Moonrise

Our trip from La Paz to Mazatlan on a Passport 40’ sailboat with Christine and Alan.
We left La Paz at 8am and motored 55 miles, as the wind was very light, to Bahia los Muertoes, Bay of the Dead. We got to tour a beautiful vacant private resort and ate dinner at Kyle Turley’s Restaurant (former Rams football player). The next day we left at 5:30am on a 33-40 hour trip to Mazatlan.
I really can’t describe how very surreal it is doing a night watch while sailing after dark. I try, but I just don’t seem to do it justice. Well, I am going to try again. This time I hope to get a few things corrected first, like the nautical mile verses the road mile. I said before, it was shorter, but was wrong, it is longer. A nautical mile is 1.2 regular miles. With that cleared up, back to my point. It is so clear out on the water, and as cliché as it sounds, the stars are so much brighter. They are so bright they cast a shadow. There are so many stars it is like you are looking at the entire universe and beyond. You can see so much and the shooting stars happen constantly. Speaking of the universe, Alan being the brilliant scientist (world famous high energy physicist), mentioned harnessing “dark energy”. Ooo, it’s like right out of star wars -Luke, the force is with you, crap. So cool, and I only profess to understand just the basics like the universe is not constant, it is ever expanding and at an accelerating rate which changes Einstein’s constant in E=mc2. Way cool stuff, way over my head. Hopefully, I got that somewhat correct. Anyhow, this is the stuff you start to think about while roaring along in 20 knots of breeze, sitting under the stars. Then you watch the moonrise up over the water, illuminating the sea. Everything just seems right in the world at this point.
I never really thought about moonrises before, maybe because you don’t really see it happen on land. The moon just appears, but it does rise, as it chases the sun down and vice versa. You get to thinking about that relationship, always chasing each other, always opposite. Opposites attracting, stuff like that.
Okay, so maybe this is too philosophical, maybe I am just really sleep deprived. We did get up at 5am, again, go figure, to start our journey to the mainland Mexico from Baja. We had great weather for our sail over, averaging about 8 nm/hr and hitting 9.5 knots through the water and 7.5 SOG (speed over the ground). The boat’s hull speed(max) is 7.8 so we were surfing a lot. So not much current but 8 to 12 foot seas in our favor. To put this in perspective, however, this is like driving across the state of CA at 10 mph! It is just a different pace of life! We arrived in Mazatlan at 10 am the next day, completing the trip in 28 hours.
Take time, enjoy.

Saint Guadalupe Day

Dec 12th, the most revered person in Mexico is celebrated. It also kicks off the holiday season from the 12th to the 24th with a bunch of festivals and traditions. I am hoping to experience some of them. Currently, La Paz is in the holiday spirit, decorated and lights everywhere. Several blocks downtown are also shut down and lined with vendors, food booths, and holiday shoppers. It is so cool; especially to see the lights on the palm trees, but it just doesn’t feel like December to me. I guess because I am sitting here in a tank top and shorts writing this! However, not to brag, it was cold earlier this week – like 70 degrees – burrrrrrrr!!! I had to wear pants. Also, I caught a stupid cold from freezing my buttocks off on the ferry! Meow

On the Malecon - downtown La Paz

Palapa Sunset - La Paz

Look what Brian caught!

Kitty likes the fishy! MEOW

All kidding aside, this is an amazing and real photo, of an Orca in the Sea of Cortez playing with some fisherman. This mammal is actually on the swim step of the boat. This photo courtesy of Catch 22. The captain, Steve, who thinks half of 8 is 3.

Buses, Ferries, Taxi’s, Oh My!

Our mission – to get to San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. This is on the mainland, but we are in boat shopping mode, and that is the place to be. Or, so we have been told and off we go! In short, a bus to a ferry to a taxi to a bus to a taxi to a hotel at 5am!

Now, the rest of the story ;) As with any good tale, it begins on a beautiful sunny day. Granted we had just moved from our previous boat, the Litha from which we rode down on, to our new temporary location, the “SS LunaSea”, where we are currently boat sitting.

Okay, returned Susan’s bowl (the one we used to make guacamole out of with 12 Avocados!) – check, took Steven & Susan to Breakfast as a thank you – check, washed up some clothes – check, got showers (yes this is a big deal) – check, found a taxi to the bus, well barely – check, got money at the bank, again, barely – check. Got on the bus to the ferry and made it there with 2 ½ hours to spare! Oh, right, the ferry tickets. Yes, those. The ones Brian had purchased earlier in the week, well those, are still sitting where I left on the boat – OOOPS. No worries, Brian just purchased more tickets. We sure would miss that $160 later on.

Meanwhile, back in crappy attitude land, we realized that there were absolutely no amenities other than a vending machine for 3 hours. Yeah, and I waited to use the bathroom as well because the ones there were scary (lacking in the big 3 – a light, a toilet seat and paper).

At last we boarded the huge ferry. As we rode up the escalator on it, we directly went to the bar, as we were starving and we had no idea if the kitchen was open, or even if it had one. Two tequila shots and a bag of chips later, we located our seats, dumping our bags off. Then we went exploring. It was a very cool, art deco style ferry. As we watched movies in English with Spanish subtitles (you had to be really close to the big screen to hear the sound as they had it turned way down), we ate some dinner. It was very weird because the restaurant was more like a cafeteria, with line food. However, I lucked out and the head chief specially prepared these awesome, squash & zucchini quesadilla for me. Kitty was a very happy camper. Then we froze our butts off, oh, I’d say for the remaining 3 hours of the ferry ride.

Bar where we drank Tequila

Bar where we drank more tequila

On Deck - two fisted drinking

This boat is big!

At last, we arrived in Topoplobampo at 9:30pm. A bit tired we headed to the local bus but decided on a cab instead. This saved us an hour and a half, but in hind site put us at our destination too early. After finding the correct regional bus provider, we caught the bus to Guaymas. But it was no Chicken bus, as feared; this was first class all the way. Awesome, since I was ready to sleep. Alas, no such luck as within 45 minutes we were pulled over at a military drug checkpoint. Brian ate fish tacos at the little stands the locals had set up and I used the 3 pesos Banos. I guess we had about 3 more stops which they hammered the hell out of the bus looking for false compartments and more stops/searches, but I slept through them. Brian said they didn’t wake me or make anyone get off the bus during these ones. Arriving in Guaymas at 4:30am, 2 hours earlier than planned- yikes, the local bus to San Carlos was not running yet. You guessed it, off we went in a taxi. We went directly to the hotel recommended and there was actually someone at the desk. Purrrrrrr-snorrrrrr

Alternate bus driver sleeps underneath the bus in the luggage compartment!

The Auto Bus

San Carlos

What to say about this little town. It is very close to Arizona (like 2 hours from the boarder) so there are a lot of Americans here, but it still has kept its charm. It is small and centered around the Marina mostly. There are a bunch of restaurants and services on the main road/ highway into the city center too. This is where the first hotel was – Los Jitos. We switched to another hotel half way through on the recommendation of our boat broker. It was closer to town, just a crossed from the Marina and had “flavor”.

For 5 pesos/person the local bus took us all over and it was like riding with a Nascar driver, hitting forth gear in one block and then coming to a halting stop on the next corner. When Brian was by himself, they would just slow down to let him jump off, but not stop. It was a wild ride! Anyhow, we walked all over, checked everything out, went to both internet café’s numerous times and even introduced ourselves to the San Carlos Yacht Club. We used our reciprocal cards and attended their Christmas Tree Dinner. We actually extended our stay so we could make the event. This was super fun even though we were not quite dress for it. No one seemed to mind or even care.

Well, we looked at a lot of boats, but only one located in the water. Everything else was stored “on the hard” – dry storage or in Spanish “Marina Seca” (dirt harbor). This meant a lot of ladder climbing, but what an adventure! We put in an offer on one boat, but as this economic situation has hit people hard, so has it to our boat budget! They turned us down. Oh well, we will keep trying as there is another boat that we really like too so keep your fingers crossed that we get it. I’ll keep everyone posted.

San Carlos Marina

Our hotel with "flavor"

Mission San Carlos

Greek food at the beach!

Charly's Rock at the edge of town - great seafood!

Anchorage in San Carlos

For the return trip we decided to go back a different direction. If anyone has ever gone running with me you know I prefer a loop verses an out and back course. Anyhow, this time we intended to take the local bus to Guaymas (this is very close to San Carlos, like 10 miles), then the Guayas to Santa Rosalia Ferry. From there, we would take an 8 hour bus down the Sea of Cortez side, coast of Baja (since we sailed down the Pacific side of Baja on the Ha Ha) back to La Paz. It was all planned; reservations were made for a sleeper cabin, as this ferry left at 8pm and arrived at 6:30am the next day. Well, between the last minute boat shopping and chaos with the combo locks on the boat, bead shopping (yes of course we found the bead man, who specialized in turquoise!) and Brian wanting a hair cut, we ran a bit behind schedule. So much so, that we ended up getting a ride by the lady and her husband, who cut Brian’s hair! His cut only cost $15! This was extremely nice and really the only reason why we made it to the ferry at all.

The smaller ferry at dawn

Everything after that was a breeze. We ended up being the only couple in the cabin, which was great. After walking in to town to take a look around – Santa Rosalie (only a 100 feet away from the ferry terminal, max), we boarded another first class bus for the ride down to La Paz. We cruised down the coast for quite awhile and saw some amazing coastline and beautiful harbors. As well, it was a torturous, twisty highway. Again they showed a couple of movies in English, and we made one stop for Breakfast where everyone got off to eat. At the breakfast stop we meet an amazing couple who were Alaskan pioneers. He worked a trap line in the 40’s at age 15 and was a bush pilot who received one of the first snowmobiles. He spoke of amazing stories in the 35 minutes we had to talk with them. He is even in the Guinness Book of world records for recording the most amount of snowfall in a 24 hour period. We have met some truly amazing people down here.

We arrived back in La Paz just after 4pm on Sunday. Got off that bus, and then got directly onto the local bus to get back to Marina Palmira. Home boat, home – for now at least.

Antidotes from the Man & the Kat

Brian Stories
from Cabo Pulmo:
After leaving Cabo -``Leave a Paycheck``- we stopped of at a beautiful place named Cabo Pulmo. It is a difficult anchorage because of the beautiful National Park reef that is so close to the beach, but with good advice we were able to find the right spot. We headed to the beach and found a cool solar power town that had 4 restaurants and 3 dive shops. That evening, we talked to the locals and the gringos to find the best spots to eat and dive as we planned to spend the whole next day. Everything was in a great vibe for a fun day when we motored the dingy to the reef for a morning dive. Just as we thought about setting the anchor, another small dingy approaching from shore told us, we were not allowed to anchor near the reef with the dingy and overnight anchoring was a Federal offense and the marine patrol had been sent. Lickity split, we haled ass back to the boat. Once aboard, everyone flung into action, the skipper issuing boat orders, Kat and Susan following them and Brian tearing apart the dingy load of dive gear. We bugged out in 10 minutes. Amazing as it takes us 15 mins to tack the sails. There was great suspicion about the cops being called but, if worried, you leave first and wonder later. We cleared out with incident. Later in La Paz we heard from an all knowing source that our anchor spot was well inside the Park no anchor zone, and we were lucky to not have the boat impounded. So much for the info from the locals. My informed source said he had anchor south out side of the park and cast his lobster net. I got the chance to inform him, this year’s Gringo fishing license says no Shellfish, Lobster scallops, clams, crabs, at all. Big bummer. So far I haven’t taken 1 shot with my new spear gun due to park regs or being to far off shore.

Stories from La Paz:
La Paz is the classic Mexico city, everything you want, noting you need. It is a waterfront city on a torturous harbor. There is no short cutting the buoys. Miss a buoy you’re a ground. Leave at low tide you might run aground. Coming in at ebb (low) tide is just as tough as the GG Bridge but only 500 ft wide. There is a Marina right at the mouth of the channel for those who hate the ditch, but it is where the Fuel tankers pull to pier. Our spot is way down the fairway (course laid out by buoys) just past the center of town, which is defined by the old mission church of LaPaz. We arrived at Marina de la Paz to find the dock hand waving us into or slip and help securing the boat to slip in a heavy cross current a wind too match. Brian was the human fender with the downwind boat as there was no finger between. After a nice mishap thrust off the neighboring boat by, Brian the human fender, the boat was rapidly held in place by Kat and Susan.

In La Paz one day we came across some good friends Alan and Christine and compared restaurant stories. Kat and I dined at one of their recommendations. We ate early 4:30 ish as we had missed lunch. La Fonda’s was the place and the food was outstanding and traditional foods from Baja. Later that night I ran into Eric, a fellow Baja trip taker, who after downing a 40 oz beer I had given him, proclaimed to be very hungry and didn’t want the old gringo beans and rice, fish taco sort of thing. Well as you might have guessed, he thought my recommendation of my previous meal was a just cause to try it, or, in my case try it again. We left my fellow Montezuma challenged crew members behind and enjoyed a great cilantro snapper dish with an amazing taco soup first. I confess the meal was just as pleasing as the first time I had tried it 3 hours earlier.

Up early Sat am as the advice for the Fish market called for early arrival. My entry revealed the fish mongers might be a bit latter than me. My early arrival signaled to the locals, a gringo ready to spend, to every open location. The price jumped up much. What cost me 320 pesos the day before cost 1330 pesos($10USD) the next day, but it was damn good fish that lasted 5 days. Avocados jumped from $.30usd/ .60usd/KG. I was running out of pesos fast I left the market to hunt bargain Peso/US. At 8am Sat morning there isn’t much to choose from. I walked 15 blocks to change in $30USD and got ripped off by 20% by very friendly hotel clerk. Finally with cash in hand I was able to get my avocados, tomato's, bananas, etc. At 8:30 I’m headed to the boat with one thing on my list, BEER. Guess what? They don’t sell beer until 900am, and that’s when we have to leave, so no beer.

Kat Stories:
From La Paz
Driving in La Paz; coming back from the movies - Body of Lies, excellent flick by the way and price was right too - $9usd for the both on a Friday night - Wow- we jumped in a cab to head back to the boat. Anyhow, while in the taxi the Federales pulled up behind us, lights going but no siren. This goes on for several minutes when Brian finally mentions to our cab driver the presence of the police directly behind the cab! A subtle laugh ensues, but nothing else. No car, not one on the 2 lanes of traffic pulled out of the way, or yielded in any fashion. It was truly amazing. At the stop light everyone remained in line and in their respective places. Our cabbie then even cut them off (the policia). Finally the cops turned in a different direction. Whew! We both were relieved and astonished that no one paid any attention - again Wow!

I must also note that Alto (stop) signs must merely stand for:
Slow to Observe Pedestrians
I can only conclude this since the slowest we came to stopping at an actual stop sign was to slow to 20 kph - running right through it. Glad I don´t drive!

On a side note - Where are all the kitty cats in Mexico! I have only seen 2 since I have been here and heard one by Meow only!

Why does a tube of crest toothpaste, a bar of zest soap and a bag of peanuts costs a whooping total of $2.80 usd here and twice as much in the States? Don`t get me wrong, I am note complaining since I am now on the receiving end of this bargain!

Lycra (Full body skin swimsuit) is your friend, don´t leave home without one! Or go to the beach! I´ll explain later in depth but you have to put on clothes here to go swimming, not take them off! - MeOUCH