Happy Holidays!!!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season!  I wish our annual Parade of Lights here in Ventura Harbor, CA would have been less wet, but BRAVO to all the boats that participated in a very rainey parade...  You are our heros!!!  To the few, but cheery friends who braved the wet to come aboard South Trail, we salute you!  You made our holiday! 

We had fun decking the "hall" of South Trail for the festivities and the season especially after last year when we (re: Eva) had to forego the traditional fanfare in lue of our impending voyage to Mexico.  Viva la Decoration!!! 

The guy in his foulies says it all...  But WOW!  This is one of the numerous amazing efforts for this year's theme "Holidays in Whoville"!!!  Yeah Generators!!! 

Here's Thanksgiving with Mom Sue and Craig, Aunt Roxie and Eva not pictured, but waiting impatiently to delve into a non-traditional surf-n-turf feast!  To heck with the hives...  Give me Shrimp!!! 

Dover enjoying what we tell him is "the big boat" at Grandma's on his own bed after feasting on meat scraps...  Lucky, full, happy dog! 

Our Halloween Jack-O-Lantern display for the night...  Jack at the bow is blowing his wad with M&M's strewn into his internal angst and a sign reading, "Eat Candy Responsibly".  Nuff said... 

Yup...  His eye is popped-out...  Had a blast carving duel heads onto the pumpkins...  My artistic effort for the year!  But wait there's more... 

True Blood inspired... 

This one is reacting to the barf...  We've all been there...  Oh my!

Oh yeah,  we also worked...  Alot.  Thank you to Ed and Annette, Dr. Neal,  Linda, Bruce, John, Mike and Julie, Mike and Patty, Ventura Harbor Boat Yard... and all you fabulous peeps!!!  Also, a shout out to Beth and Skip and all their four paws who I am responsible for on the Oxnard Shores. 

There he is...  The Ventura Boat Doctor at work!!!....   Hey, when do we get to go cruising again???!!! 

Happy Holidays Everyone!!!!

Summer 2010: Memorial Day to Labor Day

Dover and Eva Kayaking in Dana Point Harbor, Memorial Day

No big Labor Day weekend for us this year. Craig is working on the last part of a now 8 week boatyard project and was only able to take off one day over the Labor Day weekend. We made the most of it, and joined our friends George, Patti, Mike and Marvin up at Marvin’s cabin in Camp Shydack (SP?) in the Los Padres National Forest to celebrate Patti’s Birthday. It has been foggy, damp and cool all summer in Ventura Harbor and it was a nice change to get up to the mountains where it was 90+ degrees and sunny. This was Dover’s first time in the mountains and he enjoyed all the new sights and smells the day had to offer. He did not though like the winding hour and a half drive to and from! It was a great day of great food and friends. Just what the Boat Doctor needed!

Transom Before Modification

The aforementioned boatyard project is a structural re-do of a 1980 Nordic 40 sailboat, s/v Seaquel. The owner, and our dock neighbor in Ventura West, wanted to have a walk-thru transom rather than the fixed transom this production boat came with. He is blind, with an aging German Shepard Seeing Eye Dog, who will benefit from being able to simply walk on the boat from the dock. Also, in the unlikely event that this experienced sailor falls off into the water, he will more easily be able to get back aboard his vessel. Craig has done a fantastic job first demolishing the old transom and rebuilding it using fiberglass.

Transom Modification in Process

Prior to the transom project, Craig took out an old sailboat engine on s/v Freedom and re-powered it with a new diesel engine; completed a blister job on s/v Slow Ride; did an insurance job on s/v Althea and worked on various boat projects for our friend Patrick’s boat, s/v Kamikaze in both Dana Point and San Diego. We are still taking care of Dr. Neal’s Hunter 45, s/v Matt’s Dinghy. Eva does the week to week cleaning and detailing. Craig is taking care of all the engine and system’s maintenance and vessel upgrades. Wally, who is back in town this summer from cruising Mexico, is taking over skipper duties for Dr. Neal while Craig finishes his various other boat projects.

Craig working up mast on s/v Kamikaze

Eva is also back to work again for Beth and Skip in Oxnard Shores taking care of their beach home and cats Almond and Coconut (aka, Al and Cocopuff… “I’m Coo-coo for Cocopuff!”) while they do their work in L.A. during the week. I'm also doing some writing in addition to this blog on some ideas that have been kicking around in my head regarding our life on a boat in the harbor, and all the fabulous characters that we have had the pleasure of experiencing thus far.

s/v Freedom gets shiny new red engine

Our beautiful home, s/v South Trail, is resting after her long journey of 3000 nautical miles. We have not had a moment as of tying her off to her new berth on June 1st to get her out to the local Channel Islands. We plan to take her out on a couple of one to two week jaunts this coming winter as boat work slows. We also have a long list of boat projects that we hope to complete this winter including ripping out our cabin sole and re-tanking our old diesel tanks. Messy work. We will probably stay with Craig’s mom, Sue, for the duration of that project, as it will be impossible to live aboard while doing this work. We also need to take the mast out and re-rig the boat. Those are the biggies and there are about 2 dozen other small items we hope to address before next summer rolls around.

As if s/v South Trail is not enough work for us, we went into a partnership with Craig’s friend Johnny, a top notch automotive and helicopter mechanic, on two small fishing boats. A 25’, 1967 Luhrs Sportfisher and a 23’ Mako. They were great bargains needing the kind of work that Craig excels at, and Johnny has family property inland that will enable us to work on them and house them rent free. So, in addition to everything else, we will be working on these two boats as additional projects which we hope to sell eventually for a small profit… After we enjoy fishing off them locally first!

Our new/old baby: 1967 Luhrs Sportfisher

Dover is happy to be back to his favorite, home harbor and regular routine. I walk him to the beach every morning (about a mile) and there he plays Chuck-It and frolicks in the surf. In the afternoons he goes to a big dirt lot by our marina and chases rabbits. There are tons of them there and he is very entertained. For you bunny lovers, never fear, he never actually catches them. He doesn’t even come close. The rabbits are way smarter and faster than he will ever be… I think I may have actually seen one of them give him a raspberry before darting across the field and down a hole!

Martha, Tamara, Eva and Kari wine tasting in Nashville

I was thrilled to be able to attend a reunion with my best girlfriends from William Woods University, Fulton, Missouri, 1989-93: Kari, Tamara and Martha. The four of us converged at our friend Martha’s home outside of Nashville, TN in late July, early August. It had been six years since our last get together, and it was a blast to hang out with all of them again. Like putting on a favorite sweater, it was warm, comfortable and familiar. We went wine tasting, out for a night at a local bar with a live band, and into Nashville for some site seeing and dinner. Martha and her hubby, Rob, were fantastic hosts and pulled-out all the stops with a crab boil feast, homemade BBQ hotwings and Rob’s hangover smoothies. I hope we don’t wait another 6 years to do it again!

BBQ on South Trail with dock pals:  George and Patti pictured

Dover playing ball on "his beach" in Ventura...  So happy to be home!

Many other folks that I was able to see over the summer included my co-worker pals from Anacapa Isle Marina days, Julie and Gabi, my old L.A. waitress buddies from Café Tartine and Marmalade Café and Baccaro Designs Faux Finishing days, Celeste and Gina, and Joanne from Pasadena. It was also really great to reconnect with all our old dock buddy neighbors here in Ventura. We look forward to making many new friends on our new dock and new side of the harbor at Ventura West Marina. It is good to be home! Happy Fall everyone!

Full Circle: Back in Ensenada!

We arrived Tuesday morning into Ensenada Harbor and back into a slip at our favorite place, Baja Naval Marina.  Once again, we arrived just as our last provisions of produce from Turtle Bay were all but totally depleted, and were so very happy to back in the big city up north with all of our favorite restaurants.  After giving Dover a much needed walk on the malecon, we practically ran to our favorite breakfast place, Las Cazuelitas (Little Pans)  They have simply the best comida and service in town, and we "yummmmmmm"ed our way through a plate of machaca y huevos con chilaquiles rojo, the house specialty and two grande jugos naranja (fresh squeezed orange juice)  So nice to take a break from cooking!  After breakfast, we took in an early showing of Iron Man II.  35 pesos per person for first run movies.  Have I mentioned lately how much we love Mexico?!

Our passage up from Turtle Bay was full of ups and downs, great sailing followed by barely making headway in steep seas and strongs winds.  It took us four days to transit, but we stopped overnight in San Carlos and San Quintin to take much needed breaks.  The Baja Bash is officially over for us even though we have a few hundred more miles to go north to Ventura.  The worst is over and we don't anticipate the remaining passages to be at all difficult.

In Turtle Bay, we waited out a gale with a large group of fellow cruisers.  It was very nice to connect with other people facing the same challenges.  We went up to a restaurant recommended by our friend Niell and his buddy Pete, Las Palapas.  The proprietors, Carlos and his wife Mercedes built this great restaurant overlooking the bay in front of their home.  Pete apparently helped Carlos build the first palapa 10 years ago and they are the official Bahia Tortugas Yacht Club.  Carlos showed us a photo album filled with pictures of visiting yateros and had us sign his guestbook.  Due to the fact that eleven boats were stuck in the harbor for a week waiting out the gale, we all organized a party at the yacht club.  Mercedes made fantastic Baja fish tacos, Chicken Pajole, and Pescado Mexicana for us and the tequilla and Negro Modelos were flowing!  Great to meet some new folks, swap Bash stories, and patronize some really wonderful Bahia Tortugas folks in their beautiful place.

Looking forward to heading back out and up the hill this weekend for Dana Point and then home to Ventura!

In Turtle Bay at last... Warmth!...showers, fuel, comida and muy necessito... cervesa!

Well, it has been three weeks since our last shore leave off South Trail in Cabo San Lucas, and all of us have been suffering from a bit of cabin fever and hypothermia...  until today!  We left Bahia Asuncion at midnight last night and arrived in Turtle Bay, aka Bahia Tortugas, today at 1pm.  Huge west swells plagued us the entire leg, but South Trail did a great job averaging 4 knots to weather under power alone.  Dover ran his fuzzy rear end off at the beach upon landing, and then we three hoofed it into town for some desperately needed re-provisioning.  We were out of all fresh produce and had our first homemade alfalfa sprouts yesterday on a turkey cheese quesadilla wrap... Yummy!  Muchas Gracias to my big sis Aina for the sprout kit before we left the US!  I knew it would come in handy coming back up this remote coast, and by golly it did! 

Tonight we are grilling hamburgesas on Bimbo Integral pan with fresh tomato, onion and sprouts along with homemade french fries... Life is very good right now!  We will get fuel from Sergio manana which should take us all the way to Ventura, and then weigh anchor at midnight to head north yet again.  This next leg has the potential of being a tough nut to crack as the wind and seas can really stop a boat like ours in it's tracks.  We have a good game plan though, and the smarts to scrap that plan should conditions change for us.  We will be fine, and look forward to getting up to Ensenada within the next week, God willing, so we can check out of the country and head back up to work in Ventura.  We visited a few new anchorages for us on this last leg out of necessity, and now have vowed to visit them again under less time constraints.  The bain of our existance for over a week was Abreojos, but when we were so protein deprived that we flagged a local panga down, we were so pleasantly surprised to meet some very nice pescadores who practically gave us a freshly caught, seven pound halibut... still kicking.  Craig asked, "Cuantos pesos?", but they wouldn't sell it.  So he gave them one of his Rapala fish lures and they were thrilled... so were we!  We ate two huge meals off that one fish...  Dover too! 

 Abreojos was the hardest nut to crack in terms of getting out of the area and heading north.  The seas were steep and the wind blows there all the time, but we got a window and took it...  12 miles up the coast to Hipolito which is a remote fishing village.  We anchored for the day and left in the wee hours of calm night to head up north again to Bahia Asuncion.  That was our best leg motoring in a dead calm sea.  We arrived aroud noon and left Asuncion at midnight again to avoid strong winds, but the seas were very high.  Still, it only took us 13 hours to go the 50 miles to fabulous Turtle Bay where we now sit happily eating burgers with cold Tecate's...  Life is Good.  Also, got a great email from Ricki at Ventura West Marina.  They have a liveaboard slip for us June 1st...  Yippee!!!  Home again!!!  Life is now REALLY GOOD!!!

A recap from Santa Maria to Turtle Bay:

Our last bottle of vino (made in Baja... fitting) and grilled lobster tails in Bahia Santa Maria before heading into the very cold Pacific to head north...

Land Ho!!!!  Hipolito!!!

In one of our darker days of waiting out a Baja gale, we made pizza, which lifted all our spirits!...  It's all about the food for us...

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dover manages to find the only on-deck shade sitting here in warm Turtle Bay!

Stuck in Abreojos...

We are at an anchorage at the very top of Bahia San Lazaro (top portion of the middle bight of the coastline) waiting not to patiently for the weather to die down a bit before pushing north again to get into Turtle Bay and a required fuel stop and mini-provision.  We are only 80 miles away, but it seems like 1,000's because the wind howls through here, and every mile gained since leaving Santa Maria Bay has been hard won for us.  We actually tried to push through this morning.  We weighed anchor at 4am and got around the corner only to be slapped back.  The weather guru Don, s/v Summer Passage who broadcasts via ham on The Amigo Net, says that a gale will blow starting this afternoon down the Baja coast and be blowing 30-35 knots NW for the next couple of days.  We will probably be stuck here through Saturday, May 1st...  Big bummer...  We are down to our last 6 eggs and are out of fresh produce save for potatoes and onions.  My big sister Aina's sprout kit will be coming out this afternoon!  The town of Abrejojos has few services and we are well tucked in a cove east of it, so popping into town for a few things is not an option at this juncture.

Other than our frustration at the Baja Bash, which was to be expected, we are all well.  South Trail has been running great, and other than our bow mounted running lights going  out all the time (understandable with all the pounding seas) knock wood, we have had no major system failures.  Dover is resigned to the fact that he will not be going ashore often on this part of the journey, and is getting his daily exercise running the decks and warning away all manner of sea bird and mammal away from his South Trail.  He also gets nightly games of tug-o-war and boat fetch.  We all desperately need a shower and are lamenting not hooking-up our watermaker for this trip.  The water we have onboard must be conserved for moments like this when we don't know how long it will before we are able to fill up again.  Turtle Bay is the Oasis in these parts.  They have fuel, water, provisions, restaurants, and even one of the local hotels offers cruising sailors showers in one of their hotel rooms for $3...  Yeah, we will be doing that deal bigtime!

Whata Difference a Bay Makes!!!

We arrived 180 nm's NW of Cabo today, Tuesday at sunrise, in our favorite deserted anchorage, Bahia Santa Maria, outside of Mag Bay.  No Sea-Doos here baby!  Just a small fishing village who love to barter with us gringos for their commodity...fish and lobster.  We are in hog heaven right now, and it is a good thing because according to the weather gurus, South Trail with be here for a few days while some Gale's blow down the Baja coastline...

Our Bash out of Cabo was not the trauma inducing experience we were stealing ourselves for.  Once again, Capt. Craig picked a great window to weigh anchor and get outta Cabo.  We left the anchorage at 10am on Sunday.  We rounded Cabo Falso with no major head wind or seas.  It was choppy and we were only doing about 3.5 knots, but it was very doable.  The afternoon blow which is typical was very mild.  We saw nothing over 14 knots during the whole passage.

The worst part of heading uphill in a boat like ours, is that you have to get used to the fact that you will most likely be averaging less nautical miles per hour than you have been used to the entire cruising season!  I think it is more of a trauma psychologically than physically.  We just kept thinking the whole passage, "shouldn't we be further along by now?"   You are beating and the wind is in your face and the boat is working, but you are just not going as fast as the conditions might lead you to believe you should be.  It's a bummer for sure.  But like anything, the more you do it, the more confident you get...  We should be very confident by the time we make it back up to Ventura!

Time to relax, get some sleep and enjoy these bugs for dinner tonight!

We are hoping to leave on our most challenging leg, the middle bight of Baja up to Turtle Bay, on Friday depending on the weather gurus instructions.  There are a couple of possible anchorages in between that we may have to stop at due to necessity.  Stay tuned for more bash updates!....

Fair winds to all on your own life passages...

 

In Cabo: Teeing-Up for the Big Bad Baja Bash!!!

Arrived in Cabo at midnight Wednesday night from our Mazatlan crossing.  Very pleasant, benign Sea of Cortez passage.  Got to actually sail a bit when we left Mazatlan.  Got a little bit of SW Pineapple Express gentle push to get us outta town.   As this is possibly the last calm, benign passage for awhile, we REALLY enjoyed the lack of drama.  We are in the lovely rolly anchorage here in Cabo San Lucas with a lot of pasty white tourists wizzing around us on rented Sea-Do's after too many cocktails, and worse, trying to show off their incredible Sea-Do prowess of going way too fast through a crowded anchorage...  There are more ways to die here in Cabo on the water than anywhere else on the Baja really.  Craig, Dover and I had to run into town for parts and were nearly capsized by a glass bottom boat and a cruise ship tender respectively.  We thwarted the full bath, but got a good soaking nonetheless...  We will leave as soon as we get a good weather window to get us up to Magdelena Bay.  At this writing, we may be leaving on Sunday or Monday.  Hopefully, before the Sea-Do's drive us all totally bonkers !

We really had to tear ourselves away from Mazatlan as it is our new favorite city in Mexico and so many of our friends were there when we left.  We will miss Jack and Elvia, Neill Randle, and Patrick Martin and all our new aquaintences in Old Harbor, Club Nautico, Isla Marina and Dock 4, Marina Mazatlan.  We did lots of laundry and stowed all our non-necessary items (read: all Eva's little homey touches that could get destroyed in the coming weeks of pounding to weather)

We celebrated our wedding anniversary on Easter Sunday this year down in the Plaza Machado in Centro Historico at a lovely outdoor cafe and then went to our favorite pastry place, Panama, for some sweets to take back to South Trail.

Dover is absolutely the star of this cruising trip.  He has made so many new friends, and has turned into the very confident smallest big dog we've ever had the pleasure to know.  Everyday he impresses us with his abilities and great attitude.  Dover has opened doors for us and added a great dimension to this trip for us. We could write a book about moments and places Dover has experienced in the last few months...  Maybe we will!

Our Baja Bash strategy is pretty simple...  We are going to go with the fastest (Read: Sea-Do story above), best weather window that gets us around Cabo Falso and up to Bahia Santa Maria/Mag Bay for our first passage.  Based on our experience with our Telcel Dongle coming down the Baja, we will be able to check our favorite online weather sources (buoyweather.com, sonrisanet.org-Geary's weather, passageweather.com, noaa.org -for the cool big picture satelite images) as well as listen to Don, s/v Summer Passage on the ham Amigo Net @ 8.122.01.   Being realistic about this trip having already completed it under sail power alone with no self-steering on our Cal 2-29, s/v Tigertail Street five years ago, we are understand all too well that plans can change quickly depending on what Mother Ocean is giving you to work with.  We try to be flexible with plans for the sanity of the crew and the health of our home and transportation!  Also, we really study our charts and guides to have the most alternate routes, as well as strategies, thought through ahead of time.  Craig goes through the boat systems with a pretty fine tooth comb to smooth out any issues.  He's got his tool bags out and ready to work on any issue quickly and efficiently in a seaway if necessary.  He will dive on South Trail tomorrow to check our prop, shaft and zincs one last time, and I have been cleaning the waterline so our gal with be as slick as humanly possible.  We need every possible speed advantage we can find.  Our decks are kept pretty clear.  We put our jerry jugs down below to keep the weight low.  Our V-berth has been cleared of all our heavy items and they have been moved to displace her weight aft and keep the bow light into the seas.  We put up our new/old kevlar working jib...  Very exciting.  It worked great on our Sea of Cortez sail in light wind.   We are provisioned up with a lot of easy quick meals and tons of grazing foods and snacks...  We are ready to rock-n-roll!!!  Stay tuned...

Time to Go Upstream!

All good things must come to an end, and our downwind sailing time is over.  It is time to turn around, go from gybes to tacks, and work our way back up the coast to the tune of 1500 or so nautical miles back to Ventura.  The boat is running great thanks to Craig, and we are optimistic that we will not have any major problems beyond finding favorable weather windows.

After Randy and Vicki went home, we stayed an additional week at Marina Riviera Nayarit at La Cruz.  We let Patrick use our extra key card as he was anchored outside the marina.  He came in for water and gave Dover dinghy rides, which he totally loved.

We were thrilled to be able to see our old G Dock Ventura West neighbors Rick and Karen, s/v Eyes of the World for a fun evening of sundowner cocktails and great sailing stories before leaving La Cruz.  Back in the day, Rick taught Craig how to sail in Channel Islands Harbor and it was so great to be able to both be in Mexico on our own cruising boats and celebrate that moment!

Speaking of dinghy rides with Dover, Craig took Dover out to the point at Punta Mita which is a world class surf spot and the northern tip of Banderas Bay.  We stopped here and anchored for a night before heading up the coast to Chacala again.  Dover is barking like a wild man because Craig is full throttle on the outboard trying not to get rolled by a swell he misjudged as being smaller than it actually was... No worries.  They lived to dinghy surf another day and Craig caught this great Dover action shot.

This is a good shot of Patrick aboard his Crealock 34 s/v Amy Michele as we all head up the coast from Punta Mita to our next anchorage in Chacala.  Just an FYI: you can click on any of these photos for a larger version to see detail.

Craig hooked this guy on the way to Chacala too...  To the untrained eye, it looks like a really nice tuna.  We know better.  This is the fish we have lovingly termed "Ass Fish".  He is a tuna poser with warm flesh the color of liver.  He is relatively easy to catch, but don't get excited about having sushi from this guy.  He is best sliced-up and used as bait to catch other, better fish.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  Here's Craig adjusting the leech of our foresail outside of Jatemba.  We had a really nice sail back into Chacala.

Coming into Chacala anchorage.

The beach at Chacala with Craig and Patrick

Palapa construction in downtown Chacala.

Enjoying Ceviche at our local palapa restaurant in Chacala.  The great thing about these restaurants that differ from the states is that you can stay all day at a table if you like for the price of a beer or soda.  In the background on the right you can see someone at the jukebox.  The tunes were pumpin' on this very nice day in Chacala.

Our view of Bahia Chacala and the boat anchorage from the palapa restaurant.  We are nice and cool here!

After we left Chacala, we did a day sail up to Mantachen Bay which is the ocean side of San Blas.  With Eva still suffering from San Blas jungle river bug bites we decided to anchor out in this bay away from the bugs...  Okay, we only got bitten 20 times as opposed to 200 in San Blas.  Luckily, the weather gods were on our side and we were able to head to Mazatlan in the am after only one semi-intolerable bug night here.

Back in Mazatlan, Old Harbor again!  It was a really pleasant 26 hour leg between Bahia Mantachen and Mazatlan.  We saw little to no traffic and easy sea state.  It was good to be back in Mazatlan, and we are looking forward to getting ready here to cross the sea again and hang the big right turn for California and home.