Leaving Mag Bay 1.28.08

We've had a great couple days in Mag Bay. We re-anchored per Gregorio, the port captain's recommendation and are currently awaiting his arrival with some fuel for us and then we're outta here, on our way to Cabo.

On Saturday, Gregorio panga'd ourselves, Bob, Louise, & Scuppers (their dog), Scott & Cindy from Beach house, the Catamaran, and Artie & Marv from Odyssey, a 44 Peterson, over to Puerto San Carlos, the town nearby. We arrived around 9am and walked the city, purchased groceries, & then came back around 2pm. The city was very nice, they have a HUGE fully constructed whale carcass just near the plaza in town and they are getting ready for the whale festival that starts next week. Supposedly the whales
come into this bay as well to birth and they are preparing for lots of tourists. On the beach, very near to where we are anchored is a camp that looks to be a central terminal for ferrying the sightseers back and forth. We are in a bit of a time crunch as Chad needs to get back home so we will not be staying for the festival. The folks on Beach house will & Odyssey is still contemplating it. While in town we stopped at a hotel/restaurant called Hotel Alcatraz. The name may seem scary but inside
was a beautiful patio where we sat & enjoyed the afternoon. I spoke to the gal at reception who was also helping us with our order and she allowed me to view one of the rooms in the hotel. Very cute - a bed, table, & bathroom and $65/day. I was amazed as I watched housekeeping with the laundry - they washed the sheets, then hung them to dry out on the roof of one of the buildings. We found an Internet connection there and in about 40 minutes, I was able to upload all 75 photos of our whale watching
experience and the video. I hope they came out OK! Oh, and the 75 photos were only the exceptional ones! Between myself, Chad, & Bob we took about 300 that day…hahaha. We spoke to some Americans that came into the internet café as well that were staying at a hotel and went out whale watching earlier. They said they had seen a couple and were so excited - until I showed them our pictures & video! They were also amazed. We were walking around town looking for the panaderia (bakery) when we happened
upon the port captain's house. Louise & I hung out there hoping we didn't have to lug all of the groceries we were carrying and as luck would have it….we were able to load the groceries into the panga and he drove us to the beach, where the others were waiting. We invited Bob & Louise over for dinner and had a great salad, chicken, & potato dinner. We had planned to play games but ended up viewing the whale photos & video and chatting! They were taken back to their boat and we called it a night!

Sunday Chad headed over to EZ Lady to assist them with some chores and Michael and I jumped in the dinghy. There is an estuary just to the left of where we are anchored and we had been told that it was a nice jungle cruise. The estuary was very nice - we saw several birds and the mangroves were beautiful. We met another couple along the way, John & Linda on a 47' Nordhavn (a beautiful powerboat that came in the day before) called Seabird. They are from Santa Barbara and just purchased the boat
2 ½ weeks ago! This is their shakedown cruise and then they're heading up to Alaska and then over to the East Coast and to the Caribbean. I told Linda I was very jealous as I watched her on her elliptical exercise machine on deck! She invited us over but we weren't able to get over there. They'll be in Cabo, in fact they're leaving here about 2-3 hours before us so I hope to catch up with them there. I'd love to take a look at the boat. After our jungle cruise we came back to the boat as we
had forgotten our shoes & my camera battery had died and restocked and headed back to the beach where we walked across the peninsula to the Bahia Santa Maria side. The folks from Beach house joined us on the trek. It was a 20 minute or so walk across sand dunes littered with tons of shells. My mom would have had a backache from bending over so much to see them! There is fabled to be sand dollars the size of frisbee's and the beach is nicknamed 'Frisbee Beach'. We didn't find any that size, but
did find some about 6" and picked up about 6 of them, along with some other beautiful shells. There were so many clam shells - large ones about 8-10" or so and other shells that I wanted to pick up! The colors in the shells were magnificent - even in an overcast sky! I resorted to taking photos as the boat just wouldn't hold all I wanted to take back. There were also tons of whale bones & dolphin head carcasses which were also amazingly beautiful. The only downside to the beach was there was
a ton of trash on the beach, almost as much trash as shells. And there was an algae in the water in one section that turned it a weird burgundy color and stunk to high heaven. We hiked back to the dinghy and came back to the boat. Scott from Beach house came over to our boat and gave us a tutorial on Get Fax, the weatherfax system of Winlink 2000 (which is what I'm using to send these blogs and how we get e-mail over the SSB) as I've had difficulty getting the weatherfaxes and have been requesting
them over e-mail, which takes up a ton of our allotted time for e-mails. Anyways - he was exceptional at instructing us how to use it. He was instrumental in setting up a PMBO station at California Yacht Club so he knows a lot about the entire system and showed me many items I did not know. In turn, I showed him how to edit his videos as he has taken a ton of video also and hasn't put any on the website yet. Check out his website - www.svbeachhouse.com.

We had a nice dinner and another movie!

This morning we're waiting for Gregorio to bring us some fuel and as soon as we're finished, we're heading to Cabo. It should be about a 23 hour trip and we hope to get out of here before noon.

That is what's been happening with us! I hope everyone is well out there. More to follow…
Rene

Whale Video & ...

OK, I have tempted you as much as I can....so heres a little 2 1-2 minute video of us with the whales. As soon as I can bring my laptop into a place (maybe in Cabo) I will put more on... Also, there are a ton of new pictures out there too...check them out!

Mag Bay 1.25.08

Hooray - we've arrived in Mag Bay! Bahia Magdalena (pronounced Mahg-dah-LAY-nah) is affectionately known as Mag Bay. It's about 245 miles SE of Turtle Bay and 160 miles NW of Cabo. Mag Bay is a huge enclosed body of water almost as large as California's San Francisco Bay. We left yesterday around 2pm and arrived here this morning around 6:30am. We anchored in the dark, although there was a beautiful full moon lighting our way. Our motorsail down was uneventful, except for the huge amount of
pterodactyl birds that kept wanting to join us on our cruise! These birds were HUGE - had an almost 5 foot wingspan and wanted to land on our masts and catch a ride. Sounds cool, though they could have done lots of damage to the instruments that are on our mastheads, so we spent the evening shooing them off, not an easy thing to do as they were very insistent! Fortunately, we kept them off of the instruments so as not to foul anything up, but unfortunately, ended up with tons of bird poop all
over the decks, sails, & canvas. We saw a cruise ship and a couple of sailboats on the trip, and possibly a whale, but all in all, it was an overcast, light wind evening. We arrived and took showers & went to sleep, then about two hours later, the port captain, Gregorio, came a knocking wanting to see our papers. Unfortunately in Ensenada, we neglected to get a copy of our stamped Crew List and spent several minutes explaining we would get a copy faxed or e-mailed to us asap. He joined us for
a cup of coffee and then headed out to check in the other boats that were in the anchorage. We originally anchored off of Puerto Magdalena and was told by Gregorio that we should move to Man of War Cove, which we did.

Currently we're sitting at anchor with about 5 other boats. EZ Lady joined us and there were about 4 boats already here that we have been communicating with on the radio - Beach house, a catamaran, & Odyssey. They both stayed & went whale watching per our recommendation and have wonderful stories as well. Michael and Chad are taking naps and I'm working on reloading my MP3 player, writing this slog, and have been monkeying with some shells I found at the last anchorage that I'd love to turn into
jewelry of some sort, but keep breaking them trying to drill holes in them. So I guess I'm giving up on that project. I'm trying to keep quiet to let the boys sleep, although not an easy task for me! We've arranged a panga for tomorrow to take us into San Carlos, to do some grocery shopping and look around town. There are a couple other boats in the anchorage that will be joining us and we're looking forward to getting of the boat and exploring. Today is a rest and relax day. I haven't found
an internet connection yet…but as soon as I can I'll get videos to you!

Have a wonderful weekend…I'll write more later..
Rene

Scorpion Bay, San Juanico 1.23.08

We arrived in Scorpion Bay, San Juanico on Tuesday, the 22nd, to rain. The trip down was fine, we left about 4:30am and arrived at about 3pm. We saw some huge fishing vessels, dolphins, & about 3 whales on our trip. Scorpion Bay is a very popular surfing spot as they have a right wave that lasts forever and ever. The surfers ride a wave in, then walk back up onto the beach to get back to the beginning of the waves again! There were several surfers in the water as we arrived as there is a South
swell running right now. Since it was raining, we hung out on the boat and admired this cute town. The next morning, Chad went over to EZ Lady to assist them with their dinghy motor which has had problems since swimming. Chad & Michael prepared our dinghy to go into town. We are still having some trouble with our dinghy motor as well, it spits & sputters at the wrong time, but it did fine getting us into shore. We timed it just right and got in with no problem - no flipping this time!! We walked
through town, visited our friends' friends, grocery shopped, walked to the end of the point, sat at a great restaurant on the point and had lunch, then walked back in town to grab our dinghy back out. The town is by far the most beautiful of any Mexican town we've visited so far! There are several big, beautiful houses in town, the main street has been landscaped, there's one paved street, & sidewalks! The whole bay is beautiful.

We walked to the Tecate house and brought a gift to the owners, Arturo & Aida, that was given to us to bring over 3 years ago! Arturo is also a local real estate agent and asked if we were interested in buying! He said he had lots in the $20K range. Our friends aboard EZ Lady were not able to get their dinghy engine running consistently enough to beach (the choke had seized) so Arturo arranged for a panga. We learned the fishermen weren't doing so well right now and could use all the work they
could get. They have all of the pangas on the beach and they have to drive a vehicle down, push the boat into the water, then they beach the boat, the vehicle hooks up to it and pulls it back uphill onto the berms, then they drive back out. We spoke to several other Americans in the town and they told us the Mexican government is attempting to turn this into another Cabo San Lucas, which is a shame. They also said they were planning to build a jetty, which would cause problems for the surfers
so they're fighting that. The land around the bay has all been pre-sold. It's too bad, this is such a cute little town and would just destroy it if they brought more and more people in. We asked how much land costs - you can get a lot in town for $10K without electricity and the same lot with electricity was $35K. Electricity is a big thing because the power grid is currently maxed out! The same lot out on the point was $150K (not a house, just the lot). We spoke to another American couple
down visiting from San Diego with their new baby, they were just here until the swell died down and would head further South. They were planning on camping ($9/day), but found a cute little palapa out on the point was only $18/day. It was an incredibly cute little shack and included one hot shower a day. It was in the shape of an octagon and had 4 cots to sleep on. It's a perfect little getaway spot!

It was still cool yesterday - in the 60's, but it only sprinkled on us a few times, no big deal. We headed back out to the boat in the dinghy - took a couple of waves over the bow, but wasn't an issue. We were warned that there was stingrays in the water at about 1 ft and to 'shuffle our feet' while in the water, which was funny. I think they were just messing with us to watch us be goofy in the water! Haha.. We got back to the boat, ate dinner (Marsala burgers, rice, & corn), & played Taboo
the rest of the evening. It rained all evening and is still raining a little bit now. It's very overcast skies, only 58 degrees. We're heading out of here today about 2pm, headed to Bahia de Magdalena (Mag Bay), another very popular stop down the Baja for cruisers. We've had no wind to speak of on our entire trip down the Baja so we've been motor sailing. We'll need a few additional groceries when we get there to get us to Cabo, and fuel. We will leave here about 2pm, and should arrive in Mag
Bay about sunrise tomorrow morning. We should get internet access in Mag Bay so I'll be able to upload the whale photos & videos. I'm messing around with it a bit to figure out how to get it out to you guys! I hope to have it figured out.

Oh, I've been asked how to see that google map that shows our position. Well, I am working on it - I've kinda screwed it up, but try this out. Go to www.aheakali.com/blog/template.html let me know if it works. I have to work on it when I can get internet again.

{GMST}26|15.147|N|112|28.234|W|Anchored in Scorpion Bay!|San Juanico{GEND}

Whales! 1.21.08

Today was completely indescribable…the most wonderful, magnificient, cool, muy bitchin', fantastic, and what ever word you can use to describe incredible. We started out the trip on a panga headed to the lagoon - it was supposed to take 1 hour or so. Our panga driver, Ramon, drove and drove, saw a ton of breakers, drove some more, stopped, turned around, drove some more, turned around, drove some more…hahaha…we were LOST!! Finally, Ramon hailed the other panga we were meeting up with and was given
the GPS coordinates they were supposed to meet and we found it - only two hours later! We rafted up (the boats were side by side), were given life vests, and transferred from one panga to the other - in the middle of the bay! No problem… The 2nd panga was from Coturisma Kuyima, and was one of the authorized companies that can operate in the lagoon.

A little history of San Ignacio Lagoon - "In one of the most remarkable annual migrations nature offers, Pacific gray whales make the 5,000 mile trip from the chilly feeding grounds of the Arctic to the safety of the warm, shallow waters of the Baja Peninsula for their breeding and calving season (the calves are about 15 feet long and weigh 1,500 pounds at birth). Several thousand whales may visit San Ignacio every winter, and there are sometimes up to 400 in the lagoon at one time. Las amistosas
(the friendly ones) is the local nickname of the whales, which regularly approach the small panga fishing boats to be stroked & touched by awed whale-watchers, in a genial gesture that has stumped scientists for more than twenty years, since it was first recorded." - from the '1001 places to see before you die' book from Patricia Schultz. Only a limited number of visitors are allowed inside the lagoon at a time. You get a guide & enter the lagoon in a small panga, explore and watch the whales for
a couple hours, then leave. Adult whales are courting & mating or training the yearlings. You're told to look for spouts, spy-hopping, fluke flapping, and eye-balling the touristas, and you might be lucky enough to pet a wild whale. They only let 3 pangas a day in during January, and 15 a day in February & March.

So what did we see? It was FANTASTIC!! Maybe I mentioned that already… When we just entered the lagoon, we saw a whale spy-hop (which means they pop their head way out of the water & look around). We saw a ton of dolphins as well. Further into the lagoon, we had whales about 5 feet from the boat - a mother & baby. The baby was only about 15 feet or so but was incredibly cute. And it only got better from there. We followed them for quite a while and they were scared away when another panga
zoomed by so we decided to go further into the lagoon to look for more. All during the trip, you could look around the lagoon and see a couple each way you looked. We found another mom & baby and tried to visit with them, but they were much shier than the previous group.

We happened upon another mother & baby - and spend probably an hour playing with them. The baby was exceptionally friendly and everyone on the boat was able to pet it!! The boat operator, Noe (pronounced No-Eah), pet it first, and showed us how to call it's attention - by swishing your hand in the water. And one by one, during the hour, each of us had a chance to pet the baby whale. It was…spongy! So soft & a very smooth, but spongy feeling! The mother whale was standing by, either just under,
or just around the baby, occasionally nudging the baby to move along. We kept moving along with them and the baby whale seemed to beckon us to come play! We never had the chance to pet the mama whale as she was so large, her nose didn't come close enough. We have some fabulous pictures between Chad & I - and Michael has video of the entire day as well. Several with the baby & mom, several spouts (them breathing, spraying/misting water) even occasionally spraying each of us with the blow hole!
It was just amazing to have these monstrous creatures literally inches from the boat, but them being so amazingly gentle at the same time. At the end, the mom was right under the panga, literally touching or holding onto it, for not just a moment, but for several minutes, and all the while, the baby was playing all around her and getting oh so close enough for us to touch it.

It was by far one of the coolest days we've had on the trip - just incredible. We're so lucky to have been able to experience it! We convinced Noe to take us back out of the lagoon, past the breakers as we weren't so convinced that our first panga driver could do it and keep us dry! Just outside the surf line, we transferred to our other panga, handed back the life preservers and amazingly, made it back to the boats in about 45 minutes! Amazing how quickly you can get back when you know the way!
Hahaha. We saw about 12 whales during the day. We were only gone for about 6 hours in total. We came back to the boat and looked at the pictures and will watch the videos in a bit. So incredibly cool, I can't wait to upload them to have you see them! I'd highly recommend this excursion to anyone coming this way, if you have a chance. Any of you reading that are on your way down the Baja, don't miss this stop - take the time & experience this. We waited several days for the weather to be right
and it was all worth it.

Tomorrow, we're heading out at approx 4am headed to Bahia San Juanico, which is just past Punta Pequena (pronounced pay-KAYN-yah), and should arrive in the early afternoon. We are planning to meet some mutual acquaintenances & stock up on a few groceries. I'll write more later & will upload the photos & video just as soon as I can!

More to follow…
Rene

Bahia de Abreojos 1.20.08

We left Bahia de Asuncion about 6:45am and headed out of the bay to a beautiful sunrise. It's still way too cold, only 54 degrees when we left, but absolutely beautiful out - clear skies, huge sun, & nice mellow seas. I was able to check into the net this morning and it seems there's a couple boats just a day behind us that we're anxious to meet! Most of the cruising boats are already at the mainland and are claiming it's in the 80's…I can't wait!!

Bahia de Asuncion was a nice anchorage, we were the only two boats there most of the day until another sailboat we had seen earlier in the day tucked in just before sunset. We didn't get much quality sleep in Turtle Bay because of the bouncing & rolling, creaking & groaning of the anchor lines, & anchor checks in the middle of the night so after watching a movie & dinner, we slept, a nice good quality sleep too - the anchorage was well protected & very comfortable. The first night of being in a
new anchorage is usually a difficult one as you're up checking to ensure you haven't drug anchor and making sure everything is where it's supposed to be, but last night everyone slept sound.

We arrived in Bahia de Abreojos (pronounced Ahh-bree-OH-hos) around 3:30pm. We had to slow way down and turn around as our buddy boat, EZ Lady had troubles and needed to follow us into the anchorage. We saw lots of wildlife on this trip - Chad caught 4 fish - all Bonitas so we released each of them, we saw dolphins, sea lions, and even a sea turtle! It was incredibly cool - I never seem to spot any of the sealife and I just happened to see something off of the port (left) side of the boat and
it was a cute little sea turtle only about 5 feet from the boat. Just swimming around, no problem. We're getting so good at the fishing maneuvers - when a fish is on the line, Michael slows down the boat, Chad gets on the rod, I get the camera & start filming. When the fish is being reeled in, I say how cool it looks on the surface (on each of the videos, I always seem to have that comment!) while Michael is ready with the gaff & hoop net. We identify the fish and if it's a Bonito, I hand Chad
the pliers while Michael scoops up the fish, Chad gets the hook out and Michael dunks it back into the ocean. Then I rev up the boat again and everything is put away - it's only about a 5-10 minute process! And lots of fun...I wish everyone was here!!

We are well tucked into Abreojos, in the second anchorage. Abreojos is the command to 'open your eyes' as there are several hazards - lots of submerged rocks & a huge amount of fish/lobster traps in the trek around the point. I'll report more later! I hope everyone is enjoying the Super Bowl! Go Chargers! Woohoo! (Hey, someone has to root for the underdog!) Someone please write me and let me know the score and of the cool commercials! haha...I'm pretty sure we will not get any signal on the
boat tonight.

More to follow...
Rene

Vamos a Bahia de Asuncion 1.19.08

We've finally left Turtle Bay, headed for Bahia de Asuncion for the evening. We should arrive by about 4pm or so. We have had a ton of fun in Turtle - I tried like heck to always speak Spanish to everyone I could and did pretty good. We spent a lot of time talking to a couple people in town and they were so patient when I was talking and looking up words in the English Spanish dictionary! It was fun. We walked around town each day, I got a little more time on the internet, but only about 15
minutes or so. I wasn't able to take the laptop in to update the website yet. Next time, I hope. We've met about 5 or 6 other cruisers and we're buddy boating with EZ Lady, the boat out of Channel Islands. The guy, Bob, is a retired plumber, his business was EZ Plumbing and Louise did healthcare administration. They're following us at least for the next couple stops. We're in a bigger hurry than they are so who knows how long it'll last. We spent some time with two couples from Canada - a
powerboat Mick & Pan on Mola Mola (which means starfish in latin) with their two kids headed down to Cabo and a sailboat, Bandit, a couple who have been cruising for about 9 years - have spent the last 7 years cruising in the Caribbean and then brought the boat through the canal and up to Canada...they're taking to boat to Puerta Vallarta now and it'll be shipped back out to the East Coast. Chad talked to them for quite a while and he may have a job to re-rig the boat out of it. I will tell you,
I'm amazed how none of the other boaters we've met have been trying their Spanish at all - only 'una mas', 'hola', etc. I keep remembering that I'm in their country now - and am trying to do what I feel like in the US - speak their language! In Turtle, most of the locals didn't speak any english, not even the kids. There was a political rally there last night for the El Presidente....but only for the locality - kinda like the mayor of the county or something. We had spent some time with JoAnn,
who was going door to door passing out political invitations and she took us to the rally, where they were having music, dancing, & comedy, but after only a few minutes, we felt VERY out of place and left. It was very interesting - JoAnn was all for the El Presidente, and our other friend, Enrique, came onto our boat with his employee and was telling us how bad the politics were, that this El Presidente's family had been in charge for so long and nothing good was coming out of it. They expected
1000 people at the rally. Enrique spent about an hour visiting with us on the boat - his employee was definitely his employee and sat very quietly, not speaking unless he was asked. Michael gave him a book of Spanish art & history to look through & read and he was content with that. Michael & Chad made steak & shrimp fajitas and we all had some - yum!! I made clam chowder in the morning for today's passage and we purchased some fresh rolls (bollitas) at the bakery. The bakery also had some fantastic
cookies - they were kind of like a gingerbread cookie, very soft but not sweet at all, which is different because every thing around has sugar all over it, especially at the bakery. They were very very good so I purchased an extra 3 for the trip! The last week finally felt like cruising - not in a big town, tied to a dock, just like at home. It was really nice. Experimenting with the local fare, walking through town, getting to know the locals, etc.

Ooh, ooh, we just saw WHALES!! Our first of the trip - they were quite a way off of our beam, but the first one and last one did tail flips as well! I don't know if they call that something. It was way cool...I'm sure I'll get a chance to get some of those on video or film, I hope! We're going to the San Ignacio lagoon where you can rent a panga that will take you inside and sometimes the whales will let you pet them. I want to do that sooo much! That'll be on Monday I think.

Michael's eating chicharones which is like fried pig fat...gross! Actually, I like them when they're warm fresh out of the fryer, but you don't see that too much. Chad's got both hand lines out and is also trolling, looking for fish. Our buddy boat is slower than we are - they cruise at about 5-6 knots and we're 7-8, so we'll beat them in the anchorage and have been radioing them back and forth each time we see stuff - whales, buoys, etc.

I'll write more later and tell you about the trip & change our position!
Rene

Shark 1 - Chad 1 1.19.08

Another day of firsts! On Saturday, we saw our first whales, probably 3-4 of them, and later in the day caught our first (2) fish! After a beautiful day of fishing down the coast, our count was Shark 1, Chad 1. We call it the fish that almost got away….as it was being pulled up, something (we think it was a shark) took a chomp out of the bottom half of the fish - a clean bite. And it was a bummer - it was a yellowfin tuna! O-well. About an hour later, Chad pulled in a 10lb or so Bonita. Not
very good eating, but was a fighter and incredibly exciting - I have video and pictures to share, but will have to wait until we get internet again. Chad cleaned the fish and Michael was there hosing down the deck while I watched, fascinated with the process.

Winds headed our way 1.17.08

We're still in Turtle Bay - after my last post, we checked into our evening net and Don reported that there were some extremely high winds coming down the coast - 25-40 knots and they would hit our area around Thursday evening. We were headed down the coast, but the anchorages were not good ones to be in during a blow, so we decided to stay here, as did Bob & Louise on Easy Lady. In fact, we've seen several more boats in the anchorage lately and they're all staying until it passes too. Don Anderson
is a man who lives on his boat, Summer Passage, in Channel Islands Harbor and gives several weather reports every day. I think at last count he has about 10 reports he gives, at all hours of the day, and even to Naval ships in the area. He provides a much needed service to the entire boating/cruising community and we're grateful for his reports! We had looked at weather in the afternoon and all looked good, but he was able to forecast 48 hours to 5 days later….which was a huge help. There are
two high pressure systems causing this wind. One is sitting just off the Oregon coast, the other is in the New Mexico area. I'm still learning how to interpret the weather faxes but with the help of Don, who explains exactly what is happening, and the weather faxes in front of me, it makes sense! Again, we're very grateful that he provides this service…all volunteer!!

And so it goes - just when we thought we were outta here….NOT! J No problem… That's the wonderful part of cruising - we don't HAVE to be in a hurry! Our option was either to high-tail it down the coast to another safe secure anchorage, missing entirely the San Ignacio Lagoon, which I'm sure will be a highlight of the trip for me, or we would have had to backtrack, which Michael wasn't up to….or just stay here! We chose to stay. So yesterday Michael did projects - fiddled with the dinghy engine
spark plugs since it isn't running very smooth since it went swimming and read, Chad made a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs & scalloped potatoes then went over to Easy Lady & helped them re-anchor & help with some other of their boat projects. I keep telling him he's a handy person to have along! He could make some serious money helping all of the yachtista's in the harbor with their projects! He's not interested though… haha. I slept in - I haven't been feeling very well the last couple
days.

We showered up and went into town with Bob & Louise - and their boat dog - Scuppers (I don't think I've mentioned him before!), finding the panaderia (the bakery for fresh bread, cookies, & pastries…yum!), some camarones (shrimp), & bistek (steak) for fajitas tonight. I've been practicing my espanol (Spanish) as much as I can with each of the locals who will tolerate me. Unfortunately for me, I can understand them a whole lot better than I can speak it. But no one seems to mind when I whip out
my English/Spanish dictionary and find a word I'm struggling with. We walked around town a lot yesterday and found a paved road leading out of town - with street lamps and all - wow! We stopped at a local bar for a beer and I was able to spend about an hour talking to JoAnn, behind the bar. It was a cute place - had a little pool table that leaned significantly to the left, so watch out if the cue ball got even close to the pocket! It was fun talking to JoAnn - I told her where we came from,
where we were going, she spent lots of time telling me about her family who has owned the bar for 40 years and this year it will be remodeled, making it a two story bar/restaurant, then they hope to sell it. She also told me she had just gone out on Sunday to Punta de Eugenia (Eugenia Point) where she saw several ballenas (whales). I told her I can't WAIT to see them….but I don't think that translates…so I said I was very excited to see them, which she understood. She said the closest town was
500meters from here. We left there and went to the internet café, but it was closed again. We headed back to the panaderia as when we first visited, they were just cooking the bread and would be done in 2 hours, then went to the market just around the corner to pick up the steak, then back to Enrique's restaurant where we had arranged with Enrique to purchase some shrimp. Enrique was there with several other family members bbq'ing and so we were able to spend about an hour talking to him as well.

Enrique owns the pier, two gas stations in town, the restaurant, & the fuel/taxi panga service. He said his dad, Gordo, had run the business before and he only wants to make his father proud that he's providing a good service to the visiting boats. When you're pulling into the harbor, you can hail the fuel dock and a panga will greet you at the entrance of the harbor and direct you to safe anchorages & help you as needed. His sister is Dolores, who has been taking good care of us at the restaurant
and offers a laundry service as well. He's a wonderful person and we enjoyed, very much, visiting with him. So when you come to Turtle Bay, be sure to say HI to Enrique and be sure to eat or drink at the restaurant and say hi to Dolores.

We headed back to the boat since it was FREEZING outside again…it's back down in the 60's, although still sunny. Michael made Rice bowls for dinner and we all listened to the evening net and watched a movie - Zodiak. I even checked into the evening net without a relay this time! This morning the wind piped up to about 20-25 already. It's mid morning and Chad is cleaning & deveining the 1 kilo of shrimp we picked up yesterday and Michael's working adjusting the time on the GPS. They've let out
another 50 feet or so of chain, preparing for tonight's blow into the 40's. I've been nice & lazy so far…haven't done anything more than sleep in, eat breakfast, & write this blog - in fact I'm still in my PJ's. But shortly we'll be getting cleaned up to go into town for more groceries. We might not be able to get into town tomorrow and are running out of eggs again, hope to find a green pepper for fajitas, & hope to get into the Internet café again.

Our plan is to ride out these winds so we can enjoy the trip down the coast & visit whale bay, as we have nicknamed it. It's looking like we'll be leaving early Saturday morning. But I'll report if that plan changes again. Until then, we will enjoy the town more.

More to follow…
Rene

Still in Turtle Bay 1.15.08

OK, so we changed our minds - hey, we have that right…we're cruisers now! Haha… Yesterday as Chad was fishing & I was writing the slog update…another boat from Channel Islands Harbor pulled in - and we know them very well! It was Bob & Louise on Easy Lady - a Morgan 41 Outislander ketch sailboat. We've also met several other boats & cruisers in the bay. We met Bill on Someday, Mike on Halua, Grady on Mahalo (from Santa Barbara), & two students from Boston who are here learning how this fishing
village handles it's coop fishing for lobsters and is able to sustain the species as well.

We went in town yesterday with Bob & Louise once they got settled & went to the internet café, but it was closed. Then we walked the entire town looking for a restaurant the students had told Rene about - La Trinidad….it wasn't open so I asked a local girl, in my broken Spanish, where to find a good restaurant. She sent us back downtown and we ate a FABULOUS meal. We came back to the boat, listened to the Southbound net for weather updates & watched a movie. A 'net' is a meeting place where cruisers
get together on a specific frequency, at a specific time, for a specific purpose. Some nets are just for boat to boat traffic, while others offer weather, traffic, and safety, and others are just weather. Traffic simply means boat to boat contact on the SSB radio. If someone has traffic waiting for them, it means there's someone on the frequency who wants to get ahold of them. All you crazy HAM's out there, if you want to can try to tune in. The Southbound net is at 1230 (or maybe 1245) UTC
(UTC = Greenwich Mean Time….so…Pacific Standard Time is UTC minus 8 hours, or 4:45pm Pacific time, I think. This whole time change has screwed us up. We moved into Mountain time, and then are translating into UTC time (we actually have two clocks aboard that are set at UTC time, so it's easier…) OK…so back to the info…The Southbound Net is on frequency/kHz 6516 at 1245 UTC. The other net that tried to listen to was the Amigo net, at 1415 UTC (o-dark-thirty for us!) on frequency 8122, however
we were not getting a clear copy on the net & missed most of what was said.

Speaking of Bob & Louise, they had some funny, tall tales from the sea to share. They left Channel Islands Harbor about 2 weeks before we did. The went over to Catalina, then down to San Diego for Christmas. They we coming into the harbor at night and had a small navy boat come up beside them and tell them that they had a submarine about 200 yards behind them! Louise was supposed to be on watch and when Bob asked her how she missed it, she said "Subs go up, Subs go down!"….hahaha…. They continued
to pull into the harbor and were remarking how beautifully everyone had their boats lit up for Christmas….then realized they were passing through the Parade of Lights! Doh!! We laughed with them telling them our stories of woe, and them telling us theirs for several hours. Their trip down the coast hasn't been without problems and it made our trip seem like a breeze!

Since we had some friends from the harbor come into the harbor and they weren't quite ready to leave this morning (their last trip was a hellacious one and they hadn't slept in two days) we decided to hang out one more day and leave tomorrow for Bahia de Asuncion. Today was a nice relaxing day…we woke up for the morning net, which we couldn't hear most of, and decided to just stay up. I made a magnificent broccoli frittata and toast for breakfast and Chad fished, catching a little bonita, and releasing
it. Michael fiddled around with the watermaker, changing out a pump head that went bad. After breakfast, Chad headed over to Easy Lady as they had lots of projects for him! They had a problem with their davit system and ended up dropping & dragging their dinghy, motor attached, so he went over and worked on both the engine, getting that up & running, the davit system, getting the dinghy back up where it should be, & released a float they had run over that snagged around their rudder. Louise said
they hadn't seen people they could 'talk' to in 6 days and were dying to chat!! Michael & I stayed at the boat, Michael was reading & Rene was fishing (gasp!)…with no luck….the fish only played with the lure (you could see them just under the surface watching).

After Chad returned from his good-deeds at Easy Lady we all headed into town for some internet time & grocery shopping. Michael & Chad got on an internet station first, checking e-mail & weather for our passing tomorrow. Then I got to get on & they all went to the grocery store. I tried uploading photos and was able to get about 5 uploaded and was told the internet café was closing! NOOOOO!!! Haha…I begged for 5 more minutes (cinco minutes mas, por favor!) and he begrudgingly agreed….I started
uploading photos like crazy to my Dad, who will post them when he gets a chance. After my 5 minutes, I begged again for 5 more minutes and luckily, distracted him by showing him our website & the photos I had just uploaded…which gave me 5 more mintues. So you should see some photos on the website….a few from San Diego, a few from Ensenada, & some from Turtle Bay. So check them out when you get a chance.

Bob & Louise stayed in town for dinner & we headed back to the boat for dinner…Michael's cooking tonight, whew!

So…we're headed out to Bahia Asuncion tomorrow, a quick 50 mile trip down the coast. I'll post a position report when we arrive. We're leaving around 6:30 and it should put us in at 2pm or so.

More to follow…
Rene

Still hanging in Turtle Bay…1.14.08

Hola! I hope everyone is doing well out there! We're still having out here in Turtle Bay for today and are scheduled to leave tomorrow morning for Bahia Asuncion, a quick 50 mile trip down the coast. After the post yesterday when I was being rushed….we hailed a panga and got a ride into town on the fuel panga. They pulled up to a severely bent ladder and were up on the pier! We walked around town a bit, it was Sunday so many stores were closed already, but we identified quite a few restaurants,
markets, the fuel station, the internet café, etc. We walked around a bit, then came back to Enrique's Restaurant just to the left of the pier on the beach and had fish & carne asada tacos, fresh pico de gallo (cilantro, onions, & tomatoes), and guacamole sauce….and beer. Yumm!! As the sun set, it started to get chilly so we called the panga and went back to the boat for a movie and early to bed. Last night the wind piped up to about 25-30 in the bay and we were rocking and rolling for about
4 hours. The town lost power about 4am and it was eerie to see the town dark! Only about two lights were on, which were navigation lights.

Oh, someone asked how it is to pull into an anchorage at dark. Well, in Turtle Bay and most places, there are lights that act as navigational aids to help you get in. They blink differently, or are solid lights, or blink for a few seconds, etc. and this is marked on the maps and then you have to wing it a bit too. In the case of Turtle Bay, on the map it says there's a 16 second light, with multiple blinks on the port (or left) hand side of the bay, there's a light that blinks once every 6 seconds
on the starboard (or right) side of the bay, and there's a 10 second light that blinks once that is at the far inside of the bay. This is the light that you line up on as you're coming in to make sure you're going straight in. What we saw was a light that blinked 4 times, then was dark for 8 seconds on the port side, we saw the 6 second light on the starboard, and the blinky light at the inside of the bay. We lined up to that light, watched our radar, which also showed us the lay of the land,
and finally watched our GPS chartplotter. In addition, we have a depth meter that we were watching and Chad & I were on either side of the boat looking for unlit vessels. The hardest thing when pulling into this bay was when you're moving at night, white lights screw with your night vision, and there was some HUGE bright white lights in the bay. When we're sailing at night, there are no white lights allowed on in the boat, only red. We have salon lights that are red, and each of us wears a little
red LED light on our jacket, or in our pocket, that we use to read & shine lights on.

I made bisquick pancakes & bacon this morning….surely I'll get better at this cooking thing soon!! Hahaha… Chad has been outside working on the fishing poles and is casting away trying to catch us some fish for sushi! We'd love to have sushi! Since last night the winds piped up, Michael & Chad didn't get much sleep for all the noises & concern so they're both pretty tired. I spent some time working on the website and as soon as I can get to an internet café, I'll update the changes. I'm also
hoping to send some photos today, we'll see!

I'll write more later…
Rene

Bienvenidos a Bahia de Tortugas….1.13.08

We made it - woohoo! Whew! What a long passage. We had decided at Bahia San Quintin to just continue which turned a 12 hour passage into a 38 hour one. We arrived in Turtle Bay at around 2:30am and tooled around the harbor watching for unlit vessels & rocks looking for a nice safe place to drop the anchor. We are currently anchored just off the pier. We set the hook, watched the darkness as another big boat left the harbor & just decompressed for a bit then hit the sack. Michael was up early
but Chad & I slept in until about 9am. We still had hot water so we showered up & was visited by Luis, the fuel panga driver. We told him we needed about 80 gallons of diesel and he brought us 90, which was fine. He has a huge tank in a panga that he fills up with fuel, then motors out to the visiting vessels. I took some pictures which I will upload when we get internet again. We can't get anything here…although there may be a little internet café in the town. Right now we're charging the
batteries with the generator, running the refrigerator & freezer & I hope to get a good enough signal to send this update!

We continued to motorsail last night and the stars were even more magnificent than the previous night. I found a book on board this morning detailing out the constellations and can't wait to identify all 88 - or as many as I can in this sky! We did the same watches as the previous night and this time I got the short end of the stick….everyone was roused when we made the turn into Turtle bay and I had the 11-1am shift…so I ended up being on from 11pm to when we finally arrived. Needless to say,
I was exhausted by the time we got here. It was still freezing cold, but this morning the sunshine is out, it's 77 degrees in the sunshine and is NICE!! I was able to break out a pair of shorts even! Woohoo! The water temp is still a balmy 60 degrees, so no swimming yet.

We're going to hang here today - in fact the boys are waiting for me to finish the blog & send it and we're going to hail a panga to take us into town. We're going to check out the town, look for the grocery store, the hospital, the internet café, etc. There's some great sweeping rocks around that I'm looking forward to taking a photo of Ahea Kali sitting at anchor!

I'll write more later…
Rene

Bahia San Quintin aborted….1.11.08

We headed out of Ensenada harbor around 12:30 and headed toward Bahia San Quintin expecting an early morning arrival but there was a big swell & wind that was pushing us down the coast quicker than we had expected. We were already at Ben's Rock (Roca Ben), right around the corner of the harbor by about midnight which would have put us in an unfamiliar anchorage about 2am in the pitch dark…so we decided to continue on to Turtle Bay (Bahia de Tortugas). Turtle Bay is a cruiser favorite and is about
½ way down the coast.

The seas were decent for our crossing - the swells were probably 5-7ft with about 3ft wind chop at the worst of it. It was above 20knots of wind most of the day and was coming from our aft. We motorsailed the entire time and were clipping around about 8 ½ to 9 ½ knots. Chad put out a hand line but didn't catch anything. A hand line is a fishing lure that's attached to a 150pound fishing line that just gets tossed into the ocean and is attached to the back of the boat around a cleat. The lure
follows behind the boat and hopefully catches something! We've been told there's good tuna & seabass and we are craving sushi!! We brought enough wasabi for lots of fresh fish and can't WAIT to catch our first one!

Last night it was COOOLLLLDDDD!!! Freezing fricking cold I'd say. It was only in the 50's the entire afternoon & evening. The fog rolled in around 2am and warmed it up a bit, to maybe 51 or so. I've been becoming a master at layering clothes and thank goodness I purchased my foul weather gear before losing weight! Last night I had 3 shirts, 2 jackets, 2 pairs of sweats & my foulie pants, warm fuzzy socks & ugg boots, gloves, a scarf double wrapped around my neck & two beanies on my head. Finally
I was warm enough to last the two hours on watch without shivering to death. We held watches every two hours - we were up on deck for two hours and then were off for two hours for sleep, but I certainly had the best deal as we overlapped shifts so I was with Michael the 1st hour and Chad the 2nd hour. Michael & Chad had one hour with me and one hour alone. We started the shifts at 7pm - Chad slept first & Michael & I were on until 8pm. My shifts were 7-9, 11-1, 3-5, & 7-9. Chad was nice enough
to take another hour of Michael's watch so that gave me two extra hours of sleep after 5am. We saw only about 5 other ships the entire evening but before the fog rolled in, the sky was crystal clear and the stars were magnificent. I identified a couple constellations - my favorite is Orion. There was also some phosphorescence in the water which was lighting up as we stirred up the water. I can't wait to see creatures swimming around in the phosphorescence!

I read recently in the "lubber's dictionary" a word that describes our boat to a tee…Shipshape. A boat is said to be shipshape when every object that is likely to contribute to the easy handling of the vessel or the comfort of the crew has been put in a place from which it cannot be retrieved in less than 30 minutes. Yep, that's our boat most times. I remembered we have a tub full of granola bars that I thought was just under the settee….but it had been moved to the very back and took forever
to dig it out! It seems that's what Michael is doing a lot of the time….pulling out tubs to get to those items we weren't expecting to use. Luckily though, he has every tub on board catalogued with what's included in each tub, and where each tub is located. I call him sick….he says it's organized.

I was starvin marvin each time I woke up for a shift and ate little things to keep me satisfied but decided to make a nice warm breakfast this morning. I started at 9:15 and we finally ate at 10:45…I must work on my timeliness!! I cut up some potatoes, peppers, & onions and baked them while also frying some eggs. I also made up tuna, celery, & hard boiled eggs for tunafish sandwiches for lunch. Cooking under way is….well….interesting! I don't know how I can explain it other than imagine trying
to cook while riding the tilt-a-whirl ride at your local amusement park! You either gotta hold on with one hand (one had for yourself, one hand for the boat…that's the rule) and do everything else with the other hand. Or if you're really feeling up to it….can do a lot of knee bends, just one leg at a time, as the boat moves from side to side letting you have both hands for about 3 seconds at a time. Sounds easy, huh? Just remember you're also dealing with a hot stove & oven! I'm getting better
and better at it and just need to figure out how to wedge stuff a little better to keep it from sliding from one side of the sink/counter to another. I've never been a wiz in the kitchen and will only get better, I'm sure. I have a good friend who's an expert at cooking under way that I may be able to see in March and I look forward to getting tips from her!

We continue to motorsail (that means the motor is on, but the sails are up as well) down the coast at about 7-8 knots right now. We have about another 100 miles as of right now. If everything works out, we should be in to Turtle Bay early morning. It's sunshiny, 65 degrees, & we've seen about 3 cruise ships & 4 large tanker ships with lots of cargo. We're enjoying the sunshine, eating tuna fish sandwiches, & having a beer (hey, we're in Mexico...we're allowed!). We have two handlines out trolling
for fish…wish us luck! I'll write more later…
Rene

What a difference a day makes!....1.10.08

We've made it to Ensenada and spent yesterday morning getting checked in. We visited the Port Captain and got both checked in and back out, Immigration getting our tourist cards which allow us to visit Mexico for 90 days & the Temporary Import Permit for our boat which allows the boat to visit for 10 years (go figure!), and finally Customs. So we're all set! But what a difference a day makes. We went from dollars to pesos, gallons to liters, Fahrenheit to centigrade, English to Spanish, miles
to kilometers, pounds to kilos, tossing the toilet tissue in a trash can instead of flushing it down and many more I can't seem to recollect. We made it through the process of getting checked-in in about two hours and then went downtown Ensenada and wandered the streets. There was a cruise ship in port so all of the vendors were out on the street, which was not the case the last 2 days. But the city was bubbling with activity which was nice. There is a super huge Mexican flag that flies outside
of the harbor and we walked over to see it.

Michael and I made our way back to the boat in a taxi that hit another car on our way….and just said 'oops' and they both went on their way…and worked on projects & relaxed a while. We have use of the Hotel facilities & there are several facilities at the Marina too – showers, laundry facilities, bathrooms, swimming pool & Jacuzzi, pool, ping pong, & fuzeball tables. We were certainly treated like royalty as Chad had dinner of lobster & eggplant cooked for us by the time Michael & I went came back
from the Jacuzzi! After dinner Michael & I went up to the hotel again and we played several games of pool. Both Michael & Chad are still feeling under the weather so we're going to hang out here today and head out tomorrow. Today, so far, Chad has installed the lazy jack system which is a set of ropes that help furl the mainsail when it's pulled down so it doesn't fall all over the deck. Michael has done some banking, organizing, & assisting Chad with the installs. He also added some locks to
some items on deck, added the American flag back to the mizzen sail, changed out some ties that hold the dinghy in place, & replaced one of our LED salon lights that has failed already. We have a VERY spotty internet signal that's $10/day that we've been trying to get attached to. My Dad is going to help the posts since we may have issues getting them on the internet for the next couple weeks as we make our way down the Baja coast.

Our first destination is to Bahia San Quintin (pronounced keen-TEEN) which is about 110 miles Southeast of Ensenada. It should take approx 20 hours to get there. We'll leave here approx mid day so we'll have a nice evening passage and arrive in the daytime.

I'll write more later! ?

Leaving Ensenada…1.10.08

Our last evening in Ensenada was a nice mellow one. After the boys finished their projects on the boat, we all got cleaned up and headed into town for dinner. Chad had suggested a restaurant a bit off the main drag called Manzanilla. It was our first dinner where we could not decipher the majority of the menu as it was all in Spanish. Both Michael & I are pretty good at getting the gist of what is on the menu but this one had us baffled. Of the 6 pages or so of the menu, we could translate only
about 2 items - crème brule & roundeye steak. Of course there were a couple things that we were pretty close at…but were pretty baffled. So we did the smart thing - we asked the waiter to suggest items! Hahaha… We ended up with the most scrumptious dinner we have had the entire trip. We started with smoked clams & a tuna tartar with avocado that was absolutely delicious. Then we had swordfish & the roundeye steak, a couple glasses of wine & a couple margaritas and we were STUFFED!! It was
yummy!! (And if you haven't figured it out by now, I loooove to eat and will continue to share what we're eating….so get used to it and skip the sections you don't like!) J

We hit the grocery store & liquor market for some beer, rum, & tequila (hey, you gotta have provisions!) and then headed back to the boat. We did one last load of laundry while playing pool again and then hit the sack.

The next morning we were finalizing all of the projects from the day before, rinsed the boat, and generally got ready for our noon departure. Our boat neighbor gave us a bag of ice for our passage which we gladly took! Michael and I showered right before leaving and we shoved off around 12:30. Getting out of the slip was fine - everyone did everything right and we were out of the slip with no problems, even with the terrible surge in the harbor.

In Ensenada...1.8.08

We've made it to Ensenada - woohoo!!! We woke up at 4:30 this morning and were on the way by about 5:15 or so. It was a super clear morning and we made it out of the harbor perfectly fine. I wasn't used to getting up so early so I went down below and slept for a while. Michael manned the wheel while Chad also caught a bit of a nap. It was 52 degrees and the seas were 5-8 feet at about 8 seconds apart hitting on our stern corner. We raised the main and motorsailed to keep us steady. We encountered
oil ships right at Rosarita waiting to unload, saw approx 5-7 other boats, and talked to another sailboat on the radio motoring the opposite way that reported they had left from Central Baja and had lots of luck fishing tuna & seabass.

We pulled into Coral Marina at about 1:50pm and went to the fueldocks. We fueled with 358 liters of diesel fuel (it converts to 3.785 liters per US Gallon). We pushed off the fuel dock and headed to dock C32 where Michael RAN AGROUND!! OK, it was no big deal…there was a submerged rock right off of the fuel dock, it was low tide and we only had about 2 feet at the fuel dock. So we just rolled up and over it without any issue other than scraping off the brand new bottom paint. The marina is SUPER
surgey but we pulled into the slip without a problem. We've been sitting having a couple beers since we returned. We're headed out on the town for dinner and back to the boat early since both Michael & Chad aren't feeling so good.

We checked in with the Marina and set up an appointment for tomorrow morning at 9am to get checked into Mexico with our Temporary Import Permits (permits us to be in Mexico with the boat for 90 days). I'll report more on that later!

More to follow…
Rene

Rain, rain - go away! 1.7.08

The storms we were waiting on have finally arrived - it's been raining for the last 4 days and it looks like it's about finished. It started coming down on Friday and we cooped up in the boat doing projects all day Saturday as it stormed all day. Sunday we moved the boat to Kona Kai Marina into slip I-70. Getting out of the tight slip was no problem for Michael & I….he has really gotten in tune with the new propeller and the boat steers sooo much better now in reverse. We've been moving around
San Diego pretty well on the public transportation system & lots of walking. We walked a ton on Friday as we were on a mission to find a @#(%& spark plug socket that no one seemed to have. We must have asked a million people before we were finally turned on to a store called Tool Depot that had it! We had decided since it was a nice day we would just walk from store to store. It didn't help that each store we asked said things like "try this place…just up the street a couple blocks". I'm convinced
that two blocks on foot is measured differently than two blocks in a car because we walked for MILES before finding anything! Then we were walking through a huge strip mall and looked at the directory which said there was an Ace hardware….we walked to the entire end of the mall (about 4 blocks away)….and it wasn't there yet - was just being built. Haha….

We did laundry on Friday, ate in some hole in the wall Mexican place, checked out all the marine 'hot spots' - San Diego Marine Exchange, Downwind Marine, etc.

Spending all day Saturday on the boat allowed me to organize & put some music into playlists that I'd been wanting to do for some time. And Thank you Dave….I just assumed that if we were sailing….we HAD to listen to Jimmy all the time! Thanks for clearing that up for me…

We moved the boat to the new spot on Sunday when there was a little break in the rain. Monday, thankfully, we hooked up with our old boat neighbor from Channel Islands Harbor, Bob, who met us for lunch and he was so kind to drive us to and from our errands! He drove us to the post office, West Marine, Seabreeze bookstore, hung out at Vons while Michael & I did our provisioning, & back to the boat. It was sooo nice to be driven around!! We're incredibly thankful to Bob for taking care of us.

We met Chad back at the docks and unloaded all the groceries & goodies from Bob's Jeep, into the dockcart and back to the boat. We were just unloading the groceries into the boat when we were visited by Nick Olsen, a previous owner of the boat. He came on board and remarked how the boat hadn't changed much! He owned the boat in the late 70's and early 80's. It was interesting chatting with him - he told us a story of installing a thru-hull (a hole in the boat in the bottom of the boat)….while
it was in the water!! He said he had a buddy in the water with a piece of Tupperware ready to place it over the hole and he was drilling the hole with an electric drill covered in wetsuit material for his shock protection inside the boat in the engine room. The buddy saw the pilot bit come through and was waiting for the rest of the bit when all of a sudden it came through. It scared him and he jumped back, forgetting to place the Tupperware bowl on the hole for a minute. Nick was inside the
engine room and said as soon as it went through there was an electrical arc from the hole to the drill as he pulled the drill out. It was a funny story.

I've been on a cooking kick lately as I don't seem to have enough to eat around here… I made cookies Sunday, then made a spicy chex mix, enchiladas, & Chinese chicken salad for lunch. Yumm!! Many thanks to Judy Owens for the Chinese chicken salad recipe, Tara Stivers for the enchiladas recipe, & Jeanne Mitchell for the spicy chex mix recipe!!

We're headed out in the morning for Ensenada. We're hoping the Coral Marina & Hotel will be open - when we called the last 2 days the entire port was closed because of weather. We're scheduled to get up at 4:30 and head out at 5:00.

I'll catch you up tomorrow!
Rene & Michael

Moved to San Diego Yacht Club...1.3.08

Happy New Year everyone! I hope the new year's celebrations were good for everyone! We've been super busy since arriving in San Diego! We had previously been sitting at the guest dock at Southwestern Yacht Club and yesterday moved over to San Diego Yacht Club in slip A19. Tony, the dockmaster, has taken very good care of us even with us changing the date we were going to visit multiple times!

OK, so since the last post, we celebrated New Year's Eve.....we walked around Shelter Island looking for a nice party to attend and ended up at a couple restaurants/bars until about 9:30 - when they were all shutting down! So we headed back to the Southwestern Yacht Club's bar and hung out there. They were having a black tie New Year's Eve party and all of the members were so nice. I had previously met a liveaboard who had invited us up for a glass of champagne and so we joined them as well. At midnight, there were two firework shows over the harbor and the entire group who were remaining watched them outside on the deck. Then we all went inside to the party and danced away for another hour or two. It was a nice evening.

We slept in the next morning and had thought we would just take it easy.....but decided against it. We headed out on the busses/trolleys/trains trip again and went up to Balboa Park to check out the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center and watch a couple IMAX movies. We saw both "The Living Sea" and "Sea Monsters". They were both very good but we enjoyed the Living Sea one much better. We walked around Balboa Park for a while and then decided to wing it and walk around town down to the next bus stop. There was a spectacular sunset - but pictures just don't do it justice. We took the bus home and ate tacos for dinner!

Chad has been spending time with some friends in San Diego since we got here and made his way back to the boat just in time to move it over to San Diego Yacht Club. We had a very tight turn into a tiny slip which Michael made with master precision. We pulled in, went up to the yacht club to check in with the dockmaster & get keys & cards for the next couple days. I was starvin' marvin by noon as I had gone for a run around Harbor Island in the morning so we all ate lunch at the yacht club. Michael & I took off to head over to West Marine, Circuit City & the grocery store and Chad headed out to Marina Del Rey to visit a friend for the next couple days.

We had to purchase a power cord adapter at West Marine as we didn't have the right one for this slip, then we went shopping for a digital camera to replace the one that went swimming at Circuit City. We had gone back and forth on a waterproof vs non waterproof, I was set that it must take SD cards as we have about 10 of them, must have a good lens that will take panoramic photos, and have a good, high quality lens for decent pictures! We finally decided it would be fine in a waterproof case, which was one of the requirements - would if 'fit' in our little waterproof case! We himmed & hawwed and generally drove the salesman crazy before deciding on an Olympus Stylus 820. It is not waterproof, fits in the waterproof case, takes XD cards (grumble...), but seems to be a good camera. After camera shopping, we went next door to Henry's health food store for some basics, then back to the boat for another nice home cooked dinner.

The weather for the last 2 days has been warm & sunshiny - in the upper 70's which is sooo nice!! Today however, it's back down to the low 60's and overcast. As I said before, there are two weather fronts that are coming our way so we will hang out here in San Diego until probably Monday or maybe Tuesday, then head to Ensenada. We're hanging out here as we're not paying slip rent and if we headed to Ensenada...we would have to weather the storm there AND pay for slip rent. Since we have rain coming our way, today's project is laundry. We've spent the morning updating our airmail software, updating the website, playing with the new camera, organizing stuff & responding to e-mails. We have a nice strong wireless signal here so we've been able to surf for a change!

Oh, check out this page... it has another view of our position reports. You can zoom in super close and see that where the blue dot is pointing, that's where we're slipped right now. You'll see it's a spot where two boats can tie up and we're in the spot that's open. I'll be fooling around with google maps to see if I can get a google map on our blogs....I hope I can get it to work!

So that's the report for now - we're staying in San Diego until the weather blows over - laundry today. We are contacting some friends to hopefully meet up with them in the next few days and will see how the rest of the week goes! Stay tuned....& thanks for checking in!!

Rene & Michael