Gresham Family Exodus

May 22 – June 30, 2013

Most cruisers in Mexico leave for the summer to avoid the heat and the tropical storm season. So, our kid boat flotilla broke up near the end of May so that the rest of them could secure their boats in marinas and head to their various destinations.  This phase of our journey covers the wonderful visit we had with Tim’s parents, Gary and Marsha. Their visit was a lot of fun and definitely helped the boys get over the breakup of the kid boats. Having Grandma and Grandpa around is always such a treat. This phase also covers the circles we did around the Loreto area before we finally headed north for the summer. We circled and returned to Loreto so many times Alex cleverly commented that “Loreto is the new La Paz.”

It was a one hour passage each way from Isla Coronados to Loreto to pick up Gary and Marsha for a 10-day visit. They arrived on May 21st, and Tim took a taxi out to the airport to meet them, while the boys and I packed a load of groceries back to the boat to be well provisioned for the duration of their stay. They came with four very heavy suitcases. At home, they had to carefully weigh each one in order to even out the load, so that each one was just under the 50 lb. airline limit. Needless to say, most of their load was stuff they brought down for us. The load included new anchor bridle hooks, a gallon pump of sunscreen, two pole spears for spearfishing, about 20 lb. of Cliff Bars, and lots of other boat-related items including a wind scoop that Tim designed and Marsha sewed for us. We spent the night back at Isla Coronados, and in the morning, Tim, Gary, and the boys went for a hooka before we set sail north to San Juanico. San Juanico is still one of our favorite places. It is a huge, east-facing bay with several spots to anchor on both the North and South Sides. When we were arriving, the wind was blowing pretty hard out of the SE, so we scoped out the small cove on the southernmost side. It was perfect. We had it all to ourselves. There were several boats on the Northern side of the large bay, and due to the large swell that was knocking them around, there was mass migration to the larger southern anchorage next to us. Here, we met up with Star Passage and enjoyed some meals together on each other’s boats once again. The snorkeling in our little cove was absolutely amazing; I called it a fish superhighway. This is where Alex and Brenden first learned to spearfish for the first time. There was also an excellent running beach and some dramatic sea caves that I kayaked around. One of the other cruisers organized a potluck, so we got a chance to meet some new people, and the boys played a few games of Bocce Ball.

After about 4 days, we said good-bye to San Juanico (for now) and headed back South to Bahia Salinas, a South facing anchorage on the East side of Isla Carmen. The anchorage itself was not that spectacular except for the small crashing waves that the boys could actually boogie board in and the sunken Tuna Boat in the middle of the bay. It sunk back in the 80s, and it was in fairly shallow water. In fact, you could see one of its edges peeking out above the surface of the water. It was a rare occasion to dive on a boat wreck and need only snorkel gear. We all enjoyed it immensely. After the morning dive, we motor-sailed back to Agua Verde. We enjoyed Agua Verde so much the first time that we wanted to take Gary and Marsha there. This time we anchored on the North side of the bay where I enjoyed a nice hike and easier access to the tienda (small store) in town. This is where we said our final good-byes to Star Passage, but this is also where we finally met Lady Carolina. They are another kid boat with two boys, Joel (age 8) and Kyle (age 13), and we’ve pretty much been with them ever since.

After Agua Verde, we had a very nice sail North to Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante. We had planned for an early morning departure to Loreto, but we left even earlier than planned, because when we woke up, the foredeck was completely covered with bees. The dew had collected on deck and a massive number of bees were enjoying the fresh water. Raising the anchor was precarious work, but Tim took the job on the anchor while I manned the helm. It was very sad for all of us when we dropped off Gary and Marsha in Loreto, but I put the boys to work right away with another big backpacking provisioning excursion around town.

We spent the next couple days back at Isla Coronados, and in the short time we had been away there had been some sort of algae bloom, and the beautiful turquoise water had turned a very distasteful pea green color. We said final good-byes to Sweet Dreams and Fluenta, and we also met Resilience for the first time. Beth and Jim of Resilience are both marine biologists, and one morning, they held class for all the kids on the beach. They investigated the sea wildlife and discussed King Philip Came Over For Grape Soda (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). All the kids enjoyed it, especially Brenden.

From Isla Coronados we spent a little time on our own. We spent one night in Puerto Escondido getting light provisions, doing laundry, and fueling up. Then we went a little further south to a small cove just outside the Loreto National Park area, called Candeleros Chico. The guidebook describes it as a one boat anchorage, but we squeezed in there with one other small boat. There was amazing snorkeling at Candeleros Chico, rivaling San Juanico for our favorite spot. There were just schools and schools of Parrot Fish. We did a lot of stargazing there and even had a bonfire one night. It was nice to have a little bit of family time. We had a great sail from Candeleros Chico back to Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen, and from there we made another day trip to Loreto. Since it was Sunday, we went to the Farmers market, which was really more of a small swap meet with a few vegetable stands. The produce selection and freshness were amazing.

When we left Loreto in the afternoon, we decided to practice raising anchor under sail since there was wind, but not too much, and there was plenty of maneuvering room. It was a success, but even after all this time, we are still working on our communication approach when needing to do things quickly and correctly. We spent one more night at Isla Coronados before heading back up to San Juanico to hook up with Lady Carolina and Resilience. When we pulled into the very large bay it was totally deserted, which was understandable, since the swell from the Southeast winds would have made for a very uncomfortable anchorage. We found Lady Carolina and Resilience up around the corner to the North at a bay called La Ramada, which had much better protection from southish winds, but wasn’t nearly as pretty an anchorage. However, there was a dirt road and then a trail that led to the North side of San Juanico. The dirt road was littered with Obsidian, so the boys enjoyed some collecting. We also visited the cruisers’ shrine, which is basically a tree that people hang homemade items from, documenting their visit. Some items have been there for 20 years! Unfortunately, we had another good-bye to say as Resilience headed north to eventually cross to San Carlos and then head home. And then there were two. Two kid boats, that is. Exodus and Lady Carolina. And we’ve been mostly inseparable ever since.

From La Ramada, Lady Carolina headed South to pick up some wifi, and we stayed one night at our favorite little south cove at San Juanico. It was a little rolly but not too bad. Then we also headed south and stopped at Nopolo, which is just a little ways South of Loreto. At Nopolo, we fed our own wifi addiction; in fact, I spent pretty much an entire Saturday in the salon on the computer. There is a resort at Nopolo that has open wifi, and we were able to pick it up pretty easily from the boat. Then we met back up with Lady Carolina at Bahia Candeleros after a quick pit stop in Puerto Escondido for groceries and water. The boys were in the water almost immediately with Joel, and they played “try to knock each other off the kayak” with the sunset as their backdrop. It was Father’s Day, but we didn’t get day passes to the resort like we did on Mother’s day. This time at Candeleros is where we first experienced the night time westerlies, which we affectionately call the “hot wind.” After sunset when the air temperature is finally starting to cool a bit the wind picks up from the west and blows the hot air from the land all over us. The temperature rises again taking away the little relief we had.

We stayed several days at Candeleros then we left Lady Carolina and did another day stop in Puerto Escondido to do laundry. This time we were actually down to only 4 loads, probably because it’s so hot we barely wear any clothes. Then we crossed over to Bahia Marquer on Isla Carmen. We had a bonfire there and only later remembered that we were on an island where fires are prohibited. Oops. In the early morning we crossed back over to Nopolo to meet back up with Lady Carolina. Alex and I were up, so we let Tim sleep, and we raised anchor, crossed the channel, and dropped anchor in Nopolo all on our own. That really raised my confidence level. Of course, since we had already been at Nopolo I had the waypoint stored from when we anchored the first time, so picking a spot to anchor was very straightforward. We stayed in Nopolo several nights and made a couple trips into Loreto, first in a Taxi, and then we even rented a car for a full day. We hit the farmers market again and did a significant amount of provisioning since we had the car and all. On our last day, Tim drove the car to Loreto, and the boys and I motored Exodus down to Loreto and anchored. Who needs a captain? It worked out well, and we were able to fill diesel and gas in jerry cans and use the car to get between the gas station and the dock and then dinghy the fuel out to the boats. Our method of filling the boat fuel tanks from jerry cans was, well, to put it mildly, a bit less efficient than Lady Carolina. But we got everything we needed for final Loreto provisioning before leaving for the last time and heading up into the sea for the summer. Of course, we made one last stop at Isla Coronados for a couple nights. Here, we experienced our first mini-Chubasco with lightening very close by and 25 kt winds. The worst part was when it died down the wind shifted so then we were beam on to the leftover swell and had a very rolly time in the wee morning hours. On our way North, we couldn’t pass San Juanico without stopping one more time. But we only stayed one night, because we needed to keep moving North, so that we could make it up to Bahia Concepcion for the cruisers’ 4th of July party. When we left San Juanico that time, we were back into new territory, and we were much more than ready.