We were going to leave this morning and head out to explore the nearby islands, but things did,'t seem quite ready so we will leave tommorow instead. One of the nicer aspects of cruising is that you can do things at your own pace.
Besides it is pretty nice here at Marina Costa Baja, although the beach club and pool have been busier this week.
We also now have good internet on the boat rather than having to haul everything up to the lounge, we have been watching Netflix as I signed up for a month free, trouble is that a lot of the titles are dubbed and we get them in Spanish, it's could for my burgeoning language skills though and I am very adept at translating Thomas el Gran Tren.
So Heather is in town shopping leaving Liam and I to our own devices, which will probably mean improper tooth brushing, grilled cheese sandwiches (quesadillas) , ice cream and swimming.
Our next post should contain pic's of the spectacular islands.
Michael
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Active restraint system
Dry Chemical Mess
Thursday, December 22, 2011
A Post from the Boatwife
We're still hanging here in La Paz and will stay at the beautiful Marina Costa Baja through Christmas. After that, we'll start exploring nearby Isla Espirtu Santo. Juvenile whate sharks are in the area, and we can't wait to see them. I've been sick since I got to La Paz, just started feeling better recently, so I don't feel settled in yet. I want to find a dentist for teeth cleaning and a pediatrician for Liam.
It took me three trips to town to get the grocery supply back up. The best trip was to the local market, which had very fresh meat and fish. (The whole chicken I brought home came with feet.) I took me a long time to get home, and I was worried about the pershiables not being refrigerated, when it dawned on me that they weren't refrigerated at the market. Fruits and veggies are scarce and of middling quality. Liam has been eating very badly--he won't touch anything Mexican, except quesadillas. I'm worried that he's going to stop growing and have delayed mental development.
We are very far from downtown (all downtown marinas are full for the winter), which is a big bummer, since I had visions of Liam attending preschool while I went to the market, cleaned the boat, etc. If Liam does go to school (and so far he's adamantly opposed to it), Michael or I will have to stay in town until school lets out for the day. It will be an hour commute each way.
So, it's two and a half months that we've been out. I would say, as a mother, that it's pretty difficult for me. My daily life is basically the same: I take care of Liam, cook, clean, do laundry, all of which is much harder to do while cruising. There are rewarding moments: see marine life, relaxing in the hot tub, getting a good taco, but we pay for them. Sailing with Liam basically doesn't work. He just lies on the cabin sole and vomits, which seems like an unproductive way for a toddler to spend his day. We're cutting way back on the sailing (we probably won't go to mainland Mexico) to address this problem.
Ok, Liam's waking up, must run.
It took me three trips to town to get the grocery supply back up. The best trip was to the local market, which had very fresh meat and fish. (The whole chicken I brought home came with feet.) I took me a long time to get home, and I was worried about the pershiables not being refrigerated, when it dawned on me that they weren't refrigerated at the market. Fruits and veggies are scarce and of middling quality. Liam has been eating very badly--he won't touch anything Mexican, except quesadillas. I'm worried that he's going to stop growing and have delayed mental development.
We are very far from downtown (all downtown marinas are full for the winter), which is a big bummer, since I had visions of Liam attending preschool while I went to the market, cleaned the boat, etc. If Liam does go to school (and so far he's adamantly opposed to it), Michael or I will have to stay in town until school lets out for the day. It will be an hour commute each way.
So, it's two and a half months that we've been out. I would say, as a mother, that it's pretty difficult for me. My daily life is basically the same: I take care of Liam, cook, clean, do laundry, all of which is much harder to do while cruising. There are rewarding moments: see marine life, relaxing in the hot tub, getting a good taco, but we pay for them. Sailing with Liam basically doesn't work. He just lies on the cabin sole and vomits, which seems like an unproductive way for a toddler to spend his day. We're cutting way back on the sailing (we probably won't go to mainland Mexico) to address this problem.
Ok, Liam's waking up, must run.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Hanging out in the Costa Baja
This is the calmest place we have ever been, there is absolutely zero motion in here, take that Pier 39 Marina, there are also no all night disco's or early morning sport fishing startups, in fact the only noise is the predator fish chasing the bait up against the hull, it seems that there is a near constant feeding frenzy going on. There are even s Sea Turtles inside the marina.
Liam and I have often been the sole patrons and the very nicely appointed beach club, lovely infinitiy pool, hot tubs , towels, nice showers and a decent beach, it's a beautiful place for a beach club with sweeping views of Bahia La Paz and the distant desert,if one could somehow overlook the nearby Pemex tank ship terminal it would be perfect, the resort also has a huge golf course with lavish landscaping.
But the odd thing is that the place is practically deserted, the marina is only about 70% occupied and for what you get in terms of ameneties it's almost indecently cheap, so how does the place stay open if it's not making money? The rumour of course is that it is narco money, but who knows what the truth is is.
We checked out the local Montesorri preschool, Liam immediately knew what was going on and promptly climbed back into the stroller and buckled himself in. It wasn't as nice as the one in Cabo.
Heather has a cold, when she get's better we will head over to the islands and probably spend Christmas over there.
M
Liam and I have often been the sole patrons and the very nicely appointed beach club, lovely infinitiy pool, hot tubs , towels, nice showers and a decent beach, it's a beautiful place for a beach club with sweeping views of Bahia La Paz and the distant desert,if one could somehow overlook the nearby Pemex tank ship terminal it would be perfect, the resort also has a huge golf course with lavish landscaping.
But the odd thing is that the place is practically deserted, the marina is only about 70% occupied and for what you get in terms of ameneties it's almost indecently cheap, so how does the place stay open if it's not making money? The rumour of course is that it is narco money, but who knows what the truth is is.
We checked out the local Montesorri preschool, Liam immediately knew what was going on and promptly climbed back into the stroller and buckled himself in. It wasn't as nice as the one in Cabo.
Heather has a cold, when she get's better we will head over to the islands and probably spend Christmas over there.
M
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Great News!
Marc has graduated from the University of Oregon! He now has a BS Political Science, with minors in Business Administration and Geography.
He called me this morning with the news, I'm a proud and somewhat relieved father.
He called me this morning with the news, I'm a proud and somewhat relieved father.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
La Paz
Well here we are in La Paz, arrived around noon and easily found a relatively inexpensive slip in marina at the edge of town. It's called Marina Costa Baja, designed for high end clientele and megayachts, but now forced to accept riff raff such as ourselves.
It's always nice to get into a snug a marina after several days at anchor, for one thing it makes getting Liam ashore a lot easier.
We had spent a couple of pleasant days at Ensenada de los muertos, ( Bay of the Dead), an attempt has been made to develop the area into a golf/beach resort and the developers changed the name to Ensenada de los suenos,(Bay of Dreams). It's not exactly thriving so the standing joke is that the new name is now Ensenada de los Muerto Suenos, dead dreams. But it is a beautifull place with great mountains crashing down into the sea, and an excellent north wind anchorage.
Leaving Muertos and going north to La Paz means transiting the Ceralvo Channel, basically a large windfunnel with a ripping current, I was a bit intimidated by this, particularly having heard hairy stories about cross currents and large confused seas, bashing 35 miles to windward in those conditions does not really appeal to me, and Heather and Liam would not be happy. But I figured out the tides by talking to a local fisherman who also told me that the wind tended to drop at night , something that I was already aware of but he added that Saturday night would be light and then it would start blowing again. So as a result I was up and weighing the anchor ( it's 25kg by the way) and underway with a reefed main and the engine running at 0230. And it was flat and easy, in fact a light sourtherly came up and we motored all the way to La Paz.
From which you may deduce that the engine is running well and you would be correct, we can now motor at close to hull speed instead of clomping along at 4.5 knots, I have to run in the rebuilt motor for the first 100 hrs, even so at 1600 rpm in flat water we can now go about 6.25 knots, it's all very exciting and scary fast.
Our digital camera has malfunctioned, so no new pictures until I can figure out what to do with it, it overexposes everything and the manual settings don't seem to work.
Aside from that we are all well and look forward to exploring the beautiful Bahia de La Paz.
M
It's always nice to get into a snug a marina after several days at anchor, for one thing it makes getting Liam ashore a lot easier.
We had spent a couple of pleasant days at Ensenada de los muertos, ( Bay of the Dead), an attempt has been made to develop the area into a golf/beach resort and the developers changed the name to Ensenada de los suenos,(Bay of Dreams). It's not exactly thriving so the standing joke is that the new name is now Ensenada de los Muerto Suenos, dead dreams. But it is a beautifull place with great mountains crashing down into the sea, and an excellent north wind anchorage.
Leaving Muertos and going north to La Paz means transiting the Ceralvo Channel, basically a large windfunnel with a ripping current, I was a bit intimidated by this, particularly having heard hairy stories about cross currents and large confused seas, bashing 35 miles to windward in those conditions does not really appeal to me, and Heather and Liam would not be happy. But I figured out the tides by talking to a local fisherman who also told me that the wind tended to drop at night , something that I was already aware of but he added that Saturday night would be light and then it would start blowing again. So as a result I was up and weighing the anchor ( it's 25kg by the way) and underway with a reefed main and the engine running at 0230. And it was flat and easy, in fact a light sourtherly came up and we motored all the way to La Paz.
From which you may deduce that the engine is running well and you would be correct, we can now motor at close to hull speed instead of clomping along at 4.5 knots, I have to run in the rebuilt motor for the first 100 hrs, even so at 1600 rpm in flat water we can now go about 6.25 knots, it's all very exciting and scary fast.
Our digital camera has malfunctioned, so no new pictures until I can figure out what to do with it, it overexposes everything and the manual settings don't seem to work.
Aside from that we are all well and look forward to exploring the beautiful Bahia de La Paz.
M
Saturday, December 10, 2011
At anchor in Los Muertos
Quick update, we have bashed our way north from the Los Cabos area and we are now anchored in Ensenada de Los Muertos, we are about 60 miles from La Paz via the Cerralvo and San Lorenzo channels.
We will leave for La Paz very early tommorow morning
M
We will leave for La Paz very early tommorow morning
M
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Thursday, December 8, 2011
Onwards
We got into San Jose del Cabo after a bumpy 4 hour motor sail, it's a large uncompleted marina development, we got a slip in the unfinished part of the marina for a lot less the Cabo.
We took the bus into old San Jose, a quaint town with a thriving art community.
It has been very windy and yes cold!. But the Norther seems to be diminishing today so we will push on to La Paz.
M
We took the bus into old San Jose, a quaint town with a thriving art community.
It has been very windy and yes cold!. But the Norther seems to be diminishing today so we will push on to La Paz.
M
Monday, December 5, 2011
Ready,set, oh wait a minute
We completed provisioning at Walmart of all places, I hate Walmart but honestly it was very well stocked and surprisingly cheap.
Today I replenished the water, easy you may say, just drop in the hose and done, but this being Mexico it's not quite that simple, despite the advertised potable water at the marina nobody will drink it, in fact I was told again in no uncertain terms that if you drink the water it will "fxxx you up", that`s a loose transliteration from spanish.
So Heather and I dragged our water jugs into town about a quarter mile to the place that sells purified water to try to rent some water jugs, but they won't rent them so we bought 2 and filled them up, I then made 5 roundtrips between there and Grace before we had the tanks full, we carry about 260 liters, we can't use the watermaker in the harbour as the water is polluted so we were getting pretty low.
So the engine seems to be running very well, it sounds like a new engine compared to before, and in a sense it is a new engine, with the engine out of the way I was able to take care of some other issues at theat end of the boat, such as the shaft packing and the shaft log, which was a little loose.
So we are ready to set off once more but now there is a weather issue. A strong Norther is blowing down the Sea at 30 plus knots which means we would be bashing into a steep sea for about 80 miles once we round Cabo Pulmo, so we are going to wait for this to die down before we sail for La Paz, we may leave tommorow anyway and go to San Jose Del Cabo, only about 20 miles and probably a good reentry.
Liam, believe it or not,likes school, at least that is what he said today, the Montesorri approach seems to work with him, so when we get to La Paz we will probably find another school for him.
We spend the day ( yestersday ) with Hans and Kathleen at their condo about 5k east of here, it was nice to see some familiar faces, and to see Hans without his hat, Liam loved Kathleen, in fact we were thinking about kidnapping her and bringing her along to play with Liam.
M
Today I replenished the water, easy you may say, just drop in the hose and done, but this being Mexico it's not quite that simple, despite the advertised potable water at the marina nobody will drink it, in fact I was told again in no uncertain terms that if you drink the water it will "fxxx you up", that`s a loose transliteration from spanish.
So Heather and I dragged our water jugs into town about a quarter mile to the place that sells purified water to try to rent some water jugs, but they won't rent them so we bought 2 and filled them up, I then made 5 roundtrips between there and Grace before we had the tanks full, we carry about 260 liters, we can't use the watermaker in the harbour as the water is polluted so we were getting pretty low.
So the engine seems to be running very well, it sounds like a new engine compared to before, and in a sense it is a new engine, with the engine out of the way I was able to take care of some other issues at theat end of the boat, such as the shaft packing and the shaft log, which was a little loose.
So we are ready to set off once more but now there is a weather issue. A strong Norther is blowing down the Sea at 30 plus knots which means we would be bashing into a steep sea for about 80 miles once we round Cabo Pulmo, so we are going to wait for this to die down before we sail for La Paz, we may leave tommorow anyway and go to San Jose Del Cabo, only about 20 miles and probably a good reentry.
Liam, believe it or not,likes school, at least that is what he said today, the Montesorri approach seems to work with him, so when we get to La Paz we will probably find another school for him.
We spend the day ( yestersday ) with Hans and Kathleen at their condo about 5k east of here, it was nice to see some familiar faces, and to see Hans without his hat, Liam loved Kathleen, in fact we were thinking about kidnapping her and bringing her along to play with Liam.
M
Saturday, December 3, 2011
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