The Summer So Far

We just came back to LA Bay after spending about 2 weeks out in the anchorages. We returned to Quemado which is a south wind anchorage, but when the winds changed to the north, we took our opportunity and moved to Este Ton on Isla Angel de la Garda. What a beautiful anchorage. It is very small and really only fits one or two boats. Everyday there were whales feeding just outside the entrance and at night you could listen to them breathing just over the sand spit. Every day while snorkeling we saw sea turtles and octopus.

And the beach combing was superb! I found hundreds of beautiful little shells (most, no bigger than a pea) that were all different shapes, colors and varieties. They look like jewels. Jack was thrilled to find buoys, a "perfect" bucket, and even Patrick kept a length of line he found coiled up and waiting for him. I also found a perfect skull of a tiny shore bird, a length of dolphin spine, and lots of sea urchin shells and dried starfish. Needless to say, I think JaM is floating a little lower with all our "treasures". We were going to stay even longer but one day the wind changed again and suddenly we found ourselves bounced out of the anchorage on big swells and 20 knots of wind from the wrong direction.

Bahia de Los Angeles

Well, I can sum up the last month pretty quickly - bees, breakdowns, no internet, whale sharks, fishing, and sweat. There you go, you haven't missed anything. For those of you interested in more details...

When last we left off, we were just leaving Santa Rosalia, over a hundred miles away. Our grand plans to hit the islands sort of fell to the wayside, partly because of the wind (not a good direction) and partly because the islands that did have good protection had lots of boats in them. So we stuck to the less traveled peninsula side and had several beautiful anchorages mostly to ourselves.

It's kind of strange to be back here in LA Bay area. It is not quite what I expected. Over the winter months we had run into so many new cruisers who told us they would be up here for the summer. I thought there were going to be 50 or more boats up here - but only a few of them showed up. Only one of the kid boats that said they would be here actually turned up, so Jack has had much less kid interaction than last year. So far, not even our old friends from last summer (Hotspur and Third Day) are up here. Jack has not been complaining though, since the snorkeling and spear fishing are as excellent as we remembered.

This cruising season has been remarkable for a few reasons - more bee swarms than last year, fewer hurricanes/tropical storms, and tons of breakdowns. It has seemed like one long episode of "McGyver" around JaM. So many important systems began breaking almost as soon as we reached LA Bay, which is just the backwater of all places to try to find replacements or goods. So Patrick has been fixing breakdowns with anything he can find. He used a cut-up plastic bottle to replace the lid of our dinghy gas can which blew off from the heat pressure, and miraculously he used hose clamps and tape to repair the two holes in the 1000 psi, stainless steel tube on our water maker which had burst, sending pressurized salt water streaming into the storage compartment under our bed, which is where we store 150 lbs of dog food and books. What a MESS! We have also had a water pump on one engine fail, and the sail drive on that side has salt water intrusion again, and the starter on the other engine is in the process of failing, and the refrigerator's water pump system began failing. I think that covers all of the major system failures we have suffered in the last two weeks, but you can understand if I forgot a few. I am starting to feel a little besieged.

Many of the anchorages on the Baja have very aggressive bees, searching for water sources. Due to the design of our boat, we are a prime target. Our fresh water sink is placed right near the door to the cockpit and so the bees easily scent and find the water on our boat. We have responded by fashioning a "Tent Mahal" by taking two queen-size bed nets and sewing them together to form a tent that encompasses the entire cockpit area, all 10 feet by 15 feet of it. It is pretty sweet, but it severely cuts down on the air flow. So our choice is no bees and no air, or bees and air. It's amazing how many times we opt for no air.

Speaking of air, the temperature has been hovering around 100 and the water is about 86. It is not so refreshing to jump in the water - oh how we long for the 54 degree water of home! Thankfully, the catamaran offers shade and a wind tunnel effect between her two hulls, so we have a little more relief than others. We three have spent many hours floating and lounging under JaM's hull, just trying to cool down. It seems much hotter than last year.

Provisioning in LA Bay is much harder than last year, and NO INTERNET is available from the boat. Both these details are severely affecting our enjoyment of LA Bay. Last year a fellow American would bring all the cruisers around in his truck to get all their diesel, food, laundry and such. This year, there is no free ride. It is sorely missed, and provisioning around here has taken on epic measure. You try hauling 20 gallons of diesel a half mile in 100 degree heat! Let alone provisioning beer and groceries. And very expensive. Yesterday we bought one roll of paper towels and one small can of meat for $8 US. Ouch!

Pepe's Inferno

We have spent the last week in Santa Rosalia Harbor, tied to a dock. Barring the center of the Earth, it is one of the hottest places on this planet, I think. Yet, we survived smiling. How can this be so? After spending a few weeks here last year, we did something that proves how desperately our brains were baked. We bought an air conditioner - just a small, in-window unit. We couldn't find one here in Santa Rosalia, so we had one shipped to a friend. We had already left Santa Rosalia by the time we picked it up from our friend.

It has sat in its original box, unopened, unused, for one entire year. I can't tell you how many times I cursed the huge, heavy box that took up so much room under my bed. There was never a cause to use it in all of the places we have been in Mexico. And then we returned to Santa Rosalia. Within one hour of tying to the dock here, we had the box ripped open and the unit fitted into our salon cabin window. Ah, Heaven.

Santa Rosalia is so hot and humid that it is hard to even bring ourselves to leave the refrigerated confines of our boat. Yet every morning, we leave before 11 am to get ourselves to Pepe's Taco Stand for the BEST SHRIMP TACO IN THE WORLD. He opens at 7 am, and he closes when he runs out of food. Every day, he starts with a fresh pile of shrimp and fish, and every day he sells out around 1 pm. We don't want to risk getting there after closing, so we head in around 11.

So the days have passed, waiting for Rudy to get better - eating tacos, braving town for provisioning trips and the vet visits, and hanging out in the luxury of our air conditioned boat. It is hard to leave Santa Rosalia, but we plan to untie tonight and keep moving north. Our next anchorage is 80 miles away and so we will be leaving around 3 am to make it in sometime next afternoon. The wind has died now, so it will just be a motor boat ride.

Rudy has recovered well from his latest issue. He is still not a pretty sight and mothers in town drag their big-eyed children away from his pestilent looking hide, but I can't blame them. He really does look like Hell.

We rented a cab for one hour yesterday and had the driver take us all over town provisioning - the modelorama (beer store), two tiendas (food), three ferreterias (hardware stores), and the vet. It cost us $22 US for the cab, but it was the only civilized way we could get all that stuff back to the boat in the heat. By the time he was driving us to the marina, the back end of his car was riding very low from all the weight.

Now we are stocked and loaded, so we will be heading straight up into the islands of the Northern Sea of Cortez, bypassing the next town (LA Bay) which is about 124 miles away. We plan to hit a few islands in the next weeks including Isla Salispuedes (Leave If You Can Island), Isla Partida Norte (North Departure Island) and Isla Angel de la Guardia (Guardian Angel Island). When we finally run out of vegetables, beer and fuel (or some combination there of), we will head back into LA Bay to re-provision, so our next internet will not be for two weeks or so.
Cheers,
Laura

From Beauty King to Horror Movie Extra

What a time we have had since last writing in Loreto! There's been lots of different things happening, so this posting with be a smattering of this, and a tidbit of that.

The winds from the south have continued on for weeks now, making our passage northward, one long, fun sail. We have rarely needed the engines and have used only 12 gallons of deisel since leaving La Paz - 224 miles away! It's a major break-through for us power-boater people. We are continuing to work on our sailing skills and have pretty much perfected the "wing on wing" procedure for our boat. We still pull out our "Start Sailing Right!" book that we got 15 years ago from a lazer sailing class on a lake, and use it to figure out the best sail configurations for the wind. Thank God the Lagoon has a fairly simple sailing design with only two sails. I can't imagine knowing how to sail one of those "pirate" ships with multiple masts and sails.

North from Loreto, our first stop was San Juanico. As always, SJ is a beautiful anchorage, though it is not the most protected one you could find in a south wind. Despite that, we stayed through the swells since the anchorage was also home to Adios III and Iweld - both kid boats with "tweens and teens". For three days, it was teen heaven for Jack (and a nice break for Patrick and me). When Jack's busy with other kids, we get a little alone time - something that can be hard to come by in this lifestyle.

Finally the others departed and we moved around the corner to La Ramada. a tiny cove with superior south wind protection. Though nothing too beautiful to look at, La Ramada has become one of our top three favorite anchorages. It is not visited as often since it is so close to stunning San Juanico, and so the snorkeling is FANTASTIC. We snorkeled every day and saw things that we had not seen in two years of snorkeling - huge sea turtles, poisonous scorpionfish, big colorful eels and many beautiful, colored reef fish not seen before. The water is really warming up and even I can stay in swimming for hours.

One our third day in La Ramada, we spotted the beginning of trouble in paradise. I noticed a lump on Rudy's hip and a spot on his neck. The next day, the lumps had burst open and Rudy had oozing sores. Concerned, I washed them out and disinfected them, but they seemed to grow by the hour. By the next day he had more spots on his head, another on his leg. We realized we needed help and pulled anchor. The decision was to either back track 26 miles to the vet in Loreto, or head 77 miles up to Santa Rosalia. We decided to head for Santa Rosalia. That day we rocketed along and made 42 miles in 6 hours, but decided to pull over early to an anchorage we knew had good southwind protection, instead of continuing on to another anchorage that we had not visited before. Since the waves and wind were so strong that day we decided to be cautious. It was a good decision. Later that night we heard another couple on the radio who had a very bad day trying to make it into the anchorage we had been contemplating, before they turned around and beat it back to our location. They were seasick, scared and exhausted by the time the dropped anchor next to us at sunset.

The following day the winds were down to 10-15 knots, and we jumped off to an early start. Our speeds were down with the wind so we kept a motor on to make sure we would reach Santa Rosalia before the vet closed for the night. We made it in time. Some of the first words out of the vet's mouth after looking at Rudy were, "You need to take him to a cooler climate. He has hot spots." Easier said than done, doc. Then he asked if Rudy had experienced any "Tick problems" lately. When we affirmed that he had recently had anaplasmosis, the doctor went on to tell us that he often sees hot spots on dogs who had the "tick problems". Rudy doesn't just have hot spots though, he has nuclear hot spots. He looks like a zombie dog, with huge gaping, oozing wounds on his neck and head. He's so depressed and in pain. Though our plans were to quickly leave Santa Rosalia, we will be staying until Rudy starts to get better. His head and neck wounds are still getting worse, even under a doctor's care. Currently Rudy is sporting a new shaved look over his entire body, a "cone of shame" to keep him from ripping his neck open scratching, and the saddest look you could ever stand. It's heart breaking.

For anyone contemplating becoming a cruiser, I have some words of advice. Think long and hard about taking "Fluffy" with you. Medical care is hard to come by, and many things can go wrong out here.

Back in Loreto Again

We have had a fantastic sail up from La Paz! The wind was always on our stern quarter and we flew along "wing on wing" which means the mainsail is pushed out all the way to one side of the boat, and the jib is pushed off all the way to the other. It is a lovely, gentle way to sail. The waves and wind are both working together to push you along and even in 20 knots of wind, it feels like a fine day since you are running with the wind and not against it. We only had to run our engines a few hours the entire way from La Paz to Loreto.

Our plans now are simple. Having spent the last two months exploring the Loreto area islands, we feel it is time to move north, though I am sad to go. This area of the Sea has become my favorite area, hands down. There are so many beautiful anchorages spread thickly over a small area. Another reason it is so great is Loreto, itself. What a beautiful, convenient town, and very easily accessed by anchoring off.

Nothing exciting on the fishing report - though not from lack of trying. We have caught a four foot shark and numerous large (20-25 lb) Jack Crevalles, but nothing else. We have seen dorado (mahi mahi) all around the boat, jumping and feeding and swimming, but they never bite our lures! Frustrating!

We leave, headed north again, tomorrow and our next internet access should be in Santa Rosalia - about a week or two away. Talk to you then!

North from La Paz

Jack and I had a great journey back to our boat. It could not have gone better - all connections were on time, and navigating the airports and customs was easy.

While we were gone, Patrick single-handed JaM from Escondido to La Paz. Our original plan had been to fly out and into Loreto, but we saved $1,000 dollars US by flying out of La Paz instead. The decision to change was easy. $1,000 is about what we spend total for one month in the Sea during the hurricane season!

When we got to La Paz, we were very happy to find our friends on Hotspur (formerly Windfall) and Adios III still there. Jack was thrilled to be reunited with some of his favorite boat kids and he spent a couple great days sailing around La Paz harbor on Adios III's sailing dinghy. Those boys were downright goofy.

We are just finishing up our business in La Paz (fueling and washing the boat are the last items on the list) and then we will be leaving today to start the migration north. Hurricane Season is a coming (actually, it is already here, but the hurricanes don't really become a threat to the Baja until August). Hotspur left yesterday, and Adios III is leaving today.

One last piece of news - Rudy had his final check up with the veterinarian here in La Paz yesterday. He is fully recovered. And he is a Birthday Boy! Yesterday, Rudy turned three years old. We were told a long time ago that he would develop a brain when he was 3. We are holding our breath to see if it happens!

Home on Lopez Island, WA

Jack and I are over half way through our visit home, and the time seems to be speeding up. The weather has been very cold and we even enjoyed a day of rain - typical W. Washington June weather. Unfortunately, I forgot how cold June was and did not pack well for our trip. Our visit home has given us a needed break from our life on the boat. Our goals for coming home were pretty simple. I wanted to take a bath, use a dishwasher, eat ethnic food I can't find in Mexico (Thai and Greek mostly) and spend time with my family. Jack's goals were to watch TV, eat Big Macs and go biking. We have both been successful in reaching our goals. Mostly I think we are just enjoying being in one place and not thinking about the weather. By early next week we will be back in Mexico.