Last year, Mexico. Tomorrow United States.

We have officially checked out of Mexico. Our wonderful hosts here at Cruiseport Marina took us to the health department for a stamp then port captain/immigration office for their paperwork.

Ensenada is really a nice little town. We have enjoyed our stay and met more nice people. One couple on SV Sea Raven, a Hans Christian, have asked for visiting rights to Rocky. I bring him over to their boat   daily so they can get their fix.  They lost their pup and he looked much like Rocky.

So, around 3am May 1, we head north. Still unknown what our future plans are......we will have to see how things go...

Thanks for following here. It has been a grand trip. The people you meet and become friends with are priceless and the views of nature breathtaking. How lucky we have been.

Beth the Basher in Ensenada, Mexico

We made it! Ensenada! 1015 miles north from Puerto Vallarta against winds and waves, starvation and oh, no. We ate well......too well as Larry says.

This is a view from our dock in Cruiseport Marina. The Navy base is over there somewhere and flying high is the biggest Mexican flag I have ever seen.

Photo taken from SV Sun Baby. Just outside of the marina is the cruise ship terminal. Mom and Dad, is this where you boarded Semester at Sea? Would have been cool for you to arrive when we were here. Rocky is ready to see Grandma.

So the last 42 and a half hours we motored with some sailing north from Turtle Bay to Ensenada.

For the most part we had 1 to 5 knots of wind on the nose and nice rolling swell. We passed every boat that left Turtle Bay before us except for the Lucky. It is a TP52 race boat and you know Larry was working to beat it. Of course, we caught up with them (they leaving at 4 am and us at 7am) in 19 hours then he had them beat. Unfortunately, Larry had to sleep, it was my watch.  Not sure why, but Larry would have the boat going 8.5 knots and sure enough, he goes to bed and I rarely could keep up the same speed. Then the Lucky passed us. So, we cannot claim we beat a TP 52....or can we??? They started before us????? By the way, they took eastern side of Cedros and we took the western (favored) side. A moral victory with hot showers, hot food, a dog on deck and kayaks aboard! They were four miles to the west of us when we ducked into Ensenada. Not that we were keeping track.

Ah well, let's talk about my fun experience. So I am at the helm, having recently checked the radar and chart plotter, and up pops a big whale just to my left as if he and I are meeting at the four way stop and Beryl and Lamont Street in Pacific Beach. My nightmare. I look down to take off auto pilot, crank the wheel to the right and pull back the engines to idle. (Larry had just fallen asleep-----not anymore!) I could not go left behind him as I did not have enough room so I power down and go right. I don't speak whale so I cannot be sure he would have dove beneath us. I saw it as my only way to avoid possible collision. I made a big 360 degree turn. Killed my average speed and could have put us behind the Lucky, but we have no holes in the boat! It was a beautiful creature however I had no time to enjoy it. Once I had completed my 360 degree turn, there was no trace of the whale but two LARGE sea lions popped their heads up to see what the heck all the ruckus was. Totally funny. Glassy conditions and two heads sticking out of the water.

This area near San Martin island/volcano had a ton of wildlife. Sea lions jumped and played and slept as we passed them by. The little dolphins would race to the boat from a quarter of a mile away to play in the bow waves. Just great. You would see them compete for the wave or compete to get there first. Some jumped out of the water en route to Sun Baby.

Back outside of San Ignacio where the whales breed we almost hit another one. Larry had come up from the navigation desk to see a smooth area of the water (whale) and then turbulent water. We had come up on a sleeping whale and he took off as soon as we approached him. Larry says you could see in the water where he/she pumped his tail to get out of the way. Eek!

So anyway. We made it here safely and are looking forward to arriving in San Diego in about 8 or 10 days.

Love you all.....B, L and the Rockstar.

Fuel in Turtle Bay

To any of our fellow cruisers coming north, we recommend "Anabell" for refueling. They monitor channel 14 and the card says 24 hours per day. they are very respectful and were sure to show me the fuel gauge was at zero when we started fueling. They are located just inside the entrance of Turtle Bay on the left. The fuel boat is moored. You pull up to their mooring and the nice young man hands you a clean line to tie to your bow. Then the well fendered gas boat pulls up and ties off to you for fueling. Channel 14 Email campoanabell@hotmail.com Cell 615-103-9357 Servicios Anabell

Photos from Turtle Bay, Bahia Santa Maria and Rocky

Bahia Santa Maria with little fisherman camp at the base.

Mountains providing us protection to the north in Bahia Santa Maria.

TP52 anchored next to us. It is called "Lucky". Not so lucky in these cold conditions!

We put up the Isinglass enclosure and Rocky likes being outside. He also does not like to miss any action!

"I am so tired from passages!"

Even fishing boats are anchored out of the wind storm.

Turtle bay, the uninhabited end with sand dunes to the right. We are still cleaning off dust from the wind storm!

Nice thumb, huh? Rocky peaking in to see what he is missing. His favorite, or only, doggy door.

We went to town today to go to the store and wifi place. Took the dingy into a floating dock next to an old rusty pier. There is a metal stairway to the top of the pier about 45 feet up via this stairway. It appears to be tied on. You have to reach down and pull the floating pier to the stairway and jump on. It is an adventure. Cute little town. People take pride in their homes. They are all painted in bright colors. Great use of dried cactus and palms in some construction. Sorry, forgot to take the camera. :-(

Speaking of adventure. We bought in Puerto Vallarta the DVD The Hobbitt and watched it every night for about 20 minutes before we fell asleep. In one part Bilbo says, "I'm a hobbit! We don't like adventure!" Poor Larry the adventurer, he married a hobbit minus the big feet with hairy toes.

Passage making

Being the chicken that I am, I insisted on having crew with us on the way down here. For the return Larry and I decided to harbor hop and thus making it an easier task, taking a little at a time. Best laid plans.....spring is a tougher time to go north with small windows of time between big wind events or storms. So we have skipped some of those harbors such as Asuncion and Abreojos to get to a place with good shelter before the next storm. For example, we are here in Turtle Bay for about five days. The wind is a steady 18 knots and gusts into the 20's. wind chop has us moving around a bit on anchor. It would be quite uncomfortable to sail north against this. Not only is it uncomfortable but things can break. So we take it easy on us and the boat.

This is really my first serious passage making part of the trip. All movement in the Sea of Cortez, or just about all hops are day hops from one anchorage to the next. The fact that I was afraid this summer of the trek up to Bahia de Los Angeles as it included a 93 mile jump seems silly to me now. I have four overnight passages under my belt and one more to go.

I am not sure why I was surprised to find how physical sailing is, especially uphill. When I am on watch at night I am tethered into the boat and stand to the left of the helm. I hold the tether in one hand and one of the lines in the other. The boat, being a catamaran, balances on the two hulls. So it kinda moves on four corners. I feel like Santa Claus riding his sleigh in a snowstorm! That's kinda cool!

By the way, it was 59 degrees this morning--big change from 80's and 90's  of Puerto Vallarta and the Sea. We are adjusting but have not revved up the heater yet!

P.S. Two boats left the anchorage today. Both went north. Yikes. This weather is to continue through Saturday.

Doing the "Baja Bash"

No, not the Monster Mash, the Baja Bash....motor sailing against the current and prevailing wind the whole way up the Pacific side of Baja, about 775 miles from Cabo to San Diego. This journey is one I have feared and loathed since we decided to buy SV Sun Baby in San Diego rather than the beat up boats we saw in Florida. If we did not go to Florida or the Marquesas on her, it would mean the long journey north at 5 to 7 miles an hour.

We sit here today in Turtle Bay to rest, fill up on diesel and wait for the next weather window with light winds and calmer seas. Starting from Puerto Vallarta we have traveled 775 miles of our 1075 mile trip. One remaining potential "nasty spot" left and that is rounding Cedros Island and crossing back to the mainland Baja. This is where the winds really whip up. Once across, we have all the more difficult parts of the journey done.

Cabo to Bahia Santa Maria seems so long ago. The watches were graced with lots of shooting stars and little to no moon. It is amazing how much light you get off of stars. Much less ocean traffic over here compared to PV to Cabo. There are a handful of boats going north. The sailors seem to stop and rest and the sport fisher boats just pass us up and head straight to San Diego.

Bahia Santa Maria is a wide open bay with mountains blocking a lot of the north wind from the anchored boats. Long beaches and sand dunes line the majority of the bay. A little fish camp is nestled below the mountain. We traded 8 AA batteries, 6 little snickers and a sleeve of Chips Ahoy cookies for four luscious lobster tails. A delightful meal. (We only wanted two but they gave us four...oh darn!) The kid in the panga loved Rocky and said, "next time bring another dog like him and I will trade you lobster for him!"

After 36 hours rest, we had another break in weather and could make the next passage up to Turtle Bay before the next wind storm. Most of the time we had very nice conditions 5 knots breeze and small swell. But on one of my watches it was 20 knots apparent and lumpy. That's not so fun. It calmed however and we had another 12 hours of perfect cruising. On one of Larry's watches he saw a bunch of Gray whales. We were off San Ignacio, a whale breeding location. Other then that, no whale sightings. I would venture a guess that Greys are more shy than Humpbacks. However we did spend a few months in their breeding ground, Banderas Bay.

Rocky is doing well. It took two passages for him to totally get with the program. He now expects someone to go to bed every three hours (three hour watches) so if it is rough he has someone to snuggle with. If one of us is not in bed, he snuggles into the pillows although generally, he likes the floor best. We keep him to his usual schedule and take him forward to his pet loo before and after the afternoon wind and chop that usually arrives. Today however, he has a lot of extra energy as he has been constrained by the 42 hour passage. At anchor, we let him roam the deck. He loves sniffing the air and barking at cormorants, pelicans and pangas.

A little more about Turtle Bay. We are here with seven other sailboats and expect a couple more today to wait out the coming storm. Today is Tuesday the 16th and we don't expect we can leave here until Sunday. The coast has been cool and gray. Yesterday afternoon the clouds parted and out came the sun along with the wind. The same thing is happening now-sun and wind. Rather then describe turtle bay surroundings, I will add photos in Ensenada or if we find a wifi place in town. What is special about this place is protection and diesel availability. Not much else really unless you love the barren geological formations of the landscape.

Puerta Vallarta to Cabo San Lucas

We left La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, near Puerto Vallarta, on a Wednesday morning and arrived in Cabo the morning of Friday. This was my second two night passage being the only other crew besides my skipper and captain, Larry. We had to wait about a week for a two day window of light air.

Larry takes good care of me on these passages. He sets up the sails and says “Here’s your course, don’t hit anything." That was downwind. Upwind, I prefer he takes the jib down so I don’t have to monkey with it. I am too chicken to tack it or furl it alone at night, in breeze. I think however next time we need to do either of those tasks, I will have Larry stand by while I do it to gain confidence.

The winds were fair and mostly on the nose and with a small swell.  We saw a little sea life such as cute little dolphins hunting and various turtles. The only whale we saw was while exiting Banderas Bay. We were contemplating turning off the engines and just sailing. Then the whale breached...I said, “No, let’s keep the engine on. I want them to know we are coming.”  Near Cabo we scared the flying fish right out of the water. This time, only one jumped up on deck....found way too late, about 48 hours later, hidden by the cleat on the deck.

Our watch schedule is three hours on and three hours off. It seems to work well for us. After being really tired the first night and struggling to stay awake, I concentrated on getting the maximum sleep in my off hours as possible. It worked and the second night was much easier. After these two nights, I am much more comfortable with the radar, the chart plotter and navigating between them.

Yesterday I went and checked into the Port Captain and cruised by Telcel to check on our telephone and internet balances. Because we need access to the internet for the best weather sources as we head north, we want to be sure we don’t use it up too fast. There are no places to add more time once we leave here. We found when we had engine trouble  last summer, having a phone was a huge help. So we think of these things as safety items as much as convenience.

But the point of that story above was to make mention of how disconnected cruisers can become. I passed a Sports Bar/Restaurant and thought, “Oh, maybe Larry would like to watch a game!” So I tried hard to think of what season it was....backed up....what month is it??? Later that day Larry said it was January. Having had a couple hours to remember what  month it was....I said, “Larry! Its April!” We laughed.

Cabo is surprisingly clean and devoid of stray dogs unlike La Cruz. There must be some kind of rule against loose dogs. On the other hand, I have been a bit apalled by the American’s and their dogs. On two occasions, we have been at a restaurant and a stupid American has their teacup Westie or Chihuahua sitting on the table or with paws on the table. Just incredibly awful manners. The two little Westies barked if their owner did not feed them some of her food. It was annoying. Larry wanted to bring Rocky to show them how a good dog behaves.

We hiked up to the Finisterra Hotel to see what the water and wind looked like on the Pacific side. The marina is nestled in on the Sea of Cortez side, safe from the strongest winds.The cape at the end of Baja California is called Cabo Falso and the winds at capes are very strong. Yesterday was no exception. White caps and wind were about 20 knots. (shudder shudder). Larry says, that is why we are waiting here honey! So....we will see how the weather window shapes up. Could be Thursday when we head north. Last night the winds whipped up and the wind in the marina this morning is 20 knots. Wonder what it is over there, outside! Next stop Bahia Santa Maria, 172 miles to the north, just outside Mag Bay.