Cabo!

This morning I received a phone call from Suzi, who sounded ecstatic. We discussed the manic-depressive nature of their trip: from tears and frustration when things go wrong to complete satisfaction and tranquility when things go as they should. Fortunately, the latter surpasses the former. Suzi also managed to e-mail her own version of the trip thus far along with the above photos. Some of this may be redundant, but it's all in her words rather than mine (except the brackets). - K.

Hello to all of you who might wonder where in the world did we go? We had no idea how difficult it was going to be to communicate, since for some reason our sailmail is not connecting. So while we are here in Bahia Santa Maria, I decided to begin our blog update in hopes of finding a place to get on-line in Cabo, a few days away from here. So far our trip has been challenging, exciting, intense, relaxing when sailing in 10 knots of breeze, especially at night, and fun when we are not having to troubleshoot and fix whatever seems to be going wrong. Soooo this is truly an adventure; we never know when the wind will pick up or die out or which sails are best for the conditions and destination we have in mind, and we have discovered that both of us have an incredible amount to learn!

The weather has been a bit different each day; some days have been sunny and calm, some cloudy and extremely windy. Sidewinder definitely loves to sail, especially if the wind is between 10-15 knots with the waves pushing us. Reaching is what she does best, especially since we are not quite sure how to best sail downwind with our sails. We left Mission Bay and arrived in Bahia de Tortuga three days later for our first run. It is there that we met a local landowner who ran a water fuel/taxi service and whose wife fed us our first authentic huevos rancheros on the beach. [See above photo.]We enjoyed speaking as much Spanish as we could and he was very patient, helping us with many words. We walked into town and found an internet cafe, along with some wonderful people on a boat named Mandy.

After being in Turtle Bay for several days, we left for Bahia Santa Maria, another several day trip. When the wind died in the middle of the night, we decided to turn East and head for Abreojos. I really wanted to see some whales, and David didn't feel like motoring all the way to Mag Bay. We thoroughly enjoyed two days in a peaceful bay near the waves we have heard about, thinking of even staying one more day to really check out the surf. Met a great guy who knows Killer Dana Gary [Wright] and has had a house there since the 1070's. In the middle of the night the wind began to howl, and by dawn the bow roller had twisted and bent. David was bummed to say the least, and we decided to get out of there as soon as possible. It was pretty crazy trying to take the engine off of Worm (our wonderful new dinghy) and then to try to bring up the anchor. David was able to pull off both tasks with great tenacity and we flew, down the coast, back on course to Bahia Santa Maria, just north of Mag Bay. Soon the lovely wind died, and we motor sailed for hours. Battery issues have forced us to use our engine more than we would like, but these issues all get resolved.

We are now in Bahia Santa Maria, a beautiful, big bay with a lagoon at the NW corner where there is also a fish camp. We ventured into the tricky wavy entrance to the lagoon the first afternoon and then explored with new friends, Richard and Virginia from the boat Mandy yesterday afternoon. The waves and channels are a bit challenging with four people in our dinghy, especially going out through the waves, but our wonderful skipper, Sobo, pulled it off. Wish I had some pictures to send of the huge beach with huge sand dollars galore, but I didn't think to bring my camera. We had such fun with Virginia and Richard, who have great stories; we are planning to take off with them for the next small port in Bahia Magdelena. We will then blast down to Cabo to check in. The wind was really strong today, and David and I worked from dawn to dusk cleaning Sidewinder and fixing problems! Our bilge was full of diesel two days ago, and David found the leak, luckily. He spent a long time in the V-berth mending the problem using saws, hoses, screwdrivers, hoseclamps, etc. He's amazing. Good thing he's on this boat! With luck, I will be able to copy this, take it with me to an internet cafe after downloading some pictures and successfully add to this blog. David is asleep after waking at 4 a.m. and working nonstop until 6 p.m. Hard to believe this is supposed to be a relaxing way to retire. Hopefully it will happen.

Bye for now, Suzi

Next Entry by Suzi

Santa Maria to Magdalena Blog

Put the chain back into its home, took the engine off of Worm, raised the anchor and slowly sailed with the engine running out of the Bay of Santa Maria, racing Mandy. Richard and Virginia sailed the BCC off the hook and took off at a dashing 1.5 knots. After an hour or so, we both decided sailing was impossible, so we began to head over to Bahia Magdalena motorsailing (more motor than sailing). Had the great fortune of seeing a gray whale very close to the boat and a very big one at that. It was very exciting, and I was hoping she would follow us; Capt. David was very happy she didn't. 

As we rounded the corner for Mag Bay, we were hit by gusts of wind and were able to sail with the engine averaging 6 knots up to Puerto Magdalena. It was a beautiful, fun afternoon. Richard caught a huge 24 lb. tuna (almost as big as his boat!) and brought over steaks of fresh fish to barbeque. With some rice, a cabbage salad (using our last tomato and last slice of avocado) and some wonderful wine given to us by our friends on the dock back home, we had a lovely evening on Sidewinder. We finished off the dinner with TJ's frozen truffle bon bons. How decadent!!! 

Today, Dec. 11, we met with the Port Captain, who wore a Balboa Island t-shirt, hoping to check into Mexico, as we had heard that he would do it for us. We found out that we still have to formally check in at Cabo, and this was his way of making his own money. Oh well . . . life is very poor in Puerto Magdalena; they were hit by a hurricane not too long ago and are even more devastated now. La Tienda has very little in the way of provisions: got some tortillas to have with leftover fish and rice and that's all. The full moon is magical on the water this evening, and we are leisurely hanging out, finally. We head for Cabo tomorrow. The spinnaker is patched and ready to rock and roll with just enough wind to send us flying smoothly. 

Bye for now, Suzi (and David)