Escape from San Carlos

We have managed to escape the clutches of San Carlos. At times, we had our doubts if we would ever get out of there. We had planned to leave a couple of weeks ago so we drove our car to Tucson, put it in storage and took the night bus back to Guaymas. Then hurricane Rick started to make threatening moves down south so we waited for it to move inland and dissipate. Then it continued to blow in the sea so we waited some more days and then we finally left on a beautiful afternoon when the engine overheated and we decided to play it safe and return to the marina. Two days of fussing with thermostats and water pumps and we were ready to leave again for a beautiful overnighter to Santa Rosalia only to have the winds pick up when we were 3/4 of the way across, the winds started off Isla Tortuga, building to seas of 4-6 feet and winds over 20 kts. We docked in Marina Singular with 25 kts winds blowing us off the dock but there were plenty of helpful hands on the dock to tie us off and keep us out of harms ways.

We enjoy Santa Rosalia, it's a friendly Mexican town with few tourist and the town is only a block or two from the marina so it's an easy walk to shops and restaurants. There is a Northerly cold front moving through for a few days that is bringing winds and cool weather. What a nice change from the stifling heat of San Carlos. We have turned the air conditioner off and opened the windows for the first time in 4 months. We're going to stay here for a few days to let the front pass and then head south to anchor out and do some swimming and play with our new dive hookah.

Surviving San Carlos

The summer heat in San Carlos is overwhelming. From sun rise to sun set the heat and humidity prevents any outdoor activity let alone working. We run 2 of our 3 air conditioning units 24 hours a day. They do an excellent job of keep the boat temperature around 80 and just as importantly keeping the humidity down to around 50%. The outside temp and humidity daily is in mid 90's, for both.

The weather is so crippling here that we feel we've lost a summer because we've been holed up inside the boat all the time. When we do try some outside activity we quickly become exhausted from the heat. We will not spend another summer here, next year we're looking at staying in Ensenada.

I managed to contract an E.Coli infection. When Jimena hit a lot of the sewer lines were broken and pump stations lost electricity with the results raw sewage was spread around the ground which then dried and turned to dust. I somehow ingested some of this which gave me the infection. The results are diarrhea and a high fever, the remedy is drink plenty of fluids and take antibiotics. Thankfully I recovered in a few days after I went on the meds.

Marina Real seems to be struggling just to keep the basic services working. They will patch a problem but not spend the time or money to fix the root cause resulting in problems reoccurring over and over. We have not had a reliable source of water on the dock since Jimena. Part of the problem is the rebuilding of the city water supply and part is due to problems in the marina. On our side of the dock we have not had water for more than a few hours at a time. The marina blames it on the city but there is no reason why part of the dock will have water while other parts do not. Our electricity has also been out most of the time. Again the other side of the dock has electricity while ours does not. They've had people working on the electricity but it would work for half a day and then stop and all the workers would be gone for a few days. Out of frustration we finally plugged into an unused plug on the other side of the dock. There are electrical wires routed through the sewer drains because that is the quickest way to patch a problem. This is not a place that you want to spend a long time at. If another storm hits more docks are likely to break apart and sink. And this is not just a 'typical Mexican' marina. Other marinas we've been in in Mexico have all been well maintained.

The heat might be starting to break, the last week was almost comfortable with highs in the 80's and lows in the high 60's overnight! The forecast is for it to turn hot again but we're hoping that the heat will soon cool down.

Surviving Jimena

We had a little 'tropical storm' come through here named Jimena. It was the remains of the hurricane of the same name and the winds blew over 60 mph for 2 days and it rained over 30" at the same time. The winds did some damage to the area but the rain was devastating. The boats in the marinas, including ours, did not suffer any major damage other than rain intrusion and the subsequent damage to carpets and wood work. There were 12 anchored or moored boats that broke free and ended up on the beach but there was no injuries to people on boats. San Carlos and Guaymas lost electricity for 3 days and water for 6 and there was extensive damage to roads and buildings from the rain. In some places the rain collected in to raging rivers and washed away sections of roads and bridges and washed mud, rocks, and debris into houses.

The Mexican government and agencies deserve praise for their quick and effective response to the storm damage. They were prepared prior to the storm and as soon as it passed there were crews out everywhere starting the clean up and repair. They actually announced there would be 'no Katrina' in Mexico. It's great that the US has become an example of what not to do.

Here's some pic's from around the area.


This is one of the boats that ended up on the beach. If you look to the left above the power post you can see a white object in the water. It's the upside down hull of a sunken boat.


This is the main road into and out of San Carlos. Within a day there was a detour route created.


This is the main road from Marina Real to San Carlos, it was not passable until a day after the storm.



We tied our boat to a chain around the dock pilling because we were not sure the dock would survive. We were lucky, our dock survived but others did not.

The Plan

There is no sense in having a plan if you're not going to pretend to follow it.

We're anxious to get moving again. Sitting at a dock is not what we want to do but we don't have much choice, we need to stay out of the hurricane zone south of 27° N and with the heat we have chosen to stay at the dock so we can run the A/C. The plan now is to leave San Carlos the first week of October and visit the Bay of LA up north on the west side of the Sea of Cortes, 28°56.840'N 113°33.320'W. We've heard that B of LA is a beautiful area with lots of wildlife, like Whale Sharks, and excellent snorkeling. We're getting an diving Hookah soon and we'll be anxious to try it out. After the B of LA we'll head south and hope to be in Santa Rosalia by November 1st for the El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which is the largest holiday in Mexico. Santa Rosalia is a traditional Mexican town so it should be fun to spend the holiday there. Heading South from Santa Rosalia we plan on being in La Paz for Thanksgiving for 2-3 weeks and then head south and east to Mazatlan on the Mexican mainland.

Once we're on the Mexican Riviera we'll wander south stopping in San Blas, Puerto Vallarta, Iplala, Chamela, Careyes, and Mazanillo. We're not sure if we'll go further south to Acapulco, we hear that it's a huge, expensive tourist trap, so we'll just see how it goes. When we turn around and head back north we're thinking of spending next Summer, the hurricane season, in Ensenada. We spent a week in Ensenada on the way south and it's kind of a tourist town but it has a lot of services and it's close to San Diego so we can go get our car and hop over the border to get supplies and parts. After next summer maybe it's off the the South Pacific, we're thinking about it but that's a long way off and we're not to good at making, let alone keeping, long term plans so we'll see how it goes.

Link: Diving Hookah

6 Months in Mexico

We have now been in Mexico for 6 months. We were reminded of this when our tourist visas expired and we had to go to immigrations to get them renewed. The renewal process is easy and costs just $20 each. We went to immigration office at the airport in Guaymas where there was easy parking and no waiting. The immigration officer did seem a little annoyed that we were interrupting his TV shows but he processed our new visas with no fuss. We have had a wonderful time in Mexico, the people are friendly, there is plenty of stores to get almost everything you need and the weather has been beautiful except for the last 2 months here in San Carlos where it's just down right frickin' hot. The heat index is daily 110°+ with a temp in the high 90° and humidity above 80%. It's just too hot to do anything outside. Hopefully in another month it will start to cool off.

I forgot to mention that neither of us has worn long pants for over 6 months. Short and t-shirts everyday!

Tucson Road Trips

We've now made 3 road trips to Tucson and back. The car trip takes about 8 to 9 hours northbound depending on the wait at the border and 7 hours south bound. The wait at the border into the States can take 1-2 hours, southbound can be much easier depending if you stop to declare items and how long that process takes. Returning to Mexico the first time we stopped to declare a few items and they just let us go with out paying any duty. The second time we had more items to declare and they quickly processed us, we paid a small duty and in 15 minutes we were off. The last time they made us go through 'Small Imports' and while they were very friendly it took us nearly an hour and cost about $75 to bring in $400 worth of items.

The last time we also had some extra excitement when a car pulled up next to us as we were leaving the last inspection point and told us we had a flat tire. We pulled off the road and some young guys quickly ran over and offered to change the tire for us. They were very friendly and did a quick and good job and we gave them a few pesos for their work. They pointed out a small shop just a few hundred yards down the road where we could get the tire fixed, our spare is one of those mini tires and it was low on air so we slowly made our way down the road to the repair shop. The shop only repaired tires and sold used tires. The man did a good job, 3 days later it is still holding air, and only charge a few pesos.

We will have at least three more trips to Tucson before we leave San Carlos in October. We are planning to buy 2 new heads for the boat, that will take one trip, and a Hookah diving system which will take another trip. Then there will be the last trip to put the car back in storage and take the bus back to San Carlos.

New Look & New Blog

As you can see, we've changed the look of the blog. The old format looked rather dark for our travels in the tropics so we changed the format and the banner picture.

We also have started a new partner blog, M/V Discovery Tech Notes, that will focus on technical issue and projects on the boat. Look to 'Other Links' on the right to get to the new Blog. This Blog will remain our travel log.