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!