Sailing Encore

Once back at La Paz Marina we cleaned up the boat and worked on routine maintenance including changing the engine packing gland.

And I visited the marina poolside to enjoy a margarita (I was salt deprived!)

Steve Job’s (family’s) yacht came to fill up on gas and drained the fuel dock empty.It is 225 feet long and cost 100 million to build. Actually completed the year after he died. So big I could not fit it in my camera lense.

Ugly, but I bet it is comfy.

While traveling through the sea of Cortez, Vernon and I had lots of discussion about what to do next for our adventure. We did the Mexican towns, marinas and beautiful anchorages so is it time to move on? What option best suites us at this point in the journey?

Option 1 –

Cross back to west coast of Mexico and continue on down to Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Travel through the Canal, then decide which direction once we are in the Gulf of Mexico. That is the questioning point because all directions present challenges with weather or safety. What you think would be the most direct route to Caribbean is dead into the strong winds. And other routes just seem like weeks and months of ‘getting there’. 

Option 2 –

Put boat an big cargo ship somewhere here in Mexico and let them haul it and drop it off in Puerto Rico or St Thomas. That takes out all the nasty beating ‘dead into it’ sailing and puts us in our old familiar happy place -the Virgin Islands. There is a lot of $$$ to that.

Option 3 –

Sail the boat back south to Cabo. Pay a crew to sail back to San Diego (the windward ugly stuff) and then cruise California for a while. We met two boats in Puerto Cabo Marina that were setting off the same day we were leaving. Their weather was predicted for 20-25 North West winds with 8 foot swells. And they were going North, straight up the Baja coast into that. No thank you… they call that trip the ‘Baja Bash’ for a reason. There aren’t enough Scopolamine patches to have me agree to that.

What do you think?   Things to consider:

• We feel like we have seen and experienced all we want of Baja and Mexico cruising.
• I know I want to continue with something. I enjoy traveling and being retired with Vernon.
• We honestly don’t know how long we will physically be able to continue this type of travel. Two people and this boat is hard work.
• We don’t enjoy sitting in marinas like a lot of retired US and Canadian sailors seem too.
• We did not set out to conquer an ocean. We meet people who are doing the “Puddle Jump” (here to the South Pacific) and it is about 21 days of 24/7 straight sailing. Not what we enjoy. Vernon did that sort of 8-10 days of racing but with full crew of 10 guys and the joy was the performance of sails and the race. Me, I am in my element when we are doing stuff like our two weeks in the Sea of Cortez: sweet short sail, nice snorkeling, rum and orange juice as the sun sets, and creating cuisine at anchor.
• And we have, in our sailing careers, ‘been there done that’ for all types of sailing. We are not trying to prove anything, just trying to ENJOY an adventure via this boat.

We debated the pros and cons of each option and DECIDED to go with (drum roll….) Option 2

Vernon found a company that will take the boat from Manzanillo, Mexico (west mainland coast about 160 nautical miles south from Puerto Vallarta) on a freighter and drop it off in Fort Lauderdale. They did not have a USVI option. BUT once the boat is on the East Coast we can sail north up the East Coast  or south to Caribbean. OR Both.

I have found great pleasure in this decision. One of our original options was the Great Lakes and East Coast sailing and my son, daughter in law and most important, my granddaughters, are in NY and can easily visit us this summer as we travel the East Coast. And we have the option to get back to what has always been our favorite place: the US and British Virgin Islands. And we can do all this sooner than later. (I honestly have feared that we would grow tired of this before we had done the areas we wanted to OR Vernon would ‘curse the gods’ and quit). So the money spent from our hard earned savings from working our jobs at Hoag will be put to enjoyable use.

Now with the decision made we have a few weeks to see some of the West Coast of Mexico before the boat pick up in the first week of May. We spent over 5 hours in Puerto Los Cabos marina working on filling out forms and money wire transfers. Frustrating work from Mexico. Especially calling the banks with ‘800’ numbers that don’t go through well.

On Friday 4-14 we left with first light from the tip of Baja and traveled over 280 miles arriving in Banderas Bay on the West coast of Mexico on Saturday evening.

The passage was long, with some sailing (but mostly motor sailing or motoring). 35 hours thru the day and night and day. We fished but got skunked again.                                            I think that is Fish 10; Us 1.

The daylight lingered till 9pm and the moon joined us by 11pm so we had nice light on the ocean.
We took turns napping thru the night and about half way across the ocean passage, on one of my shifts on watch, I saw a large bird flying around the boat and mast as we motored. It was attempting to land on the top of the mast and catch a ride. This can harm our instruments at the top of the mast, so I banged on and shook the back stay to stop him. I did this for over an hour and began to think I may be hallucinating because he would stop for a while and I would lose sight of him. When Vernon took over I reported the bird and he looked up and did not see anything. Later that morning I was back on watch as the sun began to light up the sky and I looked up to see this.

I tried to get him off but he would not budge. I woke Vernon and together we yelled and blew the fog horn and shook the back stay, but eventually had to raise the main to get him to get off. We were within sight of land so I am sure he made his way. We could see that he had damaged our wind vane but the instrument equipment looked unharmed.

We spent that day motoring and hiding from the sun. Here we are filling the fuel tanks from the 6 spare 5 gallon jugs we carry.

By the time we got to La Cruz Bay to anchor we were pretty much toast from the long passage so we ‘toasted the passage’ with a Painkiller, watched the sun set and slept through the night to the soft roll.

We are back in Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta now. Vernon has gone up the mast to repair the bird landing and bending the wind vane. Easter celebrations with families on vacation surround us.

Still working on the transactions to make the boat passage happen and enjoying the area. Dinghy ride through the mangroves to see the iguanas in the trees and the little known rare Mexican pink flamingo.

We will set off early tomorrow morning –Thursday 20^th– and sail on down to explore the “Gold Coast” of Mexico cruising on our way to Manzanillo.

Sending my love, Terri