Author: cruisingrunner

November 28 – December 1, 2013

This one of the few anchorages we hadn’t visited on Isla Partida previously. It is a very deep bay that protected us well from the strong north winds, even if it was a bit gusty at times. We had a pleasant walk across the island, and Tim and the boys put together a “treasure” and hid it up in a cave, and then they created a map that they put in a bottle and set adrift. Only time will tell if anyone every finds it.

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Logbook – November 28, 2013 (Isla San Francisco to Isla Partida)

Passage Log Highlights

• 1015 Start engines
• 1027 Depart Isla San Francisco
• 1042 P engine off. No wind no sails
• 1507 SB temp alarm while running @ high RPM, immediately lowered RPMs to fwd idle. Alarm stopped after 30 sec. P engine on.
• 1520 Arrive Isla Partida

Daily Notes

• Thanksgiving dinner – BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes (yum), salad, apple crumble (double yum)

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Email to family and friends dated November 28, 2013

Subject: Happy Thanksgiving!

We are not taking the day off from school, but don’t feel sorry for these boys. We took a day off last week to hike into the canyon behind Puerto Escondido (awesome hike!) and we took a half day off already this week when Tim got back. So we are THANKFUL that we have the flexibility to do things like that.
Love and miss you all!

At 11/26/2013 8:12 PM (utc) our position was 24°49.27’N 110°34.38’W

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Logbook – November 29, 2013 (Ensenada el Cardonal at Isla Partida)

Daily Notes

• All alone in the anchorage this morning
• Double yoga on the bows
• B – spear fishing under and around Exodus. Speared his own sashimi

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Logbook – November 30, 2013 (Ensenada el Cardonal at Isla Partida)

Daily Notes

• Hike to the other side of the island, NE strong winds
• T/B – spearfishing – 2 speedy fish

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Email to family and friends dated November 30, 2013

Subject: Isla Partida

Well, we are back at our old stomping grounds at Isla Partida, one of the islands just north of La Paz. We made contact with Lady Carolina last night on one of the radio nets, and they aren’t going to be ready to leave La Paz until next weekend or early the following week, so we will likely go into La Paz and join them on Monday or so. Then our plan is to round the cape back down to Los Muertos (one of the first anchorages we went to after Cabo) and then cross over to the mainland. We plan to stop at Isla Isabel, which is nicknamed “the galapagos of Mexico” due to its rather isolated wildlife. It will be about a 250 mile passage, so I’ll let you guys know as our plans firm up and we know more specifically when we plan to depart.
Everything is great here… yesterday after school Brenden saw what he calls “speedy fish” under the boat, so he suited up, grabbed his spear, speared one, cleaned it, rinsed it, bagged it, chilled it, and then just before dinner, sliced it, mixed up some wasabi, and enjoyed his own sashimi appetizer. He did it all on his own, no help at all. Love it!

At 11/28/2013 10:36 PM (utc) our position was 24°33.10’N 110°23.17’W

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Logbook – December 1, 2013 (Ensenada el Cardonal at Isla Partida)

Daily Notes

• Cold, gray, and windy. Game of craps after school
• T/Boys – hid a treasure jar up in the cave

November 25-27, 2013

The last time we were here was in the spring and we were just venturing north into The Sea of Cortez and we were in the company of 4 other kid boats. This time we are “summer in the sea” veterans and we were all by ourselves.

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Logbook – November 25, 2013 (Puerto Escondido to Isla San Francisco)

Passage Log Highlights

• 1501 Engines on
• 1545 Depart Puerto Escondido
• 1616 Engines Off Genoa only. No speedo.
• 2045 Power cycle nav (SOG said 2.0 kts, IPAD said 6.6 kts)

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Logbook – November 26, 2013 (Puerto Escondido to Isla San Francisco)

Passage Log Highlights

• 0229 Watch change, double reef genoa
• 0413 Engines on
• 0443 Arrive Isla San Francisco
• 1106 Engines on to reanchor
• 1133 Reanchor complete

Daily Notes

• Arrived at dark – anchored away from other boats – rocky rolly
• T/Boys – spearfishing after school – parrot fish, pargo, langosta
• LC no show for Southbound net
• Taught the boys how to play craps before/after dinner

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Email to family and friends dated November 26, 2013

Subject: Made it to Isla San Francisco

We left Puerto Escondido around 3:30pm yesterday and had a fast overnight sail to Isla San Francisco, arriving here before dawn, around 4am. Anchoring at night is not one of my favorite things, and the anchorage was crowded, which meant we had to pick a spot a little less protected than ideal. Tim and I both went to back to bed after anchoring, and woke up to a very rocky rolly Exodus. With daylight, we move into a little tighter formation with the other boats and we are now a little more comfortable.
We had some fun yesterday before Tim arrived back at Puerto Escondido yesterday. It was very windy (20+kts) and I was doing dishes and just happened to look up to see our dinghy floating away. I called to the boys and Brenden was all over it. Right away he stripped down to his underwear and asked, “mom, should I jump in?” I thought for about 1.5 seconds considering our options before giving him the green light to jump in and go get it. As he’s swimming out there I had visions of La Paz, and asked Alex where the dinghy key was. Luckily it was in the dinghy. Brenden started it up and got it back to Exodus and with laughter shared with us how his underwear came down when he jumped in so he had to stop swimming to pull them up.
It’s usually Alex’s role to be johnny on the spot to save the day, but yesterday Brenden stepped happily stepped into that role. It was fun to see.
We will stay here a couple of days before joining Lady Carolina in La Paz.
Love and miss you all,

At 11/26/2013 8:12 PM (utc) our position was 24°49.27’N 110°34.38’W

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Logbook – November 27, 2013 (Isla San Francisco)

Daily Notes

• Agate hunting after school. Walked over to the NE anchorage – found the wind from the NE. Sounds and smells reminded me of the Pacific Ocean.
• Craps in the afternoon

November 16-24, 2013

We were mainly in Puerto Escondido because of its proximity to the Loreto airport and it was a safe place for the boys and I to stay while Tim made a trip back up to The States. We had a great hike up into Tabor Canyon (aka Steinbeck Canyon) and did some serious provisioning in Loreto. We were here for a week, and we were more than ready to head out the afternoon Tim flew back in.

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Logbook – November 16, 2013 (Nopolo to Puerto Escondido)

Passage Log Highlights

• 1243 SB engine on. Watermaker 3 hours.
• 1422 Start P engien
• 1430 Depart Nopolo
• 1618 Arrive Puerto Escondido

Daily Notes

• Lazy internet morning & early PM at Nopolo
• Gusty passage to PE
• Dropped anchor, dinghied ashore, and LC (Lady Carolina) arrived
• Unloaded the car – eaten alive by mosquitos
• Dinner at Portobello – TOO EXPENSIVE!!

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Logbook – November 17, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• D – run up to the hwy, trip to Pedro’s
• Boys dinghy fishing w/ LC at sunset
• LC over for spaghetti dinner

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Logbook – November 18, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• D – after school internet day – uploaded a ton of photos
• T – hooked AIS to GPS – success! Still can’t see AIS on chartplotter
• A/B – dinghy fishing at sunset w/ LC boys – movie on LC after dinner

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Logbook – November 19, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• Hike to Tabor Canyon w/ LC. Amazing. Boys all jumped in the water.
• D/Boys – laundry and hanging out at The Portobello
• T – worked on 12V panel @ nav station

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Logbook – November 20, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• Tim left for LA – ride to the airport w/ Precious Metal
• Boys over to LC to help clean bird poop
• Drawing games on Exodus. Alex made top ramen for dinner.

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Logbook – November 21, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• Excellent school day – done before noon
• Boys to the restaurant
• Mom- chores on the boat
• Pizza for dinner. Started reading 20k Leagues Under the Sea

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Logbook – November 22, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• Gusty winds @ night. Noisy rigging. Not much sleep.

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Logbook – November 23, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• Loreto day! AM – D provisioning
• Afternoon – lunch w/ A&B

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Logbook – November 24, 2013 (Puerto Escondido)

Daily Notes

• Dinghy tried to escape (painter chafed through) Brenden jumped in to get it

November 14-15, 2013

We had the north anchorage of Isla Coronados all to ourselves, and this time the water was crystal clear and the weather was agreeable to hike to the top of the volcano. But our stay an Isla Coronados was short, because we needed to get to Puerto Escondido for Tim to catch a flight back to LA for a few days. But before heading into PE we stopped for a night at Nopolo for the best free wifi around. We didn’t take many (any?) photos while at Nopolog because we all had our noses in our computers and/or iDevices, because, duh, we had wifi.

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Logbook – November 14, 2013 (San Juanico to Isla Coronados)

Passage Log Highlights

• 0820 Engines on (SB @ 0833)
• 0844 Depart San Juanico
• 0909 P engine off
• 1136 SB engine off. Main + Genniker.
• 1237 Engines on
• 1303 Arrive Isla Coronados N side

Daily Notes

• Isla Coronados all to ourselves
• D/T – scout the trail head – ready for the hike tomorrow
• Breakfast for dinner!

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Logbook – November 15, 2013 (Isla Coronados to Nopolo)

Passage Log Highlights

• 1431 P engine on
• 1434 SB engine on
• 1440 Depart Isla Coronados
• 1552 Engines off. Main + Genoa.
• 1653 Engines on
• (Illegible – one of the boys’ handwriting) Arrive Nopolo

Daily Notes

• Hike to the top of the volcano (Isla Coronados)
• Caught 4 sierras and 1 HUGE crevalle jack (20 lb) underway. Kept 1 sierra for sashimi
• Dinner at the restaurant at Nopolo

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Email to family and friends dated November 16, 2013

Subject: Nopolo then Puerto Escondido

Hi, We are currently anchored off of the resort at Nopolo. We got here right around sunset after spending the day at Isla Coronados hiking to the top of the dormant volcano. It was a somewhat challenging hike, and both boys did it with minimal complaining. Lady Carolina gets back today to Puerto Escondido, so we are going to head in there this afternoon. There is also a big 20th anniversary yacht club party there tonight, so maybe we will join in that. We will stay in PE until Tim arrives back from LA on the 25th so we should be pretty well connected until then. I’m not sure if we will have wifi from the boat, but we should have a cell signal and can at least go ashore to get wifi.

-D.

At 11/15/2013 2:55 PM (utc) our position was 26°06.78’N 111°17.00’W

November 12-13, 2013

We delayed going to San Juanico because we kept hearing on the radio net that there were lots of boats there. But we could delay no longer. It seems we have gotten caught up in the traffic of cruisers returning to The Sea and crossing over to Baja from San Carlos. During our previous stays at San Juanico we anchored on the southern side, but this time we explored the north.

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Logbook – November 12, 2013 (Punta Pulpito to San Juanico)

Passage Highlights

• 1133 Engines on
• 1142 Depart pulpito
• 1150 Engines off, Genniker run
• 1400 Arrive San Juanico

Daily Notes

• Anchor windlass stopped working as we were dropping anchor – dropped manually
• Dinghy excursion to beach – mom walk, T/boys – bocce

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Logbook – November 13, 2013 (San Juanico)

Daily Notes

• D – Paddle all around the N. bights
• T/Boys – spear fish. 1 parrot fish & 3 sporty fish. B shot 2 of them w/ gun
• D/Boys – dinghy excursion to the sea caves
• Game of hearts after dinner

November 8-11, 2013

We had only planned to stay here one night, but it was such a great anchorage we stayed longer.

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Logbook – November 8, 2013 (Punta Chivato to Punta Pulpito)

Passage Log Highlights

• 0633 Engines on
• 0644 Depart Punta Chivato
• 0815 Port engine only
• 1244 Port engine + genniker. 5.2 kts N
• 1536 SB engine on
• 1549 Arrive Punta Pulpito

Daily Notes

• 1244 – so far caught 1 green jack, 1 bonito, 1 skipjack (threw back) and 1 booby (who hitched a ride on the SB swim step for a while)
• Earlier this morning – yoga on the SB bow accompanied by dolphins
• T/boys – dinghy fishing and climb up to obsidian vein
• Crazy fish belly flops for the first time in a while (can’t even remember when)

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Email to family and friends dated November 8, 2013

Subject: Just arrived at Punta Pulpito…

… which is just about 8nmi north of San Juanico (one of our favorite places, we went there when G&M were here). The passage here was pathetic, no wind, so we motored the whole way. Although with the calm conditions I was able to do some yoga on the bow and was pleasantly surprised to notice I was being accompanied by a pod of dolphins. We considered aborting and stopping at an anchorage at the mouth of Concepcion, but we really wanted to come here because we missed it on the way up due to the prevailing wind direction.
Tomorrow with no school and supposedly a calm day we hope to pack in spear fishing and some hiking.
Time for the “safe arrival cocktail…”
-D.

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Logbook – November 9, 2013 (Punta Pulpito)

Daily Notes

• D – paddle board, crystal clear water. short shore excursion – too many snails and crabs
• T/boys – spearfishing off of Punta Pulpito – Alex can dive, yay!
• T/D – hike to the top of Punta Pulpito – awesome views!
• Joined by a power boat, Amiga, in the anchorage

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Logbook – November 10, 2013 (Punta Pulpito)

Daily Notes

• T/boys – Spearfish to the south – 4 lobsters
• D – organized the chart plotter waypointns

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Logbook – November 11, 2013 (Punta Pulpito)

Daily Notes

• T – spearfishing, 3 lobsters
• After school bocce ball with Bob and Janie from Amiga
• Lobster appetizer + Monday night pizza night

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Email to family and friends dated November 12, 2013

Subject: Still at Punta Pulpito

We have stayed here longer than we thought because we kept hearing on the radio nets that there were a ton of boats at San Juanico. We’ve been here with a power boat named Amiga, and yesterday we hung out with them and played bocce ball in the afternoon. We will probably move to San Juanico today, because this morning they said there’s only 12 boats there now. Yesterday we made pizza (homemade dough and sauce). At home, it was always Monday night pizza night, because I never felt like cooking after going back to work on a Monday, so we had Monday night pizza night here, but for altogether different reasons.
Love and miss you all,
-D.

November 5-7, 2013

On our way up we stopped on the north side of Punta Chivato because the prevailing winds were from the south, so this time, with north winds, we anchored on the south side. We were here during a pretty good blow, so we didn’t even get off the boat.

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Logbook – November 5, 2013 (San Francisquito to Punta Chivato)

Passage Log Highlights

• 1245 Engines on
• 1255 Depart San Francisquito
• 1420 Engines off
• 1506 Main + genniker. 16.3 kts NW
• 1700 Main (2 reefs) + genoa wing & wing. 16.8 kts NW
• 1833 Main (2 reefs) + genoa port tack. 18.4 kts NW
• 2043 Main (2 reefs) no headsail. 20.7 kts NW

Daily Notes

• 2 fish on. Skipjack bleh!

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Logbook – November 6, 2013 (San Francisquito to Punta Chivato)

Passage Log Highlights

• 0630 Engines on
• 0750 Arrive Bahia Santa Inez (Punta Chivato)

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Logbook – November 7, 2013 (Punta Chivato)

Daily Notes

• Tim swapped out VHF radios
• A finished test lesson 1001
• Wind died down in the late afternoon. T & boys dinghy fish while I made chili and bread

(Edit: The new VHF radio has 2 new features we didn’t have before: an AIS receiver and a mic at the helm. Having an AIS receiver made passage making safer since we can see the location, speed, heading, etc of other vessel who are broadcasting instead of just relying on the radar. We didn’t transmit AIS, which would have been even safer, and I would recommend that no cruising vessel should be without AIS receive and transmit.)

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Email to family and friends dated November 7, 2013

Subject: Punta Chivato

Hi All,
We arrived here yesterday morning and had a decent passage here through the night… mostly 18-22 kt winds, as hight as 26. But this time it was all on our stern so we didn’t get tossed around too much. Yesterday in the late morning after anchoring we saw as high as 30, but we are in a good spot for NW winds. It’s supposed to blow pretty hard today too, so we are just going to stay tucked in here and catch up on schoolwork. We will probably keep heading south tomorrow and get to the Loreto/Puerto Escondido area next week some time. Not sure if Tim’s let anyone know yet, but he has to fly to LA to deal with some issues with his real estate business. He departs Wed Nov 20 and returns M Nov 25. The boys and I will just hang out in Puerto Escondido while he’s gone. Not a great place, but hey, at least there’s a restaurant with internet. And actually there’s supposed to be a great hike, and since it’s not suffocatingly hot anymore, maybe we’ll give that a go.
Love and miss you all,
-D.