Category: 2019-12 (December)

This anchorage was pretty calm the first night, but we certainly did some rocking and rolling last night.

We got underway at 6:30, with Lost Pearl at almost the same time. We motor sail for these longer hauls, to make sure we get there before dark if at all possible. So, we were slightly ahead of them. Merry Lee was out of the anchorage by about 6:45 or 7am. It is now coming up on 10 am, we have made about 27 miles by our trip meter (which uses the knot meter on the boat, which is the little wheel that spins in the water). The knot meter is showing that we are making close to 10 knots, but our speed over ground is about 7.5 knots (this is more accurate), this is based on GPS position. We have. been running the water maker, and washing a load of clothes. The water tank is at about 60%. I plan on running it for another 4 hours or so, Josh (Merry Lee) asked about water yesterday, and I expect that he will take about 15 gallons or so which is about an hour of run time on the water maker, and Renee’ wants to run two loads of laundry today, which is a little less than 2 hours of run time. Which means when all is said and done, we will have about 60% at the end of the day (which is where we are now).

We used Jesus Calling this morning for our devotions. It is a fantastic way to start the day, praising our Lord, and thanking him for another day here on Earth, we get to see what he gave us to enjoy. We are reminded that we are to help others to come to know, believe and obey him as well. We do not believe in the prosperity theology, that is we will not have an easy life because we believe, nor that everything will turn up roses just because we believe. God is not a genie to give us everything we ask for. But he promises to be with us not matter what is going on in our life’s. Whether it is good, or not so good. If you are reading this and are not sure of the truth of the Bible, I challenge you to do some research comparing the accuracy and validity of it. You will find that it is the most historically accurate document we (the human race) have. We have copies written less than 100 years after Christ, we have tens of thousands of manuscripts that all show the same story, and when in doubt consider the Dead Sea scrolls, which were found in the 1900’s and match the documents we have. Showing the Bible has not changed. There is also the archeological record, that is when the Bible says something about a location or an event, eventually we (humans) find archeological evidence that it is accurate.

There is my little sermon for the day.

We had a very quiet night. Slept very well. We went ashore this morning with the other two boats (Jeff and Angie, and Josh and Cozette) found a restaurant that had WiFi (ok, not really, they said they did and we were able to do a couple of things but nothing really. I was busy on the phone about Gary (my uncle) we found a grocery store and an ATM, I think that might be the first one we have seen since Ensenada! Walked to the gas station for Josh and Cozette, and then back to the beach.

This is an interesting small town. It seems a bit more upscale than some of the fishing villages we have seen, there are some really nice houses (they look like vacation homes, as at night only one had any lights on), and a bunch of panga’s (small fishing boats), but only one grocery store, and few restaurants. There were a couple of paved roads here, and one Pemex station. We checked about the internet, and there is an Internet cafe, but it requires you to use their computers, and pay by the hour. This is not really what we had in mind, as it will still not allow posting pictures. This might be among the worst locations we have been for internet access, while at the same time, it might be among the best places we have stopped. Oh, well.

We had taken our dinghy ashore, Jeff and Angie took theirs, and we went all the way to town by boat. We are anchored in the next cove east of town. This means that it was about a 20 minute ride to and from. Another boat, arrived today, it is Travis and Jessica (I think) on Decorum. They are Canadian, and we have seen them before (I think Turtle Bay). We are planning to go ashore and take a short hike later today, have a late dinner (lunch was at 3:30) and run the generator tonight. Our battery is at 73%, and that won’t make it through the night.

We ran the generator for a couple of hours. The battery got up to 91%, and we turned off the generator. When we got up at 6 am, we were down to 71% this is good enough for me. We elected to not go on the hike last night, and instead took the time to put the dinghy away. This takes about a half hour and both of us. Then I worked on the course for tomorrow, we have about 67 miles to go. This is a longish day. Since we don’t like anchoring in the dark we plan to leave by about 6:30am. This means it may be just before first light. I am planning on being on deck with a flashlight to look for lobster traps with Renee’ driving, at least for the first hour or so.

We got up at 5:30, had a knocking on the deck going all night, Reneé thought it was a lobster trap, and went up to look. She could not find anything. I went up in the morning and in the light of day, was able to see the Main Sheet block on the traveler bouncing up and down about 1/8” and knocking on the deck when it came back down. I tightened the traveler, and then the main sheet an almost imperceptible amount in both cases, and it stopped the knocking. We got underway at 7am, and found a bunch of lobster traps. We had 20 knots of wind, and once we got past the traps we put up the sails, and were able to sail for about an hour. Then the wind died. Motor back on, sometimes it goes like that.

We are anchored as of 1:30 pm. We are probably about 1/2 mile off shore. In about 20 feet of water, very mild swell, from the south. Oh and virtually no wind, so it is pretty hot. We had an alarm going off as we were dropping the anchor, and I think it is the bilge pump alarm. We are at 14 runs since the last time it was reset (San Diego?) So, not really a lot of runs. In any case, I pumped the bilge down manually, and reset the counter. We will see if that stops the alarm.

We expect to be here a day or two. We are watching for whales, we saw a pretty large pod of dolphins on the way in.

I spent an hour or two on trying to get cell service with DATA on my phone with AT&T. No success. Took a nap and woke up with a text on the Satellite to call my brother and one to call my mom on regular text. My uncle is in the hospital. So then I spent an hour to two on the phone with both of them and the ICU where my uncle is in the hospital.

Now that we are where we can’t do anything, we also have no internet to do searching for anything else. My phone is being pretty finicky, I have 4 bars for service, but about 1/2 the time when I am trying to make a call, it is just sits there. It looks like it is trying to call, but nothing happens. Frustration!

So, after we got all that stuff taken care of I called my buddy, Duane Erickson. He his wife Marjie are getting ready to move to Tennessee. He and his wife spent 6 months here in Baja some time back and decided the cruising life was not for them. We talked for awhile and I made sure he could get to the blog and to the tracking page so he could see where we were and what we were up to. They have made the decision to move to where their son lives, and their daughter who lives in Calif. will retire and move there as well. These two are my hero’s, they bought they boat their last boat in 1984, it is a 40’ Passport, and they sailed Baja shortly thereafter. This was their third sailboat, they are at an age, where it was becoming too hard to sail the boat, and take care of the house etc. All I can say is that I hope when I am their age I can even remember sailing, much less be able to say ok, it is enough, time to let go.

Well, I really don’t have anything else to say this evening. We will probably play cards tonight, then go to bed.

We got underway about 7:30 and headed south. Escorted out by a small pod of dolphins. We have a load of laundry going, and once we were a couple of miles out I put the water maker in service. We are down to 50% again. That is 3 loads of laundry, showers and two days of not making water. We actually just started the 4th load of laundry. We are still catching up from a week in Turtle Bay. As I have said, today is a short sail day, (we might get to sail, but right now the wind speed is around 5 knots). Tomorrow, is a bit longer…

This morning we used Morning Mercies for our devotions. The topic was Glory, we either focus on glory here on earth, and that causes lots of grief as we try to keep up with the Joneses, or try to be the richest, or whatever, but if we keep our focus on the Glory of Christ, we rely on the knowledge of our eternal home, we will experience the Glory in due time when we get there. Rather than the temporary glory that will not satisfy, and keep us looking for more, the next high the fill in the blank that just doesn’t do it.

Today as we motor along, the swells are moderating, it remains a bit overcast, and the wind is about 10 knots, but right on the nose. So, no sailing. We are listening to Sirius XM, it is nice to be able to listen to music or news or whatever without commercials.

Like I said it was a short day. It is almost 2 pm, and Lost Pearl, Merry Lee, Ikigai and us are all in port and waiting for the next leg tomorrow. A little rain today, and no wind.

We had a quiet afternoon, enjoyed looking at the beach (no desire to put the effort in to going ashore. Heard later that the waves were pretty big. Renee’ read a book, I played a game and we both had naps. Tonight we will watch a movie. Pretty much what we do on an off day like this, either a movie or a game. Last night was Rummy 500, tonight is a movie.

At about 6 pm, Two locals in a panga came by, seems like they were looking to see if we needed anything. Afterwards, Ikigai left, we said goodbye and said that we will probably see them somewhere else. They have a pretty long journey planned (circumnavigation in about 4 years). While we were on deck checking out the locals, we got to see a school of fish jumping out of the water. I thought flying fish, but they did not get that far out of the water, so probably not. Well, no internet, no cell service and with that, this won’t get published until tomorrow at the earliest. Good night.

I just got to thinking and checked my notes. I did not say where we have been for the last two nights. Bahia Asunción. There are lots of marine mammals. What does that mean? Well, you know the neighbor who leaves their dog outside all night, and it is lonely, so it barks all night long. Not an alarming bark, just a bark a second of silence and a bark repeat all night? Well that is what I heard last night. One seal (or sea lion) barking all night. Renee’ slept right through it, and when she got up and went outside, said that there were about 6 of them playing near the boat. Oh well. Maybe I will get a nap later today.

We are running the generator and doing a load of clothes again this morning.

Tomorrow, we are planning a pretty short day, Bahia San Hipolito, is about 20 miles from here. The next day (or trip if we stay more than overnight) is to Punta Abreojos about 40 miles or so down the coast. We have read Charlie’s Charts, and it suggests that it is a better idea to do this entrance in daylight This is Bahia De Ballenas and is connected to Laguna San Ignacio which is a whale refuge. So, we will probably stay an extra day here.

The next stop south is Bahia San Jua’nico. Which is about 80 miles. That will be a pretty long day. Followed by Bahia Santa Maria which is another 100 miles. From there we will go into Bahia Magdalena (Mag Bay) and stay a few days. From there the next stop is Cabo about 180 miles.

I am reviewing waypoints on our chart plotter. Deleting the ones that we will not be going back to, (everything north on the west coast) and just came across Moss Landing. The furthest north we took the boat. 693 miles north of where we are now. We were there Sept. 3, 2019. That does not sound like very far in a car, but on a sailboat, that is a couple of months of moving a little bit each day. Or in our case, including repair and maintenance in San Diego, that is 3 months ago.

This lack of WiFi is a bit of a pain. We sometimes get email notifications, but can’t open the email. This happens even we we have WiFi in a restaurant or elsewhere. As an example, we were ashore for awhile today. I tried to get to my email, and got nothing. We got back to the boat, and I got a notification about an invoice for PredictWind (this is our satellite connection and weather) I think it is set up on an autopay on a credit card, but I don’t remember, and I can’t check it without going ashore. Of course the dinghy and the kayak are already put away. In other words we are talking about a 2 hour ordeal to get ashore and check the invoice, and then another hour or more putting it away again.

So, we did not go back ashore. I will check on it the next time we have WiFi. We had dinner, showers, and played a game of Rummy 500. Renee’ was reading a book on her iPhone, and I was playing games on my iPad. I heard a noise at the front end of the boat and Renee’ pointed out that it would not hurt to go take a look. So, I took a flashlight and headed up to the bow. As I got to the front of the boat, about a half dozen seals took off to the left, when I shined the line at them they dove again and kept going. I looked to the starboard side of the boat and saw about a six more when I shined the light at them they took off, and then the couple forward of the boat took off. All in all something more than a dozen of these guys were playing near our bow. No harm done, I went back below and wrote this.

It is not quite 8 pm, and I think it is time to go to bed. I did not sleep well last night, and we are sailing tomorrow.