

December 20th. We’re back on track. School started up again officially. The kids had a hard time with this at first but whenever we aren’t moving or visiting a location we told the kids they had to do school work. We usually do work through lunch and then head out for the pool or beach.

Ryan and Luke playing in the sand

We also decided to decorate the boat since we are finally in one place until after Christmas and we have shore power to hook up our Christmas lights. We strung snowflakes, gingerbread men and ornaments (all purchased from Michael’s before we left) and we also made a 1 foot Xmas tree and foam gingerbread house to decorate down below. Our flashing red and green lights were quite popular with all of our neighbors down on E dock but our friends the Pond’s on Qualchan won the decorating prize with the Christmas tree on the bow of their boat with the luche libre mask as the tree topper.

Our Christmas decorations as seen at night. Hope you can all see the lights from where you are!

Finally, today was Phil’s birthday so we decided to bake him some brownies to help celebrate his birthday in “Paradise.”

Our oven has been working great when it comes to all things chocolate and for the staples like potatoes. BUT.... we are having a hard time with the bread pan. Much to Ryan's disappointment several of the pumpkin breads that we have made have been shall we say a little dark on the bottom. We still manage to eat most of what comes out of the oven.

Made it to Paradise

2010-01-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

December 17, 2009. We got an early start today to head into Paradise Village Marina. It took us about 45 minutes to motor from La Cruz to the marina. It was hard to find the opening to the marina among all the luxury hotels that rim this part of the bay, but as usual Phil was able to find it with his binoculars.

We came into the channel for the marina. “Oh my GOD” was what I thought. I’ve found Mecca. We were guided to our slip in the marina by a panga driver who helped us tie up. We ended up at the bitter end of E dock which is pretty much the end of the line in the marina but let me tell you we went by the high-rent district of A dock and B dock where the mega yachts 100ft plus anchor and let me tell you we were just happy to be in this marina.

Forget the laundry we had to go explore. This place has tigers, parrots, Baskin Robbins, McDonalds, indoor four story jungle gym, palapas on the beach and the best of all the dual crocodile shaped water slides into the biggest pool we’ve ever seen. But for best of all for Phil the Pacifico’s are less than 1USD a piece.

We had a great day playing in the pool which has underwater caves and the best ice cream flavors – I really liked the coconut. Needless to say any weight we had lost up to this point of our journey would be gained back ten fold staying here.
Kelly also got her hair braided on the beach.

The Main Pool at Paradise Village with the double crocodile slide. The island under the tower has tunnels for the kids to swim through.

It took me a few tries but I finally caught Kelly and Ryan coming out of the crocodile's mouth. The pool was fairly empty when we first arrived on 12/17, but the closer we got to Xmas and New Year's the more crowded it got to the point that we didn't even bother going to the pool until after the holidays. Instead we opted for the beach. Kelly has however managed to rip out the bottom of one bathing suit going down this sllide just one too many times.

The beach was great but what made it fun was we met a family - the Pond's - from Redondo Beach - who was on a ship in our marina called Qualchan. Since meeting them we have spent a lot of time with Todd (dad), Margaret (mom), Natalie (16), Charlee (9) and Luke (8).

Water temperatures are about 80 degrees. Air temp gets to high seventies during the days and can drop into the high 50's at night. It makes sleeping great and keeps the mosquitoes at bay.

Leaving Matanchen Bay for Banderas Bay

2010-01-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

On December 16, 2009 we pulled up anchor and headed for the "big bay." It was going to take us about 9 hours to get from Matanchen Bay to La Cruz in Banderas Bay, the place we planned to drop anchor for the night so we decided to get an early start and leave Matanchen Bay by 7:00. We actually did better than then and left at about 6:30 just as the sun was starting to show signs of rising over the hills that surround the bay. We all agreed that we would be coming back here.
Our trip south was uneventful but for all the whales we saw. Kelly saw the best of all a humpback that was breaching. The rest of us only saw it as it was already on its way back into the water. We arrived at La Cruz at about 3:30 and set the anchor. As soon as the anchor was set we all jumped into Banderas Bay. It is amazing how much saltier the water tastes down here.
Tomorrow we check into Paradise Village. We get to buy groceries, get rid of our garbage, fill up the water tanks, and most important, do the laundry.

Happy faces

2009-12-29T10:43:00.000-08:00

I can say that everyone had a great time in the bay and these are some of my favorite pictures from our stay there.

Kelly on dolphin watch. A rare Ryan smile.

Happy dad!!

Time spent in Matanchen Bay

2009-12-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

After finally making it from Isla Isabella to Matanchen Bay we decided to stay parked for a few days once we discovered just how awesome it was. We had the bay basically to ourselves and we got to try out all of our new toys.

We tried out all the "weapons" we brought with us.

We also got to use our new Kayak.

There was nothing like waking up to the sunrise over this beautiful bay to find a pod of about 100 dolphins playing all around our boat.

The sun comes up about 7:00 in this time zone so it is quite easy to take. This happened to be one of the only overcast days we've had on the trip so far. It made for a really nice sunrise. It also made it a lot easier to see all the dolphins.

What struck me the most was all the noise they make when they are breathing. You can hear each time one of them exhales and when there is a large pod that makes for a lot of hot air.

I tried to catch some on my camera with Kelly's help.

As you can see the only folks in the water that early in the morning in the bay are the panga drivers who are putting out their fishing nets and the dolphins.

The dolphins hung around for about an hour and put on a great show. They were not the same size as we usually see on our way to Catalina. These were smaller and much darker in color.

We all had a great time watching them play in the surf.

Sunset over Matanchen Bay

2009-12-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

This is the view of the bay from the back of our boat on December 13, 2009. There were four other boats in the bay with us. We ended up staying on the hook (aka the anchor) three nights here. The kids loved jumping off the boat and kayaking around the bay. They also liked the great shirmp empanadas we got on the shore here. More blogging to catch up tomorrow....

More Hitchhikers

2009-12-23T10:20:00.000-08:00

We ended up having more boobies land on the boat. One got stuck down in the cockpit and Phil actually had to pick it up and throw it over the side. The next one to land tried to get down one of our hatches while we were sailing. Ryan was so distraught by all these birds landing on the boat that we had to make him go below for fear that he would fall overboard trying to run away from them when they landed.

The last one to land on the boat got tangled up on the kids boogie board cords and Phil had to go and help that one get off the boat. From then on we sat watch and started shouting like crazy people any time another one got close enough to try and land.

The hitchhiker

2009-12-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

On December 13, 2009 we left Isla Isabella behind and set sail at 6:15 a.m for the Mainland. We originally planned to go to San Blas but as we got closer and thought about having to sail up an estuary late in the day we opted to go around the corner to a great open bay called "Matanchen Bay." But before I get there let me tell you about our 8 hour trip from Isla Isabella to the mainland.

I now undertand how pests migrate from one location to another. I've been doing Ryan's science lessons with him and learning about how animals help disperse the seeds of various plants but now I know how the pests that eat crops migrate from place to place - Hitchhikers. We had a moth the size of my hand land on one of our stantions on the boat when we left Isla Isabella. It tucked its very large wings up under itself out of the wind and rode with us all the way to the mainland. It didn't leave until it got dark and we were less than a mile from land.

But our most famous hitchhikers were the blue footed boobies. The dumbest birds I have ever seen. One bird took up residence on the stern of our boat and rode for quite some time. The entire time the bird was trying to figure out how it could get some of the lines/strings off our boat. It seems that these birds love to line their nests with string. Needless to say there are lots of "strings" on a sail boat.

This is the picture of the first hitchhiker to land.

Isla Isabella

2009-12-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

On December 11th we left Mazatlan in the early afternoon and set our compass for Isla Isabella, a marine preserve about 80 miles south of Mazatlan. It is a small island that is the home to hundreds of blue footed boobies, friget birds and iguanas. We left in the afternoon so as to arrive early the next morning. Sailing at night can be a little scary for someone like me it makes arriving a lot easier instead of getting in somewhere after dark.

This island has some reefs you have to avoid so we opted for the early arrival. The island is all but deserted but for the pangas and the fisherman that make the beach camps their homes. Also on the island is a research facility for the marine and aviary inhabitants. The birds have no predators and so they are not really even afraid of the people. We spent the night in the bay and after visiting with an eco- diving group that was staying on the island we left the next morning for Matanchen Bay over on the Mainland.

The view as we are leaving Isla Isabella on December 13, 2009. Notice the two rock formations on the right in this picture. They are know as the "two mannequins."

The two mannequins as seen from our boat on 12/13/09.

Our Neighbors in Mazatlan

2009-12-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

Since the Marina in Mazatlan did not have a pool and the water in the Marina was not really fit for swimming we had to find other things for the kids to do. So one day we took the cameras and went out to explore our neighborhood. We decided to capture some of the local denizens of the "hood."

The first folks that Kelly found were the reptile neighbors.

We called this guy "piggy nose."

Then we moved on to the one's that live in shells. Since we are now well versed in the Lucho Libre wrestling that is everywhere down here we decided to find the best samples of Lucho Libre in the animal kingdom.

Kelly called this one Mexican standoff.

She called this one "In your face crabby patty."

The kids have had a great time looking for and identifying the fish and birds that we see here.

Visiting the Aquarium in Mazatlan

2009-12-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

On December 9, 2009, in the hope of keeping the kids happy, we ventured out into Mazatlan to visit the "Acuario." Getting there from our Marina was in itself an adventure. It is about a twenty minute bus ride and waiting for the buses and getting on the right one can be an adventure in and of itself. After waiting for about a half hour we finally were on our way. The folks on the bus could not be more helpful and with our limited Spanish and their limited English we were able to let them know where we wanted to go.

We finally got off at the right location and made our way to the Aquarium. Now when you all think of aquariums you're probably thinking about the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach or some other U.S. based aquarium like the one in Boston or Louisiana. Well this is a "little" aquarium with four sea lions, some crocodiles and a bunch of fish. We did attend the "bird" show but as my kids learned the animals all speak Spanish. But not much was lost in the translation when the Parrot walked a tight-rope upside down to the music from "Mission Impossible."

The kids just enjoyed getting out of the Marina for a few hours.

Puerto Vallarta

2009-12-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well we made it to Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday but it has taken us a few days to get on the internet. I'll update the blog in the next couple of days with all of our adventures over the last ten days. We will be in Paradise Village until January 4th.

Leaving Mazatlan

2009-12-07T07:34:00.000-08:00

After a week in Mazatlan it's time to start thinking about heading south. If all goes well we will probably head south tomorrow, Tuesday, December 8, 2009. We're restocked at the grocery store and we spent a part of the day yesterday cleaning up the boat.

The weather here has been perfect. 66 at night and low 80's during the day. We walked over to the beach yesterday after the Mazatlan Marathon went through. The water temperature is also in the low 80's. Even I went in the water.

Today we're going to go to the aquarium before we leave.

We won't have wifi access until we get to Puerto Vallarta so we probably won't post again until around the 17th of the month.

Snow cancels our trip to TEXAS

2009-12-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

Well, the weather gods are not with us. We went to the airport today to travel to Texas for our annual holiday party to learn that our flight was cancelled due to snow in Houston. So we came back to the Marina where it is in the high seventies and had lunch. Hope all you folks in Texas have a great time. Kelly and Ryan were more disappointed then either Phil or I. Kelly wanted to "speak English" with kids and Ryan was hoping to watch TV. What can I say. Wish we were there with you.

MaryLou

Old Town Mazatlan

2009-12-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, December 2, 2009 we ventured into Old Town to check out the sites and visit the large indoor farmer's market. The kids could not get over all the butcher shops and the chickens hanging from hooks above the stalls. It was our mission to find some interesting presents for the holiday exchange that we would be participating when we fly to Houston this month. We managed to find somethings that we thought would work just fine.

After visiting the market we went over to the Cathedral that dominates the center of Old Town Mazatlan. The kids could not believe that the same picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe that hangs in our church was also hanging in this church. There is a large festival here next week to celebrate her feast day but I don't think we will be here to witness it.

From Mazatlan our plan is to head south toward Puerto Vallarta. Today we're going to head to the beach. It has been unseasonably cold here in Mazatlan. It gets down to the high 50's at night and only gets to about the low 70's during the day but we're not complaining, the sky is blue and the water is warm. Til we write again.....

Homework on the boat

2009-12-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

Well school has officially started here on Sabbatical. The kids have lots of activities and work to keep them busy in the mornings. Today we plan to venture out into Mazatlan and see the town.

Shopping at the Super Mercado

2009-12-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

As you can see we needed to provision before we set out across the Sea of Cortez, so we made a run to the biggest Super Mercado we could find. Check out what isle we are in. I guess you know that Phil felt he needed to stock up on libations before the two day sail.

We eventually left La Paz on Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. and arrived in the Marina in Mazatlan at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Two Hundred and sixty miles across open sea. Now we're on the mainland and plan to be here until next March. We'll be in Mazatlan until next Wednesday and then we start poking our way south to be in Puerto Vallarta by December 17th. Then we get to decorate the boat for Xmas. The kids think that the more lights we put on the boat the better the chance is that Santa will find us in Mexico.

Yippee Two Kinds of Pie

2009-11-27T21:31:00.000-08:00

You can't believe how much better pie tastes when someone besides your mom makes it. She ate every bite of these two pieces. Ryan opted for all of the chocolate dessert selections. He ate every bite too.

Thanksgiving Feast at Marina Palmira

2009-11-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

All of the folks in the Marina contributed to a massive potluck. We brought stuffing - which was a big hit. We had more food then we have ever had. Kelly commented that it was better than Thanksgiving at home because there was more interesting and different food to choose from. The only problem was that there were no leftovers to take home.

Dad and the kids

2009-11-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

Enjoying the Food in La Paz

2009-11-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

Sculputure in La Paz

2009-11-24T20:27:00.001-08:00

Exploring the Malecon in La Paz

2009-11-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

Today we ventured out to explore La Paz. Our first stop was Marina de La Paz. The spot where all cruisers in La Paz stop. Every morning they host coffee hour where you can trade stories, get great recommendations and meet other families sailing in Mexico. We met several families who like us are traveling with kids.

After coffee hour we stopped in on a spot that has truly amazing food - Rancho Viejo - a restaurant recommended by the folks we met at Club Cruceros at Marina de La Paz. We loved it. Especially Ryan.

After lunch we walked back to Marina Palmira where we are staying. Along the way we saw some great scupture on the Malecon here.

Shopping at the Super Mercado

2009-11-22T17:40:00.000-08:00

Well today we ventured out to find food and drink. Who knew that stores here would be as big and as well stocked as at home. We had to walk quite a way to get to the Mercado but we were pleased by how much we found and the prices. We decided to cab it back to the boat to save the perishables.

Laurie and Phil

2009-11-16T19:44:00.000-08:00

The crew was happy to share a few cervezas before they have to set to sea. They managed to get through the line a couple of times before they headed back to the boat to make last minute preparations for departure.

BAJA HA HA Send Off Party

2009-11-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

To start the BAJA HA HA adventure off right, it is only fitting that Laurie and Phil join all the other revelers at the send off party which traditionally takes place in the parking log of the West Marine store in San Diego. So the kids and I went along with the "crew" to join in the festivities. Since this is a costume party you would expect to see lots of pirates but I was not prepared for the cockroaches, Hari Krishnas or the jellyfish. If this is what sailing with this group is like this is a great start to our adventure.