Make Me Laugh Again

We woke up around 7 30 am. Had breakfast and listened to the news. Did our devotions, and prepared to get underway. The S/V O’boy contacted us as we were bringing in our anchor. They are headed back  to Santa Rosalia. They have a hacked PayPal account, banking and other issues to deal with.

We went out and once we were clear of the Puerto we started the clothes washing. This means the generator goes on, and then the washer gets loaded and started. Once we were outside of the bay, I started the water maker and started filling the water tank. After the first load of clothes were done, Renee’ started the second one. While the washer is technically a Washer/Dryer, we don’t use it to dry the clothes as it uses steam and takes about an hour and a half longer to dry a load of clothes than it does to wash them. So, when the wash cycle is done, the clothes get hung up inside the cabin. Since the generator was running anyway, I turned on the A/C on heat and turned on all the cabin fans to help dry the clothes.

We filled the water tank, it took about 4 and a half hours, and it was running at about 15 gallons per hour. Water quality is slightly less than 70 ppm total dissolved solids. US drinking water is typically <500 ppm. So, we have pretty good water on the boat. Today, I figure we made roughly 70 gallons of water. That is 3 days + 2 loads of laundry use, for the two of us. So, 6 showers and dishes for three days. Fairly efficient, even though we really don’t have to be, as we have a 260 gallon tank for fresh water.

While we were out today, we saw the S/V O’boy headed south (120 miles to Santa Rosalia), and no body else. We saw some birds, the pelicans are fun to watch, they fly in a straight line, about 3 feet or less off the water. The seagulls seem very curious as to what we are doing, as they tend to circle the boat. Especially when there is only one of them. We saw no dolphin today, or anything else for that matter. After we had been out for about 4 hours or so, the wind came up, it started at about 5 knots when we left Puerto Don Juan at about 9:30 or so, and by 12:30 or 1 pm it was up to 20 knots. By the time we came back into anchor we saw 30 knots. This makes anchoring a bit unpleasant. When we came back into Puerto Don Juan, we changed where we are anchored to a spot that is more protected by the peninsula, and since the tide is in, we are in about 40 feet of water. We checked this Puerto and part of the reason it is such a good anchorage, is that the whole place is less than 45 feet deep. With the tide swings, that means 50 feet of less. We anchored at high tide in 40 feet of water, we put out 180 feet of rode, which is more than normal, but we are in deeper water than normal as well.

We are starting to think about what to bring back to the boat for the next season. One thing we are definitely looking for are good games for two players. We are game players, and while we have limited room for storage, we need more games. Currently we have cards and two other games, one is Qwirkle, which is a games similar to dominos, but done with shapes and colors instead, and Pirateer. Both of these games were suggested by our friend Ken McMillen. With the cards, we play a couple of games, specifically Rummy 500 and Baja Rummy. While both are variations of Rummy, the Baja version takes one more deck of cards than players, so for us to play it takes 3 decks. We play a game almost every other night. The only problem with the games we have is that Qwirkle has the shapes painted on black tiles, and at night with somewhat limited light, it can be hard to see the colors and shapes (at least for me, being slightly color blind). So, if you have a great two player game, we are looking for suggestions.

We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a sport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

http://a%20href=

 

We woke up around 7 am. Renee’ got up and got the coffee started and worked on baking bread.

Again, this harbor is very calm. I went through my old notes and found a way to put the map of where we are on my blog posts. Until, I am sure it is working correctly I will leave the link to find our location on the posts.

We spent the morning puttering around on the boat, Renee’ finished the bread (Very good!) We read our books and worked on learning how to edit video. We think perhaps, when the stock market recovers (and our IRA), we will look into getting a drone. In the meantime, we will take more video with our phones. Maybe I will get the Go Pro out and play with it as well.

After lunch, we went ashore by kayak. On the way, we stopped and chatted with the other boat in this bay, S/V O’boy! They were last in Santa Rosalia, and yesterday they had gone over to the town of Bahia Los Angeles to get water and news. They heard yesterday that Santa Rosalia port is closed, and if you go in you can’t leave. We are not ready for that yet, and we are not headed that way anyway. They told us that the WiFi in Bahia Los Angeles is very slow, and the water was very inexpensive.

We eventually got ashore and hiked across to Ensenada Quemado a (small, shallow) bay on the sea of Cortez. The hike was about a mile each way and while it was much longer than the one yesterday over the rocks it was quite a bit easier. It was about a mile each way, with a salt pond at the other end. When we turned around the wind had picked up and the paddle back to our boat was a pretty good workout as well.

We got back to the boat about 3:30 and by 4:20, we had the kayak stowed, and the generator running to finish charging the battery and get the water hot for showers and dishes. It looks like it might rain tonight.

I think the things we miss most out here are family, friends and internet. There is certainly no traffic out here. Even in the cities what traffic there is seems pretty light after being used to Southern California. We have Sirius XM radio, so we get the news, and all the music we like. With none of the commercials. We have the Iridium GO! for phone calls and texting, but it is limited. Renee’ made the comment today that it is one thing that would be nice, that is to get internet via satellite. I did price that before we left, and it was bigger than our budget for everything on an annual basis. (As in over $10k per month).

We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a sport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

http://a%20href=

 

We got up at 6:30, had our coffee and got “it” together and underway by 7 am. We had breakfast after we were moving.

As we headed north we looked closer at the charts, and read the books about where we were going. Most of the Sea of Cortez is pretty deep, especially if you go out a couple of miles. This area, though, is a bit different. The book recommends 5 to 10 miles off shore, and as we were already 5 miles out, in about 60 feet of water, we went a bit further out. As we continued to look ahead, we found a spot on the charts, right on our path that had a depth of 0 feet, and it was about 20 miles out, with shallow area between it and the mainland, so we picked a spot out side of that area, and continued on. As we looked even closer at the chart, we realized that the distance to our planned destination (Bahia Kino) for tonight and the distance to our planned destination for the next night (Isla Tiburon, Shark Island) were about the same, from our detour around the shallow spot. So, we skipped Bahia Kino.

We arrived at Isla Tiburon after a long day of motoring. No wind, most of the day, occasionally we saw as much as 10 knots, but it did not last. We had some swells from the south west (about 90 degrees to our course, so somewhat uncomfortable).

It was a long day of motoring, but other than just going in a straight line and listening to the motor, there really  wasn’t much else to do. When we got the anchor down, we thought about going swimming, but the water was a bit too cold, so decided to try again tomorrow.

Amazingly enough, we do have cell service here, really unexpected. We are planning on staying here two nights. Tomorrow will be a late morning, sleeping in, and a kayak ride and a swim. Then planning for the next couple of days. But no schedule pressure.

We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a sport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again

Renee’ got up at 6 am and made bread, I stayed in bed a bit longer. I had to get up one time last night to check the anchor alarm (4 am). I had set the limits too tight and we got to the limit and it woke me up. I checked what where we were adjusted the alarm and went back to bed.

When I got up, I updated our fuel record (where I track fuel and oil changes for the engine, generator and water maker. Then I wrote the blog for yesterday and this morning. While we sat here at anchor, we got a text from Colin and Claudia on Cappella III. They are here in San Carlos and went out this morning to pump out their holding tank this morning. They saw us either on their AIS, or just saw the boat as they went by, and wanted to see if we spent the night in Martini Cove. We suggested they raft up with us and we could teach them a new card game. They thought about it, but are getting their boat hauled out tomorrow and have a bunch of stuff to get done.

Since we won’t have company, we will probably get underway in an hour or so, and head north.

Well, we got underway, and headed north. We sailed wing on wing, (the mainsail out to port, the staysail and jib out to starboard, wind coming from about 5 degrees to port of our stern) for about 3 hours. Finally when the wind dropped to about 3 knots, and boat speed was effectively zero, we started the motor and finished our day. We arrived at Las Cocinies to find 5 there other boats here already. Of course by the time we dropped anchor the wind was up to about 15 knots. Oh well. We anchored and read and napped for a couple of hours. Then dinner and a movie.

We ran the water-maker while we were out today. I figure it has been run for about 9.5 hours in the last two days. Which is about 190 gallons. Our tank indicates 90% (260 gallons when full). There was some water in it I plan on running it next when we cross the sea back to Baja. I intend to run it long enough to get some water out of the overflow on the tank. We are planning on going to Bhaia Kino tomorrow that is about 50 miles north of here. Kind of a long day. Then cross to Isla Tiburon (shark island), staying in Monument bay on the south east corner. From there it is about 40 miles across to the peninsula  From there, we continue north. We are hoping for more protected anchorages. The next couple are pretty open and there are no real options as to where we anchor. Except to go longer distances.

For being 1 year retired, I guess we should have some pithy comments about what it feels like and whether or not we are happy being retired. All I can say about that is, I have no desire to go back to work. Really, I don’t miss it a bit. I liked what I did, but it is like a different life completely, and we are too busy with this life to even think about adding work to it.

We have been pretty busy this year, since we retired, we moved our household stuff to Florida, moved our truck and trailer to Kansas, moved our residence state to Nevada, took a narrow boat trip in England, finished getting the boat ready, took a shakedown cruise from San Diego to Monterey, fixed what broke on the boat, and then (finally) started this cruise south. We have lived aboard at least 6 of the last 12 months. (1 month from San Diego to Monterey and 5 more on this trip). When we were in San Diego, we had at least 10 days a month on the boat. Not enough to be called live-aboards, but enough to have some privacy and to give some to Bob and Sharlene Miller who graciously let us stay at their place while we worked on the boat.  We are looking forward to the summer part of our retired life, but that may be on hold with the Corona Virus. We are planning on having the boat hauled about May 11th. In PUERTO PEñASCO. We have a two bedroom apartment rented for three weeks starting May 11th. We will have to get the boat ready to be hauled out. After that we will go back to the states, get our truck and trailer out of storage and do some driving and visiting friends and relatives.

We do have room for guests, if anyone is interested in visiting and spending a week or so with us, drop us a line and we will coordinate. What you have to do/have is you need a passport and will need to be able to get to where we are when you are going to be down. When we know what time frame you are thinking about we can let you know where we expect to be so that you can make your travel arrangements.

If you want to know where we are, click this link:

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Make_Me_Laugh_Again