Category: Blog Post

I have, unfortunately, supported that statistic.  I’ve had several minor burns on my arms when moving things in and out of the oven, but I really did it to myself while we were in the anchorage at Isla Isabel.  After preparing the coffee in the french press, I managed to spill the entire piping hot contents all over the counter and all over the floor.  This was a tragedy on many levels:  first, there was now no coffee to drink and I’d have to brew another pot.  Second, the contents that spilled everyone included all of the coffee grounds, so an insanely tedious clean up job was required.  Third, and here’s where the burn part comes in, just as the hot liquid spilled all over the counter, Exouds pitched in the swell at bit and I lost my balance.  For some reason, I caught myself on the counter where the liquid had pooled with the underside of my left wrist, where the skin is nice and tender.  It turned out to be a second degree burn that blistered and peeled and took a fair amount of care to keep comfortable and dry and uninfected.  But would you believe that I made another pot of coffee BEFORE I cleaned up the mess and BEFORE I treated the burn?  I just love coffee that much.

On my last trip to the states I brought back a new VHF radio with an AIS receiver.  We didn’t buy an AIS receiver because we thought we needed one.  The decision path was much more indirect.  We decided that we wanted an VHF remote microphone at the helm for easy communications when we are underway.  The main unit is inside at the nav station, so when we were underway we would take a handheld out to the helm and leave it there to use.  However, the range on the handheld is not nearly as far as the main radio, so that would put us at a disadvantage if we ever needed to make an important call from the helm.  Of course, there was no optional remote microphone for our VHF radio model, so in order to make this happen, we needed to buy a whole new radio.  In doing the research, Tim discovered that it wasn’t any more expensive to buy a radio with built in AIS reception than without, so why not get the one with AIS.

For those that don’t know, AIS is an automated location indicator.  All of the large ships are required to trasmit AIS, and many pleaser yachts are doing it now as well.  So, instead of relying solely on visual sightings during the day and radar at night when looking for other vessels, the AIS transmission will tell you the location, course, speed, closest point of approach, time to closest point of approach, and lots of other vessel information as well.  So, it’s a handy thing to have to avoid getting run down by a freighter in the middle of the night.

We only have the AIS receiver, not a transmitter, so other boats can’t see us.  But at least we can see them.  It was fun to have this when we were buddy boating across the sea, because the other boats were were with were transmitting AIS.  I’m sure they didn’t appreciate that we were in stealth mode, and they couldn’t see us.

This last month in the Sea of Cortez we visited a lot of the same anchorages and a few new ones, but it was like we were in a different place altogether.  The weather was much cooler allowing us to go on the many hikes we wished we had gone on before.  And the landscape was green!  No longer the barren dessert we experienced on our way up north.  We even had to switch our tables back and put our big table back inside because we were finding it too cool to have dinner in the cockpit.  It was all the same, only different.  Looking forward we can’t wait to see some truly new and different places as we make our way across the sea and down the Mexican mainland.

While we were still out at Ensenada Cardonal, I let the cat out of the bag while chatting on SSB with some of our friends that Tim’s birtday was coming up.  Wow, did that snowball.  By the time we got into La Paz, it turned out that Tim’s birthday celebration was actually going to be a bit of a reunion of the BLA summertime crew.  We were planning to go to The Shack (awesome burgers, Negro Modelo on tap) and when we got a head count the morning of Tim’s birthday and we had over 20 people, I thought we should go down and give them a head’s up that we’d be coming.  The Shack had moved locations since we had last been in La Paz to a nice spot on the malecon, although some people saw it as if they were selling out or something.  I figured as long as the burgers are still good, I’m all over it.  So, Tim and I walked down there, and my heart absolutely sank when we realized they were closed and found the sign that said they are, in fact, closed on Wednesdays.  Wednesdays!  Who closes on Wednesdays?  We needed a plan B, and fast.  So we got on the horn (aka handheld VHF) and called around to get some input, and we ended up walking to the location where The Shack used to be.  There’s a new restaurant there called Fuego y Lena and they have pizza and burgers, so we thought that would be perfect and made a reservation.  I think we made the owners day by saying we’d be bringing 20+ people there that evening.  After getting that taken care of Tim and I ducked into the restaurant Stella, and did what we used to do all the time while traveling, but seem not to make time for anymore.  We just sat there and had a drink. Or 2. 

The birthday dinner at Fuego y Lena turned out great.  The food was slow to come out and some people got a little annoyed, but I have no problem dealing with that sort of thing as long as everyone’s pleasant and enjoyable.  After dinner, the kids, including Steve, ambushed Tim with shaving cream as he was leaving the restaurant.   It was pretty funny, and unfortunately I don’t have any of the photos of it.  The kids actually thought they were buying silly string, so they didn’t intend for it to be quite as messy as it was.  But all in the name of fun and games.

We had a little bit of fun the morning Tim arrived back in Puerto Escondido.  It was very windy (20+kts) and there was actually a fair amount of fetch in the main anchorage. I was doing dishes and just happened to look up to see our dinghy floating away towards the fuel dock.  I quickly 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 this time Brenden stepped happily stepped into that role.  It was fun to see.

Those that knew me well at home may remember that I turned into quite a health food nut the last few years.  Well, “health food nut” makes it sound a little more trendy than it was.  More accurately, I became a bit of a fresh, whole, organic food nut.  I almost never froze anything, instead I shopped every couple days, at whole foods on my way home from work.  I had a weekly supply of fresh organic produce delivered to our door from a local farm coop, including all kinds of dark, leafy greens.  And I rarely, rarely, rarely used anything canned or boxed.  I cannot exaggerate how much that has changed now and how hard of an adjustment it has been for me.

So, now I have to fess up to all the things that we have on board that I wouldn’t have gotten within 10 feet of back home.  These are in order of when I relented and started accepting them: powdered milk, Bimbo white bread (think wonder bread with even more preservatives), canola oil, canned fruit of all sorts, iceberg lettuce, canned veggies of all sorts, margarine, canned meat (chicken and beef), and bagged bacon.

I started using powdered milk almost right away for baking and in my coffee.  I’ve only stooped to using margarine once or twice when I couldn’t find real butter.  I started using canned chicken only just recently in soups and casseroles.  I haven’t actually used canned beef or bagged bacon yet, but we have it on board and I’m sure they will find a place in some recipe at some point.  The iceberg lettuce has kind of a funny story… when we went shopping with Lady Carolina when we first arrived at BLA village, they picked up a head of iceberg lettuce, and I totally turned up my nose at it and made fun of them for it.  A few nights later Carolina brought over a salad and we could all not get enough of it.  I couldn’t believe how much I missed salad, even one made of ice berg lettuce!  So, after that I have started picking up a head of it every now and then and I have to humble myself before Carolina each time. 

We, OK mostly me, have an aversion to arriving in an anchorage when it’s still dark.  Especially a new anchorage because there’s not a chance you can spot rocks under the water, but any populated anchorage has it’s risk because unfortunately, not all boats turn the anchor lights on at night.  When we were on passage to Punta Chivato and I got up for my night watch I did a quick calculation of what time we would arrive given our current speed, and it would be about 2 hours before daylight.  I mentioned it to Tim, who was seriously unconcerned and heading to bed.  As he was walking away I asked him if he’d help me reduce sail so we would slow down, and his response was no.  When I asked what I should do then, he said, “I don’t care, do whatever you want, you can always just zig-zag.”  Thanks, thanks a lot.

As we left San Felipe we intended to zip down the Baja Peninsula as quick as we could in order to meet up with Lady Carolina in Puerto Escondido and then La Paz and then cross the Sea over to the Mexican mainland.  But what we found on our way down caused us to slow down and enjoy some new anchorages and rediscover some familiar ones.  A trip home to the States for Tim meant that the boys and I would also get to know Puerto Escondido quite well.  Our time in the Sea of Cortez was coming to a close, and we decided to savor every minute of it.

When we came back from the States we came loaded down with Halloween candy from my mom.  She even sent bags for Kyle and Joel, who are so much a part of our family she couldn’t send candy without thinking of them too.  As always, with Halloween candy, it was dominated by the smaller versions of familiar candy bars, you know, the mini treats called, “Fun Size?”  I’m not sure how it started, maybe they were doing dishes and Brenden couldn’t reach the dish drainer, or maybe they were putting stuff away and Brenden couldn’t quite reach the cupboard, but regardless how it started, Alex has taken to calling Brenden “Fun Size.”  And if you know Brenden, you know that “Fun Size” just fits him on so many levels!

This is our new motto.  Whenever there’s too much to do or something new breaks or stops working, we just say, “I just want to relax on the boat.”  The origin goes back to San Felipe  when the boys and I returned with the rental car and since we would have the car until the next morning we (mostly me) wanted to go out to dinner and then hit the grocery store for provisioning.  They boys, happy to be home, groaned and complained, and Alex uttered the words that we will repeat over and over again for the rest of our journey, “I just want to relax on the boat!”