Gresham Family Exodus

Some say I have a big head, because, yes, a bird once flew into it (remember that Seinfeld episode?  Well that happened to me once).  At least I can say a fish never jumped into it.  That experience goes to Alex.  They were playing a game on Kyle’s surfboard, and we see jumping fish all the time, but this time, one jumped square into Alex’s head.  I even recorded it in the log.

I cannot exaggerate how hot it has been this summer.  Actually, the heat isn’t the worst part; the humidity is.  Many days are in the high 90s with 80% humidity.  You just get used to always being sweaty.  We stopped using the solar shower bags long ago because it’s just way too hot for hot showers.  When we were in La Paz I would have to shower by 4-5 pm so the water in the solar shower was still hot enough, because a cold shower was still rather uncomfortable.  Now, I take a shower just before bed with warm water from the tank, even on the cold setting, and often wish the water were cooler.  The shower has to be right before bed, because if you do anything at all before hopping into bed you’ll just be sweaty all over again and need another shower.  I have actually come close a couple times to giving up coffee in the morning, which is saying a lot because of how much I love coffee.  However, I couldn’t let that go, but I definitely don’t need a lid on it to keep it warm, and usually when I have about 1/3 of my cup left I throw a few ice cubes in and drink it iced.  We, well especially the boys, have started sleeping outside a lot, and they have sleepovers with the Lady Carolina boys on the net on the foredeck of Exodus.  The only thing that has kept me sane and somewhat cooled off is the fact that the water temperature has still been cool enough to be refreshing (the exception being Bahia Concepcion).  Sometimes, in the middle of doing dishes, cooking, or even just sitting there, I have simply had enough and I drop everything and run out and jump in the water.  The first time I did that I caught one of the boys by surprise and they said, “Mom, is that you?!?”  Of course, it’s so hot we all live in our swimsuits so we pretty much just jump in any time.  The boys only get one freshwater rinse a day, but I figure since I’m the mom, I can have as many as I need.

The tour of the Gypsum mine on Isla San Marcos was definitely one of the highlights so far.  We went with the Lady Carolina crew and also Dan and Kimberly of Dazzler.   The Director of the mine was named Augustus (I think, my memory is so bad…) and he was very friendly and showed us great hospitality.  The first thing we did was all pile into his pickup truck, with most of us piling into the back, and drive up to the mine offices.  There we sat in an air-conditioned conference room and first watch a movie on the history and operations of the mine, and then had a Q&A session.  Before we got there, I had told the boys that since we were taking the day off from school this was an official school field trip, so they had to pay attention and each ask at least one question.  Brenden didn’t waste any time asking his question there in the conference room asking, “Is Gypsum valuable?”  He was disappointed to learn that no, it isn’t really valuable except in very, very large quantities.

Next, we were outfitted with hard hats and masks and all hopped back into the truck.  Three people could fit in the cab of the truck, and we all kept rotating those spots since they were the coveted air-conditioned spots.  We drove all around the mine, and most of the time I was in the back of the truck, and the tour back there was given in Spanish.  I picked up some, but luckily Dan from Dazzler spoke a little more Spanish and helped fill in the holes.   He drove us all around the mine and explained how they blast the hills and then break down the gypsum to smaller and smaller pieces and showed us the miles and miles of conveyor belts.  At one stop we met two college students who were studying mining engineering and were there as summer interns.

At some point along the way we had mentioned to Augustus that we wanted to hit the tienda, but he said it closed at noon and we probably wouldn’t be done by then, so he called them and asked them to stay open for us.  So, at the end of the tour we stopped by the gymnasium and the boys shot a few hoops and then we were able to stock up a little bit at the tienda.  Then we went back to the conference room for a debrief, and to our great surprise, they brought in lunch and drinks for all of us.  Tim tried to return the hospitality by inviting Augustus out to Exodus, but unfortunately, he didn’t bite.

There are a few weather risks staying in the sea this summer. First is heat and humidity. Oh my god there have been days over 100 and all you can do is hang out in the water. One unforeseen advantage of having a catamaran is being able to hang out in the water in the shade under the boat between the hulls.

Another risk is “Chubascos” which are short duration violent squalls that can kick up with little warning in the evening or middle of the night with winds up to 50 knots with thunder and lightning. We think we had a Chubasco a couple weeks ago when we were at Isla Cornados. We had a spectacular lightning show that got very close. I went back to bed but Tim said it came as close as in the bay with us. Then the winds picked up to about 30 kts from the N, which is about the most we’ve seen at anchor so far in our trip. The worst part is the wind died and shifted to the SE but we still had swell from the North winds so we were getting rocked pretty good with swell from the side.

And of course the third risk is tropical storms/hurricanes. It’s very rare for one to come up into the sea as high as we will be going but we have to be prepared. Hurricanes can have much stronger winds but on the other hand you usually know they are coming days in advance. There have been 5 named tropical storms so far this season and the last one (Erick) made it as far north as the tip of Baja. We, well, mostly me, have become incessant weather watchers. There are radio nets with weather reports and a low bandwidth document service where you can download weather info from the national hurricane center in FLA.

Not weather-related, but something that is driving us absolutely crazy right now are the bees! They come looking for freshwater and if they find a drop they go tell all their friends and then it really gets fun. I’m not proud to say we have committed what could be considered bee genocide on more than one occasion. Most cruisers have similar stories of how they tried to help the bees or shoo them away without killing them at first, but at some point, after you have been stung a half dozen times or so, you just can’t take it anymore. Lady Carolina (our buddy kid boat) uses the vacuum cleaner on them.

Every morning on the Sonrisa HF radio net a very extensive weather forecast is given “in color” for the outside of Baja, the Sea of Cortez, and Pacific Mainland Mexico by a US ex-pat who now lives in a palapa in El Burro Cove in Bahia Concepcion.  He gets up at 5am every morning to pull together the forecasts that cruisers have come to depend on to keep them informed of what weather is coming and what’s going on in the “tropical kitchen,” and as far as I know, he doesn’t seem to ever take a day off.   Every year Gary the weather guy hosts a 4th of July party in El Burro Cove where he provides the hot dogs, and everyone else brings something for the potluck, and, of course, the locals set up beer for sale.  As soon as we first heard it announced on one of the nets, we decided we wanted to try to make it in order to meet Gary and all the other cruisers.

As usual, we pulled in loaded down with garbage and someone told us that Gary lets the cruisers drop their trash with him for 10 pesos a bag or so and he gives the money to a local to haul the trash away.  We were around the corner in the adjacent anchorage, so we asked Alex, Brenden, Kyle, and Joel (Lady Carolina), to take all the trash from both boats to Gary.  A little while after they get back I see Steve (Lady Carolina) jump in the dinghy and head around the corner.  It turns out he asked Kyle if they met Gary and ended up finding out that they had just left all our bags of trash on his doorstep.  Can you imagine?  We show up and haven’t even met him yet and we dump our garbage on his front porch!  Luckily Steve got there before any bad feelings could materialize.

The next day before the party we sent the boys again, this time to go ask if there’s anything they could do to help set up.  This time they met Gary, and he didn’t give them any jobs to do, but he did give Brenden a hat, which he wears all the time now.  I really have no idea why Brenden got the hat, and he doesn’t seem to know either.  The party was a lot of fun with a lot of good food, and Alex especially liked the hot dogs, so much that he ate six of them.  It’s such a trip to meet people that you’ve only talked to on the radio and see if they look like the mental image you’ve already created for them in your head.  We met one other kid boat there, Heavy Metal, with two more boys on board, and the younger of the two got along great with Brenden and Joel.  We all spent a lot of the day in the water trying to keep cool in the heat.  After dark there was a “fireworks” show, you know the kind where when it’s over you thank the lucky stars that no one caught on fire or lost a limb or anything.  We definitely weren’t in El Segundo any longer!   The evening ended with a fire show.  One of the single-handed cruisers juggles fire and puts on shows to raise money for his cruising kitty.  The kids seemed to really like it.  Overall, it was a great day and a great kickoff to our summer in the Northern Sea of Cortez.

So far, I’ve gotten a lot of experience driving Exodus around anchorages.  Tim and I usually swap roles between driving and working the anchor so that we both stay sharp at both tasks, but if we err one way or the other, it would be for me to do the driving so that I can continue to build confidence.  Being a catamaran we have a lot more maneuverability than most boats, what with two engines and all, but it’s still a large vessel that is greatly affected by wind and currents.  What I learned at Bahia San Nicolas is that anchoring in 20 kts of wind is A LOT harder than 10.  As I worked the engine controls to keep us pointed into the wind I overcorrected and between the force from the engine thrust and a wind gust that came up we got into an unstable oscillation and just kept going around.  Not good when you’ve got an anchor halfway deployed and anchor chain rubbing one of the hulls.

So, I don’t do that anymore.  I make smaller adjustments, even when it seems like initially, it’s not taking effect.