Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Cabo to La Paz
Well I am now back on Cop Out after a chilly visit to Canada!!!
Arrived in Calgary as the temperature was plummeting but got to Kelowna before it hit
-40 in Calgary. Had huge snowfalls in Kelowna but at least it was warmer—well kind of.
I spent a week greeting the newest member of our family, Adelyn Elise Lunman, Kristen and Kyle’s beautiful daughter who was born November 15th. Spent many hours walking her—Kristen and Kyle have spent many since—oh the joys of “newborn’s” definitely for the young!! After helping reorganizing Kristen’s kitchen cupboards—did I forget to teach her rudimentary housekeeping—I guess I was so busy making sure she got her career, I forgot--sorry Kyle!! I headed back to Calgary for a couple of days. Got to run around trying to get what we had discovered is not available in Mexico and visiting as many friends as possible in such a short time. Had a nice pre Christmas with Amy, Rob, Alora. Isaac, Mike and Aaron and enjoyed watching Alora’s horse back lessons and Isaac’s karate.
I arrived back in Cabo where Ken had returned to after having gone up the coast with another few boats while I was gone. We restocked our groceries and headed out the next day. Cabo is definitely a party town and not a great “cruiser” port. The anchorage is rolly and the town noisy.
We had a rough passage into a 25 knot head wind and choppy nasty seas going up to Los Frailles which was our next port. We were able to make about 3 knots an hour and managed to blow out cringle at the end of the sail. We were beating into it but were thankful for our stable boat as we passed Arctic Willow, a Canadian boat from Victoria which was having a much worse time. About 4 other boats were going that day and everyone had some story with some damage. It was not at all life threatening, just uncomfortable and we were all happy to anchor that night.
We spent the next day there going for a walk. After I had been pushing through the bush to photograph the lovely butterflies we came across a freshly run over rattlesnake—I guess I will be more careful in future. Los Frailles is a desert bay which has a small fishing village and a number of US and Canadians who come with their motor homes and camp on the beaches for the winter. Vultures were everywhere and it all reminded me of some old western movie and I would not have been surprised if Buch Cassidy hadn’t ridden out from the cactus covered hills.
The group of boats had all arrived together so we had another happy hour in our cockpit exchanging weather stories.
The next day a weather window was forecast so we all headed up to Muertes, another day sail up the coast. This was a much nicer trip and ended with a visit to the Giggling Marlin for a burrito dinner. Muertes was another desert bay but as we are getting used to the scenery are staring to appreciate the beauty of the lovely desert light.
The weather window continued and as none of us wanted a repeat of the earlier trip we all continued to La Paz the next morning.
La Paz is a lovely town which has been revamped with a beautiful waterfront walkway and is undiscovered as a tourist town—so far. Great for cruisers as the anchorage is comfortable and for $1.30 a day we can bring our dinghy in and use the marina facilities. It is a place where all cruisers hang out so we were reunited with many of the boats we had traveled with previously. Great provisioning is available and we had our sail fixed for $120, I am sure it would have been $400 or so in North America. The workmanship is good and everyone gets whatever they need done there. Yoga classes were held each morning so I started doing that every day again, perhaps that will get me back to a more regular schedule again.
Soon after we arrived La Chiva, (the goat—ram I am sure) the soccer team from Guadalajara which is the only truly Mexican team in the league down here won the season’s cup. It was much like Stanley Cup celebrations although less drinking seems to take place. The whole town appears to drive through the streets in circles cheering, starting at 1pm and still going at 11pm when we went back to the boat—I think they quit when they run out of gas for their cars. It was a lot of fun as everyone was elated.
We spent an enjoyable week in La Paz and left to go up to the Isla Espiritus Santos, an Island group 20 miles north. It is stunning, with red cliffs, desert hills and blue ocean. A few more cactus than palm trees but at about 26C who’s complaining!!!
We finally had time to snorkel, explore and kayak. We are learning to see the little things as we kayak and explore. There are great colourful crabs, pelicans who own the coves, vultures, lizards and beautiful flowers amongst the desert landscape. We must find a sea life book as we are coming across all varieties of exotic creatures we can not identify.
It was a great few days but unfortunately was cut short a day as we wanted to head to Mazatland, across the sea of Cortes and 220 miles away and the weather is forecasted to deteriorate after tomorrow. We plan to spend Xmas with Barry Toni and Roland who will be there for a month.
We copied a set of 30 CD’s which Light Wave, (another Canadian boat) gave us. They are an intensive Spanish course and we now know how to ask if they speak English or Spanish as the case may be and say that we only speak a little (very little!!!—actually we could have found that out before the lessons!!!). Oh well we are only on lesson 4 and there are 60 so hopefully we will improve. We try and have Spanish conversations with each other but the topics are limited!!!
It is sad to leave so many newly made cruising friends. La Paz is the place where everyone travels to from North America but then they each have different plans beyond here so we may not see a lot of them again. The most amazing part of the trip so far is the strong bond between cruisers. Every morning on the VHF radio in all cruiser ports here there is a “net” where the weather is given, trades and local information is available and afterwards everyone connects with their friends to arrange where to have lunch or go shopping. It is easy to see how people get into this lifestyle and never leave. Even people who no longer own boats and have settled in the area join in.
The two most important omissions in Mexican culture is that they do not have tea, black tea from the supermarket is of poor quality and I put 4 bags in my pot, the other serious problem is that the milk I have been getting, low fat, does not foam for my cappuccinos. I will try a different fat concentration next. Anyway as those of you who know me well will understand these are serious issues for our sailing future!!! Any visitors must BRING BLACK TEA!!! I suppose decent foaming milk will be more difficult.
I will next post a blog after Xmas from Mazatland so in the meanwhile we wish you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Stay warm and keep in touch!!!
Love to you all, Wendy and Ken
Arrived in Calgary as the temperature was plummeting but got to Kelowna before it hit
-40 in Calgary. Had huge snowfalls in Kelowna but at least it was warmer—well kind of.
I spent a week greeting the newest member of our family, Adelyn Elise Lunman, Kristen and Kyle’s beautiful daughter who was born November 15th. Spent many hours walking her—Kristen and Kyle have spent many since—oh the joys of “newborn’s” definitely for the young!! After helping reorganizing Kristen’s kitchen cupboards—did I forget to teach her rudimentary housekeeping—I guess I was so busy making sure she got her career, I forgot--sorry Kyle!! I headed back to Calgary for a couple of days. Got to run around trying to get what we had discovered is not available in Mexico and visiting as many friends as possible in such a short time. Had a nice pre Christmas with Amy, Rob, Alora. Isaac, Mike and Aaron and enjoyed watching Alora’s horse back lessons and Isaac’s karate.
I arrived back in Cabo where Ken had returned to after having gone up the coast with another few boats while I was gone. We restocked our groceries and headed out the next day. Cabo is definitely a party town and not a great “cruiser” port. The anchorage is rolly and the town noisy.
We had a rough passage into a 25 knot head wind and choppy nasty seas going up to Los Frailles which was our next port. We were able to make about 3 knots an hour and managed to blow out cringle at the end of the sail. We were beating into it but were thankful for our stable boat as we passed Arctic Willow, a Canadian boat from Victoria which was having a much worse time. About 4 other boats were going that day and everyone had some story with some damage. It was not at all life threatening, just uncomfortable and we were all happy to anchor that night.
We spent the next day there going for a walk. After I had been pushing through the bush to photograph the lovely butterflies we came across a freshly run over rattlesnake—I guess I will be more careful in future. Los Frailles is a desert bay which has a small fishing village and a number of US and Canadians who come with their motor homes and camp on the beaches for the winter. Vultures were everywhere and it all reminded me of some old western movie and I would not have been surprised if Buch Cassidy hadn’t ridden out from the cactus covered hills.
The group of boats had all arrived together so we had another happy hour in our cockpit exchanging weather stories.
The next day a weather window was forecast so we all headed up to Muertes, another day sail up the coast. This was a much nicer trip and ended with a visit to the Giggling Marlin for a burrito dinner. Muertes was another desert bay but as we are getting used to the scenery are staring to appreciate the beauty of the lovely desert light.
The weather window continued and as none of us wanted a repeat of the earlier trip we all continued to La Paz the next morning.
La Paz is a lovely town which has been revamped with a beautiful waterfront walkway and is undiscovered as a tourist town—so far. Great for cruisers as the anchorage is comfortable and for $1.30 a day we can bring our dinghy in and use the marina facilities. It is a place where all cruisers hang out so we were reunited with many of the boats we had traveled with previously. Great provisioning is available and we had our sail fixed for $120, I am sure it would have been $400 or so in North America. The workmanship is good and everyone gets whatever they need done there. Yoga classes were held each morning so I started doing that every day again, perhaps that will get me back to a more regular schedule again.
Soon after we arrived La Chiva, (the goat—ram I am sure) the soccer team from Guadalajara which is the only truly Mexican team in the league down here won the season’s cup. It was much like Stanley Cup celebrations although less drinking seems to take place. The whole town appears to drive through the streets in circles cheering, starting at 1pm and still going at 11pm when we went back to the boat—I think they quit when they run out of gas for their cars. It was a lot of fun as everyone was elated.
We spent an enjoyable week in La Paz and left to go up to the Isla Espiritus Santos, an Island group 20 miles north. It is stunning, with red cliffs, desert hills and blue ocean. A few more cactus than palm trees but at about 26C who’s complaining!!!
We finally had time to snorkel, explore and kayak. We are learning to see the little things as we kayak and explore. There are great colourful crabs, pelicans who own the coves, vultures, lizards and beautiful flowers amongst the desert landscape. We must find a sea life book as we are coming across all varieties of exotic creatures we can not identify.
It was a great few days but unfortunately was cut short a day as we wanted to head to Mazatland, across the sea of Cortes and 220 miles away and the weather is forecasted to deteriorate after tomorrow. We plan to spend Xmas with Barry Toni and Roland who will be there for a month.
We copied a set of 30 CD’s which Light Wave, (another Canadian boat) gave us. They are an intensive Spanish course and we now know how to ask if they speak English or Spanish as the case may be and say that we only speak a little (very little!!!—actually we could have found that out before the lessons!!!). Oh well we are only on lesson 4 and there are 60 so hopefully we will improve. We try and have Spanish conversations with each other but the topics are limited!!!
It is sad to leave so many newly made cruising friends. La Paz is the place where everyone travels to from North America but then they each have different plans beyond here so we may not see a lot of them again. The most amazing part of the trip so far is the strong bond between cruisers. Every morning on the VHF radio in all cruiser ports here there is a “net” where the weather is given, trades and local information is available and afterwards everyone connects with their friends to arrange where to have lunch or go shopping. It is easy to see how people get into this lifestyle and never leave. Even people who no longer own boats and have settled in the area join in.
The two most important omissions in Mexican culture is that they do not have tea, black tea from the supermarket is of poor quality and I put 4 bags in my pot, the other serious problem is that the milk I have been getting, low fat, does not foam for my cappuccinos. I will try a different fat concentration next. Anyway as those of you who know me well will understand these are serious issues for our sailing future!!! Any visitors must BRING BLACK TEA!!! I suppose decent foaming milk will be more difficult.
I will next post a blog after Xmas from Mazatland so in the meanwhile we wish you all a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Stay warm and keep in touch!!!
Love to you all, Wendy and Ken
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas
We arrived in Ensenada just at dark and set down anchor after another day of motoring-where is the wind????
In the morning we had a huge cruise ship beside us, luckily we had slept through it’s arrival as it would have been a little disconcerting to have awoken to see it bearing down on us in the dark when we were unsure of our bearings!’
Next morning we were off to customs—paid a Mexican fisherman $5 to watch our dingy, he assured us nothing would be stolen—would it have been otherwise?
Luckily all of the customs, immigration and port captain are all in the same building which is why we had been advised to clear here.
After having reported to each of the above, filled in numerous forms and had numerous photocopies of all necessary documents (there is an office next door for photocopies) and various charges later we were in. We had already purchased in San Diego the necessary fishing licenses, one for the boat, one for the dingy and one for each of us to be a total of $215 and had purchased a Mexican underwritten insurance at the cost of $149. All in all it costs about $500 to come into Mexico with our boat. Hopefully we will feel it is worth it!!
We lunched in town, an uninspiring border town and were reminded of the constant barrage of street vendors offering to sell their wares and an abundance of mariachi singers offering to serenade us which had been an annoyance on our previous Mexican visits, oh well we will have to learn not to be bothered as it is a fact of life here.
We then set off on the 2 day passage to Isle San Benitos. No wind again for the first day and then all of a sudden it showed up again and we had a great sail for the rest, finally we were a sailboat again.
We arrived at the small very desolate island group which has a small fishing village on it. Everything is very dry and barren with cactus growing all over the rocky island. We were visited by a couple of fishermen in their pangas who scoped us out returning later to trade 8 lobster tails. They asked for beer and candy which we gave them, by then there were seven of them. They had also asked for T shirts and ball caps we gave them a T shirt but we did not bring much extra in the way of clothes. When we think of the drawers full that Ken had thrown out when we left!! When I go back to Canada to visit Kristen’s baby I am going to go and collect up as many T shirts, ball caps and children’s school supplies as I can as these people have very little. Maybe a visit to Value Village and the dollar store is in my future.
The area is meant to be great for diving and snorkeling but was very windy and not hot so passed on both. Unfortunately it was too rough to land the dingy as it also has many curious sea lions and sea elephants and would have been great to explore a little.
The boat had been covered with squid when we arrived, we had not seen them but they must jump huge heights to get on the deck. Anyway that became calamari along with the lobster for dinner. We had already been treated to tuna sashimi on another catamaran which was anchored there too. Once again gourmet feasts are the norm.
As the wind was still blowing we decided to capitalize and left the following day for the 300 miles to Bahia Santa Magdalena, our next stop.
Ken’s biggest disappointment was to lose a swordfish which he had hooked, it somehow broke the line soon after. It would have made the outrageous fishing licenses worth while—oh well hopefully he will get another chance—he had caught some bonitos which gave us more sashimi—I think more wasabi will be bought back from Calgary too. He finally caught and landed a nice yellow fin tuna after we put a sign on the lure to warn all of the bonito’s to “keep off”!!
“Mag Bay is a huge harbour and we anchored at a small bay, which has a very small seasonal fishing camp, which consists of some small shacks with a few families who eke out an existence. This reminds us of the poverty of the hills in Laos where the people also had nothing and were able to survive hand to mouth finding what was available in a dry inhospitable landscape. It is finally warm enough to be able to swim off the boat and we are now wearing bathing suits all day, thank goodness.
We decided after a couple of days to head to Cabo San Lucas but as we were leaving the harbour met up with a catamaran we had met previously who advised that tropical storm Sergio was still hovering in southern Mexico and may come north and we should perhaps wait it out to see where it decides to go. Now in our new chilled out “tropical mode” we headed back to another bay in Mag Bay and were joined by a number of other boats who were also sitting out Sergio. Used the time to sew up some more sunshades for the sides of the boat which it is becoming clear will be necessary. More swimming and went ashore to the local town at this bay to report in to the Port Capitan who collected more copies of all boat documents and proceeded to file information on all of us there. His position seems to be a “make work” one as there are only a handful of cruisers there at any one time and no dock so the only fishermen there are the locals who have their pangas on floats they tie ashore. Anyway he proved to be a happy individual who arranged to bring us and a few of the other boats fuel from San Carlos, the major port in the bay on his panga at a reasonable price the next day before he headed off to San Carlos for the weekend to visit family, somehow it is not necessary to have a port captain on weekends!
Maria in the yellow house sold eggs and mucho pain (bread), our Spanish is starting to develop.
I joined a couple of cruisers who were taking a boat up to San Carlos to see if they could find anything “green” to buy to supplement our depleting fresh stuff. It was a small town with a few stores and restaurants. The locals here were much better dressed and obviously had jobs. The boys cruised their cars in circles around the streets as boys in all towns are want do in the weekends. The biggest issue was how to get from the dingy up onto the dock. We had anchored the big boat when it appeared that the rickety docks were full of rickety fish boats. We watched a panga and followed their example of floating to a ladder which scaled the 15 foot wall and had a rope hanging down which you could hang onto for dear life as you avoided both looking down and looking at the condition of the ladder as you climbed up it. This provided a greater challenge on the return trip as we tried to manipulate the flats of beer and bags of groceries back down which we managed to do without losing anything to the ocean, many things are lost to the ocean in this way of life. This lifestyle is not for the faint of heart and I have learned to launch myself onto a rocking dingy from the boat many times. I have found it is better to just throw your body in what you hope is the right direction without thinking about it, hesitating just prolongs the agony!!! In typical Mexican fashion the port captain of this town who is obviously more important than the one in the smaller village charged us US$10 for the privilege of anchoring in his harbour for the three hours, perhaps he will put a new ladder on the wall?? Somehow I think not!!!
Sergio appears to be going to stay in the south and there is apparently at least one more day of wind forecast so started heading the final 150 miles to Cabo with a nice spinnaker sail arriving in record time as we had a current with us and a following sea. For those of you not familiar with the speed at which one travels on these voyages, think leisurely biking along and now think 150 miles!!! Traveling day and night, watching out for the numerous local fishing boats, occasional cruise ships and tankers so as not to collide with any of the above. We do run our radar at night which is proving to be a comfort as these waters are busy.
Had a wonderful dolphin show on our way in to Cabo, they were auditioning for sea world I think and were leaping about 6 feet above the water doing back flips right in front of the boat. We applauded them enthusiastically so am sure they will do a repeat performance for others coming in.
Arrived in Cabo to find it has grown immensely since we were on our honeymoon almost 16 years ago. We have to anchor right along the beach and somehow have ended up right by the Beach Club!! I think we will move further in the morning.
I will catch a plane from there to visit the newest member of the family, Adelyn Elise, Kristen and Kyle’s baby finally arriving safely on the 15th November. Ken will stay in Cabo doing stuff on the boat for the 12 days I am gone without having to worry about my bothering him and suggesting we go and “do something”. I am sure he will miss me???
In the morning we had a huge cruise ship beside us, luckily we had slept through it’s arrival as it would have been a little disconcerting to have awoken to see it bearing down on us in the dark when we were unsure of our bearings!’
Next morning we were off to customs—paid a Mexican fisherman $5 to watch our dingy, he assured us nothing would be stolen—would it have been otherwise?
Luckily all of the customs, immigration and port captain are all in the same building which is why we had been advised to clear here.
After having reported to each of the above, filled in numerous forms and had numerous photocopies of all necessary documents (there is an office next door for photocopies) and various charges later we were in. We had already purchased in San Diego the necessary fishing licenses, one for the boat, one for the dingy and one for each of us to be a total of $215 and had purchased a Mexican underwritten insurance at the cost of $149. All in all it costs about $500 to come into Mexico with our boat. Hopefully we will feel it is worth it!!
We lunched in town, an uninspiring border town and were reminded of the constant barrage of street vendors offering to sell their wares and an abundance of mariachi singers offering to serenade us which had been an annoyance on our previous Mexican visits, oh well we will have to learn not to be bothered as it is a fact of life here.
We then set off on the 2 day passage to Isle San Benitos. No wind again for the first day and then all of a sudden it showed up again and we had a great sail for the rest, finally we were a sailboat again.
We arrived at the small very desolate island group which has a small fishing village on it. Everything is very dry and barren with cactus growing all over the rocky island. We were visited by a couple of fishermen in their pangas who scoped us out returning later to trade 8 lobster tails. They asked for beer and candy which we gave them, by then there were seven of them. They had also asked for T shirts and ball caps we gave them a T shirt but we did not bring much extra in the way of clothes. When we think of the drawers full that Ken had thrown out when we left!! When I go back to Canada to visit Kristen’s baby I am going to go and collect up as many T shirts, ball caps and children’s school supplies as I can as these people have very little. Maybe a visit to Value Village and the dollar store is in my future.
The area is meant to be great for diving and snorkeling but was very windy and not hot so passed on both. Unfortunately it was too rough to land the dingy as it also has many curious sea lions and sea elephants and would have been great to explore a little.
The boat had been covered with squid when we arrived, we had not seen them but they must jump huge heights to get on the deck. Anyway that became calamari along with the lobster for dinner. We had already been treated to tuna sashimi on another catamaran which was anchored there too. Once again gourmet feasts are the norm.
As the wind was still blowing we decided to capitalize and left the following day for the 300 miles to Bahia Santa Magdalena, our next stop.
Ken’s biggest disappointment was to lose a swordfish which he had hooked, it somehow broke the line soon after. It would have made the outrageous fishing licenses worth while—oh well hopefully he will get another chance—he had caught some bonitos which gave us more sashimi—I think more wasabi will be bought back from Calgary too. He finally caught and landed a nice yellow fin tuna after we put a sign on the lure to warn all of the bonito’s to “keep off”!!
“Mag Bay is a huge harbour and we anchored at a small bay, which has a very small seasonal fishing camp, which consists of some small shacks with a few families who eke out an existence. This reminds us of the poverty of the hills in Laos where the people also had nothing and were able to survive hand to mouth finding what was available in a dry inhospitable landscape. It is finally warm enough to be able to swim off the boat and we are now wearing bathing suits all day, thank goodness.
We decided after a couple of days to head to Cabo San Lucas but as we were leaving the harbour met up with a catamaran we had met previously who advised that tropical storm Sergio was still hovering in southern Mexico and may come north and we should perhaps wait it out to see where it decides to go. Now in our new chilled out “tropical mode” we headed back to another bay in Mag Bay and were joined by a number of other boats who were also sitting out Sergio. Used the time to sew up some more sunshades for the sides of the boat which it is becoming clear will be necessary. More swimming and went ashore to the local town at this bay to report in to the Port Capitan who collected more copies of all boat documents and proceeded to file information on all of us there. His position seems to be a “make work” one as there are only a handful of cruisers there at any one time and no dock so the only fishermen there are the locals who have their pangas on floats they tie ashore. Anyway he proved to be a happy individual who arranged to bring us and a few of the other boats fuel from San Carlos, the major port in the bay on his panga at a reasonable price the next day before he headed off to San Carlos for the weekend to visit family, somehow it is not necessary to have a port captain on weekends!
Maria in the yellow house sold eggs and mucho pain (bread), our Spanish is starting to develop.
I joined a couple of cruisers who were taking a boat up to San Carlos to see if they could find anything “green” to buy to supplement our depleting fresh stuff. It was a small town with a few stores and restaurants. The locals here were much better dressed and obviously had jobs. The boys cruised their cars in circles around the streets as boys in all towns are want do in the weekends. The biggest issue was how to get from the dingy up onto the dock. We had anchored the big boat when it appeared that the rickety docks were full of rickety fish boats. We watched a panga and followed their example of floating to a ladder which scaled the 15 foot wall and had a rope hanging down which you could hang onto for dear life as you avoided both looking down and looking at the condition of the ladder as you climbed up it. This provided a greater challenge on the return trip as we tried to manipulate the flats of beer and bags of groceries back down which we managed to do without losing anything to the ocean, many things are lost to the ocean in this way of life. This lifestyle is not for the faint of heart and I have learned to launch myself onto a rocking dingy from the boat many times. I have found it is better to just throw your body in what you hope is the right direction without thinking about it, hesitating just prolongs the agony!!! In typical Mexican fashion the port captain of this town who is obviously more important than the one in the smaller village charged us US$10 for the privilege of anchoring in his harbour for the three hours, perhaps he will put a new ladder on the wall?? Somehow I think not!!!
Sergio appears to be going to stay in the south and there is apparently at least one more day of wind forecast so started heading the final 150 miles to Cabo with a nice spinnaker sail arriving in record time as we had a current with us and a following sea. For those of you not familiar with the speed at which one travels on these voyages, think leisurely biking along and now think 150 miles!!! Traveling day and night, watching out for the numerous local fishing boats, occasional cruise ships and tankers so as not to collide with any of the above. We do run our radar at night which is proving to be a comfort as these waters are busy.
Had a wonderful dolphin show on our way in to Cabo, they were auditioning for sea world I think and were leaping about 6 feet above the water doing back flips right in front of the boat. We applauded them enthusiastically so am sure they will do a repeat performance for others coming in.
Arrived in Cabo to find it has grown immensely since we were on our honeymoon almost 16 years ago. We have to anchor right along the beach and somehow have ended up right by the Beach Club!! I think we will move further in the morning.
I will catch a plane from there to visit the newest member of the family, Adelyn Elise, Kristen and Kyle’s baby finally arriving safely on the 15th November. Ken will stay in Cabo doing stuff on the boat for the 12 days I am gone without having to worry about my bothering him and suggesting we go and “do something”. I am sure he will miss me???
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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