Bahia Santa Maria... No more kelp at last!!!

We arrived yesterday afternoon in beautiful, tranquil Santa Maria Bay which is just north of Bahia Magdalena or as the cruiser’s call it, Mag Bay. We are approximately 175 miles North of Cabo San Lucas and very happy to be out of the most challenging legs of our Baja transit. As we sit now on the hook, Craig is BBQing four (of eight) small, live lobsters that we traded for batteries, chocolate, and chewy granola bars. Did I mention how much I love Mexico? We are one of two sailboats currently in this huge bay. We are sharing the landscape and seascape with a small fishing village of which the aforementioned on the fire were brought to us via local panga fishermen. I think they are so removed out here that they are sitting in their village basically saying, “hey, check out the batteries and sweets I scored from the visiting gringos for a few, small langosta.” Win-win. Barter makes so much sense in these moments! The ocean temperature here is 72 degrees and crystal clear, and we are now done with having to look out for kelp that can foul our prop. We are swimming today, catching-up on email (hard to believe that we can be in such a remote place and have internet, Mexico Telcel 3-G ROCKS!) and generally having a relaxing Sunday. It is hard to believe it has been just one week and 520 miles since we left cold, rainy Ensenada.

Our trip from Turtle Bay started out fairly benign, but as we approached the next big bight out of the coast near Abreojos, we got hit with a pretty impressive Santa Ana condition. The wind kept building, and although are wind speed indicator took that moment to decide to fail, we think it was blowing a solid 20 knots with gusts in the 25 knot range. The fetch built to 4+ feet and steep immediately, it was 11pm and we were on a course where the land was falling away from us. We made a tactical decision to head into shore to avoid building seas… All I kept thinking was T-Pecker (Gulf of Tehuantepec, notorious for high ferocious winds forcing boats far out into the ocean) The only prudent course is to head as close to shore as is practical to try and avoid the building seas. Needless to say, it was a long night for all of us. Dawn brought no relief, but we could at last see the ocean and realized that it was not going to build any higher, so we put out the head sail along with our main already up and gave our engine, Goldie, a well deserved break. It was a great sail for about 3 hours and we were averaging 6.9 knots toward our waypoint… not too shabby!

When we got close to Santa Maria in the AM, Craig took us on a small detour to Thetis Bank, a world-renouned fishing destination. No one else was there. We started trolling in 250 feet of water, and immediately had fish on both of our lines… They turned out to be Skip Jacks but it was still exciting! Then, Craig found the sweet spot, and let the boat drift as he fished, and almost immediately he got hooked-up to his Moby Dick of fish. I got this shot of him fighting this leviathan for over an hour. He has bruises in his groin area from the rod digging in and his hands are not really into closing today. The strong, smart fish finally got the better of Craig, but he has vowed to come back again someday with bigger guns and fight this fish another day! He thought the fish was probably either a Black Sea Bass, territorialized Yellowtail, or large Grouper. In any case, the fish wedged itself in the rocks before Craig had a chance to get his head in the fight. Our GPS just shows the boat doing circles in the same 300 foot spot! We both wished that we could have seen this big guy, but alas it was not in the cards.

Coming into the anchorage we spotted no less than ten different Gray Whales, six of which were pairs of mothers and their babies. This area is a huge birthing area for them and we just happened to hit this area at the right time of year. They were breaching and blowing and tail slapping all around us. It was truly amazing. I got some very vague pictures of which this is one (whale is in right side of pic frame) , but it does not do the moments justice. Dover was pretty much ready to defend the boat when he finally saw a huge tail come up out of the water. He thought it didn’t get any worse or bigger than the dolphins!  Ha!  Wait 'til he gets a gander of a  Blue Whale.

We will spend one more day here putting the boat together for our next leg to San Jose del Cabo. We intend to get a slip there, relax, recreate Dover, and reprovision before heading across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan to meet our friend Neill and off-load the solar panels that we brought down for him...  Also got to get to Zihuatanejo to see our friend Patrick and give him some "burro" items. 

Recap of Turtle Bay:

These three gals from SoCal, circa: in their 20's are taking this Islander 30, s/v Misty Moonlight down the coast with us, and they ran into a bit of a problem when their strut completely electolicsized and their cutlass bearing then parted way with the boat...  Big problems, but nothing but positive thoughts and actions produced the ultimate success story.  These gals, with the help of this Mexican seiner and some wonderful cruisers from Canada (s/v Nordic 5) sorted their problems out old school style which we respect wholeheartedly.  We got some great shots of this event.  Notice the transom raised out of the water.
 

Total hairball, triage boating... They pulled it off in spades!!!  Great to watch them all work so well together.  Great mariner spirits from all involved.  We just saw Misty Moonlight and S/V Nordic 5 sailing past us into Mag Bay for fuel.  Hey all you sailors who don't get out much on your boats, if three chicks can do it in an old Islander 30, what are you folks, with newer boats, better equipment, and all those great toys doing?!  Get the out here and enjoy the adventure before it's too late!  
 
 

 

Well, here I am braving the Turtle Bay waters to free dive on South Trail, and check for kelp in the prop or other fouling of our drivetrain.   Thankfully, I found nothing.  The boat is perfect, and  I then used the opportunity to clean myself up with a salt water bath, and clean, warm water rinse thanks to Craig waiting on board with a pitcher of water.  Now THAT is love!!!

Bahia Tortugas, Baja's Oasis

Turtle Bay Welcoming Committee:  "Bienvenidos Bahia Tortugas Amigos!"

Arrived in Turtle Bay (Bahia Tortugas) at 5pm last night after leaving Ensenada Sunday at 10am.  If you look at a map of the Baja Coast, we are half way down on the south side of that giant hook in the coast, just below several islands (Cedros, Navidad and Benitos).  It is a long, approximately 300 nm run.  We took off on the first clear day after the storms.  The sky was good, but the sea state was still really big from the storms.  The first 24 hours were really rolly and tough to sail through.  For the most part, we consistently had light North wind to fill our mainsail the whole ride, but also needed the motorpower to give us consistent speed.

We are under that pink dot on the Pacific Ocean side, and yes, we have seen Gray Whales! 

Our Universal diesel engine, Goldie, is running fantastically.  She just did a solid 55 hour motor with no hiccups whatsoever.  She runs a consistent 185 degree temperature and Craig figured out that we can run her using her oil pressure gauge as our own tachometer (which we do not have on her currently).  Oil pressure goes up as the engine revs up, so Craig can put her in the sweet spot of Highest RPMs : Least Fuel Burned which is the goal.  We are burning approximately 1/2 gallon of diesel per hour which puts our fuel consumption for this leg at 27 gallons...   Not too bad.  Also, diesel fuel in Mexico is about $2.50 per gallon.  Way more fun to spend our pesos on carnitas tacos rather than diesel!

Dover Surveys the Scene as we Enter Bahia Tortugas 

Turtle Bay is the only fuel available on the coast, easily accessible, between Ensenada and Magdalena Bay which is why so many cruisers stop here.  Not a lot of amenities or local attractions are here.  If Ensenada is Las Vegas than Turtle Bay is Barstow.  It is utilitarian.  Helio (Ice), Basura (Garbage), Agua (Water), Cervesa (Good Beer, not like in the states!), Huevos (Eggs, not refrigerated, they last a long time that way), and most importantly, FUEL is what you stop for here.  If you are looking for specialty boat parts, you are probable not going to find them here.  You will find some very handy folks who may be able to help you jury rig something until you get to the next big port.  Your knowledge of Spanish will help immensely in those situations.  Turtle Bay is a great natural bay for anchoring in all weather conditions.  The last time we were here in December '04, the wind blew with ferocity from every concievable direction during our time here and we found comfortable liveable anchoring on many different points in the bay.  Also, the people here are very nice and amenable.  They are offering basic services at very reasonable prices and as long as you agree to a price ahead of time, you shouldn't get fleeced.  Bottom line is Turtle Bay is not Cabo San Lucas, but for the weary cruiser it is truly an Oasis on the Baja Coast.

A recap of our trip from Ensenada to Turtle Bay in pictures:

Our finger at Baja Naval:  It used to have an inset piece with rollers next to the pylon.  The last 24 hours of the storm it became so damaged that the staff at Baja Naval removed it so the finger and our two boats attached to it could float freely in a truly tremendous surge condition.  It should be noted that the staff of Baja Naval had workers on the docks 24/7 throughout the stormy week.  They saved numberous vessels from costly damage many times over.  They handled some difficult weather with great attitudes and fearless action.  They gave us peace of mind to be able to sleep through some of the worst weather we have ever experienced.

This is Capt. Craig very happy indeed to be out of the scary docking situation in Ensenada and on to better, warmer weather south.  This is just before we headed out to open ocean in the Bahia Todos Santos which still had some pretty big swells coming at us.  The next 24 hours was pretty rough on all of us.  Nobody lost their cookies, but I for one, came as close as I ever have to being really sea sick.  It was not the best ride, but man, when you finally do get to calm seas you really appreciate it...  Ying/Yang.

Craig finally able to relax into this cruise.  He put his first fishing line in the water to troll.  No bites, but it's great to start enjoying the ride!

This is sunrise at the west coast of Isla Cedros or Cedar Island.  Yes, there are cedar trees on this island which is totally bizarre for this area of the world and the topography of the mainland.  We rounded this island and did an S turn around the smaller Isla Navidad (Christmas Island) to get into Turtle Bay.

Looking back at the East Coast of Isla Cedros in the background and Punta Eugenia.  Out of frame on the left side is Isla Navidad.  Between Isla Navidad and the mainland is called the Dewey Channel and it is covered with lobster traps.  You definately want to come through this area in the daylight hours or you risk fouling your prop big time.

The Great Pacific Storm 2010!

This is what it looked like behind our South Trail this morning in the fairway. Ensenada has a huge river flowing into the harbor and when it storms like this, just like LA/Long Beach, all the trash from upstream gets dumped right in the harbor. It looked much worse last night, but we’ll see what a few days of storm does with this trash. We may be delayed due to trash in the harbor! We certainly couldn’t run our engine in it! This big storm hitting the Pacific Coast of California churning-up the ocean swells and creating some pretty heavy winds on the coast down here in Baja has forced us to wait it out here in Ensenada before continuing south. All in all, we are pretty happy here, and not shaking our fists at the heavens. We do want to get down to the mainland, but also know that it will happen in due course. If our timing works out, we are hoping to catch a ride south on the NW clearing winds from this storm and not have to burn a lot of diesel. Our departure from Ensenada will be this coming Saturday or Sunday depending on what and when this storm does it’s thing down here and how long it takes for the seas to calm down.
Craig has been attacking our fuel intake issues and has focused his efforts on our Racor fuel filter at the engine. Craig took the whole unit apart and found that someone had removed the ball check valve from the unit. Luckily, we have another Racor on our fuel polishing system, which really doesn’t need that valve, and he switched Racors. After a minor, yet time consuming and annoying, leak on the “new” Racor upon mounting in the engine compartment, Craig thinks it is all good to go. Only time and use will tell… Such is the cruising boat lifestyle. Everything wears and breaks. The only variable is “when”, and even with all the best planning in the world, no one can fortune tell that one!

Meanwhile, while we sit in hospitable Ensenada, we are re-acquainting ourselves with Spanish. Most everyone speaks English to some extent, so it is a great learning environment. We can practice, and many times get a new word or phrase or meaning from the many bi-lingual folks we come into contact with daily. This is certainly a country overall that enjoys it when foreigners try (even as ham-fistedly as we do!) to speak and learn the language. We got a fantastic book “Spanish for Cruisers” by Kathy Parsons. We highly recommend this book for Mexico and beyond. In addition to the basics for travel it also includes navigational, maritime, and most importantly, mechanical Spanish. Any book can tell you where to find a bathroom, but this one allows you to find el foque de capa (stormsail) or el impulsor/impelente (impeller) and bridging that gap for cruisers is invaluable. Craig and I drew a lot of pictures last time here in ’05 with varying degrees of success, and as such we are thrilled to have this book! Kathy also has “French for Cruisers” and we will definitely be purchasing that before heading to French Polynesia or the Caribbean. We are also berthed a whopping 2 blocks from the local Cineplex, and have caught up on some of the new movies that our out. They usually offer both Subtitled in Spanish and Spanish Dubbed. We have seen Avatar (what a visually beautiful film!) Law Abiding Citizen, Sherlock Holmes, and Zombieland (very funny!) I have found that I learn Spanish language usage by reading the subtitles, also at $3 USD per ticket, what a deal to go to the movies!

As I write this, our wind instruments are reading a steady 30 knots with gusts to 35 knots and we are fairly protected in our slip. The City of Ensenada put their beautiful, huge Mexican National Flag up this morning thinking that the rain was over. I got this shot of it through our overhead hatch as it started to blow heavily. Within’ fifteen minutes, the crew came by to wrangle it down.  This picture doesn't do justice to the size of this flag.  Craig and I estimate it is about 40'x 100' minumum. We saw another cruiser trying to row out to his boat on a small skiff, and thanked our lucky stars that we have a slip and don’t have to do that in this huge storm.

Craig did brave the malecon in his old fishing rubbers to get us some fresh pescado at the local fish market. The fisherman recognized the Guy Cotton logo on his bib and asked him if he fished commercially which he was able to reply, “Si!” due to his stint in Ventura Harbor as a crab fisherman. They in turn gave him a smokin’ deal on some black sea bass (not available in the states or even legal to fish) and some huge prawns, he paid about $10 US for a huge filet (2 1/2lbs approx) and approx. 1lb. of prawns.

We may be in a storm, but we are FEASTING!!!... Dover gets some too!!!

Ensenada

We're safe, in a slip at Baja Naval Boatyard and Marina. The surge is amazing. We have out every dock line, spring line, and fender we have, and it's like riding a bronco. This water is moving so fast back and forth it's hard to know if you have enough gear out. Is there enough gear?

Big Hans Christian (44'?) came in yesterday and its bowsprit went to war with the Baja Naval concrete dock pillar. One good hit...solid hit, from surge while pulling in. Believe it or not, the boat won! Teak bowsprit took a chunk of concrete out of the the pillar. There was a piece of concrete the size of a pop tart on the dock and I could hardly see any damage to the bowsprit. Those Han's guys build a strong boat.

Was not the guys fault. He put her right in the slip...then the water shifted 20' to the left in about 3 seconds. I'm just not quite sure how one "safely" docks in these conditions. It's pretty intense. The dock lines are so loud right now I'm not sure how they can take it.

Anyway, today did a bunch:

Officially checked in us, the boat, and the dog into the country. We're all here legally for up to 6 months. This involves 3 hrs at one big office going from window to window and back to the same window several times. But it really is better than the "old" system, which added a butt load of walking into the mix.

Purchased Telecel internet dongle. We should now have internet access for most of our voyage. Thanks to Niell Randle for telling us to get to the main Telecel office early. Basically we were first in line and it was about and hour+ once we were in the store. Got there about 1/2 hr before store opened . If you're 5th in line...you better have water with you...it's gonna be a while. Price is $70.00 for USB broadband hardware and one month free. After that, $35.00/month for up to 3gigs. The reports are that they work extremely well.

Saw Avatar at the local theatre. Best movie I have ever seen. See it.

Dover wants his grandma.

We'll be here the next 4 days at least.

Craig

Dana Point Pit Stop

Our engine quit two times when we left Cat Harbor due to lack of fuel.  After going through all the usual suspects, filters and lines, Craig concluded it was a venting issue from our day tank going to our upper fixed tank...  Long story short:  needed to be NOT IN A SEAWAY to diagnose and fix this one...  Ergo, Dana Point...  This is why we call it a "Shakedown" cruise.

Going back a day or two... we had a cool couple of days, our last for awhile, on Catalina.  First of all, when walking from the dink docks into town, Craig and I walked, no kidding, 15 feet passed a huge Buffalo.  Wow!  They are amazing animals and although we had both heard of them and seen them in movies, nothing compares to seeing them up close and personal.  Alas, I did not have my camera, and thankfully Dover was not with us!   But upon a subsequent journey, with Dover on leash.  I got this shot from about a 1/4 mile away.

Dover and I found a tuft of Buffalo hair which we brought back to the dink dock for Craig to get a gander at.  Dover also brought back a mouthful of Buffalo dung, and a shoulder full of dung from a gigantic Buffalo dung patty.  He then looked up at me with great pride as if to say, "THIS is what you have been grooming me for mother, isn't it?"    He continued, "I have the scent, now we will kill the giant  beast and our pack will eat off the carcass forever?!!!"   "Dover! Sit!" was my reply, and then I took this picture...

Cat Harbor, Two Harbors, Santa Catalina Island

All the holiday traffic here has gone home, and we are at home. How cool is that?! I have tons of great pictures to attach to these posts, but alas our Virgin Mobile 3-G Dongle is having connection issues, and I’m only able to work online for about 10 minutes at a time before losing the signal...  (UPDATE:  WE ARE IN DANA POINT HARBOR AND I AM FINALLY ABLE TO ADD PICTURES!!!) The stars have to be aligned correctly, the tide must be high, and the boat must pitch ever so gently. It is forcing me to be very organized and less verbose which is probably a good thing.

We have been hiking in the island hills, kayaking on our new inflatable and playing ball with Dover on the beach closest to where we are moored in the harbor. Yes, that is correct, the boy went ashore now three times… the poop has left the pooch… onboard the boat and begrudgingly. He is learning the new ropes of living on the hook, and is certainly very much more appreciative of his trips ashore. Dover is now a Salty Dog!
We are doing little organizational things aboard and small projects (backing-up files on hard drive, re-stowing things for better access, etc) Craig caught a small bonita fish off the boat, but we let him go as he was not big enough for a good meal.

Tomorrow we will head into town and fill our water jerry jugs (we will not attempt hooking-up our reverse osmosis watermaker until we are in Mexico) drop off garbage and recycling, pumpout our holding tank, and generally prepare for departure. We are thinking of bypassing San Diego and heading directly for Ensenada, and our Mexican check-in to the country, due to our unplanned stop here in Catalina… we’ll see. The great thing about cruising is that you are on your own time frame and can make these decisions as you go.
We are very much enjoying everyone’s comments and holiday emails. Please keep them coming! If we don’t respond right away, don’t despair, we will respond eventually…  (If you have, what I like to call "super zoom", you will find Craig and Dover hiking on the trail that I have photographed...  Good stuff that is!)

New Years Eve

We left Channel Islands Harbor at 1pm on the 30th with every intention of heading to San Diego. There was a mild rain when we left, but it did not seem mild when we got out to sea and had to contend with beating (yes, beating) to weather going on what should be 99% of the time a down wind, down current run. Combine that action with two sailors who are exhausted from all the “last minute” stuff we’ve been doing for the last month and a dog who hasn’t done a sail in over a year, and by 10pm Captain Craig put Catalina on the table for the crew… Yes, by all means, let’s stop and finally, relax! That is exactly what we are doing… Well, maybe not Dover. He has faced a tough-love demon the past 32 hours. Dover is used to going out on walks/beach runs with us 4 times a day. Even at Channel Islands where there is no beach access for doggies, we managed to “chuck-it” ball on the grassy bits above our guest slip at least twice a day. Bottom line, Dover has got to learn to go #1 and #2 on the boat, solo and with impunity. He absolutely refuses to defile his boat, which was cool in the marina community, and is not in the cruising environment. Long, painful (for everyone) story short… He pissed on the deck after 32 hours of whining and holding out for a trip to shore. Huge praise from us, but he still has not gone #2. We are hoping for the am on January 1st, 2010 so that we can treat him to a shore run on the kayak. I’m upping the anti in our favor with cheese snacks. It works for me! Dover poop news will follow!!
Engine ran great. Radar was right on. The only problem we encountered via boat systems was, well, US. We need to give ourselves the time to catch-up to what we’ve accomplished with this boat in the last two years and get on to the business of reaping what we have sewn! First lesson being learned right now… Happy New Year to you and yours. The souls of South Trail wish you peace, health, happiness and new adventures in 2010.