February 1, 2018
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| Great Blue Heron at Marina Palmira |
It had started raining about midnight the night before and was still raining when I woke up to listen to the net on Thursday. It was a good day to be lazy. I stayed in bed and texted a friend in the
U.S. until about 10:00, when I finally ventured out to take a shower. The marina was very quiet, as even more boats
had departed that morning. A great blue
heron was prowling around the dock and let me approach within ten feet of him
before strolling off down a finger of the dock.
Don was up when I came back and I made pancakes, since we
had lots of time. About noon, I headed
up to the office complex to do laundry and upload a blog post from the
cruisers’ lounge. Marina Palmira offers
a convenience store, dive shop, cruisers’ supply, pool, bar, a couple of
restaurants, nice laundromat, and cruisers’ lounge with an impressive library
and fast internet. Two tokens for the
laundry cost 58 pesos and were sufficient to wash and dry one large load. Don took the propane cannister up to the
store to be filled and returned the next day.
Propane service is usually on Fridays, but Friday was a holiday, so they
were doing it a day early.
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| Marina Palmira |
Don did his laundry later that afternoon while I read a bit
and then went back to the cruisers’ lounge to use the internet. The weather cleared up, but was still
cool. We decided to walk further into
town to the Bismarck-Cito, a popular fish restaurant across from the malecon. I tried to order the lamb ribs, but they were
out of season. I had some wonderful shrimp chiles rellenos instead. It was quite a walk down there and it did us
good to get off the boat and stretch our legs.
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| Cruisers' Lounge at Marina Palmira |
February 2, 2018
I got up, showered, and spent the first half of the morning
in the cruisers’ lounge, working on my blog. When Don got up, we went to the new restaurant
next to the pool in the marina for breakfast.
It was hard to tell that the place was open, as there was no sign or
menu in the window, but they were friendly and glad to see us. I had decent chilaquiles and Don had an
omelet.
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| The Cathedral in La Paz |
Our mission for the day was grocery shopping. We left about noon to walk the two or three
miles to the big Ley’s on Cinco de Mayo.
We walked along the malecon most of the way and then turned inland and
walked past the plaza and cathedral before hitting Cinco de Mayo and continuing
on to the store. I play the guitar and
had succumbed to my guitar teacher’s entreaties to do something about my
fingernails. The only way I had ever
been able to grow my nails was to get acrylic ones. Having been sailing, I was about two weeks
overdue for a fill. I found a nice salon
near the Ley’s, but the first open appointment was not until 5:00. I took the slot and we continued on to the
store.
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| Avenida 5 Salon |
We were out of absolutely everything, so we stocked up. It required a taxi to get our booty back to
the boat. Of course, this meant that I
had to walk all the way back downtown for my nail appointment at 5:00. It was actually fairly warm and I was
dripping with perspiration when I arrived at the lovely Avenida 5 Salon for my
appointment. Getting my nails done there
was a very pleasant experience. In the United
States, all the manicurists are Vietnamese and, while they are sweet and do a good
job, I can’t understand them.
At Avenida 5, I was able to chat with the manicurist and the
other clients. They convinced me to get
sparkly silver nail polish. The salon
was actually nicer than the one I went to in the U.S. and had all the latest
products. I was quite satisfied with the
results and even more satisfied with the price of 300 pesos (about $17.)
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| La Paz Malecon at Sunset |
Having walked to the salon, I then had to walk back to the
marina. I meandered back through the
town and then along the malecon. It was
full dark by the time I got back to the marina.
Neither of us was very hungry, so I made salad with some leftover
arrachera that I found in the bottom of the refrigerator.
February 3, 2018
I got up early to shower and drink a cappuccino from the new
restaurant while I worked on my blog. My
friend Carlos, who crewed for us on Fool’s Castle in 2013, was coming from Cabo
to visit me that day and I wanted to get as much done as I could before he
arrived. After finishing my blog post, I
returned to the boat and made breakfast.
Carlos showed up around noon. He was hungry so, after we visited with Don
for a bit, he and I headed off to find some lunch. Carlos is a picky eater, so I let him choose. Don stayed behind to repair the bilge pump
without us underfoot. Carlos chose a
small birrieria and ordered lamb tacos.
For 150 pesos we got three sodas and more than the two of us could
eat. The meat was crispy and greasy and
I hadn’t had lamb like that since I was in Turkey in 2000. We sat and talked for a couple of hours,
catching up on all that had gone on in our lives over the past couple of years.
Carlos had an inflatable stand-up paddleboard with a hole in
it back in Cabo and wanted to look for something with which to patch it. We started at Harker Boards on the
malecon where they sell and rent paddleboards. They referred us to Pingo
Marine, on the main drag a few streets past the light after Marina La Paz. He was locking up as we arrived, but told
us that it was actually the owner’s brother who repairs paddleboards. When Carlos told him the board was back in
Cabo, he was kind enough to tell us where to buy the cement. We headed inland to a small marine store a
couple of doors down from a resins and plastics shop. There, we purchased a tiny can of cement for
$40. This was apparently the same
outrageously expensive cement used to repair Hypalon dinghies.
That mission accomplished, we returned to the boat where Don
was finishing up his bilge pump repair.
The pump was fine, but a stray piece of metal had been fouling the
float. Don sewed a small bag out of
plastic window screen to put around the float and prevent that from happening
again. The original metal screen had
corroded away. We sat and visited for
another hour or so and then Carlos had to leave to drive back to Cabo before it
got too late. We said goodbye and vowed
not to go so long before seeing each other again.
February 4, 2018
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| Fuel Dock at Marina Palmira |
Once again, I got up early to work on my blog and drink
cappuccino. I stayed longer than I had
intended and, eventually, I received a text from Don asking me to check on the
availability of the fuel dock. There was
no one there, but the office said they would send someone. I went back to the boat and we headed over to
fill the tanks before heading off across the Sea of Cortez the following day.
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| Restitching the Propane Cover |
Back at the slip, I made breakfast and spent the afternoon
re-stitching the cover for the propane tank. Sunbrella fabric lasts a very long time, but the stitching rots in the sun. I was replacing the original cotton thread with a more durable Goretex thread. It was Superbowl Sunday and we had reservations at the sports bar for
3:45. We went up there and ordered
margaritas and chips with guacamole. The
guacamole was bland, so we requested some hot sauce and jazzed it up.
The bar was busy, but not jammed. The Eagles were playing the Patriots and it
seemed like everyone was rooting for the Eagles. I am not a football fan, so I worked on
stitching the propane cover until it got too dark to see. It was a close game with a number of
spectacular plays. During the second
half, we ordered spinach salads for dinner.
The Eagles won after a tense fourth quarter and we returned
to the boat to spend a quiet evening before retiring early. We wanted to get up early to listen to the weather
report before making the crossing.
February 5, 2018
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| Marina Palmira in the Rear View |
I got up early to string the antenna in hopes of catching
Geary’s weather report at 7:45. I got
the bright idea of raising the antenna on the spinnaker halyard. It didn’t help us to hear the weather, but it
pulled loose when I tried to bring it back down, leaving the spinnaker halyard
two thirds of the way up to the spreaders.
Having got myself into this pickle, I figured it was my responsibility
to correct the problem. I climbed up
onto the boom and flailed away at the halyard with the boat hook at full
extension. I could reach the shackle,
but the hook was too large to pass through the eye and the halyard was over the
shroud, creating too much drag to allow me to slide it down the mast easily. Don came to the rescue and taped a gaff hook
to the end of the boat pole, allowing me to snag the shackle and pull the
halyard back down. We remembered that we
could get Geary’s report off the internet, so we listened to that and, assured that the weather would cooperate, pulled out of the marina and headed towards open water.
We got to the end of the Ceralvo Channel about sunset and
headed for open water. I made hot wings
for dinner and then took the 7 to 11 watch.
There was no moon and it was very dark and lonely out there. Don took over at 11:00 and I went below to
sleep.
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| The Ceralvo Channel Late Afternoon |
Febraury 6, 2018
I came back on deck at 3:00 AM. I made some instant vanilla cappuccino and
tried to listen to music, but discovered my playlist had not downloaded in La
Paz. I listened to a few podcasts to
entertain myself. The moon had risen during Don’s watch and visibility had
improved, but we saw no boats all night.
When morning came, it was discouraging to discover that we could still
see land. There was no wind, so we were
motoring. We were running the engine at
the usual RPMs, but seemed to be going slowly.
We were barely making five knots.
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| Dawn on the Sea of Cortez |
I was enjoying the sunrise and it wasn’t cold, so I let Don
sleep until 8:15 when I started to fade.
He took over and I went below to sleep.
I got back up about 11:00, dressed, and ate a bowl of cereal. Then I wrote until noon when I took the helm
back from Don. He had decided that
something was wrong with the tachometer and that we were going slowly because
we weren’t running the engine hard enough.
He had increased the RPMs from 2000 to 2500 and we were then motoring at
about six knots. There was still no
wind.
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| A Relaxing Afternoon Watch |
The afternoon watch was very relaxing. There was no wind and we saw no other
boats. It was warm and pleasant out and
I was able to put on shorts. By that
time, I was very tired of the same jeans and three long sleeved shirts that I
had been wearing since Guaymas. We were
finally out of sight of land. We reached
the half way point that afternoon. When
Don took over at 4:00, I hung out and then made pork chops and potatoes for
dinner. I took a short nap before coming
back on watch at 8:00. Don had turned
the stereo on and I enjoyed the music all throughout my shift. There was still no wind and we were still
alone out there.
February 7, 2018
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| Sunrise Over the Sea of Cortez |
Don took the midnight to 4:00 AM watch and I made another
instant cappuccino and came back up at 4:00.
Don had killed the stereo, so I listened to my iPod and watched a few
fishing boats pass us in the distance. I
enjoyed another colorful sunrise. We
still didn’t have enough wind to sail.
Don took back over at 8:00 and I went below to sleep until just before
noon.
I had another bowl of cereal and took the helm at noon. Just after 1:00, Isla Isabela peeked over
the horizon. It grew steadily larger as
we approached. Twenty knots of wind had
been predicted for Wednesday afternoon, but we didn’t have enough to sail until
we were approaching the island and would have needed to douse the sails,
anyway. It never got much about 10
knots.
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| Approaching Isla Isabela |
We motored around to the south side of the island and
anchored in the rocky cove that contained a small fish camp. It seemed more protected than the open
roadstead in the lee of the Monjas, two jagged pinnacles of rock just offshore,
where the other anchorage was located.
Our cruising guide mentioned that the anchorage was rocky and suggested
putting a line with a float on our anchor in case we needed to dislodge it
later. We did this and anchored close to
the rock wall of the cove. By 4:00, we
were riding comfortably. It was too late
to risk getting wet in the dinghy, so we opened a bottle of Baja zinfandel and
had cheese and crackers in the cockpit.
It seemed very civilized. As the
sun dipped below the horizon, I served chicken thighs with black beans and
salad. It was good to have the crossing
behind us.
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| A Little Bit of Civilization |
February 8, 2018
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| Fish Camp and Anchorage at Isla Isabela |
Isla Isabela is a rookery for blue-footed boobies and
frigate birds. The squawking began as
soon as it got light. Frigate birds have
curiously angular wings and look like pteradactyls when they fly. Hundreds of them wheeling overhead gave the
place a prehistoric feeling. Isabela is
a volcanic island and seemed a world away from the desert islands of the Sea of
Cortez. It was rocky and thickly
forested with stunted avocado trees. A
caldera graced the center of the old volcano.
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| Las Monjas |
After a quick breakfast of fried eggs and tortillas, we put
the dinghy in the water and motored out of the cove and around to the other
anchorage where we met
Witte Raaf, a
Dutch boat whose owners we had met in Conception Bay two years before. We chatted with them briefly and then set off
through the surf to land the dinghy on the beach. The beach was steep, which made it easy to
motor almost up to shore before goosing it, tilting up the motor, and riding
the swell onto the beach.
The beach itself
was made of wave tossed bits of coral interspersed with rounded volcanic pebbles. They were a bit large to be comfortable once
inside your shoes, but we didn’t have far to haul the dinghy before we could
take off our sandals and put on proper hiking shoes.
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| Beach of Coral Fragments |
The boobies were nesting just above the high-water mark on
the beach. We had to pick our way
between the nests to get to the beginning of the trail to the caldera. A booby nest is just a depression in the
sand. The only delimiter is a ring of
guano. Most of the nests had eggs. We only saw a couple of fluffy white
chicks. The boobies glared at us with
their intense, curiously forward-facing eyes.
Both sexes look alike. You can
only tell them apart by their voices.
The males whistle at you, but the females squawk. There was a camp of researchers at the end of
the beach and we chatted with them for awhile.
They assured us that the colony was quite healthy.
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| Boobies Were Nesting Everywhere |
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| They Even Nested in the Path |
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| Baby Booby |
We hiked up the hill and down to the shore of the caldera
which was filled with greenish looking fresh water. We skirted along the bank, past the trail
that went to the north side of the island, and then climbed up to the rim of
the caldera on the other side. From
there, we could see the fish camp near where we had anchored. We didn’t walk down, figuring it would be
easier to go there by dinghy.
Launching the dinghy through the surf can be difficult. We didn’t do badly, but got our shorts pretty
wet as we stood up to our thighs, waiting for a lull in the waves. We motored back around to our cove, but never
did get to
shore by the fish camp. We
stopped at the boat
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| The Caldera on Isla Isabela |
for a beer and then didn’t feel like getting wet
again. We relaxed and tried to calculate
our best option for getting to La Cruz without running out of fuel. I made tostadas for dinner and we went to bed
early, hoping to leave at first light for Punta Mita where we hoped to arrive
before dark.
February 9, 2018
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| Morning at Isla Isabela |
I got up at 6:00, but it was still completely dark. I
didn’t bother waking Don until it started to get light. We drank coffee and got ready to pull up the
anchor as soon as we could see. Our
anchor chain was wrapped around a huge rock and did not pull free as we took it
in. Just as we reached the point where
the boat was directly above the sticking point and the chain was tight, a rogue
swell came through. The bow went down
and the stern went up until it felt like we were going to pitch pole. Then the swell passed under the boat and
tried to lift the bow. Don’s extremely
beefy anchor roller bent like rubber, twisted to the side, shearing off the
bolts, and pulled right out of the bow.
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| The Roller Ripped Out of the Bow |
Once we calmed down, we decided to try pulling up the anchor
from the line attached to the float. We
retrieved the float and put the line on the winch. I ground the 2500 pound test line in until it
snapped, but didn’t budge the anchor. We
put a weight on the float and dropped it back down to mark the location of the
anchor. Don dove in and tried to see
which way to unwrap the chain, but the water was too deep to see anything. We had stowed the dinghy on deck, so we had
to launch it again. Don attached a line
to the chain and tried for an hour and a half to unwrap it from the rock,
without success.
About that time, two pangas full of fishermen arrived to
help. The first panga took our line and
tried to pull the chain free with his 50 hp outboard, but still couldn’t move
it. Fortunately, the second panga had a
compressor and an air hose and one of the guys dove on our anchor and managed
to unwrap our chain. We recovered the
anchor, chain, and mangled anchor roller.
We gave them 1000 pesos for their trouble and thanked them profusely. I can’t count the number of times my friends
and I have been rescued by fishermen in pangas.
Please, cruisers out there, be kind to pangueros. They are skilled seamen and we want them to
continue being there for us.
It was 11:00 by the time we finally got our dinghy stowed
again and headed out to sea. Our plan to
arrive in Punta Mita before dark went out the window. We contemplated stopping at Matanchen Bay,
but were afraid we didn’t have enough fuel.
We decided to make straight for Punta Mita, figuring we had been there
enough times to navigate the anchorage in the dark.
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| Comet's Main Sail |
We hoped to sail and save fuel, but there was not enough
wind. We put the main up anyway, hoping to get at least a bit of assistance. We ate the last of our cereal for
breakfast around noon and continued, alternating watches, throughout the
afternoon and evening. I didn’t feel
like cooking underway, so we had instant noodles for dinner, knowing real food
awaited us in La Cruz.
It was dark and moonless as we approached Punta Mita. Distances were deceiving and we looked and
looked for the lights on Punta Mita and the Marietas. Eventually, the two lights on the Marietas
hove into view, but the light on Punta Mita appeared to be out. We stayed well offshore as we rounded the
point and then motored into the anchorage, dropping the hook in 30 feet of
water as soon as we started to encounter boats.
It was too dark to go motoring through the crowded anchorage. We came to rest just before midnight.
February 10, 2018
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| The Anchorage at Punta Mita |
We awoke to a nice, calm morning in Punta Mita. We didn’t have far to go, so were in no
hurry. We drank coffee and I made
pancakes. Around noon, we motored out of
the anchorage and headed for La Cruz, arriving at the marina by
mid-afternoon. The office was closed for
the day, but Porfirio from Security welcomed us and gave Don a key. We put the boat away and I finished
packing. Then we headed up to the
restrooms for much anticipated showers.
I was sad to leave Comet
and sorry to be at least temporarily done with cruising, but I was excited
to move into the house where I had rented a room. By 5:00, we loaded all my bags into a dock
cart and I hailed a taxi to take me the mile or so across town to the house
where I was renting a room from my friend, Cherie. The house was on a funky dirt road in a quiet
part of town. The house was attractive,
if somewhat sparsely furnished, and perfectly adequate. There were hot water, good internet, and
hammocks. I was happy.
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