Whale Shark Hunting

Date: 4/26/2009

Location: La Paz 

Weather: Hot, high 80's to low 90's all week

Saturday we went out with a new friend of ours in the marina, Bill Lee on Ocean Quest, to look for Whale Sharks,  Rhincodon typus, just outside the bay.  Bill has a large fast tender and Linda and I with Bill and his lady friend packed some lunches and headed out the 3-5 miles to look for sharks. Actually the Whale Shark is not a typical shark but is a large, slow moving fish that eats plankton, not people. See this Wikipedia article, Whale Sharks. They are frequently found around La Paz so we went out and watched for any kind of disturbance on the water or birds swarming overhead. After an hour of looking with no luck we went ashore on a sandy beach with sand dunes behind and did some beach combing and had lunch. After lunch we resumed our search but to no avail. The afternoon breeze was starting to kick up bringing with it a chop so we decided to head back before running out of fuel. As luck would have it we ran into a pod of dolphins and had a great time playing with them as we motored along. They would come right next to the dinghy, just our of arms reach, and jump out of the water and run under the boat.  The dinghy sits low in the water with four people in it and more than once we took waves over the side soaking all of us. The air temp was around 90° and the water is 75° so it wasn't cold and we all had a great time chasing and running with the dolphins. 

We are running to get ready to leave this week for the islands up North. Why is it if you have 4 weeks in a place and enough time to be as lazy as an old dog on a hot day that you end up with dozens of things to do in the last 2 days?  Maybe I just figured it out? 

We are healthy and there is no swine flu in southern Baja. There's nothing to be worried about here or in the Sea of Cortez where we're going. If you listen to cable news you would think that armageddon is upon us. It will poison your mind if you watch enough of it, just turn it off.  

Later...

West Coast Trip Summary

Date: 4/24/2009

Location: Marina de La Paz

Weather: sunny and warm, mid 90's all week

Distances Summary (in Nautical Miles) - 

Port Townsend to Cabo San Lucas - 2,235 NM

Port Townsend to La Paz - 2,398 NM

Port Townsend to San Diego - 1,425 NM

San Diego to La Paz - 972 NM

Number of Passages (Neah Bay to La Paz) - 34

Overnight Passages (Neah Bay to La Paz) - 10

Days Underway (Neah Bay to La Paz) - 44

Average Speed (Neah Bay to La Paz) - 6.16 knots 

Fuel Used - 

Neah Bay to La Paz - 832 gals

Engine Hours - 380 hours

Gallons per Hour - 2.19

If we were to do this again, and I can't imagine why we would want to,  we would make longer passages with fewer stops. Ideally we would go from Neah Bay to Coos Bay and then Coos Bay to Bodega Bay. Both of these passages would be two nights long but if you get good weather they get you into CA quickly. All our overnighters were just one night long and that does not give you enough time to adjust and get some good rest. Passages lasting two nights are good for a 2 person crew or if you have 3 people I would recommend that if you get the weather to do so you go straight through from Neah Bay to Bodega Bay. The less you see of ports and bar crossings in WA and OR the better. Bodega Bay is a great stop, no bar to cross, nice marina, a bit of a walk to a restaurant and store,  but if you need fuel it's cheaper here than San Francisco.  From there you can slow down and enjoy the CA coast with recommended stops in Half Moon Bay, Monterey, Marina del Rey, and San Diego. We went into Santa Barbara,  crowded, narrow slips and fairways and very windy, don't bother, and Channel Island Harbor in Oxnard where there is a strong current running through the transit moorage slips but good shopping 2 blocks away. We did encounter tall, 10' +,  breaking waves when we left Channel Island Marina although the weather report said 5-10 kts winds with 3-5' seas. We also stopped in Dana Point which is very nice but expensive.  DP is the most exclusive areas we stopped at, lots of upscale restaurants and shops in the marina and up the hill in the shopping area. There is a little restaurant in the DP marina with the best pizza on Earth. No kidding, no exaggeration, it is the best!.  DP is nice place but bring your wallet. On the other end, Marina del Rey was $23 dollars a day for moorage (50' boat length) in a beautiful location next to a park and there was plentiful shopping within 4 blocks in regular stores at reasonable prices.  MDR has a 'California Pizza' restaurant, not the best pizza on Earth but not bad either. 

Note: We've added a lot of photos in our Web Photo Album. The link is on the right side under 'Other Links'.

La Paz - Week 3

Date: 4/23/2009

Location: La Paz, Marina de La Paz

Weather: sunny and hot,  98° yesterday, breezy at night which cools the place off

We have been busy for the last 3 weeks in La Paz getting the boat ship-shape and exploring around town. We are starting to acclimate to the hot desert climate, at least we're trying. During the hot afternoon we stay inside and slow down and try to be one with the heat, kinda a zen thing. If you fight it it just makes it worse. I like the heat, it's nice not to be cold and wet. Linda is getting there, she try's to enjoy the heat but mother nature sometimes makes that difficult. 

The water maker high pressure pump started to show signs of old age so we had it rebuilt by a gringo here who is a water maker expert. Cruising in Baja requires a good working water maker as water is hard to come by so it was important to get it repaired in La Paz when we had the chance.  The refrigerator started to run continuously about a month ago and not getting below 40° so we had another gringo take a look at it but it's still not working right. It's either  running all the time to get below 40 or if we turn it down so it cycles on and off it's too warm. We're having another person, a local named Hector who has a good reputation, look at it today. Other than that the boat is in good shape. 

I went to a doctor a few days ago because I've not been able to completely shake the cold that I had last January. I still have a cough, congestion, and funny feeling ears. The doctor says that I have some liquid in my left lung and an infection in my ears and gave me a list of 4 drugs I needed to take. They don't do  prescriptions here, they give you a list, looks like a prescription but it's not, and you take it to the Farmacia and they fill it for you. Anyone can walk into a Farmacia and get any kind of drugs except for narcotics which require a prescription. The doctor's office was as modern and well equipped as any doctor's office I've been to in the States, in fact better than most. The doctor spoke English and was very professional. Charge for the office visit, $37 US. Medical care here in La Paz, and we're told it's the same in all large Mexican cities, is very good and costs a fraction of what it does in the US. 

Life here is very relaxed and easy going. The locals are very friendly, if you run into a rude person it's a gringo but that's the rare exception.  Goods and services are inexpensive, not all things are cheap but local items normally are, things imported from the States cost 20% to 50% more here. Local produce, breads, etc are very inexpensive and very good. La Paz is large enough that you can find most services from excellent health care to mechanics. We're leaving next week to head north into the Sea. It will be good to get out and start exploring more, the islands north of here are supposed to be magnificent with abundant sea life. 

La Paz - Week One

Date: 4/7/2009

Location: La Paz

One week in paradise and we're still having fun. We've walked around town until our feet ache, we took a taxi to and from a large shopping plaza, we've ordered some lycra diving suits, had the outboard motor fixed, and with the help of a retired navy expat, nearly doubled the output of our water maker. Not bad for one weeks work. Ok, not really work in the traditional sense but we've been busy. 

The taxi rides were fun, the second ride was certainly worth the price just for the entertainment value. The ride out was so-so, almost boring. The ride back was fun. Radio blasting Mexican songs with the driver singing along, it was either full speed ahead or full breaks. Fortunately in the city traffic we never got over 30 mph so nothing too scary. At the shopping plaza we bought some shorts, shirts and groceries. The grocery store, called Soriano, is similar to a Fred Meyer or small K-Mart. 1/3 clothes and kitchen hardware and 2/3 groceries. Earlier in the week we walked to a CCC grocery store near the marina. Both stores are equivalent to a well stocked grocery store in the states. Not all the same goods but there is no shortage of items in either store.

We had a local expat do a complete tune up of our outboard motor. There are numerous Americans that live here, most are retired from American jobs but some have lived here most of their lives. They have legitimate Mexican companies and do work on boats. The outboard was fixed by a 20+ year resident of Mexico, 'Sea Otter' Jimmy. 'Sea Otter' is the name of his boat. He came down here over 20 years ago, married a local women, and makes a good living repairing outboard motors and skippering charter boats. We consulted with another expat on our water maker, Bill is retired Navy and worked in the Navy on water makers. He has a shop on his boat that has more water maker parts than  most dealers in the states. With a little advise from Bill we were able to improve the output of our water maker by 75%.  It's a good thing Bill is here because we've been trying to get some help out of Village Marine in Seattle via email but VM just got bought out by Parker Marine and it seems they are too busy reorganizing to answer their emails. 

There is a 46 Nordhavn named Mc Mac from Panama, photo above, anchored off a marina towards the head of the bay from us that has an interesting story. Nobody is on the boat and hasn't been for many years. Seems the boat was impounded by the Mexican Navy 8 years ago for carrying drugs, don't know what happened to the people on board but I assume they're in jail, but the Mexican law does not allow for the government to sell impounded property. So the boat just sits at anchor, uncared for and rotting away. In the last hurricane it broke free of it's mooring and was blown against the breakwater where it was scratched up but being a Nordhavn, it's too tough to sink so easily. So it just sits, a sad sight. 

We still have many things to do before we leave in 3 weeks so we'll keep busy. It's been warm and sunny since we got here. Today is in the high 80's with a light breeze. Shorts and t-shirt weather all the time. More later...

Paradise Found

Date: 3/29/2009

Location: La Paz, Marina de La Paz

Lat/Lon: 24 09.310 N 110 19.586 W 

Weather: Sunny and Warm, lite breeze, 82 °

Hi everyone, we're in La Paz! This has been our goal since we left Anacortes last August so we feel that we've reached a major milestone in our adventure and La Paz does not disappoint.  As with all our experiences in Mexico, the people are warm and friendly, even the gringo's here are nice,  but in addition to the people the town is clean, well kept and modern. The water front has been built with a broad board walk down the beach and there are restaurants and shops everywhere but without feeling too touristy.  We are going to be here for a month before heading north into the islands and eventually San Carlos for the summer. It would be great to spend the summer in La Paz but they do get the occasional  hurricane here so our insurance requires that we go further north by July 1st. 

We are at Marina de La Paz, the heart of the cruiser's world in La Paz. There are dozens of cruising sail boats here and a few power boats, mostly sports fishing boats that are kept here for the winter season. There are also a couple of mega-yachts in this marina and many more in the big resort marinas. This marina is at the edge of down town while the resorts are further out so we are within an easy walk of the shops and restaurants.  The weather is warm but not too hot, mid 80's, and I haven't worn long pants or socks since arriving. Shorts, t-shirts, and sandals all day, every day. This is paradise. The cats are loving the sun and we have the doors and windows open all day long with protective screens on so no one goes wandering off, the cats that is. I've also quickly gone native in other ways, I now drink the lighter Mexican beers, Corrona, Texcante, and Pacifico.   Up north I only drank darker, amber beers. Down here the heat requires a lighter beer. We also bought a bag of 18 oranges from a street vendor for less than $1.50 and have fresh squeezed juice with breakfast. Life is good.

Bahia Magdelena, aka Mag Bay

Date: 3/24/2009
Location: Bahia Magdelena, aka Mag Bay
Lat/Lon: 24 38.064 N 112 08.171 W
Weather: windy, mostly sunny, low 70's

We've been hanging out in Mag Bay waiting for a weather front to pass through on Sunday and Monday, which it did. The winds died down Monday evening and we're going to give it another day for the sea to lie down a little more before we head out so it looks like we'll be out of here Wednesday at first light.
We arrived at Mag Bay on 3/19 after a 28 hour, 160 NM cruise. The weather and seas were fair so it was a pleasant trip. Along the way we passed through a group of fisherman in pangas (large rowing boats with outboard motors) and one of them pulled up parallel to our boat about 30' off the beam and yelled 'Sodas, sodas!', gesturing with their arms drinking a can of Coke. I pointed to the aft of the boat and with out changing our speed or heading they pulled in behind us and I tossed them two cans of Coke. They waved and smiled and went back to their fishing. Within 10 minutes another panga pulled up next to us and we repeated the same process.

After arriving in Mag Bay at 9 AM and setting the anchor we went and laid down for a short siesta. A half hour later there was a knock on the side of the boat and someone saying 'buenes dias'. It was the Port Captain. We welcomed him aboard, offered him a cold Coke which he happily accepted, showed him our papers and filled out his simple documents. Now this is a village of maybe 30 people who live in simple shacks next to the shore, yet they have a Port Captain. He was very nice and although he spoke no English and we no Spanish we managed to carry on a simple conversation for 15 minutes. We understood that this is a peaceful village with no crime yet if we went up the bay to San Carlos they had mucho crime and banditos. We'll stay here, thank you.

There have been 2 sail boats here with us and Saturday the three of us hired a panga to take us into San Carlos at the head of the bay to get some groceries. The panga let us off on the beach near the center of town and a friend of the panga driver took us in his Jeep the next 6 blocks to the grocery store. There are some 5000 people in San Carlos and I'm not sure if we were in the center of town or on the edge but the grocery store was not that large. We did find a few things but they didn't have much. There was a lady selling fresh strawberries across the street out of the back of her truck, a newer Chevrolet 4 door, 3 pints for 20 pesos, just over a US dollar. We bought 3 pints. We tried to find an ATM to get some cash but couldn't find one and the driver didn't know of one or didn't want to spend the time to look for one. The streets all looked like sand but most of them were paved roads just covered with sand. It reminded me of a place that just had been blanketed with snow. Even the noise of the cars was muffled by the sand. The area around the town is all sand and dirt so I guess that the winds just keep blowing the sand onto the streets and they don't try to remove it.

We put the dinghy in the water and the motor started right up and ran for about 10 minutes before it stopped, for good. It seems to be a fuel problem so I'm going to take the dink to shore and remove the carburetor there so if I drop anything I can easily retrieve it. The last time I removed the carb in Nanaimo I dropped a part in 50' of water and it took over a month to get a replacement, and that was after we came back to the states! I don't want to take any chance repeating that here.

As we travel south we are also going east. We learned that south of Turtle Bay you move ahead one time zone so we are in the equivalent of the Mountain time but we aren't on day light savings time yet. They do go on DST sometime, we just don't know exactly when.

The photo above is of 'Punta Entrada', Entrance Point, at the entry to Mag Bay taken at 6 AM.

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Turtle Bay ++

Date: 3/13/2009
Location: Turtle Bay
Lat/Lon: 27 41.210 N 114 53.236 W
Weather: Windy, overcast

Worked on water maker leaks with good success. We did not run the water maker because we are not sure of the quality of the water in the bay and we did not want to clog up the filters unnecessarily. We have enough water to wait to run the water maker until our next trip off shore.

In the afternoon we called the water taxi and went into town. You call the water taxi on the VHF channel 16 and he comes out in a panga, a large row boat with a powerful outboard motor, and takes you to the pier where there are stairs treads leading down to the water with one ladder type step at the bottom. At lower tides the bottom stair tread is 3' above the water level and the bottom step is well above the water. It's navigatable but it takes some courage and just closing your eyes and moving forward.

Once we were off the pier we walked down the beach 50', the only path available, and up onto a small dirt road that leads directly into town. The town has a few blocks of paved road but all the rest is dirt. All of the dirt roads are one lane plus some parking on either side. As one person on another boat put it 'the town is at the end of a 50 mile dirt road that leads to a gravel road'. This place is at the end of the road and the poverty is extreme here. The people are very friendly and helpful and the nicest looking building in town is the church. There are many little grocery stores, more like mini mini-marts with a few can goods, rice, beans, beer, and coke. There are 2 or 3 internet cafés that have multiple computers connected to the internet and you can take your own laptop and connect to their network. We're going back into town tomorrow to buy some beer and a few less important items.

I think I have my laptop problems figured out. The small panel on the top of the keyboard that has the On/Off switch, volume controls, and various lights to indicate if the power is on or hard drive is turning has a plug at one end that plugs into a a receptacle on the main board. The problem is that this plug is not going into the receptacle far enough to make contact so I put a small folded piece of tape under the plug and that seems to help. It still needs a small push from a well placed finger to work every time but at least I know where the problem is and how to fix it.

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