PINNED DOWN IN TURTLE BAY

May 15, 2019

Lunch at Maria's

The wind had died down a little on Wednesday, so we launched the dinghy and went to shore just before noon.  We went to Maria’s restaurant to eat lunch and use the Internet.  She had made excellent beef tamales and we had those with a side of beans and cold beers.  Maria told us about a new plaza that had just opened adjacent to the beach.  We walked over there after lunch.

New Plaza in Turtle Bay

The Turtle Bay Pier

The plaza was quite large with a huge turtle painted in the middle of it that Maria had helped to paint.  There was a stage at one end and a bandstand and playground at the other.  Everything was very new and nice.  It seemed a bit incongruous next to the abandoned and decaying cannery, but it was nice to see Turtle Bay making improvements.  It would be a good place to hold Baja Ha-Ha events.

The Grocery Store in Turtle Bay

Downtown Turtle Bay

We returned to the main drag and walked as far as the grocery store where we picked up a few essentials.  Much to our chagrin, there was no tonic water to be found in Turtle Bay.  The wind was picking up, so we hurried back to the pier where we had tied the dinghy.  The tide had fallen and it was quite a drop from the end of the stairs to the dinghy, made worse by the fact that we had to climb under the side railing because someone had nailed a board across the end of the stairway.  We managed to get ourselves and our groceries aboard without mishap and returned to Scout in time for naps and guitar practice.

I made pork chops, smashed potatoes, and salad for dinner and we sat down to watch The Candidate.

May 16, 2019

Bob and I were dying to take a walk, so we convinced Greg to take us to shore so that we could drop off laundry and get some exercise.  The town had been without water for two days, but we managed to arrange for Maria's sister, Dolores, to do our laundry using water that they had stored in a cistern.  Between dirty clothes, linens, and all the items that had become soaked with saltwater, we had three big bags of laundry.

Turtle Bay International Airport

 After dropping off the laundry, Bob and I set off to explore Turtle Bay.  We walked up the main road through the town and then continued to follow the road that led to the Turtle Bay International Airport, a deserted dirt strip surrounded by barbed wire.  The entire area was quite desolate.

The Road Out of Town

We saw no reason to go further, as there was nothing out there, so turned around and walked back through the other side of the town, behind the baseball stadium and down to the new plaza.  We found a small abandoned puppy cowering against to outside of the wall surrounding the baseball field.  I felt bad for him but couldn’t take him back to the boat.  We gave him some water and hoped someone else would find him.

Baseball Diamond in Turtle Bay

Baseball is a big deal in Turtle Bay and, according to Maria, the town has produced four major league players.  The local team is called the Piratas (Pirates.)  By comparison, the local soccer field is just a dirt surface with no lights.

One of the Functioning Ducks

Turtle Bay has one remaining commercial fishing vessel named Buzos y Pescadores (Divers and Fishermen.)  We weren’t sure exactly how it was being used, but gangs of men shuttled back and forth from boat to shore using a fleet of amphibious vehicles called Ducks.  There were at least four of them, although not all were operable.  The operators were friendly and waved as they passed.  They seemed to be having a very good time with the Ducks, which made a tremendous racket as they passed.

We arrived back at Maria’s about lunchtime, but found the restaurant closed.  Members of her family were hanging around and got us a couple of beers but couldn’t cook us anything to eat.  We would have been happy to sit there and use the Internet while we waited for Dolores to finish our laundry, but a one-armed fellow named Pedro pestered us endlessly until we lost our patience and made a break for it.  Pedro was mentally handicapped and we had to admire his desire to be helpful, but he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.  We ditched him and set off through the town to find something to eat.  None of the restaurants in town were open and very few of the businesses were open either.  There were several grocery and convenience stores and we scoured all of them, looking for tonic and anything in the way of prepared food.  Finally, in about the eighth shop, we found some cold empanadas, taquitos, and little pies that looked like quiche, but turned out to be cornbread in the center.

We ate our snacks and then returned to Maria’s to wait for our laundry.  Pedro descended on us, again, and it was all we could do to sit there until about 17:00 when we all decided the laundry wasn’t going to get any drier and packed it up.  Greg came out to get us in the dinghy and we were happy to see that the tide had risen sufficiently to make boarding the dinghy much easier.

We returned to the boat and relaxed over beers until I settled down to make chicken enchiladas for dinner.  It was 20:30 by the time we served dinner, but we stayed up to watch Frequency, wondering if Dennis Quaid had ever been in a movie that didn’t involve baseball.

May 17-18, 2019

Friday was not so calm as the previous two days and we stayed trapped in the boat.  I made biscuits for breakfast and then we settled down to make a few small repairs.  Bob and Greg worked on fixing a couple of 12-volt outlets whose wiring had pulled loose and I cleaned the old glue off the arms that supported the dining table in preparation for re-gluing them to the crosspiece.

Jolie Recovering Her Anchor

The sailing vessel Jolie had been tied to a mooring when we arrived, her skipper having left the vessel.  Maria told us that he had lost his anchor and we had observed one of the locals, Benito, trying to raise the anchor all day on Thursday.  He didn’t get it up but had managed to find it and mark it with a float.  About the time we finished our chores, the skipper of Jolie returned with two crew members.  They slipped the mooring and came out to try to recover the anchor.  They worked on it all afternoon.  Eventually, Benito returned in a panga to assist.  They finally managed to recover the anchor, but the chain remained tangled in something on the sea floor.  The first of the three storms predicted to assault us over the next week began to blow as the afternoon progressed.  When the winds reached twenty-two knots, they gave up for the day and returned to their mooring.  I went below to catch up on my writing.

Our evening progressed per our established routine of cocktails, dinner (chilorio tacos with fried onions and peppers), and a movie (Dust to Glory  a documentary about the Baja 1000.)

Morning in Turtle Bay

We didn’t go ashore on Saturday, either.  Before breakfast, we piled in the dinghy and went to visit Jolie.  The boat belonged to a medical ministry and they were headed for Mazatlan to join the mother ship.  The Bristol 32, Jolie, was in rather rough shape and had been donated to them for use in ferrying personnel from ports near airports to the remoter areas where they were working.  We chatted with them for a few minutes and then motored closer to Maria’s restaurant until we could pick up her WiFi.  We drifted there, using the Internet, until we had sent and received all our messages and then returned to the boat where I made French toast out of the absurdly thick, white bread we had been given in San Jose del Cabo.

We had received several weather updates and all confirmed that storms continued to advance down the west coast in our direction, although it was starting to look like there might be a weather window on Thursday or Friday if the now ten-foot seas would abate by then.  With nowhere to go, our day progressed lazily.  We did dig out the dinghy wheels and fiddle with them until we got them working properly.  It seemed there was nothing really wrong with them but that, if they were swapped left to right, they would bind.  Switching them solved the problem.

Moon Over Turtle Bay

After the usual naps and guitar practice, there were cocktails (We were now out of tonic and limes, so were reduced to tequila sunrises.), dinner (I made chicken marsala (pinot grigio, actually), and another movie ((Moon.)  I would have given a lot to do something other than watch a movie for the evening, but at least it was an interesting movie that I hadn’t seen.

May 19-20, 2019

Overcast Morning in Turtle Bay

I woke up early on Sunday morning and sat in the cockpit for an hour by myself.  It was overcast, but sun peeked through as the morning progressed.  There was nothing to do.  Another sailboat had arrived a few days before, but we had seen no activity aboard.  We started thinking maybe we should zoom over there in the dinghy and check on them, but we never got motivated.  It was another day of reading, playing the guitar, and playing Candy Crush on my phone.  We still didn’t have Internet, although text messages would come through sporadically.

The Church in Turtle Bay

I made bacon slaw and tortellini with pesto for dinner and we watched Blood Simple.  Each of us wondered what had ever motivated anyone to write such a screenplay or make such a movie.  I usually don’t get bored, but the waiting was getting to me.  Had I been alone, I would have worked more on my music, but the songwriting process would be excruciating for others to witness.  Little things like other crew members using my phone charging cord started to bother me and I could feel myself getting irritable.

Monday morning, we did climb in the dinghy and go to check on the now two sailboats at the other end of the bay.  The first, Blade & Wing, was heading south towards La Paz and belonged to friends of friends.  We chatted with them for twenty minutes or so.  Their boom had come apart on their way from Ensenada and they had just fit it back together when we arrived, after messing with it for days.

Grey Matter and Blade and Wing

The second boat, Grey Matter, was a Bruce Roberts 42 and looked like a steel version of a Nauticat.  They were also headed for La Paz.  They had a very friendly dog that looked like she wanted to jump in our dinghy.  I scratched her ears and kept her aboard their boat while we talked to the skipper, Josh.

We had intended to go ashore to do some shopping but, between the big swells and the annoying Pedro waiting for us at the top of the stairs up to the pier, we abandoned that project and returned to the boat.  We passed another lazy afternoon and then I cooked up some hamburger meat tacos for dinner.  We didn’t even bother watching a movie but went to bed early to read.

May 21, 2019

Too Much Surf for a Beach Landing

Tuesday, we resolved to go ashore to do some shopping and search for filter cartridges for our water maker.  The wind had blown so much silt into the water that the filters clogged after only a couple of hours and we were out of clean ones.  The swells were quite large.  It was too rough for a beach landing and we didn’t relish the idea of trying to hop onto the stairs to the pier with the dinghy heaving all over the place.  At low tide it was quite a distance to the bottom step.  We called Enrique for a water taxi.  For 200 pesos, he sent Benito out to pick us up.  It was a high price to pay to be shuttled a few hundred yards, but we decided it was worth it.  They did take our trash as part of the bargain.

Our first stop, upon reaching the shore, was Maria’s restaurant.  We arrived about noon.  She was closed, but we called the number on the door and arranged for her to serve us pozole at 14:00.  After a quick look at the Internet, we headed into town to go to the hardware store to look for filters.  Pedro insisted on accompanying us.

The Second Hardware Store

The first hardware store, which stocked all kinds of home improvement items and looked like they ought to have filtration systems, did not carry filters.  Now, Pedro finally became useful.  He led us to a second hardware store, deep in a neighborhood, that we would never have found on our own.  They had a machine shop and all kinds of tools and engine supplies but no filters.  Pedro then took us to a third store that had a filtration system, but no refill cartridges.

Bob, Greg, and Pedro at the Water Filtration Plant

Having exhausted the hardware stores, Pedro then took us on a tour of all the water filtration plants in the town.  The first one had filters, but not the ones we needed.  The second one wasn’t helpful.  The third one said the attached shop might have them, but they were closed for siesta.  By this point, we were quite far out on the edge of town and Greg wasn’t willing to walk back out there, after lunch, on the slim possibility they might have what we needed.

Abalone Lab

Pedro had one more possibility up his sleeve.  He walked us all the way back across Turtle Bay to the big warehouse with two water towers on the shore that had been intriguing me since we arrived.  If I hadn’t been so curious as to what was going on there, I would have refused to go.  I didn’t really believe we were going to find any filters there.  I did, however, want to see what was up there, so we plodded up the hill after Pedro who knew where everything was but wasn’t a big communicator.

Abalone Tanks

The warehouse turned out to be an abalone farm run by the local fishermen’s cooperative.  They propagated tiny abalone and then planted them in natural settings to mature.  The football-field-sized warehouse was filled with large tubs full of running water.  It was an impressive operation.  They were friendly but didn’t have any water filters.

By that time, it was nearly 14:00, so we admitted defeat and returned to Maria’s for lunch.  Maria was not there, but we were greeted by her sisters, Dolores and Maria Yolanda, who served us a nice lunch of pozole, beer, and chips.  The warm soup was welcome.  We sat there, using the Internet, and then left a memento of our visit inscribed on the wall.  I was recruited to draw the little dog that was Scout’s logo.

Benito had agreed to return us to the boat at 16:00.  Dolores and Maria Yolanda wanted to go to church, so we let them close up and spent the last forty-five minutes doing a little grocery shopping and then sitting at the head of the pier, using the WiFi. The wind had built to over twenty knots by that time and the swells were at least four feet.  Benito had a tough time hauling the panga to the bottom of the stairs.  I was nearly blown off the pier as I carried a bag of groceries down to the boat.  Climbing aboard, with the boat heaving violently, required good timing.  At one point, we had to leave Greg clinging to the stairs while Benito circled the boat to reposition it.  Transferring us to Scout went more smoothly after Benito hooked a couple of fenders off the deck.

Benito's Launch

It was nap and guitar practicing time when we returned, but even I was too tired, after the walk and the beer, to play for long.  I took a nap after the others awoke.  Eventually, I moved myself to make spaghetti sauce from the leftover taco meat and boil some pasta.  We had spaghetti and the leftover bacon slaw for dinner.  We began watching Master and Commander but only made it to the second battle before shutting it off and going to bed.  It had been a strenuous day.