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We celebrated Brenden’s birthday at Isla Mitlan, and the day started with a spear fishing expedition, of course.  Steve speared a yellowtail, so Brenden got birthday sahimi after all, and Brenden speared a trigger fish, so he also got birthday ceviche.  Dinner was rounded out by homemade bread, pasta with red sauce (of course), roasted zuchini, and sugar cookies.  Since Alex got a giant oreo for his birthday Brenden had to have a giant sugar cookie.  The birthday present Alex picked out at the village was absoultely perfect for Brenden.  It was a *lego* battleship game!

Early in the summer, Jake, from sailboat Jake, announced the dates for the BLA full moon parties.  However, since he was spending the summer in the Puerto Escondido area this year rather than coming up north, he was looking for someone to be the coordinator for the parties.  These are an annual thing, so it seemed appropriate that a BLA summer veteran would step up to do the coordinating, and that’s just what happened.  Dazzler was interested, so I emailed Jake to get more details, printed out the response, and handed it off to Dazzler.  Unfortunately, they weren’t able to make it up to BLA after all, so the job of coordinating fell, by default, to Lady Carolina.  Dazzler had given him the print out, which when he saw the email was addressed to me he was floored.  He kept pointing it out to me as if I should actually be the one coordinating, however, I try very hard to not let myself be the default anything. 

The first full moon party was in August at La Gringa and entailed a “floatie” contest and a beach potluck.  Steve found all kinds of creative ways to announce the party on the various radio nets, but here’s the quick version of the floatie contest.  Basically, there would be prizes for each of 3 categories: 1) Best store bought floatie, 2) best floatie made out of noodles, and 3) best floatie you could throw together with whatever you have in your boat (the prize for this 3rd category was clearly the most coveted, at least by Steve.)  The concept was that we would get to the estuary just after high tide and ride the “rapids” out as the current gets stronger and stronger.  It was actually a lot of fun! 

Tim gave the boys the job of building a floatie out of water jugs (the big 5 gal size), boat fenders, and thermarests.  They had a lot of fun and put one together, and they were actually quite proud of it.  But Tim made them dismantle it since it only fit one person, and he wanted something all of them could ride (can anyone say requirements creep?)  So, they ended up making 3 small floaties so they each had one, but in the end, Lady Carolina kicked butt in the floatie contest by using wood planks, fenders, a wind scoop as a spinnaker, and a very large Canadian flag.  All the boys enjoyed riding that raft, even Tim.  There was one hysterical moment where Alex was holding his soda up and then he fell off, was dunked under water, but managed to keep his soda right side up and out of the water.  Get that kid a beer!

There were a lot of very creative rafts including a throne raft made of Pacifico beer cans by True Companion.  I was one of the judges along with Sue of Mai Tai Roa and Trisha of Interabang.  It’s kind of a known joke that the judges for this event will take any and all bribes.  However, Team Canada (aka Lady Carolina) was the only one who really took advantage.  Joel gave us bags of cookies and big hugs.  I swear that had nothing to do with them winning, though.

After the rapids died down we all retreated to our boats for some relaxing, and then reconvened on the beach for a potluck.  Steve marked the potluck site with one of his many bright orange shirts, and Tim set up our surfboards on water jugs to use as tables for the food.  Once everyone started arriving and the food was being spread out we all noticed something a little peculiar.  The food was heavily, and I mean heavily, skewed towards desserts.  Somthing like half the dishes there were dessert dishes.  At one point Brenden came up to me and told me there was the best bread here, the best he’s ever had, and he’s had about 4 pieces.  So, I had to go try it, and it turns out it was cake.  Very delicious and not too sweet peach cack, but definetly cake.  Brendedn ended up getting sick and spending most of the night bent over one of the back swim steps. 

Overall, it was a fantastic day.  We got to meet most of the fleet that was staying in the BLA area for the summer, and Lady Carolina got bragging rights for winning the floatie contest.

The second full moon party was in September at La Mona. There was no floatie contest for this one, and although there was an estuary, the choke point wasn’t as tight so when the tide was going out it was more like a whirlpool to sit and relax in than rapids to ride floaties down.  The full moon fortuatously fell on “talk like a pirate day” so that was good for lots of fun and jokes.  This party was slightly more sparsely attended than the La Gringa party, but fun was still had by all relaxing in the whirlpool and getting our competitive juices flowing with games of bocce ball.  We had a fantastic potluck, but suprisingly, this time, no one brought any desserts.  Having flashbacks from the last potlulck, Brenden respectfully asked me to make something that he would definitley know what it was, so I just made pasta in red sauce, and he scarfed it down.

The day after the full moon party we tried to organize an appetizer and drink “progressive” where everyone visits each boat for a short period to eat and drink.  The wind didn’t cooperate, though, so our “progressive” turned into an appetizer potluck on the motor vessel Mai Tai Roa.  Thanks to Alex and Sue, we all still had a great time.

The annual BLA “regatta” was held the day before the La Mona full moon party.  And once again, somehow the Lady Carolina crew were put in charge of organizing when Pit on Karma Seas left a little earlier than planned for San Carlos.  So, Joel was the regatta Grand Pubah, which included officially starting the race, making game time rule decisions, and awarding the trophy to this year’s winner.

The regatta was a race from the BLA village anchorage to La Mona and back.  The Exodus crew got all decked out in our matching blue Exodus shirts (thanks Marsha!)  At least we looked good, because it was all downhill after that.  The plan was to raise anchor about 20 min before start time so then we could get the sails up and engines off in time to cross the start line under sail.  However, when we were raising anchor and the windlass cut out on us.  After troubleshooting for a little while we ended up raising the anchor manually, and by that I seriously mean manually.  Tim raised it hand over hand.  Mine and Alex’s jobs were to feed the chain into the locker and Brenden’s job was to standby with a hook that was attached to a line attached to a cleat and hook the anchor chain secure when Tim needed a break.  What fun!  By the time we raised anchor and got our sail up the “race” had already started, but we actually weren’t in last place, believe it or not.  We had a great sail across the bay, but when we got back (in 4th place, I might add) the windlass still wasn’t working and we had to drop the anchor manually as well.

It was a lot of fun seeing all the other boats under sail, and the winds were in the mid to high teens, but we were sailing into the wind both directions, I’m not sure how that worked out. The only rule established ahead of time was that the lead boat decided which buoy to round and then all boats would follow around the same buoy.  However, two lead boats diverged pretty substantially, so as they were each approaching different buoys, a ruling by the Grand Pubah had to be made, and in keeping with the laid back cruising philosophy it was determined that any buoy would be OK.  True Blue V round their buoy first, and we followed Sara M around a different buoy.  Although we finished back in the pack, we could at least celebrate that we had beaten Lady Carolina.

When we got Exodus settled back at anchor at the village, Tim and I decided to get the water hammocks out and relax in the water with a cocktail.  Of course, right at that time and Elefante (strong westerly wind) kicked up, and between the hot wind and the big swell, our relaxing float was anything but. Luckily it didn’t get too bad and we were all able to meet on shore for a great dinner together at Costa del Sol.

One of the perpetual highlights of the summer had to be all of our dinners and evenings on the Exodus forward deck (aka “the net”) with Lady Carolina.  We potlucked together more often than we not, and usually one of us was doing the Southbound Evening radio net at 6pm, so we usually started right after that ended.  We became like one big family, comfortable enough to try new recipes on each other, some with success, some not.  The four boys would always do dishes together while the adults retreated to the net where it was a bit cooler.  One night we were out there talking until past 1 am!  One night in the logbook it reads, “had a plate full of fish for dinner with Lady Carolina,” and I had to laugh when reading it.  We had been having safe arrival cocktails together, and dinnertime was approaching, and neither of us really had anything prepared, but we wanted to keep hanging out so we just cooked up a big plate of fish.  That’s it, that’s all we had for dinner.  A “plate full of fish.”  Sometimes, the company is more important

I thought I’d add this section and use it from time to time to share some of the more embarrassing and not so glamorous aspects of the cruising lifestyle.

So, yeah, I pee in a bucket.  Let’s just get that one right out of the way.

I suppose that requires some explanation, and to sum it up: power.  Everything comes back to power.  Our head plumbing uses freshwater (which is somewhat atypical, many boats use saltwater) and we get fresh water by running our water maker, which requires power.  When we had a few socked in days in a row due to tropical storms on the outside of Baja and our solar production fell off dramatically, I made an evaluation of our water usage and concluded that my toilet flushing was using too high a percentage of our water.  Being boys and all Tim, Alex, and Brenden just go off the back of the boat, and I must admit in more remote anchorages I have done that too, but usually it’s not feasible.  So, I started just dipping into the water down the swim step, but then I was wet all the time, which was a pain, and it was a little too time consuming to change in and out of a swimsuit every time I had to go.  So, I recalled another boat telling me that they all pee in a bucket because their tank was so small and that they would pour the bucket down the sink.  Gross.  That was a show stopper for me.  But being a catamaran it was an option to just take the bucket out to the back swim step a few times a day to empty it.  So, problem solved.  I guess.

So, those of you who think we are living the dream, just remember that the dream does not come without sacrifices.  Like peeing in a bucket.

While still at home we put together a pretty comprehensive medical kit.  Thanks to Uncle Mike we have enough sutures to sew up a small village when we get to the south pacific, and thanks to Mom we have antibiotics purchased in Mexico (where you can get them without a prescription).  The boys’ pediatrician actually gave us prescriptions for azithromycin as well.  Luckily we haven’t had to use much from the medical kit, but after a dive one day Tim developed a pretty severe earache.  I checked inside (using the ENT scope, also provided by Uncle Mike) and it was definitely inflamed and pussy, so I started him on Cipro right away.  Shortly after, Alex’s ear flared up as well, so I started him on Azithromycin since I felt better giving him a drug that I knew for sure was the right dosage amount for him.  They both got better and were cleared for diving again within a week.  Unfortunately, Alex got another infection, or maybe this one never cleared up all the way.  Of course, it flared up just hours after we left BLA village for La Ventana, and he had trouble sleeping that night due to the pain.  Since there is a medical clinic in the village, we went back the next morning.  We asked Kyle from Lady Carolina to go with us to the clinic since he’s fluent in Spanish, and the doctor gave us amoxicillin and ear drops, and it did the trick, albeit Alex was out of commission for diving for 10+ days.  It is a free clinic but they accept donations of anything you want to give.  I gave her 200 pesos, which is less than $20, and at the time I had no idea if that was the right amount, and in hindsight I wish I had given more, since the treatment was effective and all.

Like I said, we are well prepared for worse mishaps, but luckily to this point we haven’t needed it

The boys are generally able to entertain themselves with minimal electronics time, especially traveling in the company of Lady Carolina and their two boys. They swim, make up games, play on the beach, read Big Nate books over and over again, and they’ve even started writing their own fish guidebook because they have noticed that none of the fish books indicate the tastiness of a fish.  However, sometimes an organized activity is what they need.  So, while in Las Rocas, Tim organized a scavenger hunt for them.  He made a list of things they had to find on the beach, split them into two teams (Alex/Joel, Brenden/Kyle, surprise, surprise) and sent them away.  Here is the list:

• • Piece of small dead cactus
  • Something that could have been left by a
  • Something likely dropped by a panga
  • Plastic bottle (+1 if it has a lid on it)
  • Piece of styrofoam (must float)
  • Something red
  • Something blue
  • String or fishing line or net
  • Beer or soda can
  • Cool seashell
  • One bone from a fish (+1 if it’s a puffer)
  • Beach glass (worn so you can’t see through)
  • Bird feather over 10 inches long
  • Piece of driftwood
  • Very flat rock
  • Something metal
  • Piece of clothing
  • Sexy mermaid
  • A hat (yes, a hat)
  • Something that crawls

Alex and Joel won but by a very slim margin.  They found a puffer fishbone, which pushed them over the top.  I’m sad to say that neither team found the sexy mermaid, but Alex and Joel enjoyed their prize of M&Ms and Skittles nonetheless.

Stepping it up a notch, while we were at Ensenada el Pescador Tim and Steve put their heads together and made a treasure hunt with a series of clues for the boys to follow.  They had to go talk to some guy on shore for their first clue, and it turns out he didn’t speak English as well as Tim and Steve thought, so he didn’t really understand what they asked him to tell the boys.  They had to find a cactus with a red ribbon on it and use GPS locations and compass bearings.  The last clue was in the water, they marked it by a weight attached to a float, and the note on the float said to dive down to get the next clue, but by the time the boys had read the note they had pulled up the weight, and then they had trouble finding the clue.  In fact, they never found it.  Tim and Steve dove for it and they couldn’t find it either.  So, they had to tell them the prize was underneath Lady Carolina, and all four of them enjoyed a package of Oreos as the sun was setting.

We (and by that I mean Tim) bought 3 paddleboards when we were in San Diego.  I have no idea why we need 3, but that’s what we have.  Two of them are of the inflatable variety and one is rigid.  In fact, we have yet to even inflate both of the inflatable ones.  I was always pretty sure I would enjoy paddleboarding, and I tried it for the first time at San Francisquito.  It was amazing.  I went out for over an hour, and really only headed back because I hadn’t taken any water with me.  The only real downside is that after about 20 minutes my toes start to go numb, so I have to sit down and paddle for just a bit until I regain feeling.  The inflatable paddle board is more stable and the rigid is faster and tracks better in the water.  I tend to use the inflatable one because it’s lighter and Alex and I can put it in the water and also because there’s less concern about running it into Exodus (since it has softer sides).  I have only fallen off once, and that was when a panga went by and I showed little concern for the wake when I really should have.  Luckily, I didn’t lose my sunglasses.  Paddleboarding provides at least part of what I used to get out of running all the time.  Namely, the solitude and the very simple goal setting (I’m going to paddle there and turn around).  However, it doesn’t come close to being the aerobic workout and I still immensely miss running.

August 19 – October 1, 2013

After a couple days of provisioning in BLA village, we headed to the far northern end of BLA to La Gringa for the August Cruisers’ Full Moon Party.  We arrived a day early with Lady Carolina in order to scout the estuary and figure out the tides.  La Gringa is formed by a point of land that is a hook reaching out and down to the southeast.  There is a lagoon with a fairly narrow opening such that at extreme tide changes the water rushes in and out at a pretty good clip.  The full moon party was a lot of fun but one of the highlights of La Gringa had to be the whale sharks.  They are huge efficient eating machines and they are absolutely ambivalent about any human activity going on around them as they swim around sucking in all the tiny plankton, krill, and microalgae they can eat.  Tim and Brenden (and many others in the anchorage) got in and swam around with them.  They move pretty fast sometimes and it’s hard to keep up.

The day after the party everyone dispersed, and we stuck around one more day with Lady Carolina, and then we headed to Las Rocas, which is an anchorage on the west side of Isla Coronado (Isla Smith).  Isla Coronado (Isla Smith) is a small island northeast of BLA, and I have no idea why it has two names.  There is a dramatic symmetric cone-shaped dormant volcano on the island, which had a hiking trail to the top, but we never made it there since it was too bloody hot.  Las Rocas had nice nooks and crannies to paddleboard around in as well as several nice places to snorkel.  It was a beautiful anchorage, but there were no-see-ums there to deal with.  This time Lady Carolina was anchored closest to land so they seemed to get the brunt of the visits from the tiny bugs.  While we were at Las Rocas was when tropical storm Ivo was traveling up the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula, and we actually got a fair amount of cloud cover and rain for a few days.  We had to run the engines to charge the battery bank for the first time (since we primarily rely on solar).

We left Las Rocas on Monday, Aug 26, and since there was fair weather in the forecast we headed back down south to Ensenada el Pescador, which was the anchorage that Carolina and I had walked to when we were anchored at El Quemado.  El Pescador has a fabulous beach, and our first afternoon there the boys all played football, frisbee, and bocce ball.  The next morning I enjoyed a fabulous run as well.  Our fair weather didn’t last long, and we ended up getting blasted out of there with 20 kt winds from the East (straight into the anchorage) and rain.  However, the wind died as we turned back into BLA and we ended up motor-sailing first to BLA village for a quick groceries run and then down to La Mona, which is at the very southern end of BLA.  La Mona is dotted with houses along the shoreline, which are apparently mostly inhabited with “gringos” who leave for the summer to escape the heat.  There were several other boats in the anchorage, and we ended up having a nice beach potluck with True Blue V, Sea Note, Drifter, Entres Nous, and Lady Carolina.

After we spent another couple of days at BLA village, we decided to venture out on our own for the first time in months.  What would we do without Lady Carolina at our side?  We didn’t go far, just to a small island about 5nmi to the northwest of the village, called La Ventana.  It was a very nice, small anchorage, but our time there was tainted a bit because Alex had an ear infection that really flared up, and we had to head back to the village to take him to the medical clinic.  Also, while at La Ventana we had our only almost real Chubasco of the season.  Jake’s nightly radio Chubasco report put us all at high alert, and sure enough, in the late evening we had lightning all around us.  The winds picked up around 11:30, and wouldn’t you know it, at La Ventana we only experienced winds in the high teens to mid-20s with gusts in the 27-30 kt range, while back at the village they saw sustained winds up in the high 30s.  There was a lot of VHF radio chatter about how much anchor chain everyone had out and what winds they were seeing.  Luckily, no one dragged, and everyone came through totally unscathed.

 

We couldn’t stay away from Lady Carolina for long, and after La Ventana we hooked up with them on the 35 nmi sail up to the northern end of Isla Angel de la Guarda to an area called Puerto Refugio.  We were a four-boat caravan including Dazzler and Chara as well.  It was a wonderful full day sail, and we all had our spinnaker chutes flying.  Bob on Chara even popped two chutes (since Chara is a Ketch).  Puerto Refugio is far enough north that it lays a little further off the beaten path.  Not even all the boats that stay in the BLA for the summer make it up that far.  It’s a beautiful area, rugged and secluded.  We would have absolutely loved this place except for the daily thunder and lightning and, of course, the no-see-ums.  We anchored in the middle bight of the east bay, and as soon as we dropped and I was sitting on one of the swim steps the no-see-ums started nibbling, so both we and Lady Carolina hauled anchor and moved out further away from land in almost 50 ft of water.  That really didn’t stop them.  Actual quotes from our logbook include, “No-see-ums are the devil,” and, “I am an anti-itch gel junkie.”  The latter quote was actually the only thing written in the log one day.  Finally, after 5 days we could stand it no longer, and we bailed back down south.  We had a slow sail with little wind, so we stopped at a lesser-known anchorage (since it’s not in the most popular guide book) called Alcatraz.  It is a north-facing anchorage, so we knew we could only stay for one night because the north winds were supposed to blow again.  We hung out on Exodus with Lady Carolina, and Craig and Leanne from True Blue V.  We learned that True Blue V had left San Diego heading south on the exact same day we did.  It took us getting all the way up to the northern Sea of Cortez to run into each other.

We sailed from Alcatraz to La Gringa for some protection from the strong northern wind, and before we knew it it was time to head back to BLA village for the annual BLA “Regatta” and then down to La Mona for the September Cruisers’ Full Moon Party.  It was Sept 19th and we were starting to get a much-needed reprieve from the sweltering hot weather.  I celebrated one morning when the thermometer read 75 deg when I got up.  While at La Mona, we realized Brenden’s birthday was going to come before we needed to go the BLA to reprovision, and Alex hadn’t picked out a gift for him yet.  So, we took Exodus for a day trip from La Mona to BLA village so that Alex could get Brenden a present.  We also hit a tienda or two, and I almost cried when I saw red, yellow, and yes, actually orange bell peppers.  We stayed at La Mona a few more days, including a “progressive” party turned regular old boat party on Mai Tai Roa, and a celebration for Carolina’s birthday (she’s in her late 30’s like we are.)

Brenden really had his heart set on spending his birthday back at La Gringa in order to play in the lagoon rapids, but strong SW winds were expected, so we headed instead to Isla Mitlan.  Isla Mitlan is a very small piece of land detached from Isla Coronado (Isla Smith) just north of the Las Rocas Anchorage.  The angle of Isla Milan seemed like it would provide decent protection from SW wind and swell.  We had a great day for Brenden’s birthday, but the next couple days the forecasted SW winds came more from the west and then the northwest, and it was uncomfortable bordering on unsafe, so we went back to La Gringa after all.  The weather continued cooling off and at Isla Mitlan we needed sweatshirts for the first time in I don’t know how long, and at La Gringa the logbook reads “68 deg when I got up this morning!”  The wind blew like crazy while we were at La Gringa, so we played a lot of cards.  We taught the boys Hearts, and the first time we played Brenden inadvertently shot the moon for a come from behind win.

We made one final stop at BLA village for provisions, fuel, groceries, and internet.  We were now on a schedule, because my sister Danna’s wedding was on Oct 20, and we were going to sail all the way up to San Felipe so I could take a bus across the border.  I started tracking for a good weather window to head north, and we pulled out of BLA for the last time on Tuesday Oct. 1.

Well, we have made it to our summertime destination: BLA.  Most cruisers who stay in the sea for the summer spend August and September up here because it’s far enough north that the chance of a tropical storm is pretty slim (although not impossible, we watch it closely) and there is a natural hurricane hole in the vicinity.  This summer the number of boats was in the low 20s, and here’s a listing of those I recall: Exodus, Lady Carolina, True Blue V, Sea Note, Interabang, Karma Seas, Odyssey, Entre Nous, Drifter, True Companion, Mai Tai Roa, Sara M, Lungta, Slipper, Take Five, Let it Go, Charra, Dazzler, Deja La, No Mas, Code Blue, Iver.  The next essay will shed a little light on the summertime adventures of this crowd.  There was also a small crowd who spent the summer down near Puerto Escondido.  It’s further south, but Puerto Escondido is about as good a hurricane harbor as it gets.  Through the radio nets we kept in contact with at least 3: Jake, Harmony (of Anacortes), and Apolima.  There were probably more since not everyone has an SSB radio and not everyone that does checks into the nets.  There are beautiful anchorages in the BLA area, and back in the spring someone made the comment that there’s really nothing further north in the sea past San Juanico worth seeing.  I’m thinking this was spoken by someone that was going home for the summer and had never ventured up to the rugged, less traveled, and beautiful area.