Caleta Partida

These islands are really interesting, they have a strange slope that makes you wonder about the formation. You can see that at one time it was volcanic. Just a couple of hours underway today. We have been at anchor for about an hour. The anchorage is about a mile deep and there are 2 other boats here, each of us has plenty of room. I don't think we could hear each other yell.

Finally in cruising mode

We are finally at a spot where we can meet up with our friends without having to rush. Feels like we are now in real cruising mode. Arriving today in the La Paz area, we will be stopping at the first anchorage rather than plan A which was to stay out at the island. Puerto Ballandra is the stop for tonight, check our position report. Tomorrow a short trip to the island, then short trips everyday till we arrive at Puerto Escondido on March 5. Anne will be a year older by then.
Oh yes and the aquatic show today was the ray freestyle flips.

 Anne Whale watching yesterday

 Sunrise in the anchorage

This guy anchored a little close, we could actually tell what kind of boat it was.Other than that as you can see we had some space.

anchored Los Frailles

Well we had a huge show today. It was like the Whale summer olympics. Synchronized swimming, as they were breaching all day, sometimes in sync. It was very cool. Head winds and currents kept us from getting to the anchorage before dark. It was a bit of a challenge as I haven't anchored there since 2000. Our charts are less than accurate and the radar showed a boat here but we saw no light. After we got into the anchorage they turned their light on, that helped. More tomorrow.

Underway

I forgot where I put the address to Blog while underway.
Now I can send little text updates to the blog via ham radio email.
Talk about interesting technology.

 Since leaving Turtle Bay we have great sunrises and sunsets, lots of flat water, some really nice light air sailing, and finally this morning we had 20 with gusts to 30 knots. The boat was flying. I saw a humpback whale breach, then a tuna hit my fishing line, lost it only to get another one a little while later.

 The cat has been a little seasick, well maybe a lot seasick. Now he is feeling better just in time to get to know his new fish friend. Not only are they nice pets they taste good.

 The rocks at the point Cabo San Lucas

 Mucho at the first dock since the paint job, note the line holding her off.

Turtle Bay is the middle of Baja California, kinda nowhere unless you're on a boat. I have always run into people here that I had some connection to. One time a guy that had bought a friend of mine's boat and sailed it around the world. Another time we were there on a French boat that is very rare on this side of the world, an Amel, there was another one in the anchorage. This time we come in and there is one other sail boat, an Ovni, which like Mucho is aluminum, again rare, these people are from Switzerland and Anne has been following there blog. So two boats both Aluminum, both with French speaking people aboard.

 She is finally done, we go in the water Tuesday.

Our little Valentine dessert.

 Anne putting on the boat name in the dark, before making our Valentine dinner, tostada with New Orleans shrimp.

The final product.

Well the stripes are on and she is looking pretty good. Bottom paint and we are in the water.

Fishing Regs

Well, I've been sailing Mexican waters for about 15 yrs now and we all know the fishing regulations, they are written in English on the site. Rule number one, you must have a license for everyone on the boat. Now this trip I go to the office with Anne, who for some reason people think she is a native Spanish speaker, we asked about this rule, well guess what. If you don't speak Spanish they want to keep it simple for their officers, he said since you speak Spanish you can tell the officer you don't fish. I asked for a set of the Spanish fishing regs so I could have that on board as well.

 

 Well I ran into this guy who is Swiss and Ecuadorian in the office, he had new charts for the world that are much better than what I was using. Check this out, on top the new charts put me within a couple of 100 feet of where the boat actually was, in a slip on the right side dock. The old chart below lacks the detail and has me about a quarter mile out. 

 Big work day today, 30 gals of water moved onto the boat and got the radar and solar panels back on the arch, ready to mount on the boat. Ungaro checks out the new paint job then goes for a walk, everyone loves him, the call him gato pero, or cat dog.

 Hull paint finally on, yippee.

Well, that fish market is looking more and more interesting. We have emptied all the stuff we brought from home and bought some tuna today 100 pesos per kg. Which seems like a really good deal. the quick math says it's about 10 dollars a kg or 5 dollars a pound. The real math tells you it's 3.42 per pound, We need to get more of that.

 And here it is with Anne's varnished windows

Awlgrip lays down really flat and has a great shiny finish

 Beautiful day for spraying paint, finally!

Remember the movie Banana's I think these guys were in it.

The orange fish reminded me of Nemo, no stripe but still.

It has been busy and a little frustrating. We were ready to paint last Saturday but they had ordered the wrong paint. They had a holiday on Monday so if we were going to get paint on the boat I needed to go and get it myself in San Diego. I knew I could get one gal to get us started but while I was on the 6:30 AM bus Anne started making phone calls at 7:30 to find more. We ended up with 3 of the 4 cans we needed, which was plenty as having to carry it back to Ensenada was enough to handle. I was a real freak magnet all day, but I learned a lot about gold mining and a lot of other useful things, could have scored some grass. Then I also ran into Allen Olson from San Francisco, Allen and I did some sailing together years ago and had Anne and I out on his last project Seaward. The latest for Allen is the SF Schooner project, it was nice to see him and hear that is moving forward.

Good news, Anne is getting lots of coats of varnish on the window frames, bad news that means we don't have paint on the boat yet. They ordered the wrong paint. So we are looking at what to do.