The Adventures of Daydream

We went to Palm Desert, California to visit Susan’s parents for a few days from San Carlos. This was an easy trip for us as San Carlos is so near to the border. We had a nice time visiting Howard and Shirley, eating fast food and buying stuff that we couldn’t get in Mexico. On the way back we had a funny experience crossing back into Mexico. You have to understand that Mexican Customs is always confusing for us. Inevitably, we have a lot of odd industrial looking packages and between our tortured Spanish and the typical border guards indifference to the peculiar laws regarding importing parts for yachts we worry about delays, seizures, fines or (heaven forbid) bribes. Neither of us had ever been through the Calexico/Mexicali crossing before and we didn’t know where to go. Howard has dropped us off about a block from the actual border and we were struggling along like pack horses with all of our gear. The cars were all stopping at the little customs booths but everyone was ignoring us. We kept wandering along unenthusiastically looking for a customs official until suddenly we found ourselves in downtown Mexicali. Oops! We later learned that there was a pedestrian tunnel, but clearly our way of simply stumbling through the car lanes was better.

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 Every year or so we have to have a crane of some sort lift the boat out of the water and paint the bottom to keep the barnacles from growing out of control. We had two options this time, an Americanized operation in San Carlos or an authentic Mexican yard in Guaymas. The Mexican yard was a little less expensive and we liked the manager better so we decided to haul the boat there. What an experience! There were no showers, only one hose in the entire shipyard and extremely basic restroom facilities. To flush you need to toss of full bucket of water down the toilet. Good bathroom etiquette demanded that you then refill said bucket and leave it beside the toilet when you were done. If you’ve never worked on a boat in a boatyard before this may not sound too bad, but these places are always dirty and working on the bottom of a boat makes it much worse. We were there for three weeks and it was about all we could stand. We did have a little fun with the local “wild” life though. The place was full of stray dogs. None of them really had anything to eat so we temporarily adopted the four smallest puppies. These little dirt coloured mutts were about four inches tall and all ribs and ears when we arrived. Everywhere we went in the yard the four of them formed a four-point honour guard, protecting us from shadows and wind gusts. We fed them anything and everything that we wanted to get rid of including old rice, vegetable scraps, melted ice-cream, assorted bones and of course pigs ears (we bought those for them as a treat). By the time we left they all looked like the might actually belong to the race of dogs. Of the four, Sad Sack and Leaper were so healthy and aggressive that we thought that they’d do OK, but Limper and Mooch the Pooch (the blind one) didn’t look as good, so on our last day we bundled them up in a box and surreptitiously ‘delivered’ them by bus to the marina where the well fed softy foreigners lived. A few days later, when we returned there with the boat, they were fat and happy and seemed to think that they had gone to heaven.

 Leaving the shipyard after the paint job proved more difficult than we expected. The crane put the boat back in the water just as the tide was going down. Then the pilot boat led us directly into a shallow part and “Daydream” went aground. This was really our own fault, we knew where the channel was, but had allowed the staff to convince us to follow the pilot boat even though we had seen them put three other boats aground in the previous week. We quickly put up the sails, reved the engine and the pilot boat towed, putting us even higher up on the mudbank. Finally, we realized that we wouldn’t be getting off the bottom until the next high tide, so we settled back and had dinner. Just after moonrise, the tide was high enough for us to start moving, we bumped along over another two or three hundred feet of shallows before finally getting clear.

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 My sister Fey (actually she likes to spell it Faye) came down for a visit while we were in San Carlos. This was her first visit to Mexico so we had fun showing her around. Faye also went out of her way to entertain us. First there was a short hike during which she missed her footing on a steep slope. As she fell down the hill she reached out and gave a cactus a big bear-hug. Later, after we were able to stop laughing, Susan and I each extracted a couple hundred cactus spines from Faye, including one that had completely pierced an ear. The following week we anchored up after a hot afternoon of sailing and Wayne and Susan were immediately over the side for a quick cooling dip. It took Faye a little longer to get in as we were getting out. While drying off Faye asked if we ever got stung by jellyfish. I began a long winded explantion about how rarely that happens etc, etc. Midway through my explanation, Susan interrupted to point out the painful looking sting marks all over Faye’s body! When we looked over the side, there were literally thousands of jellyfish all around the boat that had timed their arrival with Faye’s swim. Faye took these mishaps with such astonishingly good grace that we started to get suspicious that she was planning revenge. Sure enough, a few days later we were boarded by pirates! Actually we were never able to prove that she had caused this incident, but since it was the only time in four years that it ever happened, she must have had something to do with it! We had spent the night in a quiet little bay right near the city of Guaymas. As this was squid season there were fisherman in and out of the bay all night long in open pangas. Just at sunrise, Susan heard a sound outside and I went up to investigate. There was a panga right beside us and one of the three men onboard, was holding onto “Daydream”. This was a little weird but these guys often need to borrow some gasoline or a few fishhooks so it wasn’t completely unexpected. In this case they wanted cigarettes. “Sorry we don’t have any.” “Oh…what about breakfast?” “Sorry.” “Well, we need some water”. You just can’t refuse to give people in an open boat water, so I went down to get some. When I returned, one of them was standing on our deck which is very odd. I explained that people were asleep below and asked him to step off, which he did. They left and we went back to bed. Twenty minutes later they were back, this time with cigarettes in their mouths and needing a match. I went down to get them a match and immiediately started to hear some very strange noises from up above. Susan thought that their boat had hit ours and was yelling at them to be careful, but the noise continued. Finally I went back up just in time to see one of them leaping back into their already moving panga with an armload of our dive gear. I went over the rail after him and just made it into the front of the panga as it reversed away. The ‘pirate’ who’d just left our boat saw me coming and continued running right off the back end of the panga and into the water. He was fully clothed in foul weather gear and boots and we probably should have started worrying about him being able to stay afloat. By this time the panga was about 100 feet from “Daydream” and the other two were cowering at the other end staring toward me. I was dressed rather stylishly in glow-in-the-dark pink flamingo boxers but that didn’t seem enough to explain their looks of awe. Finally, I looked over my shoulder at “Daydream” and discovered that there was a certain short blonde person out on deck waving a steak knife and endeavoring to launch our dinghy for a rescue effort. My two remaining pirates gave up the fight at that point, explained that it had all been an ‘error’, delivered me back to “Daydream” and finally rescued their sputtering cohort from the ocean.

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Finally the boat was painted and we were ready to head South. We waved good-bye to San Carlos. It felt great to be moving again after sitting still for so long. That feeling lasted all of a few hours. It’s only a short hop across the Sea of Cortez and down towards Loreto but the Sea decided to make it a doozy. Susan doesn’t remember much of it as she had her head inside of air sickness bags the whole way across. To finish off that lovely voyage, the wind quit as we approached our destination of Ballandra Bay so we decided to motor the last ten miles or so. The transmission gods thought not. The transmission promptly spit out all of its oil and quit working. Needless to say we sailed, very slowly, to Ballandra and there we slept the much deserved sleep of the dead. From there on down to La Paz was a great trip. We had big North winds behind us most of the way giving us excellent speed between anchorages. We hopped along until we landed in Ensenada Grande on Isla Espirito Santo. It was a real pleasure to find our friends Tom and Liz on ‘Feel Free’ anchored there. We put off our push to get to La Paz and enjoyed a few idyllic Mexico days. It was to be our last real free time in Mexico before leaving for Hawaii as there was still a lot to do. Those days embodied all we loved of cruising in Mexico. A beautiful, uninhabited island, clear water, great scenery, nice weather and just great fun with good friends, partying, snorkeling, hiking and picnicing on the beach. It was hard to leave but time was passing so off we went to La Paz.

 We made it into La Paz just in time to be a half hour late for a surprise birthday party for our friend Gaye. It was great reunion and we are glad we headed in when we did as David and Gaye left for the Marquises the next day. Perhaps we’ll see them in B.C. in a couple of years.

 The next month in La Paz was cram packed with final boat preparations and saying good-bye to old friends departing in all directions. I also had to fly up to Palm Desert and deliver Twiggy into my parents apprehensive hands. We decided that we didn’t want to quarantine Twiggy in Hawaii for two months as it is manditory for all incoming animals. In retrospect, it was a great decision. We missed her terribly but she wouldn’t have enjoyed the passages or quarantine very much. By all accounts from home my parents did a great job of showing her the good life.

 We arrived in Cabo San Lucas at 2 a.m., had a quick nap and headed ashore for our last day in Mexico. We got checked out by Immigration, had lunch and bought a few last minute veggies. Then literally one hour before we planned to leave, we discovered that our fuel tank was leaking. Repairing that delayed us overnight but early the next morning we were finally on our way.

 (paragraph about how long it typically takes to get to Hawaii, our first huge passage, nervous, but excited, no anchorages, very little sleep, on your own)

There was no wind in the anchorage when we left but just over a mile outside of the anchorage there was 20-25 knots of wind from the West. To top it all off within just a few miles of Cabo San Lucas we encountered the biggest wave we’ve ever seen. Wave heights are normally very difficult to estimate because there is nothing to compare them to. Normally waves that are twelve feet tall look pretty big and are unusual in the tropics. In this case we were within ½ mile of a big tanker when it took a sea squarely on the nose that reached as high as the top of its bow. This would have to be 40-50 feet above sea level! Seconds later as we were still staring, gape-mouthed at the freighter the wave got us too but we floated gently up to the top of it and just the last couple of feet at the top broke and gave a good soaking. This was a pretty exciting start. There was 25 knots of wind blowing and it didn’t drop below 20 knots for the first six days. We got the sails up and the wind vane on and six days later we had yet to run the engine. The wind vane had done all the steering except for a couple of hours when it had broken a control line that needed repair. Here’s an excerpt from our log on day six. “Right now we have a North wind of about 17 knots with a four foot swell. We’re going due West at about six knots and heeling about eight degrees. We’ve been on the same tack since we left Cabo. Does it get any better than this? We’re running down the 19^th parallel and we passed 120 degrees West this a.m. According to NMC (explanation) the trade winds are here blowing E-NE 20-25 knots. We’d really like to see those East winds because the chainplate for our starboard whisker stay has developed a crack. We’ve got a line leading from the end of the bowsprit out to a spinnaker pole and back to a winch. It’s as tight as a violin string so it should hold the bowsprit if the chainplate goes but life would be a lot easier if the wind would just go East.”

(1 light since Cabo, manoverboard buoy rescue, mileages)

We started our watch schedule several days prior to leaving in order to be reasonably well rested during the first few days. As a direct result we had the best long passage ever. We were well rested and fed and the boat was kept in perfect order.

This is day 15 and a bunch of stuff has happened. We finally decided to motor for a while when the wind got down to about 8 knots. Exactly one hour after we started the engine, the transmission quit working. The next morning we dug out the manual and decided that we could repair it. By this time we were in a flat calm with the only movement being provided by a big old ocean swell. The transmission’s control valve came out easily but then we discovered that we’d need a press to get it apart. The calm only lasted about 5 hours but it was followed by only very light winds. We only made about 50 miles that day. The following morning the wind quit again and this gave us an opportunity to build a press. It’s really ugly, we call it Franken-Press, but it worked. Everything went back together and we started the motor. Unfortunately, the transmission was still spitting out it’s oil. We made only about 25 miles that day. The next day the wind came back. By that evening, we had 15 knots from due North and we were making 6 knots due West. We passed a 176 foot schooner that night, talked to them on the VHF radio and asked them to email Dennis with our present position. For several days we’ve had steady North winds of about 15 knots and we’ve made pretty good time. On the 13^th day we were about 100 miles from the halfway point and moving really well with the wind off of our quarter. We had just put the genny up when we heard a loud crack. A couple minutes later there was a louder crack. Our forestay had broken off at the top swage but the halyard was still holding everything up. Of course the wind was blowing about 25 knots with 8 foot seas and darkness was falling. We frantically rolled the sail up and then unbolted the foil at the bottom and lowered the whole mess into the sea. The entire time the foil was slamming from side to side threatening to take out the spreaders. Once we had it down and under control, we were able to heave it up onto the deck and get a sail up onto our inner forestay. As far as we can see everything is OK except that we may have damaged a section of foil. (inner forestay addition holding things up). We even have a spare forestay but don’t want to go up the mast to install it out here. It’s been 36 hours now since the forestay came down. We’re still averaging better than 4 knots and we even got motivated and tried the last thing that we could think of to fix the transmission but so far there has been no need to motor. We have less than 1100 miles (give or take a week and a half) to go now so it feels like the home stretch.

We passed the halfway mark two days ago and opened the best half way present imaginable. It was from Tom and Liz on “Feel Free”. They’ve done lots of long passages and clearly know what’s needed at this point. The package included balloons, large size handywipes for showering, junk food, pictures of Tom and Liz in Canada looking cold, and best of all, stick on tatoos.

The rest of the passage went very smoothly only a couple of other minor things broke. We did have a funny experience about 4 days away from Hilo, Hawaii, we passed an office tower floating in the sea. Actually it was a drilling rig being towed from L.A. to Singapore. It was the most amazing sight, it looked like a 200-foot tall building hundreds of miles out to sea.

We spent one month in the city of Hilo on the island of Hawai’i. This is a nice small city with all the good things…

repairsa;;;volcano…RAIN.. etc

From Hilo we sailed overnight up to the Island of Maui. So far this has been our favorite place in the islands. We were in a rush of course so we only spent a couple days at the town of Lahaina. It has a great climate and a very interesting history.

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We left Oahu on the 2^nd and had a week of upwind sailing in the trades. The wind was strong but steady so we made good time and other than blowing out our stay-sail this part of the trip was trouble free. By the 12^th the we were approaching 40 degrees North and the winds were light but finally we were able to point toward Vancouver Island. In the 72 hours starting on the 13^th, our barometer dropped over 24 millibars, by which time we had a full gale blowing with seas of over 15 feet. We were still able to make some progress but eventually the wind turned a little and started forcing us South. At that point we took down all the sails, even then we were still doing six knots and had breaking seas on deck every few minutes. After a few hours of that, we dragged some lines over the stern, that helped bring the speed down and allowed us to control the boat better. Like all storms this one eventualy ended and other than being a long way off our course and having mostly wet cloths and bedding we really had no damage at all. Actually when I say the storm ended it was not really all that simple. In the blackest part of the night the wind absolutely stopped leaving us with giant seas and no way to steady the boat. This is pretty much the original design for a vomit comet, so Susan started the engine for the first time on this trip and began to motor. Within just a few minutes a line floating in the ocean wound itself up in our prop and stopped the engine. We went back to drifting and being uncomfortable. At first light I went over the side with a knife to clear the prop, but it was obvious that the boat falling off of ten foot seas would quickly bash in my head, so I gave up. We didn’t really care anyway, cause by this time the wind was back. A few hours later we had a really beautiful warm blue day but with about 25 knots of wind on our beam. We still had big seas leaftover from the storm but on a day like this its impossible to believe in any bad thing so I had the boat beam onto the seas and doing its best speed straight toward Victoria. Susan was asleep in the sea berth with a pillow over her head when I heard what sounded like a freight train coming toward us. This is what a breaking wave sounds like, but this one just kept coming and coming. Finally just as I was heading up to make sure that it wasn’t really a ship making that noise, the breaking wave hit us squarely on the side. Daydream was knocked down flat and water squirted in through the closed portholes drenching Susan and the last of our dry bedding. Susan lifted the pillow off her head, opened one eye, said a bad word and went right back to sleep.

 The day after the big knockdown we started to hear tiny unintelligible voices on the radio. We always kept our radio on no matter what, but at sea it was not unusual to go thousands of miles without ever hearing a peep, so this was pretty exciting. We turned the volume up and listened as hard as we could. After a few hours we began to get bits and pieces and realized that we were listening to a fishing fleet in the middle of a search for a lost boat. We eventually were able to raise them and offer whatever help we could. The search was being coordinated by a fishing boat called the Ocean Pearl and they said that one of their friends had reported he was in trouble and then gone off the air. They asked us to keep an eye out for a life raft. We did what we could, and listened into the radio all day long. Finally near the end of that day, the fisherman reported that they had found their friend and he was OK, but his radio had been ruined by a big wave over the side. At this point we jumped in and asked the Ocean Pearl if they had the ability to email or call Dennis and let him know where we were. There was a long pause after we gave them the email address and finally the captain came back and said “Dennis was on this boat the day we left Victoria and we tried to talk him into coming along.” It’s probably impossible to express just how unlikely this is, but if you realize that the Pacific ocean is bigger than all the dry land on the planet combines and we were just about as far from land as its possible to be, you’ll have some flavor of it.

 We were getting close to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and we still had that rope in the prop. We decided that we really should try to get it off cause the Juan de Fuca is a dangerous place, full of ships, fast currents, fog, and rocks, and ultimately we’d have to get to the customs dock in Victoria harbor. We chose a day when the seas were kind of reasonable, dug out the thickest wet suit we owned and Susan boiled a pot of water, She filled my wetsuit up with hotwater and I went over the side on a line. It turned out that a knife was useless for cutting through 20 feet of 2 inch nylon line, but eventually we got a hacksaw going and I was able to saw it all away. I dropped my dive knife and was mesmerized to see it spiraling off into the clearest water I’ve ever seen, maybe 10,000 feet deep.

Starting in Puerto Vallarta 9 months ago, we covered some familiar territory like Mazatlan, La Paz and Puerto Escondido until April. I left Wayne and Twiggy to fend for themselves in Puerto Escondido while I headed to California to begin a whirlwind tour of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia to visit with friends and family. When I returned at the beginning of May we headed North into the Sea of Cortez or Gulf of California as it’s also known. This skinny sea separates the Baja Peninsula of Mexico from the mainland coast. It is a truly unique, remote, and fascinating place. You could spend years up here and still not see it all. We’ve been as far North as Puerto Peñasco which is pretty much at the top end and we’ve seen many, many places along the way. Currently we’re in the San Carlos/Guaymas area on the mainland coast midway down the Sea.

After leaving Puerto Vallarta in January we stopped at the uninhabited island of Isla Isabela located half way between Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan. Besides its very striking topography it’s also a bird and whale magnet. The birds are Frigates, which are really beautiful flyers. Around this island there are literally clouds of them. They’re so thick that from a distance they look like smoke, forming huge tornado shaped structures that extend thousands of feet in the air. Frigates have long, narrow wings with which they can soar almost forever without effort. They can only take off from high places so they never set down on the water. In order to feed, they fly very slowly, only a foot or so above the surface and without stopping they dip their beak and yank out a fish. Whales also feed near the island, and there are usually several in sight blowing and diving.

A boat named “Breezy” also heading for Mazatlan left Isla Isabela a few hours ahead of us. Later that night, they collided with a fishing boat and lost their mast. Dismasting is a catastrophe on a sailboat. When it happens, hundreds of pounds of mast and rigging fall from thirty or forty feet above, endangering boat and crew. In addition, the force necessary to dismast a boat may also tear the top of the boat off. Finally, once the mast is down it remains attached by its rigging and in any kind of seas could puncture and sink the boat. In “Breezy’s” case the mast crashed down squarely into the cockpit and certainly would have injured anyone there. Fortunately both Jay and Didi were below and they were able to clean up the mess enough to limp into port under power. We helped remove the wreckage in Mazatlan and had a chance to hear the whole sad story. It seems that “Breezy” was under power and Jay was on watch, but below making coffee. He didn’t see the shrimp boat before the collision and they were unable to avoid “Breezy” because of their net. Jay’s view was that the collision was entirely his fault.

We had an exciting experience ourselves that night. It was pitch black and we were closehauled in about twenty knots of wind. The seas were big enough that they were consistently coming aboard and running down the deck. Susan was on watch and I was asleep with a pillow over my head. We both heard something bang down the hull, sounding like a log. Then Susan yelled and I jumped up on deck. Our greatest fear is of someone going overboard at night. In case it ever happens we have a life-ring with a light attached that should be thrown after them to pinpoint their location. A large wave had torn the ring’s bracket, the ring and the light over the side, automatically turning on the light. In just those few seconds we were already losing sight of the light behind the waves. We quickly turned downwind, then gybed toward it. Without anything for a visual reference we had no idea how far away we might be so we steered directly for the light, until suddenly, we passed it. Instantly we turned up into the wind and the boat stopped dead in the water within a couple feet of the ring! That was as close to a real night-time man-overboard situation as I ever want to be.

While in Mazatlan we had a chance to take in a bullfight. They take bullfights very seriously there. The one that we went to was jammed with every seat filled and every bit of standing room crowded. The actual fights were conducted from horseback and were a disappointment. The horses were beautiful and fantastically well-trained but there was never any sense that the matador was taking any kind of risk. As a result it felt like watching a ritualized butchering. The only contest other than the one between the horse and the bull didn’t even involve the matador. There was sort of a half-time in each fight at which point the bull would be well and truly angry but not yet seriously injured. This next bit was way too risky for the wussy-girl matador so he hid in a closet and they brought out the amateurs. These were young, unpaid, and untrained but very macho Mexican men. They were dressed in street clothes except for one – hereafter referred to as Victim – who wore a red Santa Claus-like hat. Victim and his five friends entered the ring on the opposite side from the bull with Victim in the lead and his friends spaced a couple of feet apart in single file behind him. Meanwhile the bull was being kept busy on the opposite side of the ring. As soon as Victim and friends were in the ring, Victim began prancing toward the bull with everyone else following along behind. The bull charged! Just before the collision, Victim started to run backwards still facing the charging bull. You have to understand that the bull weighed 900 pounds and was probably doing 30 mph. As they impacted, the bull put his head down and slashed with needle-sharp horns. Victim was hit just below the waist, doubled up and thrown onto the bull’s neck with his legs hanging down in front. Without any noticeable reduction in speed the bull slammed into each successive friend until the whole gang was piled up on his horns. They were furiously digging in their toes to try to slow him down before he could crush them against the wall. A thousand people were holding their breath and there was a collective sigh of relief when they got the bull stopped. Immediately friend #5 peeled himself off and grabbed a foreleg, #4 took the other foreleg and one by one the others separated themselves and took hold of various appendages near the front of the bull. Last off was Victim. Astonishingly he was not only ungored, but he also seemed to have the use of all of his limbs. Victim then ran around to the back of the bull and took a good grip on the tail. The friends simultaneously let go and scattered and Victim was dragged at top speed around the ring. Bull naturally was not overjoyed at this treatment but was unable to turn sharply enough to discipline Victim effectively. Eventually when they passed near a wall, Victim let go and dived into the crowd before the bull could finish him off.

Leaving on the passage from Mazatlan to La Paz was more difficult than usual mainly because I had a bad stomach bug. However, as always, we had a deadline to meet. In this case Susan’s upcoming trip home. Anytime that you leave a harbour for a major trip, there are always plenty of people who have nothing better to do than tell you how dangerous it is out there, or how bad the weather will be. Usually these are the same people who haven’t gone anywhere in years and if they ever do, it’ll be in a convoy, at top speed, under power. We’ve learned to ignore them and make our own decisions which are more likely to be based on whether we’ve finally got the boat ready rather than external factors. On this day, several boats had left early (you know, before noon) and returned reporting high winds and seas and extreme difficulty making progress toward La Paz. “Ha!” we said. “Wind is just what we like, a requirement for sailing you know.” Naturally we expressed this opinion vehemently to all those who felt a need to force-feed us advice. Out we went, to discover big, uncomfortable seas and a strong wind blowing straight from La Paz. In a sailboat, your perception of both wind and seas is directly related to their direction. Twenty-five knots of wind and eight foot seas from behind or abeam, means a fast, exhilarating sleighride. If the same conditions are from dead ahead, you’ll only be taking off your snorkel to make use of a bucket. (Speaking of which, the next time you’re flying, could you bring home the air-sickness bag for us? Thanks.)For once, all of those harbour sailors were right. The wind was dead ahead and the horrible seas were converging from two different directions. Needless to say we were more than a little uncomfortable. In addition, since a sailboat cannot sail directly into the wind, conditions were forcing us to head for Cabo San Lucas, rather than La Paz. Susan expressed her discontent by doing a firehose imitation with her lunch (properly known as projectile vomiting). Meanwhile everything that I ate or drank was dropping straight through without even slowing down. If only we hadn’t been such big-mouths, we could’ve gone back! Finally after 20 hours of downright inhumane conditions we realized that we were becoming dangerously tired and weak. In our desperation we concocted a brilliant plan. We would return to Mazatlan, but rather than going back to the harbour we had started from, we would hide our red faces at the opposite end of town. What a relief! We anchored up and went to bed and followed that with four days of recuperation. When we finally got going again, it was a pleasant uneventful crossing. Arrival in La Paz completed our 2000 mile upwind journey from Panama City.

Having been to La Paz many times before we thought we knew all of the landmarks. We were thus surprised to see a very tall radio tower on the waterfront as we approached. When we actually arrived the radio tower turned out to be the mast of “Endeavour”. She was an America’s Cup boat in the 1920’s and she is gigantic. At 130 feet “Endeavour” is easily the largest sailboat that we’ve ever seen. Her mast is 165 feet tall and the boom is so wide that you can have a picnic on it. We were told by a member of the crew that it takes nine people just to tack. “Endeavour” was recently overhauled for an unbelievable $10 million! If you’re thinking about chartering a sailboat, she’s available for only $60,000 U.S. per week. Any takers?

In April, I set out to visit home. What was I thinking? Saskatchewan in April! I know there’s such a thing as culture shock but how about weather shock. I hitched a ride from California to Saskatchewan with my folks in their motorhome. Forty-eight hours after leaving sunny California we found ourselves driving through a good old prairie snow storm. Visibility was nil and the highway was coated with slick ice below the blowing snow. We limped and slid our way into the haven of a Moose Jaw motel parking lot. That motel and every other motel was full of highway refugees. We elected to spend the night in the motorhome to keep the water pipes from freezing and to leave room for stranded motorists in the motel. Even with the heater going full blast, I found myself wearing two pairs of socks, sweat pants, jeans, a turtleneck, two sweaters and mittens and I was inside. Outside it was -35°F. Welcome to Saskatchewan!

Perhaps as a direct result of my complaining about the weather in Saskatchewan we were treated to a rather warm summer here. We can’t say that no-one warned us. ‘They’ told us we’d be hot if we dared to spend the summer in the Sea of Cortez. We smiled and thought to ourselves, “Wimps!” Now we too can carry on the tradition of warning others how hot they’ll be if they dare the Sea in the summer. It was unbelievably hot! We’re pretty sure we’d have melted without our fans and awnings.

I’ll try to give you some idea of what it was like through July, August and September. Sometimes we’d go to bed with an inside cabin temperature of 95°F and wake up to a cool 92°F. Crank your thermostat up at home and give that a try. The worst nights were the ones where we finally gave in and went to bed when the temperature was 94° to be awakened shortly thereafter by a hot, dry, devil wind that rapidly brought the temperature up to 100°! We can only imagine what the temperatures were like outside in the sun when we were registering 98° inside where it was shaded, breezy and half below the surface of the ocean.

Considering that we were on the edge of a desert, we were really surprised by the number of days with extremely high humidity. The heat and humidity combination was lethal. One remedy was to slither over the side into the ocean as soon as you could drag yourself out of bed. We’re sad to say we never did figure out a way to sleep in the water. Our final solution to the heat was to abandon all thoughts of doing anything useful like boat maintenance, housework or cooking. Instead we accepted our lot and became even lazier than usual. We can proudly say that we survived a summer in the Sea by reading tons of books, snorkeling and swimming until we developed gills, and moaning to our friends while floating around on pool toys sipping cool drinks.

Early in the summer we were reminded once again of one of the greatest joys and sorrows of this gypsy life. The nature of our travels means that we get the chance to meet tons of different people. Every once in while you have the luck to meet truly fantastic friends. Friends for life, but sadly friends that are usually only crossing paths with you and ultimately going their own way.

We met Richard and Dea from “Southern Cross” on May 7 and chatted for a few minutes. We met up again a few days later and spent the next ten days sailing, eating, laughing, swimming, eating, snorkeling, eating, and just generally having a great time with these two. On May 21 we hosted a farewell pancake breakfast – during which we ate – to say a sad good-bye to our new friends as they headed back to Los Angeles. Once again we were truly amazed at the speed and intensity of these friendships. After meeting so many people over the last three years we certainly treasure the special friends we’ve made along the way.

Since we last wrote we’ve had some spectacular close encounters of the whale kind. We’ve been treated to a show of numerous immense humpback whales feeding not far away. When they breach the surface, you can’t help but think of a submarine. Just the size of their long, almost delicate, pectoral fins is incredible. On a night passage in the Sea when it’s calm, you can hear the finback whales surfacing to breathe all around you. They are sometimes so close you can smell their breath. The finbacks have given us many hours of entertainment as they always seem to be going somewhere that leads them across our path, right in front of the boat. There isn’t a more tremendous experience than watching a couple of whales traveling across your track on a beautiful cloudless day, with the boat ghosting along under sail over a deep sapphire blue ocean. We happened upon the rib bone from one of these leviathans. It was 13 feet long and about 8 inches in diameter! We wanted to take it to the museum in the nearest town, but between its size and a weight of approximately 200 pounds, we had to abandon that idea.

Giant rays are another fantastic sight. On moonlit nights they often leap right out of the water and do a somersault before crashing back down. Since manta rays can be 25 feet across and weigh a ton, it’s a wild experience to see half a dozen of them somersaulting around you.

One of the best things about sailing in the tropics is the nights. Twenty minutes or so after the sun touches the horizon, the night is a dark as it will get. If there’s a full moon, there will be enough light to read by. Without a moon, there are more incredibly bright stars than you’d think were possible. We’ve seen stars that shone so intensely that we mistook them for lights on ships. One of the things that we’ll really miss when we return to the ‘real world’ is a perfect night sky undisturbed by man’s lights.

There’s always something interesting to see in the night sky. Shooting stars are very common but they’re so dazzling and brilliant that we never take them for granted. The Hale-Bopp comet took up all of our attention and a big chunk of the sky for quite a while. Around the same time we witnessed a full lunar eclipse. The oddest thing has been the UFO’s. We’ve both seen bright streaks of light that look like shooting stars in terms of speed and brightness but instead of disappearing in a ruler-straight line, these lights curve sharply and then simply blink out of existence. We really don’t have a clue what they are; so far we haven’t seen any little green men.

Some nights the sea is full of phosphorescence. Occasionally there are creatures that look like light bulbs glowing deep in the water. There are fields of them, miles across, that go down as deep as you can see. Looking at it makes you feel as though you are free falling through an infinite number of moons. Once we saw what looked like a universe-full of translucent, round soccer ball sized jellyfish drifting slowly by. There were jellies to a depth of at least thirty feet and they stretched for miles. The average distance between them was a couple of feet. We guessed that there were at least hundreds of thousands and suspect that they might be our mysterious light bulbs.

The most common type of phosphorescence is an invisible little beast that is only luminescent after it has been disturbed. As the boat sails through one of these microscopic countries the water changes from inky black in front and beside, to a shining green searchlight in our wake. Frightened fish leave a jagged lightning bolt gleaming in their path and dolphins and seals leave blazing light trails behind.

We soon discovered that hopping overboard for a swim just before bedtime made it much easier to sleep in the heat. The first time we tried this it caused quite a stir. We found ourselves swimming in a world of sparkling light instead of darkness. The phosphorescence left a trail of green, twinkling lights whenever we moved. With some experimentation we were able to make perfect ‘water angels’ which are closely related to ‘snow angels’.

On our way up the Sea we stopped to visit Mulege. It is located on a freshwater spring one mile from the sea and has got to be one of the prettiest towns in Baja California. Spanish monks founded the town as a mission 400 years ago. These monks planted date palms all around the spring and the river that it produces. The monks are gone but the palms have prospered and they almost completely overhang the river now. Although the river is too shallow for “Daydream”, we made our way up it in the dinghy. This seemed to us the most exotic way possible to visit a desert city.

Our favorite place this summer was a series of anchorages called Refugio (Refuge) on Isla Angel de la Guarda (Guardian Angel Island). Refugio has soaring, red cliffs, thirty-foot tall organ-pipe cactus and crystal clear water overflowing with fish and sea lions. The island is inhabited only by lizards and birds, but fisherman who visit occasionally, have built a tiny 6 foot by 4 foot church. The only other sign of man is a deep cave where someone has stored an old anchor and a gunnysack of salt. We had the whole place completely to ourselves for weeks on end. We enjoyed the isolation and spent our time charting the bays and exploring the area.

The Boobie birds at Refugio are really odd. Normally Boobies fish by getting about 50 feet up then folding their wings and plummeting into the water to a depth of ten feet or more – very exciting if you’re swimming nearby. After the dive they pop to the surface and flap wildly while running on the water until they achieve escape velocity. In Refugio however, they skim along the surface looking for a fish. When they see one, they do a very flat dive to a depth of perhaps one foot, grab the fish, pop back through the surface into the air, then spread their wings and continue their flight. We’ve never seen this behavior elsewhere, but here the Pelicans, also known as ‘flying trucks’, try to imitate the Boobies, providing us with endless entertainment and themselves with headaches.

Until a few weeks ago spear fishing was how we got most of our fish. One day I poked an Opal Eye, but before I could get it off the spear, an octopus reached out from underneath a rock and stole it. This was the first ‘pus I had seen so it was quite a shock. Since then we’ve seen quite a number and we’ve taken up petting them. They feel sort of like your tongue, unless you touch a sucker which will actually vacuum onto your finger. Just like a chameleon, octopi can change colors as they glide over the bottom. Once in a while they shoot out black ink, but usually they just squeeze under the nearest rock and sit there changing from purple to yellow to brown to red while you pet them.

Due to a broken spearhead, spear fishing has fallen out of favour on “Daydream”. We could always take up fishing from the dinghy, however, with temperatures running over 100° and very little breeze the smart place to be is underwater. So we’ve taken up underwater fishing. This involves taking a line and a hook and going snorkeling. Once below the surface, we dangle the hook in front of a tasty looking fish and voilà, supper! It sounds silly, looks a little silly too, but it works! With a little practice we’re even getting good at hooking the fish that we want and avoiding the rest. We’ve also done a lot of diving for scallops. They are one of our favorite foods and coincidentally a favorite of Triggerfish which conveniently are also one of our favorite foods. Harvesting a scallop sets up a miniature perpetual food machine. It goes like this. First we find the scallop, knife it open and clean it underwater. The good part goes in the foodbag and the rest goes onto the underwater fishing line. Sergeant Majors, Hogfish, Sargos, Parrotfish and Triggers gather in clouds. If we can keep all the others off the hook for a few seconds, the Triggers will bull their way in and grab the bait. With the IQ of a carrot they manage to steal the bait and avoid the hook two times out of three, but eventually we can usually outwit one. Our biggest food problem lately is that we haven’t been able to hook any Ice Cream Fish or Potato Chips clams.

While we’re on the subject of diving, we should tell you about the delicacies that we’ve been enjoying. There are three kinds of scallops that we’ve become very friendly with, so friendly that we often invite them to dinner. They are rock scallops, pen scallops and swimming scallops. All are fabulous, especially wrapped in bacon then fried or barbecued. Then there are butter clams and an old favorite chocolate clams. Both kinds are delicious steamed, battered, barbecued or made into chowder. And, of course, there are always fish of which there are at least a dozen kinds that we like. About the only thing that we haven’t found in the Northern Sea is lobster but don’t feel badly for us; it’s shrimp season now. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re having for dinner until an hour before but it’s a rare day that we can’t have seafood if we want it.

During all of this diving we are sometimes visited by sea lions. They are amazingly fast and graceful underwater. They’re always curious and sometimes five or ten of them will swim right up to us then pirouette away, circling and barking while making rude remarks about our swimming abilities. They are up to eight feet long and outweigh us by quite a bit but they never seem to mean any harm.

While snorkeling one day I came across a live seahorse! I couldn’t believe it! Its a fairly rare event especially while snorkeling. Seahorses are normally found in deeper water and they are so well camouflaged that they’re tough to spot. This one was about seven inches long and so incredible to hold. Until this day I was pretty much convinced that a seahorse was only a fairy tale creature.

There’s a group of islands called the Enchanted Islands way up in the North end of the Sea. Since nobody ever goes up there the charts are a joke, but we had some overhead photographs and lots of time. We couldn’t resist going. The effort was worth it because the Enchanted Islands are really impressive. They are volcanic and quite recent in origin. The striking rock formations make up for the complete lack of vegetation. There are enormous vertical cliffs that tower straight up out of the ocean for hundreds of feet and mountains of jumbled razor-sharp rocks the size of houses. Much of this rock is pumice – the rock that floats. Perhaps the name ‘Enchanted’ is explained by the difficulty that early navigators would have had charting an area full of floating rocks.

The Colorado River empties into the head of the Sea of Cortez. We thought that it would be cool to go up the river a ways. Maybe visit the Grand Canyon! Unfortunately our chart of the area was drawn in 1873 and I guess that it’s a little out of date ‘cause the river is dammed now and all of the water is used long before it reaches the Sea. We did get to Puerto Peñasco though which is the most Northern port. It wasn’t anything special as towns go, but after six weeks without ice cream or restaurants it looked like the Big Apple to us.

The summer of ‘97 produced eight hurricanes on the West Coast of Mexico. Two of them gave us quite a scare. The first, Linda, was the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Eastern Pacific. It had steady winds of 160 knots (about 200 miles per hour) with gusts to 190 knots. When it turned toward us at a distance that it could cover in just twenty-four hours we started making serious preparations. Of course, no boat – or building for that matter- is likely to survive 200 mph winds, but if a hurricane misses you by as little as 100 miles the winds could be half of the peak force. By doing everything that we could to protect the boat and wearing our rose-colored spectacles we thought that there was a good chance that “Daydream” would come through. Linda seemed to know about our superhuman efforts, because as soon as we were ready she turned away, then petered out.

A week later hurricane Nora decided to take a run at us. Nora was more normal-sized with only 100 mph winds. She did have a few unpleasant habits though, like holding up in one place, then speeding up, then slowing down, but always heading more or less toward us. Eventually she got down to business and came straight for us at top speed. Gale-force winds started at sunset and built until two in the morning when we had sixty mph. We were in a great anchorage so the waves weren’t large, but with that much wind howling through the rigging it felt like we were at sea. Every other boat in the area was also in this anchorage so at the height of the storm we had rocks just 100 feet behind and a fishing boat 75 feet directly upwind. That fishboat caused us a lot of worries. They had begun the storm three or four hundred feet away but as the wind increased they kept getting closer. Usually this would mean that their anchor wasn’t holding. Being upwind of us they would eventually hit us or their anchor would pick up our anchor and we would be dragged onto the rocks. The crew was wide awake and out on deck most of the time so we were pretty sure that they were aware of what was going on. When they got within 75 feet we couldn’t stand it anymore. We called them on the radio and asked, in our fractured Spanish, if they were having a problem.

            “Oh, everything is OK we are just bleep-bleep-bleeping our anchor”, they said.

            “Sorry, our Spanish is not too good. What are you doing to your anchor?”

            “We are bleep-bleep-bleeping it, Señor.”

            “Uh… OK, are you guys all right?”

            “Oh yes, everything is good.”

We never did figure it out. Maybe they were letting out more rope, or maybe they were praying over the anchor. In any case they didn’t get any closer.

We were never in any danger but we spent the whole night watching to be sure that our anchor didn’t give way. Nora passed seventy-five miles West of us rotating at 100 mph and moving North at 20 mph. Shortly afterward she went aground on the Baja Peninsula and continued up into Arizona causing flooding and storm damage before dissipating. In the Sea of Cortez only one yacht was lost. “Slo’ Dancing” went up on the rocks and was seriously damaged at Isla Tiburon. The crew and cat made it safely ashore and were picked up by the Mexican Navy the following night.

It’s not unusual to see groups of porpoises here. They seem to like boats and often surf in our bow wave. Usually they appear in groups of three to ten, but recently we’ve been seeing pods of hundreds. Porpoises seem to have three modes, which are; fishing, when they jump, bang their tails and dive over and over in a small area; commuting, in which they appear on one horizon, leaping through the water at high speed in an absolutely straight line and then disappear over the other horizon; and playing, unquestionably their real occupation. Near Bahía de Los Angeles there is a huge pod of resident porpoises. On several occasions we saw them in the same area, leaping, diving, slapping their tails and racing around at top speed. We did our best to estimate their numbers and thought that there were 500 in sight at one time. There would likely be double that number below the surface at any given moment.

Once while we were anchored in a small landlocked bay, a large pod of dolphins came in fishing. They jumped and dived in a precise formation, right up to the end of the bay, turned around in unison and retraced the exact same path back out. I gathered up my courage and went swimming with them. Visibility was only fifteen or twenty feet and all I could see were ghostly glimpses as they shot past, but Susan said that they were all around, clearly interested in what was going on.

Mid-October is when summer ends in the Sea of Cortez, which means that the temperature comes down 20°F and the prevailing wind switches from South-East to North-West. This change of direction is helpful to us, but since it switches back and forth a few times before settling down it can also cause some big problems. The worst is that most anchorages are open to one direction or the other and if you choose the wrong one your comfortable refuge can quickly turn into a rough and dangerous lee shore.

For three days we’d had North winds, but on the way out to the Midriff Islands it switched so we anchored on the North side of Isla Partida. During the night the wind returned to the North and although there was no problem, the boat was pitching wildly in the wind-waves and we spent a very unhappy night. When morning finally came we gratefully moved around to the other side of the island. That afternoon a big swell appeared and started rolling the boat through 40 degrees. There was no wind, but boats further South were reporting strong winds heading our way. Up came the anchor and back we went to our first anchorage, which had become flat and comfortable in our absence. Shortly before we went to bed we felt the first breath of wind from the North. Within a few minutes it was tearing through the rigging and big, dangerous seas were slamming into the boat before crashing onto the rocks behind us. It was almost too late to leave but we knew that if we stayed much longer the choice would be taken out of our hands. Seas were bursting over the bow as the anchor came up and with the engine at full speed we were just able to make 3/4 of a knot against the storm. Our dinghy, hanging on the davits, was getting slammed by every second wave and our inflatable which was suspended beside the boat was being tossed around like a toy. The moon had already set and the night was pitch black but it didn’t matter because “Daydream” knew the way to the other side of the island. We were anchored again by midnight and spent an uncomfortable and sleepless, but safe night.

We’ve started to prepare for our return to the ‘real world’ next year. The thought of the upcoming voyage to Hawaii is both thrilling and a little scary. It will be our first passage of more than 5 or 6 days. It may take us well over a month to sail the 2900 nautical miles. Certainly the thought of being out of sight of land for so long and traveling at night doesn’t bother us but you have to wonder what it will be like on Day 20. Will we be bored, tired, thrilled, or possibly stark raving loony? The only way to find out is to try it. I’m sure our arrival in Hawaii will bring with it a tremendous feeling of satisfaction, having traveled so far under our own steam, so to speak. Somehow it sounds far more romantic to have sailed there using your own skills rather than just buying a ticket and hopping a plane. The final leg home from Hawaii to Victoria will be a considerably shorter journey of only 2100 miles.

Even more scary than the long voyage home is going home itself. We’ll have been gone for four years. If you say it really fast it doesn’t sound like much. Not only will the ‘real world’ have moved on, but we have changed as well. We worry that life at home has sped up while we’ve learned to slow way down. One thing that we’re looking forward to is finally getting a chance to sit down and do some serious catching up with many of you.

We’ve taken up counting the seconds after we see lightning and before we hear the thunder. Sound takes about five seconds to travel one mile, so this gives us an idea of how far away the lightning is. It surprised us to find that most of it is a long way off and only rarely does any come within a half mile. Although one day in June during our usual afternoon downpour, we had lightning well within that distance. Actually it was within fifty feet. We know this because that’s the height of our mainmast and that’s where it hit! The flash and the thunder were simultaneous and the sound felt like a physical blow. Of course, the whole thing was over before we had a chance to start getting scared. Neither of us had felt our hair stand on end or anything like that. It wasn’t until we started trying the electronic equipment that we were sure that we’d been hit. As it turned out, we had to replace most of our fuses and that fixed almost everything. The major exception was our wind instruments. Later we found the melted pieces of our masthead anemometer strewn across the deck. We have since learned that a thunder storm is called a ‘tormenta electrica’ in Spanish. We certainly felt like we were being tormented by electricity.

Once you leave Mexico heading South, there isn’t a single dock where you can take on fuel and water until you reach Flamingo Marina in Northern Costa Rica. We have a watermaker that makes all the water we need out of seawater but we do need fuel once in a while. The day before we arrived there a hurricane several hundred miles away had sent an exceptionally large swell into the bay where the marina is located. The waves had caused a sailboat called “EOS” to drag its anchor and be washed up onto the beach. “EOS” had been at anchor there for a couple of years while her owner was in the U.S. working. Rumour has it that the marina was supposed to be taking care of the boat but since the owner hadn’t sent any money for a long time they weren’t feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility. So poor “EOS” was high and dry on the beach and nobody was doing anything about it. We thought that we might be able to pull her off on the next high tide but by the time we got there she had a huge hole in the side and was full of sand and water. Within days the vultures had stripped her of everything valuable and she was left to disintegrate on the beach. Sadly some of the vultures were other boaters.

Susan and “Daydream” ended up staying in Flamingo Marina for three weeks while I went home to take care of some family business. This is easily the dirtiest, most ramshackle excuse for a marina that we’ve ever seen. It’s been amateurishly built out of junk that floats up on the beach. In fact, the marina later made use of a few pieces scavenged from “EOS”. There are no showers or even bathrooms available. The electrical wiring would be comical if it wasn’t so scary. There aren’t even any cleats on the dock to tie up to, only some rusty chain loops just waiting to chew through your mooring lines. We suspect that the whole place would fall apart if the boats weren’t there to hold it together. It does, however, have the twin distinctions of being the only marina in Northern Costa Rica and having a world class collection of mouse-sized cockroaches.

Susan had to sit through a hurricane alone at this marina. Hurricanes don’t normally occur this far South in the Pacific, but, a Caribbean hurricane jumped the continent in Southern Nicaragua and just brushed the marina. Luckily she knew it was coming and had time to prepare. Usually this means using every line you have to hold the boat in position and taking everything you can off the deck. Because of the classy facility that I left her in, she felt that it was also necessary to place our inflatable dinghy between the marina and “Daydream” to protect the boat just in case the marina started to break up. She also put out an anchor so that when the marina gave way completely, there would be something to hold the boat off the beach. As it turned out the eye of the hurricane was far enough away that she experienced only light winds but had torrential rain for 48 hours straight.

We wanted to leave Costa Rica from Puntarenas, which is halfway down the coast of the country. We ended up in an embarrassing situation on a Friday afternoon when we managed to get ourselves checked out of the country but were unable to complete the paperwork for the boat. The whole process was wildly confusing. Legally we had to leave the country, but, the boat couldn’t! We solved this little problem by creeping out of town with the intention of coming clean in Costa Rica’s southern-most port of Golfito.

Later, we were glad that we hadn’t checked out at Puntarenas because a couple of hundred miles south we broke some rigging. This time it was a backstay chainplate that gave way. Fortunately we have dual backstays, so we were never in danger of losing the mast. This is the second major piece of rigging that we’ve broken since we left home and that’s two more than anyone else that we’ve met. I wonder what this means? For those of you who sail, it may be interesting to know that we were sailing upwind in flat seas with about 15 knots of wind at the time.

Golfito is the place they were thinking of when they coined the term ‘banana republic. The town was originally a company town for United Fruit and still has rows of identical company houses. The only industry is bananas and even that has recently fallen on hard times. The Port Captain here is a real character. Checking in and out with him is difficult because he only attends his office for a few seconds every day and as a result, you have to hunt him down. On the way in we got lucky and spotted him out on the pier meeting a Dole ship. On the way out we tracked him down having a two hour liquid lunch in a restaurant near his office. Other people have actually had to stake out his house to corner him! Even though Golfito is a muddy little town with a bad reputation for crime, we liked it. How could we not like a town that has a wonderful machine shop capable of welding stainless steel and a great pizza place.

Barbara and Whitey are an expat American couple who moved to Golfito about 10 years ago and  started a restaurant. Several years ago they closed the business down because of hassles with the Costa Rican officials but they still live on the bay. We decided to visit them one morning. Their part of the bay has about six feet of water at low tide and 16 feet at high tide. We planned our visit for low tide and then foolishly went aground and got stuck. This can be a huge problem, but, since it was already dead low tide and we didn’t expect any kind of waves, we weren’t worried. We just put down our kickstand and went ashore for a quick visit. Barbara and Whitey have become modern day ‘Robinson Crusoes’. They live in a grass hut (about 2000 square feet) in the jungle with a nice beach out front. Other than the constant rain, it looks like a pretty idyllic existence.

Our first stop in Panama was at an island called Isla Parida. This is a beautiful tropical island with thick green jungle, white sand beaches and clear water. It also has a friendly little restaurant/store run by a couple from Vancouver Island. Most cruising boats in this area stop here for a while. This gave us a chance to catch up with old friends and hear all the latest scuttlebutt. One of the reasons we liked the place so much was that Dave and Sharon, who own the restaurant, show videos every evening.

The clear water was a pleasant surprise for us and we took advantage by doing some snorkeling and speargun fishing. These Northern Panamanian islands are very remote and unspoiled. The people who live on them for the most part are fishermen and coconut farmers and there aren’t many of them. We stopped at several islands and always had spectacular diving and quiet anchorages. We would have spent even more time except that Susan broke the tip of her middle finger one night. We weren’t even sailing at the time, she just dropped a hatch on it. The pain was pretty intense and there wasn’t much we could do beyond a little codeine. We’re pretty sure that a doctor couldn’t have done much more which was a good thing because the nearest doctor was about 24 hours away.

The last leg to Panama City was fairly short, only about twenty hours, but, we expected a relatively difficult passage. This area has the greatest concentration of shipping of anywhere in the world. The night before we had almost come close enough to two separate ships to shake hands with their crews and there were usually three or four ships in sight at any one time. Imagine being on a bicycle out in a desert and discovering that three or four, fifty story office buildings are lying on their sides and heading in your general direction at twenty-five miles per hour. That’ll give you some idea of what it feels like. In addition, our autopilot was broken. Our autopilot steers the boat on a set compass course and frees us up to navigate, check the radar, make food or whatever. Without it we would have to wrestle with the wheel virtually one hundred percent of the time.

On every passage there are different things that you have to be aware of but this one had just about everything. Ships, of course, which we consider our greatest danger. Also shrimp boats which behave very erratically but at least they are usually well lit and they provide a good radar return. Pongas are small open boats made of wood or fiberglass. They don’t show any radar return and usually have no lights. Pongas are about 30 feet long and might weigh 5 tons when they’re loaded with fish. The only reason that we don’t consider them a bigger problem is because we’re enough of a danger to them that they avoid us. Other yachts are not usually a concern, however, we have to watch for them as well. Usually land in the form of islands and rocks is not too big of a worry. The hard crunchy stuff is very tough on a boat if you allow the two to touch so we always have the best available charts and are very careful about our navigation. You can always get into trouble though. The first modern charts were made in the late 1700’s and many have never been updated from their first edition. The guys who drew these first charts were fantastically skillful sailors and cartographers, unfortunately their equipment was pretty basic. The result is that shorelines are quite commonly out of their charted positions by a mile or more.

Add to the above difficulties, the huge amounts of rain. Because of all the rain, the sea is always full of big logs, trees and flotsam of every description pouring out into the sea from the coastal rivers. Most of this stuff doesn’t worry us, but, some of the logs are big enough to cause damage and occasionally you’ll see one big enough to make a yacht out of. During good visibility we can dodge the dangerous stuff, but, at night in the rain we have to trust the odds, or if we are feeling unlucky, slow the boat way down.

The Bay of Panama is approximately 80 by 100 miles. The tide raises the water level in this bay by as much as eighteen feet twice a day. To move these trillions of gallons of water out to sea and back again every twelve hours entails some pretty substantial currents. These tidal currents are another important navigational hazard in this area. They are so strong that depending on their direction they can add or subtract 50% of the boat’s speed.

After taking all of these problems into consideration, we chose the best possible time and departed. For the first few hours the wind was very light and it alternately blew from every direction, then it would stop, then blow a little more, but, we were making progress. At sundown the lightning started. After a few months in Central America during the rainy season you pay no attention to lightning that’s more than a mile or so away and this was much farther than that. Unfortunately by midnight the storm had found us and we had the wildest night of lightning that there has ever been. If someone had made a movie of it, no one would have believed it. There was all kinds of lightning. There were long jagged burns that hit the water and looping flashes that went back up into the clouds. There were sheets that lit up a whole section of the overcast and a new one for us that we named ‘bombs’. These were small, brilliant, round flashes that were followed by one very loud bang. The thunder was equally extravagant and varied. Distant lightning has a low, slow grumble. Nearer it’s more like a reverberating booming rumble. When it’s right on top of you, say within a half mile or so, you hear a fast tearing sound followed instantly by one tremendous bang. We gave up counting the seconds because there was so much lightning and thunder that you simply could not determine which crash belonged to which flash. There were periods of ten seconds or longer in which we had continuous light.

One lightning strike is supposed to have the potential power of a small atomic weapon so storing the electrical power from one of these storms would clearly be useful. We don’t know how to do that but we do have a method for producing a nearly unlimited supply of adrenaline.

Naturally, rain came along with the thunder and lightning. There really should be a special word for this in Panama. It’s not like a big rainstorm, it’s not even like a firehose. It’s probably only slightly less water than what you’d get standing underneath Niagara falls. It actually rains over one billion gallons per day on average over Panama. It felt like most of it fell on our boat that night. The visibility during one of these refreshing little showers is very similar to being underwater. We could only see a couple of hundred feet and even our radar could only penetrate about two miles through the porridge. Oddly the radar would often get targets that we couldn’t pick up visually, but, we regularly saw the lights on boats that weren’t showing up on radar.

We finally anchored seven miles outside of Panama City at a great little island and town called Taboga. Taboga has a nice beach, restaurants, millions of flowers, dinner plate sized frogs and eight foot wide “sidewalks” that double as roads for both of the island’s cars. They also have a town generator that shuts down at 10 pm, two public phones and daily passenger ferry service to Panama City. It’s a really pretty island and looks like a great place to live although there aren’t many permanent residents. Most of the homes are used only on weekends and holidays by wealthy Panamanians.

Our next stop was the Balboa Yacht Club which is in Panama City and actually situated in the entrance to the Panama Canal. The Yacht Club itself looks like it may collapse at any moment and there are no docks to tie up to, just buoys. A buoy in this case is an old tire filled with foam and chained to a locomotive wheel down on the bottom. For the privilege of staying there we paid 18 dollars per day which is probably enough to rent a nice apartment in the city. Unfortunately it’s the only game in town and we needed a bunch of repairs so we had very little choice. We were certainly ready for a big city. We needed new anchor chain, a new autopilot, backstay chainplates, sampson posts and bottom painting. We had planned to paint the bottom by leaning “Daydream” up against a grounded ship at Taboga Island during a high tide and then painting the bottom after the tide went out. However, they had removed the old ship before we got there so we ended up doing it on the Yacht Club railway. The railway was fully booked for months in advance but they squeezed us in one night from 6 pm to 6 am the next morning. It took us all night long working by flashlight to get the job done. We sure hope that we never have to beat that 12 hour bottom painting record.

Panama City is big, modern and expensive. We spent almost a month there repairing things, ordering parts from the U.S. and filling up on movies and fast food. The city has a weirdly split personality. The Yacht Club is in the Canal Zone where everything is as neat as a pin. The grass is perfect, the palm trees are all in line and the roads and sidewalks are ruler straight and in immaculate condition. The buildings and houses are all well painted in Navy white and the people are carefully dressed. Two miles away on the other side of a police check-point is a very poor neighborhood. This is a scary place. When you go through in a taxi, the driver asks you to lock your door and he speeds through the red lights. All of the buildings have bars on the holes where windows belong and everyone looks hungry. You can’t see any weapons but everyone looks like they need one. Another mile further and you’re in the financial district. Office buildings here are 50 stories high, TGIFs and Burger King share a corner and everybody is in a suit, carrying a cell phone and riding in a BMW.

One of the most important things that we needed to do in Panama City was to repair our autopilot. We had done the last couple of passages on the way there without one and as a result we both needed a chiropractor. Because this is a major port, we had no difficulty finding a firm to repair it. It took a long time and cost quite a bit more than we expected, but, we were just happy to have it back. Minutes after we installed it, it failed again. The electronics repair shop said that, of course, it was under warranty and they sent out a technician to see what the problem was. He fiddled around for two or three hours then took the autopilot back to the shop. Four days later he returned, handed over the autopilot and said “Sorry, it can’t be fixed” (in Spanish, of course). “Hmmm” said we. “How about a refund?” Naturally, we’d have to talk to the boss about that.

We called the office and were told that the boss wouldn’t likely be back that day. We decided to stop in anyway since we would be going right past. Surprise! The boss had unexpectedly returned. She’d decided, she said, purely out of the goodness of her heart to refund half of our money. “Doesn’t seem quite right to us”, we said. “After all, we paid to have it repaired and understood that the work was guaranteed”. “Of course it’s guaranteed” said she, “but what about my costs?” This went back and forth for a while until finally she concluded that we were being unreasonable and stomped out.

We settled down on a really nice comfortable couch to wait it out. At quitting time the receptionist asked us to leave. We explained that we planned to stay and would be delighted to spend the night. The boss who had “gone home” earlier made another appearance. Either we would take what she had offered or she would have to call the police. “Excellent” we said “in fact, give us a telephone and we’ll call the police”. She stomped out in a huff. We continued sitting on the couch inflicting our Spanish on the receptionist.

Shortly thereafter the assistant manager made an appearance. After asking us to leave, he made us a new offer. It wasn’t all of what we had paid but by this time our ‘hunger strike’ was getting boring and we were actually getting a little hungry. We accepted and just as he stepped into the back room to have the boss (who had gone home again) sign the cheque, the police actually arrived! As you probably guessed, we didn’t have to do any hard time.

The preceding does NOT reflect our normal experiences in Latin American countries. They are extremely resourceful people and can fix almost anything. Usually the work is done very quickly and very inexpensively. Sometimes the price is so low that we wonder if they’re showing typical Latin warmth by reducing the normal price for us. Also, everyone is amazingly trusting. For example, we found a gentleman with a little shop on the side of the road (attached to his house) that had a sign indicating electronics repairs. This was in the small town of Puerto Madero in Mexico. We stopped and asked if he thought he might be able to fix the alarm on our old style depth sounder. He told us to bring it on in and he’d give it a try. He wouldn’t charge us a thing if he couldn’t fix it. After opening it up the next day he found out that he wouldn’t be able to fix it as it needed a new part. The darn thing is probably 15 years old so we weren’t surprised that he didn’t happen to have the part. But he did dig out another depth sounder from his jumbled back room and dusted it off. This was another old style, but still considerably newer than ours and it had an alarm. “Take it home” he said. “Try it out. If it works on your boat and you want it, you come back and pay me whatever you think it’s worth”. You can just see that happening at home can’t you?

It turned out that it worked just fine with our transducer and it’s really nice to have a spare depth sounder around. This story is much more like the hundreds of experiences we’ve had while repairing and buying boat bits and other things in Latin America.

In the 1880’s the Frenchman who had successfully completed the Suez Canal, Ferdinand De Lesseps, began the Panama Canal project in Northern Columbia. Thousands of workers died from yellow fever and malaria before the French company ran out of money and abandoned the project. The USA eventually bought the French company’s rights and equipment. However, they weren’t interested in spending huge amounts of money without some sort of guarantee so they encouraged a revolution, recognized Panama’s independence within hours of its declaration, signed a juicy deal giving themselves perpetual rights to a strip of land across the isthmus and then started digging. Before long they realized that that they had to solve the disease problems before they could successfully dig the big ditch. The U.S. army sent a doctor by the name of Gorgas who thought that both diseases were spread by mosquitoes. He cleaned out the mosquitoes and virtually wiped out malaria and yellow fever in Panama. Almost certainly the French would have built the Canal if these diseases were understood just a few years earlier. By 1914 the Canal was open for business. Today each ship that goes through pays around $30,000 U.S. for the privilege. This is a bargain compared to the time and the fuel required to go around South America. An average yacht pays about $50 US for the actual transit.

The Canal is a fascinating piece of engineering. Basically, the designers found a narrow place between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (40 miles wide) that wasn’t too far above sea level. Then they dammed the Chagres river, forming a huge lake that stretches all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This lake is about 80 feet above sea level. Locks were then built at either end that raise and lower ships from sea level to lake level and then back to sea level again. The only other major problem was a range of hills that stood well above lake level and through which a channel had to be cut. This channel needed to be over nine miles long and 300 feet across at the bottom. Its depth varies with the terrain but is several hundred feet for most of the nine miles. In order for the walls to stand, their angle was set at 20 degrees. The result is that in places the top of the channel would be more than ½ mile from side to side. They say that enough material was removed to build a tower 30 feet across and 2000 miles high.

The locks themselves are amazing. They are 1000 feet (almost ¼ mile) long by 110 feet wide with about 80 feet of depth. They have immense, floating iron doors (each of which is 65 feet wide by 80 feet tall and seven feet thick) at each end that look like the doors to a giant’s castle. To raise a ship, they close the doors at either end then open a tap. The lock then fills with water by gravity from Lake Gatun. As the lock fills, the ship rises. Once full, one door is opened and the ship moves into the next lock. To lower the ship, the process is reversed, except of course the water drains out. As large as these locks are, about 5% of the world’s ships are too big to fit. Consequently, there is some talk of expanding them or building another canal elsewhere.

These locks hold a lot of water, all of which is supplied by gravity from Lake Gatun and is then lost into the sea. Lake Gatun is supplied with new fresh water entirely from rainfall in the surrounding watershed. Believe us when we tell you that it rains a lot in Panama. Each ship transit requires 53 million gallons of fresh water and with 30 ships going through each day, the canal uses about 1.5 billion gallons per day.

In the late 1970’s, U.S. president Carter signed a treaty which promised to return to Panama the entire Canal and Canal Zone by the year 2000. While we were there thousands of acres and hundreds of buildings and facilities were being ceremoniously turned over. Many people were expecting the sky to fall as a result. We, on the other hand, were hugely impressed with a country that would voluntarily give up one of the most valuable assets on Earth to prove a principle.

“Daydream” didn’t get to go through the Panama Canal but we did go through with Harry and Petra on “Thetis”. The transit was actually a little boring. The locks are very exciting and nerve-wracking, but, they only occur at the beginning and the end of the transit. In between there is nothing to do except steer the boat and watch the passing ships and jungle. We did have one exciting moment though. When a yacht arrives in a lock, the canal line handlers are about 30 feet above on either side of the lock. Because the lock is so wide and the yacht is so narrow, they are about 50 feet away. They have to send four lines down to the yacht, one for each corner, to hold the boat in place as the water comes in. To accomplish this they have a very light heaving line with a heavy compact knot in the end about the size of a baseball. The idea is to throw this ‘monkey fist’ to the boat. We, the line handlers on the boat, theoretically catch these lines, tie them to our heavier lines that are then pulled back up to be secured to the wall. These canal line handlers were all sullen, unhappy gentlemen who looked like they might enjoy a bit of sporting fun. We probably shouldn’t have been surprised when they threw their ‘monkey fists’ with what seemed excessive force and apparently aimed them at our heads. We were all taking evasive action, hiding behind whatever was available. There is some pressure to catch these lines and to do it quickly as there is a huge ship sidling into the lock right behind you and you need to get a move on. One problem is that these missiles are coming in from both sides and you need eyes in the back of your head. Another problem is that the helmsman of the yacht is not catching lines but concentrating on driving. On “Thetis”, Harry was driving and was completely exposed to the incoming missiles. As fate would have it, one of the ‘monkey fists’ got him squarely on top of his head, knocking him off his feet and leaving a big goose egg. We’re pretty sure that the canal line handler in question won that week’s office pool.

We have some Russian friends in Panama on a $400 sailboat who escaped from and cannot return to Russia. They literally don’t have $10 to their names or even passports. They have no way of making money, and because they have none, they never bother with the proper immigration procedures when they arrive in a port. This is partly because there are always port and immigration charges and partly because they don’t have all the legitimate paperwork for the boat and themselves. The result is that they have been deported from Mexico and Costa Rica and have been illegally in Panama for over two months and will probably eventually be deported. Interestingly, in all of these deportations nobody has put them on a plane back to Russia, they just tell them to leave the country on their boat.

The Kuna Indians of Panama are really interesting. They’ve managed to preserve their culture and land to this day and recently obtained some degree of sovereignty from Panama. The women seem to conduct most of the business so we saw quite a bit of them in Panama City. They’re incredibly colorful. They wear brightly colored handmade blouses called molas, leggings made entirely of beads and large gold rings in their noses.

Panamanians all seem to have a unique first name. Most places that we’ve been to, the people have pretty standard, familiar names. Lots of Miguels, Marias, Juans, Jorges, etc. In Panama, however, there is hardly a name that you’ve ever heard of or can even pronounce. They have a particular affinity for X’s and Z’s. Some that we were able to pronounce were Rigoberto, Marure, and Fayre. This last is said ‘Fay-ray’. When we mentioned that my sister’s name (Faye) is very similar, Fayre became quite upset, insisting that her name was an original!

Our destination upon leaving Panama City was the Las Perlas Islands which are quite difficult to approach or visit. They are a collection of 227 main islands and hundreds or perhaps thousands of smaller rocks. They’re only 40 miles from Panama City but they have never been accurately charted. They have tides of 18 feet or more, tidal currents that sweep through the islands at 2-3 knots and very poorly protected anchorages. From our point of view the fact that they are so rarely visited makes them very interesting. The Spaniards cleaned out all of the pearls hundreds of years ago and since then no one has been able to come up with a good reason to live there. They aren’t completely uninhabited though. There’s a small resort on the island nearest to the city. Then there’s a tiny village on another island where the villagers lead an extremely basic life of fishing, farming and hunting iguanas. The iguanas are an important food source in Panama. There is also an abandoned (we hope) drug smuggler’s air strip. This air strip is well known and being only a few minutes by air from the Panama City police and a U.S. airbase you wouldn’t think that it would still be in use, but, one afternoon a Lear jet overflew our anchorage at an altitude of about 200 feet. We’ve been scratching our heads but we can’t come up with a single logical reason that a Lear would be that low 40 miles from the nearest airport. Finally, there is a German couple who sailed here 11 years ago. The Germans have been squatting in the islands ever since and no one seems to care. We didn’t get to visit their island but we were awakened one morning at the Yacht Club in Panama City by the strangest cries, which turned out to be Deiter’s new goat tethered in the cockpit of his sailboat.

Leaving the Gulf of Panama turned out to be much harder than getting there. We had strong wind coming from exactly where we wanted to go, a very strong current pushing us back and ship after ship squeezing us up against a dark rocky coast as they rushed to and from the Canal. Not far from the Bay of Panama is a point called Punta Puerco which means Pig Point. We figure that it’s called that because it’s such a pig to get around. After two days of fighting, we finally got past Pig Point and things got easier. We rewarded ourselves after a hard passage by buying two huge, fat lobsters from a fisherman for five bucks.

We stopped in Bahia Honda, Panama for a few days. This is where some friends of ours on a boat from Vancouver bought land and became teak tree farmers. This whole thing was really fascinating to us and so we questioned Ross and Louise about it pretty closely. Here’s how it works. Most remote, roadless land in Panama is not titled. However, you can have a titled issued so they found a piece of land that they wanted, knocked on grass huts until they located the owner, confirmed his ownership by talking to all of the neighbors, bought the land, flew in a surveyor and had a title issued. Then they had the land cleared and planted with teak tree shoots. In about 20 years they’ll own millions of dollars of teak! In addition, their land is on a pretty, Pacific beach inside a very nice bay.

Bahia Honda also has a little village of about 500 people which we visited one night. It has one telephone and one building with electricity. There are no cars, roads, mail service, police or sewage systems. Every house is lit either with candles or flashlights after dark and the phone always has a fairly long line. We also had a chance to visit a farm here because we were out of fruit and vegetables. Since there is no store to buy them from, a farm is the only option. This was a pretty cool experience. You could see right through the farm house since it was built very loosely of rough planks. There were no doors, windows or floors and the furniture was limited to one chair, one rickety table, a cupboard and numerous hammocks. In addition to the family, the house was heavily trafficked by dogs, cats, geese, pigeons, ducks and a bristly little boar that seemed to enjoy licking my feet. When Domingo, the farmer, paddled out to our boat in his dugout canoe and told us that he had vegetables for sale, he hinted pretty heavily that his kids would like some sweets if we had any. We dug around and found some chocolate to take along when we went to his farm. We always buy candy “for the children” but it often gets eaten by our parent’s children. The chocolates were in a big, fancy, sealing mason jar that we had bought pistachios in. We were happy to get the glass off the boat so we’d have one less thing to break. Although the family definitely appreciated the candy, we suspect from their reaction that the mason jar may have pride of place amongst their dishes.

Our shopping trip resulted in 100 bananas and many other assorted fruits and vegetables. You may be wondering why we needed 100 bananas. There are actually three reasons. We were just about to start a fairly long passage in which the only available groceries would be freshly caught fish. Second, Susan makes great banana bread and unbelievable banana smoothies. And finally because we got three different types of bananas, all at different stages of ripeness, it would be possible to use them all. The first bunch were about five inches long and triangular. They took four days to ripen forcing us to then eat about 30 bananas in two days. The second bunch was about the size of a large thumb and they were purple. When they were ready to eat they were pink and tasted a little like apples. They took eight days to ripen and then we each had to eat 15 bananas in two days. The third bunch were what we think of as normal bananas. We must have done something wrong with this bunch because they went right from green to rotten on the 14th day. So far we haven’t noticed any ill effects from all these bananas although we do have a strong urge to swing in the trees.

Because of weather concerns at this point, we were in a rush to get back to Mexico. When we left Northern Panama, the plan was to sail directly to the most northerly port in Costa Rica. There, we’d stock up on food and fuel and leave immediately for Southern Mexico. The trip from Panama to Playas del Coco, C.R. should be about four days of upwind sailing. Normally this would be very hard, slow work. We were fortunate and had gentle winds and most importantly very little rain.

On this trip we had two memorable experiences, both involving ships. The first was with a cruise ship called “Legend of the Sea”. All ships and boats under power have a red light on their left side, a green light on their right side, and a white light that shines all the way around. The bigger ships have two white lights, one at the front and one at the back positioned higher. These lights enable us to figure out which direction everyone is headed and whether or not they’re going to get too close to us. Unfortunately, cruise ships are often lit up like small cities and the result is that you can see them coming from a long way off but can’t always tell precisely which direction they’re headed. This particular cruise ship had taken a run at us when we were leaving Panama City. Then, we had been able to see their red light, a mass of white light and a bluish green light. Its lights seemed to indicate that it was heading straight for us. We called them on the radio and they very kindly turned to avoid us. The second time, in the middle of the night, we first saw a glow in the sky. Shortly afterward a small city of light appeared on the horizon and headed generally toward us. Because of its turquoise colored emblem (which we had mistaken for the green steering light previously) we recognized it as “Legend of the Sea”. Once again it looked like it might run us down, and once again they obligingly turned when we called them up. “Legend of the Sea” does a regular run from LA to Miami via the Panama Canal so we won’t be surprised to see it again.

The second ship pulled an optical illusion on us and caused us to break one of our most cherished rules. The rule is that we will go to any lengths to ensure that no ship ever has an excuse to run us down. This one appeared in the middle of the night and we could see that we were on a collision course. However, because of the unusual angle that we were closing with it, we thought that it was a large yacht or a fishing boat. As a result, we chose to alter course to pass in front of it. Of course, we would never even contemplate turning in front of a ship. We were actually never in any danger but you can imagine our consternation when the ‘yacht’ turned into a 700 foot ship and passed within a few hundred feet of us!

When we stopped at Marina Flamingo to get fuel, the electricity was out so they were starting a gas driven generator as we pulled in. Once they got it started and could run the pumps, they filled the generator with gasoline, while it was running! This is a gas station version of Russian Roulette, but, obviously nothing exploded. Later as we were leaving the gas dock we went aground for a few seconds. This was the second time ever for us and both times have been in Costa Rica.

Our friends Jim and Marie-Paul and their kids (also our friends), Rita and Paula, were in the marina so we stopped to say hello and ended up staying for dinner. Marie-Paul is French and a fantastic cook (these things seem to go together) so it didn’t take much convincing.

Having landed in Costa Rica we needed to report ourselves to the Port Captain, Immigration and Customs authorities whose offices are in Playas del Coco. The surf in Playas del Coco was running three or four feet that day. Since there is no dock, you have to take your dinghy through the surf and up on to the beach. Big surf means you are either going swimming or possibly just getting soaked. We did both and got covered in sand to boot. A certain amount of skill and luck are required to time a surf landing so that you don’t dump. It seems that we had neither that day.

When it came time to leave Costa Rica for Mexico, we had had almost a week of rain free weather. We figured that the rainy season was finally over. Of course, it began to rain on the day we left. Rather than fight it, (it’s very unpleasant to sail in the rain) we anchored and settled down to catch up on our reading. After three days of solid rain, we decided that it might not ever quit so we left anyway. This trip should have been upwind and therefore slow and uncomfortable, but, instead we had a steady 15 knots of wind on the beam, which is a very pleasant point of sail. Instead of four or five days of slogging uphill, we did the run to Puerto Madero, Mexico in 3½ days. Best of all, within about 20 miles of the Mexican border we saw the last of the rain. Unfortunately, now our world-class mold collection is drying out! We found out later that we were getting this great wind from an out of season tropical depression, which was preceding us up the coast. These depressions are the embryos of hurricanes but this one soon fizzled out and disappeared.

You’re going to find this hard to believe but we had 12 people (including ourselves) for Christmas dinner on “Daydream” in Zihuatanejo. We had Vic, Nancy and Kyle from “Charisma” (USA), Robert, Lynn, Allison, John and John from “Flying Wings” (Britain), Alonso from “Isla Romantica” (Costa Rica) and his ‘girlfriend de jour’, Maria from Zihuatanejo (Mexico). It was a little like the United Nations. For dinner we had a huge smoked turkey, salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, rice, homemade bread, pumpkin pie and fruit punch. Just like home except there wasn’t much snow and the temperature was in the low 80’s after sunset.

Wayne

Yesterday, we were shocked to discover that it was June already and decided that we had better hurry up and write. The old saying that time flies when you’re having fun must be true. We’ve done a lot of things and seen a lot of places since Christmas, so here goes.

We spent Christmas and New Years with our friends Dennis and Judith on their boat “JAD”. This is the second year in a row that we’ve spent Christmas with them and now we’re officially family. The weather felt a bit weird for Christmas, as the temperature never went below 65 degrees even at night and there was no snow or Christmas trees. We had a great time anyway, ‘cause Judith is a fantastic cook. She made some traditional Eastern Canadian dishes and Susan made delicious pumpkin pie.

Twiggy celebrated Christmas in her own special way by going swimming at 2 AM Boxing Day. She woke us and all the neighbors up with her screaming. When we got up on deck we discovered a little drowned rat-like creature in the water next to the boat holding on desperately. We dragged her out and then spent the rest of the night drying her off and warming her up. She was hypothermic and probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Anyway, we got her warmed up and took her to the vet the next day. He’s really nice and very gentle, but Twiggy found it pretty unpleasant as we had to go back four days in a row to treat water in her lungs. The worst part was getting her temperature taken. I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Early in January, we took the bus from La Paz to San Diego to visit Susan’s folks. They spend the winter in Palm Desert these days, so it was handy for us. The bus ride is pretty ugly. The buses are actually quite nice, as they are air conditioned, have washrooms and make frequent munchie stops. The problem is that the trip takes 22 hours. We eventually made it and spent the next week in absolute luxury. Howard and Shirley bring their motor home down and then stay in the nicest campground I’ve ever seen. There’s a couple of pools, Jacuzzis, weight room, ping-pong table, snooker tables, cable TV and telephones to each site. We ate a lot, went to a movie and shopped for hard-to-find food items. Then back to the boat on our 22 hour bus ride.

Shortly after we got back, my folks came for a visit. They brought tons of mail which included a pile of personal letters that we devoured. We had Christmas again, including a Santa Claus piñata. We got Mom to bash it open but it turned out to be a dud, no candy inside. While they were here we also went for a sail out to a nearby bay and I took Dad and Mom for a ride in our dinghy to a sandbar a mile away. Between the two of them they cleaned almost every shell and dead puffer fish off that beach. They smuggled most of them home, even though some of the puffer fish were still giving off fishy odors.

We left La Paz a few days later. We were heading for Mazatlan but for once we weren’t in a huge rush. We were traveling with our friends Harry and Petra on “Thetis”. Harry and Petra are irritatingly young, just 26 and 24 respectively. They are the youngest couple that we have met out here. It would be OK if they were on some ugly mutt of a boat that was always on the verge of sinking, but “Thetis” is a really nice boat. At least we can force unasked and unneeded advice on them since it’s a law of the sea (that should be said in a deep voice) that you must provide unrequested and preferably incorrect advice at every opportunity to anyone younger than yourself. We should know, having received more than our share. We sailed to an island called Espiritu Santos (Holy Spirit). There is a really great anchorage there where we went last year with Randy and Leanne when they came to visit. We had a good time passing on the time honored chocolate clam hunting techniques to Harry and Petra even though the water was a wee bit on the chilly side and they didn’t have wetsuits. We also had a bonfire/barbecue on the beach one night and Harry, Petra and I climbed the island. It isn’t very tall, maybe a thousand feet, but it’s very steep and the rock is all crumbly, with big boulders ready to fall all over the place. It’s a Wile E. Coyote sort of place. Last year Randy and I had climbed it and we thought we found some burial mounds but Randy wouldn’t let me dig them up (some sort of a grave-robbing phobia). Now I know that this is going to be hard to believe, but, Petra just happens to be a papered anthropologist. This means that it’s science when she’s grave robbing! Naturally started digging. Only one problem, they weren’t graves. We still haven’t really figured it out. The mounds sit on top of solid rock. They are piles of smaller stones about ten feet long, three feet high and four feet wide. They sure looked like burial mounds but there wasn’t anyone inside. We continued our island tour and found a pair of big horn sheep horns. We had been told that they lived on the island but it was hard to believe until we saw those horns.

We finally headed off for Mazatlan. This is about a two day crossing of the Sea of Cortez. It was a really hard passage for us as there was almost no wind. This meant some very slow sailing and quite a bit of motoring. We did have a funny experience on this trip. Just as we were leaving the Baja coast, we heard Dennis calling us on the radio. Dennis and Judith had left a week or so before for Mazatlan and our radio only has about a 15 mile range so this was a bit of a surprise. As it turned out, they were in Mazatlan and we were getting a radio skip of almost two hundred miles. Twilight Zone material.

We spent a couple of weeks in Mazatlan. It’s a really nice town and we had the additional excuse that I had to go up to the States for a couple of days. There’s two parts to Mazatlan. The old town in which the buildings probably average 100 or more years old and have a Parisian look to them and the Gold Zone or tourist area which could be anywhere, full of tourists and shysters. We, of course, preferred the old town. Susan went to Spanish school there and thoroughly enjoyed it. We ate out a lot and sat sipping drinks in outdoor cafes on the square. Very European. For some reason everything seems to be cheap in Mazatlan, especially eating out. The harbour is a really good anchorage but unfortunately it is straight downwind from the sewage plant. We never actually smelt any sewage because the chemicals they use are so overpowering. Eventually we had to leave just to get away from the smell. As it turned out though, Carnaval was starting the day we wanted to leave. Mazatlan is supposed to have the second best carnival in the world so we stayed one extra night to see the beginning. They closed off the waterfront for about twenty blocks and there were bands, dancers, restaurants, and hawkers everywhere. In addition, most of the attendees dressed up, wore masks or painted their faces. Everyone had a good time spraying each other with shaving cream and silly putty string-in-a-can or throwing empty eggshells that had been filled with confetti. We were approached by this woman selling something, which we couldn’t understand. Eventually, she talked me into holding onto two little silver bars attached with wires to a box on which she was turning a dial. I let go when I started to get a shock and the woman put her nose up, said it was only four volts and flounced away. We eventually figured out that it is a test of machismo. You are supposed to hold on as long as you can and apparently I did not exhibit much machismo.

After leaving Mazatlan, it took a couple of days to get to Puerto Vallarta. PV is not really our favorite place, but we needed cellular service so we stopped for a while at La Cruz which is only a few miles from PV but much quieter.

From there, we spent a day and a night getting to Bahia Tenacatita. This is a nice bay, with no town to speak of and a really neat little river that winds back up into the jungle. The jungle encloses and completely overhangs the river and it’s full of birds, iguanas and fish. We followed it for miles until we came out in a lake on the coast.

After only a couple of days in Tenacatita we headed to Manzanillo. Again we needed cell service. We ran into a friend there. This guy’s name is Bob and his boat is Adios. We have run into him from time to time over the last couple years, but never really got to know him. He is alone on his boat and was getting ready to leave for Tahiti. We had him over for a coffee one day and he told us an amusing story. He had done a passage out to Hawaii and back to San Francisco in the late ‘80s. He was by himself then as well. One day he had the bad luck to get a spinnaker wrap. A spinnaker wrap is when the spinnaker (a sail) gets wrapped around the forestay (a heavy piece of wire coming from the top of the mast (tall pointy thing in middle of boat) to the front of the boat). This is a relatively bad thing and really has to be solved. After trying everything that he could think of and gradually passing from the desperation zone into the insanity zone, Bob decided that he would have to go up the mast. This is never much fun, but when you go up a forty foot mast at sea, the gentle rolling and pitching at deck level might be a ten or fifteen foot swing because of the leverage and you’d spend most of your time holding on for dear life. Anyway, he was struggling with the wrap when a big wave came along and rolled the boat badly. He lost his grip on the mast and went swinging out on his harness around the forestay. He now had a spinnaker wrap and a Bob wrap. He had no way to get down at this point and started to worry that he might be found there two or three months later dried out like a piece of beef jerky. Finally after several hours, another big wave came along and rolled him back. He was so exhausted that he clambered down the mast and fell into bed. Later when he woke up, the spinnaker had miraculously unwrapped itself.

We were in a rush at this point as I needed to go up to Utah for a month and we needed a safe place for Susan and the boat to stay. We spent a couple of days getting down to Ixtapa which is just a couple of miles from Zihuatanejo. We put the boat in the marina there and I spent a month in Utah and LA.

 Susan

I settled in for a month of loneliness and work on the boat while Wayne was away. Being lonely and working hard on the boat both proved difficult to achieve.

First off, Marina Ixtapa is decadent. I felt like someone on ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’. The marina is brand new with great shower facilities, nearby restaurants and an incredible private pool with beach access and beach palapas. At least part of every day was spent lounging around the pool, body surfing in the waves or building sand castles on the beach with friends. So much for working, it was way too hot anyway. The marina also has its own crocodile (or crocodiles for all I know). When I finally saw the beast lazing along between the boats, I was astounded by how big and prehistoric he looked. I’m glad Twiggy didn’t try to practice her swimming here.

This also turned out to be a good place to have guests since we were actually staying put for a while. First our friend Bobbie and her friends Robin and Trish came to visit. Talk about a small world. After a day or two we discovered that Robin and I went to high school together in Prince Albert (we were a couple of years apart). I certainly had that ‘don’t I know you from somewhere’ feeling. The girls had all sorts of adventures while visiting and I hope, a good time.

Shortly after they arrived (and got their first sun burns), we four and Harry and Petra set off for a few days in Mexico City. We had a great time! The trip there was quite an adventure as we accidentally got cheap bus tickets. These cheap buses have no bathroom, heat or air conditioning. This is my second trip to Mexico City and I loved it more this time. Such life, such history and movies, movies, movies! Harry, Petra, and I got our fill of new (well new to us) films and we all did some sightseeing. One day was devoted to the pyramids at Teotihuacán just 30 miles north of the city. This is a must see! If you know any of these girls, check out their pictures. I forget how many they took on the trip but I’m sure it’s some kind of record. Harry, Petra, and I also had a rather frightening experience on the subway. Just imagine thick smoke and the smell of something burning all experienced in a dark subway tunnel between stations in a stalled, lightless subway car many levels below ground. We all could have lived without that experience. Everything turned out OK of course and it was only a few minutes of terror. Aside from that, the subway system here is exceptional and the best and easiest way to get around in this huge city.

Our return trip to Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa was quite a bit different. We went for the deluxe bus with air conditioning, a snack bar, reclining seats with leg supports and best of all, a bathroom. Thank goodness for the bathroom as I got deathly ill on the way back and was sick for a couple more days after that. Bobbie, Trish and Robin had continued on to Acapulco from Mexico City for a few days. It turns out that both Bobbie and Robin were just as sick as I was.

Robin and Trish flew home after two weeks and Bobbie stayed for another week to take diving lessons. A couple of days before she left and just after Wayne returned, our friend Helen and her friend Emma arrived.

Now just so you aren’t saying to yourselves ‘don’t go to Mexico, you’ll get sick’, know that Emma arrived here already quite ill. Helen and Emma took full advantage of the pool and beach to relax and unwind. Our accommodations for tall people are somewhat lacking and they’re both allergic to Twiggy but I think they had a good time too.

Sadly here we said good-bye to Dennis and Judith on “JAD” as they headed off for Hawaii and ultimately Victoria. As you tell by how much we write about them, they are the best of friends and have been since we met them in San Francisco in September 1994. We are missing them a lot and look forward to seeing them again someday.

One other interesting story while in Zihuatanejo. Wayne and I played doctor! Not what you’re thinking! After carefully studying the Where There is No Doctor book, we jabbed each other with needles to administer our second dose of Havrix for hepatitis prevention. We’d been storing it in the fridge since our trip to San Diego in January. We were overdue to be getting this shot but I’d been conveniently forgetting about it. Wayne was just dying to give me mine, but I wanted to go find someone a wee bit more qualified. He finally convinced me (I think there must have been hypnotism involved). Let me tell you, as my mother used to tell me, it was much easier to give than to receive. Somehow I’m sure that she was referring to something else. So here goes! We’re all washed up and looking like doctors who’ve just scrubbed for major heart surgery. We then had to transfer the serum from the syringe that it came in to a smaller one. The nurse that sold it to us assured us that we didn’t want to use the original, much larger, longer needle. Now it’s time to give the shot, and Wayne wants me to stick him first. According to the book, you hold the syringe like it’s a dart and jab it in quickly to avoid pain. Well I was shaking so badly, that I’m surprised I didn’t miss his arm (this is not a butt shot). All goes well, even pulling back on the plunger to make sure I didn’t jab a vein. This sounded the worst to me but wasn’t so bad. Now it’s my turn!!!!!! Wayne winds up with his dart stance and jabs me good. I’m not looking but actually feel the bottom of the syringe contact my arm as he buries the entire needle! Thank goodness the nurse had us change needles or it may have come out the other side of my arm. Wayne tells me that he was a little surprised by just how easily that sharp little needle sank into my flesh. Perhaps he was expecting to have to put some real muscle into it. I’m still not looking and it doesn’t hurt at all but it feels a little heavy and weird. It turns out that you need to get a new grip on the syringe after getting the needle in with the dart stance. Wayne thought that it was pretty thoroughly attached being that it was completely buried in my arm so he let it dangle free for a moment while he collected his thoughts and got a new grip on the syringe. He seemed a little surprised when I bled quite a bit more than him after withdrawing the needle. I wonder why! All kidding aside, I thought we both did a great job and it was kind of fun, after the fact that is.

Wayne

An EPIRB (emergency position radio beacon) had been on our wish list for a long time. When activated in an emergency, these beacons radio your exact position anywhere on earth to a satellite and from there to various Navies and Coast Guards. This is something that you would never use except as a last resort since you typically get to leave your boat behind when you are rescued, however, we like the idea of having one as ultimate insurance. We finally decided to get an EPIRB while I was in Utah. This along with the dozens of other things that I had been asked to bring back, put me over the Mexican Customs import limit. Normally boats and ships are allowed to bring in almost anything duty free as they are considered to be ‘in transit’. This was my plan, but, the people at customs weren’t having any of that. They gave me the choice of paying the duty or leaving it behind and returning the next day to sort it out with the boss. I returned the next day and was told that they were trying to work it out and that I should come back the next day. The next day I took Susan along for backup. “Remember to cry!”, I said. She brought a bottle of water and a bag of chips as ammunition. When we arrived they said we would have to pay the duty. “Oh no!,” we said “That won’t be possible.” Well then we could go to Acapulco and talk to the big boss. “Nope, can’t do that either.” “OK,” they said “We’ll try to work it out but it’ll take a long time.” “No problem.” said Susan, commandeering the chair in front of the boss’ desk and pulling out her water bottle and chips. “We’ll be happy to wait.” Things moved pretty fast after that and twenty minutes later we had our EPIRB and were being driven back to the boat by an assistant. We did end up having to pay a small fee and we never were able to determine for certain whether it was legitimate or went to the office party fund. Personally I’m waiting with baited breath for the day that Susan tries the old chips and water bottle tactic on Canada Customs!

For my birthday, Susan took me to the hottest restaurant in the world. This place is hot in every way. It’s in Mexico so that’s a start. The meat for the tacos is cooked on an open rotisserie that you can get a tan from and they have a record collection of the worlds hottest sauces. The sauces come in many colors, including red, burnt orange and grass green. Even the guacamole, which can usually be relied upon as less than hot, was muy picante! The sauces come in three levels of hot; very hot, weapons grade, and nuclear power. By the time we were done dinner, we had each drunk about two gallons of juice and we were still phosphorescent for several hours after.

The passage from Zihuatanejo to Acapulco was one of the nicest we’ve ever had. We had cleaned the bottom of the boat just a couple of days before leaving and as a result the boat was very fast. In addition, the wind was from behind and fairly strong at about twenty knots. We put up our twin jibs on spinnaker poles and just enjoyed the ride. For hours on end the boat would do seven and eight knots and once we actually hit 9.5 knots. We did almost nothing the entire time as the wind was steady and our windvane did all of the steering. This is what sailing should be like every day!

Susan

As we remembered from the previous year, Acapulco is a great place to stock up and get your fill of ‘civilization’. We ate ribs at Tony Roma’s, frequented the brand new 10-plex movie theaters and shopped at Wal-Mart and Costco. We were a little sad here as it brought back memories of our last few days of cruising with Allan and Didi last year before we went in opposite directions.

Wayne

An interesting incident occurred while we were anchored in Acapulco. There is a big old steel party ship anchored out in front of the Acapulco Yacht Club. It is yellow, green and pink with fake palm trees on deck and a concrete or papermache water slide that slides you right into the ocean. It’s about 150 feet long and looks like it may sink at any moment. We anchored near it, as there isn’t much room for anchoring. Of course we always worried that it might swing into us in a windshift, but, we didn’t have a problem until one night at about five AM we woke up because the ships’ watchman was yelling at us from just a few feet away. It was dead calm and we had drifted in opposite directions. The ship was close enough that we could reach it to push off with our feet. The rail of this thing was over our heads so we would definitely have had some serious damage if we had touched.

Susan

Just before leaving Acapulco, we put the boat in Marina Acapulco so that Wayne could make a quick two day trip to the U.S. It was the most expensive marina that we’ve ever stayed in (no other choice in Acapulco). It turned out to be about $50 Canadian per night but it sure was nice! For the four days that we were there, I/we took full advantage of the beautiful rooftop pool and better yet, a lounge with comfortable sofas, intense air conditioning, and a big TV/VCR. Each night we’d settle in, blast the air conditioning and watch some of our taped movies or the TV shows that Wayne taped while in Utah. It was Heaven! Acapulco was unbelievably hot and humid! It seems that the last month or two before rainy season begins is almost unbearably hot.

Wayne

As we say good-bye to Acapulco, we are finally heading off to see some new territory.

We had our first squall the night before we reached Huatulco. It was just after sunset when the lightning started and the wind went up to about 25 knots. This is an uncomfortable amount of wind and means that we were getting heavy spray and the tops of waves onto the deck. These things weren’t really the problem though. The problem was the lightning. It was all around us, mostly sheet lightning with the occasional bolt looking for something nice and tall to hit. Of course we know that the chances of being hit are almost incalculably small but that didn’t stop us from being worried. You can see a squall on radar and this one looked pretty small, maybe one mile across. Unfortunately, when we got into it, it seemed to grow and we had it with us for hours. By the end of that time we were soaked, the cat was soaked and the boat was swampy down below. Since then we’ve had lots of squalls and are getting used to them and a little better at dealing with them. They still seem to either grow or follow us whenever we get near one though.

Our stop in Huatulco, Mexico was basically just to clean the bottom and obtain an exit Zarpe but it was a sad day for us since we were leaving Mexico. We had been there for fifteen months and have nothing but good memories. The Mexican people are honest, kind and friendly. The country and coast are beautiful and the climate is very nearly perfect except during hurricane season which is what was hurrying us to leave. We’re trying to be optimistic but are having a tough time believing that we’ll ever see a nicer place.

The Gulf of Tehuantepec is famous for bad weather. It actually does get some strong wind, but, I think that its reputation has grown out of proportion because of the surrounding mild weather. It would only have half the reputation if it were situated between San Francisco and Victoria. The wind here is caused by the fact that Mexico is very low and narrow at this point. As a result high-pressure winds in the Gulf of Mexico (Atlantic) are squeezed over to the Pacific at this spot. Huatulco is at the Northwest end of the Gulf and Puerto Madero is at the Southeast end. They are about two days apart, but, most of the action happens in the middle eighty miles from about Salina Cruz on. When we arrived at Huatulco there were five boats waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf. We announced that we were leaving in two days and four of the boats decided that we must know what we were talking about (silly error) and they would go too.

We left at about 3 PM planning to arrive at Salina Cruz at daybreak, however, there was a strong current with us and we arrived at 1 AM. We had had no wind for a couple of hours but off of Salina Cruz it went from zero to twenty-four knots within a couple of minutes. Luckily for us, one of the other boats was ahead so we knew what to expect. It was a beat but very fast and we had a really nice sail until mid-morning by which time we had our full mainsail up and our genny and spinnaker out on poles. The rest of the Tehuantepec was easy with squalls at night and light winds and calms during the day.

During the second night in the Tehuantepec we heard a Mayday call. This is the nautical equivalent of dialing 911 and is only supposed to be done in life threatening situations. Unfortunately the call was not complete with no boat name or position given. Down here, everyone pretty much is the volunteer coast guard so we tried to raise the person who had initiated the Mayday to get enough information to help, however, we never heard another thing. This really worried us. There is nothing that you can do without knowing the location of the boat that’s in trouble and because whoever it was spoke English, they were almost certainly a friend or acquaintance. Later, we heard that one of the other boats, whom for convenience we will designate ‘Mayday Bob’, was boarded by the Mexican Navy right at this time. Mayday Bob is a bit of a doofus and decidedly xenophobic, so although he wouldn’t own up to it we are pretty sure that he is the key to our little mystery. We think that the Navy surprised him and he was thinking pirates or something silly like that.

Puerto Madero is in the state of Chiapas. This is the area in which there has been an armed uprising lately. As a result, I guess, the Navy keeps a pretty close eye on this section of coast. All of the other boats that were doing the passage when we did were boarded and searched. We weren’t, probably because we prefer to spend our time well offshore beyond the 12 mile limit and we didn’t stop at Puerto Madero. We were planning to keep going out of Mexico, past Guatemala and finally stopping in El Salvador or Honduras in the Gulf of Fonseca.

Off the coast of Guatemala, we encountered contrary winds and seas. Since we weren’t making much progress anyway, we decided to stop at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. After we had made up our minds to go to Quetzal, we decided that we had better bring down the mainsail. We had left it up in the faint hope of a breeze, but the swells were rolling the boat so much that it could have been damaged, so it had to come down. To do that we both went up on deck and began folding and tying it to the boom. Suddenly the boat took an extra big roll, the boom swung across and caught both of us in the stomach, taking us with it for the rest of its swing. We both got a death grip on the boom and when the boat rolled back, we ended up pretty much where we had started. We had visions of the autopilot steering the boat into Quetzal three or four hours later with the two of us dragging along behind in our safety harnesses.

It was along this part of the coast that we started to see all of the volcanoes. What a view on a clear day. Most of them are so straight that they look like green pyramids. We were also struck by the green lushness of the land after leaving dry season Mexico.

News flash! You’ve heard of the Bermuda triangle, well now there is a Guatemalan Time Triangle in which time actually stops! We have on board, three watches, one kitchen timer and a wind-up ship’s clock. When we arrived in Guatemala all three watches and the kitchen timer had bit the dust.

Quetzal is Guatemala’s manmade Pacific port. The commercial section looks really modern and efficient, though small. We were over at the other end in the middle of the Navy base. The base area was nice and clean and seemed pretty secure since the gates were guarded by several men with machine guns. The Port Captain comes out to check you in here and charges a fee of one hundred US dollars for seven days for which there is no receipt. We knew that this was the deal here, but, have made up our minds that we are going to try to get ‘no receipt’ fees lowered in the future.

The day after we arrived we went into the nearby town of San Jose. I hesitate to call this a town, city dump might be more appropriate. Actually that would probably be an insult to a well run dump. This place is the grubbiest, filthiest, smelliest place we have ever been in. Most of the streets are dirt except when it rains and then they become six inches of mud. There are a couple of canals that look like they might be made up of fifty percent plastic garbage and fifty percent sewage. There is definitely no litter ethic here. When you’re done with something, you just drop it on the ground, even if you are at the front door to your mother’s house and twenty people are looking at you. We recommend San Jose as a tourist destination only to those who wish to study infectious diseases.

Having experienced the joys of San Jose, we’re very glad that we decided to take a short inland trip to see Antigua. If we hadn’t, San Jose would have summed up our impressions of Guatemala. Antigua is fairly near Quetzal (the country is really small) but it feels like it’s in a different world. First of all it’s up in the mountains so it’s much, much cooler than the coast. It’s also very clean. Antigua is the old colonial capital and many of the buildings and ruins are hundreds of years old. The city has been around since the 1500’s but it is ringed by volcanoes and has experienced several devastating earthquakes so the capital was moved to Guatemala City. There are dozens of really old buildings that are ruins but have been left alone. It makes the city very picturesque. Antigua is also well known as a place to come and learn Spanish. There are dozens of small, private schools.

There are many Mayans in Antigua (and all of Guatemala) selling handicrafts. They are famous for their embroidery. The embroidery is very colorful with lots of pinks, reds and yellows. All of the ladies wear embroidered blouses which, if you know the system, identify the wearer’s village. These are actually a genuine article of clothing although it may be the equivalent of ‘Sunday best’. We bought a few pieces of embroidery and some wood carvings. The Mayan people that we talked to struck us in two ways. They are really tiny. Even Susan looks down at most of the women. The women probably average 4’8” and the men no more than 5’2”. Also they were really nice. After Mexicans, Guatemalans didn’t seem all that friendly, but the Mayans were always smiling and seemed to enjoy talking to us.

Before returning to Quetzal, we took advantage of the many restaurants to choose from in Antigua. We ate far more than our share of Italian, Japanese and Thai food.

The buses in Guatemala are really fascinating. They are all old Blue Bird school buses, brightly painted in vivid colors, usually packed full with the roof piled up with baskets, boxes, jugs and lumber. Besides the driver there is an assistant whose job is to convince people that they need to go wherever the bus is going. The assistant starts in the terminal by excitedly yelling the major destination at anybody silly enough to be within earshot. Once the bus leaves it slowly cruises the town, not obviously on any set route, looking for people who just might want to go somewhere today. Surprisingly, they actually get a few. Throughout all of this the assistant is screaming the destination to anyone within a half block or so and the driver slows or stops for anyone who exhibits the slightest interest. Eventually we head out of town. Usually by this time there will be three people in each seat, actually two and a quarter people in each seat. The three quarters that is hanging out in the middle is held up by pure thoughts and by leaning against the fellow unfortunate who is falling out of the opposite seat. Out on the highway there will be people standing on the side of the road waving at the bus. The driver can’t resist stopping and soon there will be ten or fifteen people standing. Last year when Didi and Allan were here there were so many people standing that people slept standing up. Standees must now be illegal because when we pass a cop the assistant yells for all the standees to duck, and they do. The other odd thing on the buses are the snake-oil infomercials. These are well dressed young guys who stand up near the front of the bus and give long impassioned speeches about the benefits of using their particular snake-oil. Then they walk down the aisle distributing sealed childproof bottles of something-or-other. Surprisingly enough, many people shell out the few Quetzales requested. The Home Shopping Network needs to branch into Guatemala. Don’t get the wrong idea about these buses. Provided that the trip isn’t too long, they can be the cheapest and most entertaining way to travel.

Prior to leaving Guatemala, we wanted to get a little fuel as we were low and we were pretty sure that it wouldn’t be easy to get in Honduras. There seemed to be two possibilities at Quetzal. We could take a taxi into town with our jerry jugs, or try to buy it from the Esso station on the Navy base. Naturally we thought we’d try the base first. The Esso station was just a pump, no shack and no attendant. I continued on to the nearest building, a navy radio room, I think. The duty officer was a really nice guy, but, I had a difficult time understanding him. The Guatemalans use a lot of different words and have a much different accent than the Mexicans and I never did feel that I was getting all that they said. Anyway, he told me that I couldn’t get fuel there and that I should go into town for it. I said OK and started to leave when he called me back and said that I should come back at seven and he could help me get fuel. I assumed this meant that he was going to drive me into town and so I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted and as I didn’t want to hurt his feelings I agreed. Harry needed fuel too, so we both went up to meet this guy just after dark that evening. When we got there, he had us tie the dinghy to one of the navy ships, introduced us to the guard (complete with machine gun) and asked for our jerry jugs. We were starting to get worried about this whole thing, but handed over the jugs. He disappeared down into the ship only to reappear a few minutes later to say that the fuel supply was locked up. We were delighted to express our sorrow and appreciation and then skeddadle.

The first night out after leaving Quetzal, we had been motoring because there was no wind. Often in these conditions, we can leave the main and the mizzen up, and just roll up the genny. This is what we had done when one of us (no names to protect the guilty) saw a squall approaching. I (oops, gave it away) brought down the mizzen and left just the mainsail up. Five minutes later the wind was up to fifteen knots. Fifteen knots is a nice sailing wind, however, that same nameless person might have thought about that huge black lightning-filled cloud a quarter mile away. Oh, no. Instead, the genny was rolled out. Within seconds, we had thirty-five knots of wind trying to tear down our mast, tear up our awning and throwing bathtubsfull of water onto the deck and into the cockpit every second. There was so much rain and spray in the air, that you literally could not breath facing into the wind and the rain felt like cold little needles being driven into your skin. We managed to get the genny reefed and two reefs put in the main. We even got the awning down with only one big tear and several small tears.

After a difficult trip from Quetzal with many squalls and way too much rain, we had a nice sail into the Gulf of Fonseca. We were able to sail right up to our anchorage at Amapala on the island of Tigre in  Honduras. Within minutes there was a launch headed our way with the Immigration officer, Port Captain, Chief of Police and four or five others. They all came aboard, looked over our papers and performed a cursory search. These searches always amuse us. There are literally hundreds of places to store things and we regularly spend hours looking for some seldom used item. Searches normally take less then five minutes and usually not even all of our cabins are looked into. Our largest locker, which is big enough to store two or three people in, has never been noticed. Once the search was over, the Port Captain explained that there was a $75 US fee to pay. We knew this was the going rate and even though we were expecting it, we tried to bargain him down. No dice. He did say that if we didn’t have the money (that was our ploy), he would allow us to leave but we’d have to leave immediately. We finally gave in and agreed to pay. This is an unfortunate thing for the people of Honduras. They are unbelievably poor and partly because of this fee, few boats stop here. Given the number of boats on this coast, the money that would be taken in by local businesses could be quite substantial.

The only bank in Amapala doesn’t do Visa cash advances so I had to go to the town of San Lorenzo on the mainland to get some money. Getting there from Amapala is interesting. First, you take a ferry to the mainland. This is not like a BC ferry. It is a hollowed out log about three feet across and 30 feet long. They hold up to 20 people or so and make pretty good time as they are outboard powered. The trip takes about 15 minutes and costs 50 cents. From there you take a bus to San Lorenzo. The bus was the oldest, most decrepit vehicle that I’ve ever seen. It was stitched together with welds, had a piece of twine to keep the door from opening too far, and a piece of rebar to keep it closed. It was always kept running or parked on hills so that it could be roll started. The scenery was beautiful with bright red rock and green, green jungle. San Lorenzo was a nice, neat little city with very few cars. On my way back, a different water taxi driver wanted me to pay $5 US for the trip. The entire group of passengers was assisting the driver in trying to convince me that this was an appropriate price. I ended having to pay $1.50 US and later was told that $5 is the cost for a whole boat to yourself.

Susan

The first day anchored in Honduras, a young woman, her young son and her brother in a wooden canoe made by hollowing out a tree visited me. Her name was Mercedes and she spoke very little English. My Spanish skills were tested but I think all the studying has been worth it, as we were able to understand each other. She offered her services to do our laundry and also asked if we had any vitamins to spare for her boy. I gladly dug up a bottle of One-A-Days to give to her and she was very grateful. Each day Mercedes returned to visit (or return laundry) in her canoe. Her and her young brother found our photo albums entrancing. On my birthday, they even rowed out to the boat with mangoes as a birthday present.

That first day, a larger hollowed out tree boat used for fishing also visited me. The fisherman’s name was Antonio. He spoke no English but I managed quite well. He was offering me some of the largest shrimp that I’ve ever seen. I explained that I had no money at the moment as Wayne was in San Lorenzo at the bank. He seemed surprised and explained that he would rather trade for the shrimp than sell them. I asked what he needed and his answer surprised me. Here’s his list: fresh or canned vegetables or fruit, canned beans, canned chilies, canned meat, or best of all; peanut butter. It turns out that it’s difficult to find and buy just about anything around here except shrimp and fish. I had no problem unearthing two apples and two grapefruits to trade for a large quantity of delicious shrimp for dinner. The next day we got even more and larger shrimp for my Birthday dinner in exchange for a can of fruit cocktail and a can of peas. You gotta like that! Antonio and his partner came aboard and chatted with Wayne for quite a while. Wayne brought out the photo album to show Antonio a Dorado as they were talking fish and he was just as fascinated by the pictures as Mercedes and wanted to look at them all. Antonio also explained to us which of the surrounding islands belonged to Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It’s rather confusing as this bay is fronted by all three countries.

Wayne

Hondurans are so poor, it’s scary. Amapala especially has fallen on hard times. Everywhere we went, drunks would hit us up for a few Lempiras, kids would extort a little money out of us for ‘watching our dinghy’ and everyone would peer over our shoulders in banks and shops to count the money in our hands. We constantly felt that we had to watch our things and we never felt comfortable leaving the boat alone. On the other hand, things were so cheap that you could live with paying the outsiders price (like 25 cents for a Coke) even though you’d see them charging locals less. We actually had a couple of things disappear from the deck of the boat and although they could have fallen overboard, we never really felt comfortable afterwards.

By the fourth day we were tired of Honduras and ready to leave. We got up at five AM to finish up the repairs etc. from our last trip. When the town started to wake up, I rowed in to spend our last Lempiras on diesel fuel. One of the men standing around on the pier met me as I arrived and took possession of two of my jerry jugs. Obviously he was going to help me get fuel. We walked into town (none of the three vehicles on the island are cabs) to the fuel store. It had no diesel. I thought this was the only place in town, but my guide knew of another. It too was out of diesel. At the third store, now at least a half mile from the waterfront we found a source. They wanted about fifty cents per gallon more than on the mainland but since they have to bring it over in open boats in fifty gallon drums, the price didn’t seem out of line. They tried to palm gasoline off on me (it’s a little cheaper here) but I caught on and insisted on diesel. Then they measured out 13 gallons of diesel using an old one gallon syrup bottle with a broken neck and wanted me to pay for fifteen gallons. After a little arguing, I got my fifteen gallons. My assistant meantime had tied an old piece of twine between two of the jugs and after placing an oily old scrap of cardboard on his shoulder heaved them up. We made our way back to the pier and for his help, he charged me ten Lempira (about $1.20).

The trip to Costa Rica was tough. Having gotten the Honduran fuel out of drums, we weren’t too sure whether it would be OK and without using it we couldn’t do much motoring. Of course the wind took this opportunity to be from dead ahead. We had decided to stay at least twelve miles off of Nicaragua to avoid being boarded by their Navy, but after two days of beating into 20 to 25 knot headwinds (this wind comes over Nicaragua from the Caribbean and is called a Papagayo wind) we turned and got as close to the shore as we dared. This gave us much smaller waves and we made better progress. We finally arrived in Bahia Santa Elena, Costa Rica three days and one hour after leaving Amapala.

Non-sailors will probably want to skip this next paragraph. We learned an interesting thing about sailing on this trip. We had about 20 to 25 knots of wind about 45 degrees off the bow with three to six foot windwaves for most of the trip. Being an offshore wind the waves were close together, about twenty-five to thirty feet apart. This made it a beat with the added complications that while the boat was descending one wave, it would often slam into the face of the next, virtually stopping us. In addition, when the bow got up in the air on one wave, it would often be thrown to leeward and we would lose some mileage until the boat got straightened out. We had our 95 percent jib up and a double reefed main and thought that putting a reefed mizzen up might help hold the bow up. It may have helped a little, but it also increased our leeway and had our lee rail about three inches under water. Finally we took down the mizzen, rolled up the jib and leaving the reefed main up, we put up our new staysail. We didn’t actually think that it would work well with this amount of wind (the staysail is very small), but we were tired of walking on the walls down below. Amazingly, the boat stood up, our speed went up to about seven knots, the bow stopped blowing off and leeway almost disappeared.

We have two charts of Bahia Santa Elena. The British Admiralty chart calls it Port Parker and the US Defense Mapping Agency called it Bahia Santa Elena. Whatever you call it, it is a fabulous harbour. The day that we came in, it was blowing over 20 knots outside while inside it was as smooth as glass with just a gentle breeze. Because it is 30 miles or so upwind from the first Port of Entry into Costa Rica, not a lot of boats come here. Also it is a national park (Santa Rosa) so nobody lives on the shores. The result is a clean, quiet anchorage with wildlife on shore and fish in the water. We’ve enjoyed a whole week of solitude. We’ve done a few jobs on the boat but basically we’ve lounged about, watched the sunset (beautiful here), swam and snorkeled. Surprisingly enough, it is rainy season but we’ve only had one rainy day. I know that the north coast of Costa Rica is drier than the rest but I wonder if this is typical throughout rainy season.

Our favorite wildlife recently has been the squeaker birds. We actually don’t have a clue what their real name might be, but I can assure you that squeaker bird is a good name. These little guys are about 8 inches long and the same wide. They’re brown and white and they have huge Donald Duck feet. They don’t seem to need to eat, they just fly around squeaking and having fun all day long. For some reason they really like the boat. I think that the backwash from the sails must be fun to play in. Anyway, they get a group going and fly around and around one side of the boat squeaking away. Once in a while one of them will show off by landing on the deck and tottering clumsily around while slyly watching you out of the corner of his eye. Or, when they get tired, and want to stop for a rest on the water they put their landing gear down, brace their legs and water-ski for about six feet. They’re really comical little guys and we like having them around.

Another bird that we like less is actually called a Boobie. Boobies are really dumb. They’ll go after your fishing lure and occasionally get themselves caught. Lately, Boobies seem to be very tired and feel the need to rest on our boat while we’re at sea. In addition, they all seem to have diarrhea. A couple of weeks ago, we had one sitting on top of our mast, one on the anchor, one standing on deck and one on the mizzen boom. They are really clumsy and for the first few minutes they were continually falling off of their perches. Eventually they got used to the motion and settled in. We were pretty surprised by this behavior as we have seen lots of Boobies before but none have moved in with us. They wouldn’t leave even when we walked right up and yelled at them. Susan finally pushed one off and I bonked one on the head with a book. We didn’t mind the one on the anchor but the one at the top of the mast was making a mess and bending our wind instruments. We tried everything including a slingshot, but finally had to give up and keep him for the night.

We’ve seen two new kinds of dolphins recently. Heading into Honduras, we were escorted by the two largest dolphins we have ever seen. They were at least twelve feet long. We wondered if they might be pilot whales but never got a good enough look to be sure.

The other dolphins are very small. They’re between three and four feet long and very dark. The really like to jump and often will jump right out of the water for a breath rather than just raising their blowhole.

Since passing Huatulco we have seen thousands of sea turtles. These are the big boys of the turtle world, anywhere from eighteen inches to three feet across. They seem to spend most of their time hanging out on the surface getting a suntan. When it’s calm you can often see four or five without moving your eyes and once in a while you’ll see a bird standing up on the water. When you get nearer it turns out that he’s resting on a turtle. When it’s windy and the waves build, you can’t see the turtles at all. This worries us as they can weigh up to three hundred pounds and we wouldn’t want to hit one at speed. The behavior of the turtles seems to vary by country. In Mexico and Guatemala they ignored the boat even when you could reach out and touch them. Off of Nicaragua, they dived as soon as they spotted us. I wonder if this means that they are still hunted there.

Wayne

Finally, we return to Mexico! We left Utah September 22nd and drove all night long arriving in Newport just at sunup. Even though the car was filled past capacity, there were a few things that we had to buy for the boat. From Newport we took the coast road down to San Diego for a final shopping binge. We spent the night in San Diego and after a quick trip to Costco in the morning we headed for Mexico. At this point we had two gallons of bottom paint on the front seat between us, two more gallons underneath the passengers feet, and the back seat was packed to the roof except for a little Twiggy hole. As a result of all this, the car’s undercarriage dragged on the ground at every opportunity.

We were searched at the Mexican border, but since it was clearly going to be a giant hassle to see everything, they just poked around a little and then let us go. Once in Mexico we started to worry about Mexican car insurance. In Mexico if you are in an accident you’re detained until you either show that you can pay for damages or until the trial. My guess is that Mexican jails are not too nice. Anyway we drove very carefully and discovered that the drivers down here are really polite but they do some things differently. For example, they don’t stop at stop signs; instead they cruise through them at up to 20 miles per hour, looking carefully in both directions. Red lights seem to mean yield and people pass you on the wrong side of city streets if you are going too slow. Also stop signs are sometimes so faded that you don’t see them and sometimes they appear halfway down the block, not at the corner where you might expect them. The drivers though, are polite and careful and nobody goes very fast so the problems are not too severe. We were subsequently told that almost no locals or long term gringos have insurance and that if there is an accident you wouldn’t normally even stop. This probably explains all of the dented cars that you see. All of this is behind us now as we are once again dependent on our feet for transportation since we sold the Nova shortly after arriving in La Paz.

Back to the trip. The first 100 miles down the coast is on a good highway and was uneventful. After Ensenada, the road gets bumpy and narrow but worst of all are the speed bumps. For some reason just for a few miles south of Ensenada they seem to really like speed bumps. Every little town has a couple and they are huge. The last set is the biggest measuring about four feet across the top and maybe six inches tall. We went over them at about 1/2 mile per hour and even so we dragged the entire length of the car.

We managed about 200 miles that day and probably got over the worst of the road in terms of bumps, pot-holes etc. The next day we crossed the peninsula. The temperature out in the desert was around 100 degrees and we were baking. The Nova, of course, has no air conditioning. Susan was so worried about Twiggy that she was using a plastic syringe to force water down Twiggy’s throat and finally she ordered me to stop and buy some ice. The ice was put into ziplocks and packed around the cat. The cat seemed to be enjoying it so much that we tried it too. Susan wore one on her head and I had one in my lap. Things were much cooler after that.

We spent that night in Loreto on the east coast of the Baja peninsula and the following day was spent lounging around with Dennis and Judith on “JAD”. They were anchored in Puerto Escondido, which is about 20 miles from Loreto. They were very happy to see us as we had a lot of boat things and mail to deliver to them. We also got a chance to talk to Jamie from “White Squall”. A week before we got there he had been anchored at an island nearby. During the night a storm had come up and blown his boat up on the beach. This must have been a terrifying experience but at least the beach was sand so he had a fighting chance to save the boat. All night long he sat there with each big wave picking the boat up and slamming it back down a little further up the beach. There was nothing that he could do except keep bailing out the water and sand that was coming in with each breaking wave. Sometime during the night the boat was dropped onto one of the few rocks on that part of the beach. The rock broke through the hull and the water started coming in the bottom as well. Along with this the pounding had broken the aft three feet and ground off the bottom five or six inches of the keel. Also at some point a giant piece of the rudder was broken away. It looked like Jaws had taken a bite out of it. The hull is of wood and the keel was concrete. There was no question that the wood took that beating much better than the concrete. By daybreak the wind was gone and the waves were way down but “White Squall” was high and dry, maybe ten feet from the edge of the water. Jamie and Dennis repaired the hole with a big wooden patch and large quantities of underwater epoxy but there was no way to pull the boat off the beach until the next high tide. Even then it was going to require an extremely powerful boat to do it. To add to the difficulties, hurricane Ismael decided to head straight for them at this point. Ismael had  100 mile per hour winds and they knew that if they didn’t get the boat off before Ismael arrived, the boat would be destroyed by the waves. Jamie spent the next night alone on the beach with the boat. The following day a dive boat called “Ambar III” was located nearby and they agreed to try to pull “White Squall” off. This is a big twin engine boat, probably one of the most powerful on this coast with the exception of the Navy ships. Every boat in the area had pitched in with lines by this time and when “Ambar III” arrived they hooked up and proceeded to break them one by one. These were mostly ¾” nylon lines which have a breaking strain of eleven thousand pounds so there was some serious pulling happening. Finally they told Jamie that they couldn’t get the boat off and suggested that he strip the boat as Ismael would be there within a few hours. As Jamie started to think about what to take off, they called back to say that they wanted to give it one more try. The only line left was a ¾” polypropylene line which is usually considered junk compared to nylon, but they hooked it up anyway and started to pull. By this time the waves from the hurricane were starting to build and actually helped to lift the boat. After a couple of minutes “White Squall” started to move, then bumped out over the rocks and floated off. We had an opportunity to see this dramatic rescue as “Ambar III” had it on video. It was heart-stopping footage for other sailors. “White Squall” was towed back to Puerto Escondido. After a week of repair work Jamie sailed across the Sea of Cortez to San Carlos to put the boat up on the hard. The latest we’ve heard about “White Squall” is that she was being trucked back to Seattle for more complete repairs. The hurricane never amounted to much at Puerto Escondido, but 150 miles away on the mainland coast many fishing boats were lost and approximately ninety fisherman were killed.

We continued driving down to La Paz and once there worked long and hard getting “Day Dream” back in sailing shape. We had to pack away all of the stuff that we’d carted down, clean the bottom of six months worth of barnacles, put on sails, etc., etc., etc. We never thought we’d get all of the “new” books packed away. We now have at least two years worth of reading on board. One other thing that we were doing was getting a cellular phone set up. The cell phone was needed since we are still doing some work. This, at least, is the theory. As we told our partners, we would be doing ‘virtual’ work in our ‘virtual’ office and it would go along nicely with our ‘virtual’ paycheque! We couldn’t believe what a problem it was to get this phone set up. It took about ten days, with two to three calls or visits to the cellular office every single day. Voice Mail took a whole hour to set up. I guess that’s the downside of mañana land.

We finally got everything done and sailed north up the coast to Puerto Escondido. This is one of the best hurricane holes on the entire coast so we wanted to stay near it until the end of hurricane season. We met Dennis and Judith about ten miles south of Puerto Escondido at an anchorage called Candeleros where Dennis helped us put together our new fishing gear. We hadn’t caught one edible fish last year in 4600 miles of sailing and had complained vociferously about that to Dennis. He never fails to catch all he can eat, so we thought he should have to listen to our whining. He had described to us what gear to get but after buying it we hadn’t had the time/energy/knowledge to put it all together. The next day as we were leaving for Puerto Escondido, we put the line over the back and not ten minutes later caught a 26 inch Dorado. These are the most beautiful fish on Earth. Bright yellow, emerald green and flashes of blue and they really fight. When you pull them in they turn into Mahi-Mahi (at least on a restaurant menu) and are absolutely delicious. Two days later we went out to the island where Jamie went up on the beach and on the way there we caught a Marlin! This is a huge fish! Ours was between five and six feet long and had a sword of about eighteen inches. I fought him for an hour and when I finally got him up to the boat, we cut him loose. Somehow we couldn’t see killing him and then eating only a tiny percentage before it went bad. On the way back from the island Susan hauled in a thirty-three inch Dorado! It’s all we can do to eat everything that we catch. Of course we have also caught a fair number of inedible fish but we just yell at them for wasting our time and chuck them back. To date the biggest fish we have brought aboard is a fifty inch Dorado.

While we were at the island, which is called Monserrat, we went diving for lobster. We got 15 in two dives. That was enough for one giant feast and one regular meal for everyone. They were really exciting to spear. They live underneath rocks at depths of 10 to 15 feet. You have to dive on fifty rocks or so before you find a lobster rock, but then it’s usually a colony and you can spear two or three.

Once they realize that you are after them, they scamper off sideways or if they are really scared, they have a little jet propulsion system that scoots them backwards. They are incredibly fast and they look like the aliens in the movie Aliens when they are jetting away. On our second dive we found a great little colony living underneath a  hollow rock. They could get far enough inside the hollow that all we could see was their antenna sticking down, but, we could see that there were lots of them. The rock was about fifteen feet down, so we took turns going down and sticking our spears underneath the rock to try to scare them out. Finally one left and Dennis managed to shoot it with his spear gun. As he was retrieving his spear a big green Moray eel shot out from under a rock and tried to steal the lobster off it! This was exciting as the eel was about five feet long. They have canine teeth and a mouth about the size of a German shepherd and are one of the few things that can actually be dangerous for a diver. A minute later he came out of his hole again and went after Judith who was holding our bag full of lobster. He could really swim, easily going several times as fast as we could. He eventually went back to his hole (right beside the lobsters) and if we had had any sense at all we would have left then, but not only are we great white hunters, we were also hungry! I stood watch over his hole with my spear while Dennis went down for more lobster. Every 10 seconds the eel would stick his head out of his hole and look around. After a while he started to get braver and he’d come halfway out. When he did that, I’d whack him in the head and he’d go back in. This went on for about 20 minutes with the eel getting madder by the minute and us becoming more scared. Finally, we decided that we weren’t that hungry! We looked this eel up later in our fish book and found out that they eat lobster and can sense a wounded one so I guess that explains his aggressive behavior. He must have thought we were there to provide his dinner.

I have a couple more types of wildlife to tell you about. The first is clams. We are now pretty adept at getting two kinds. The first are called chocolate clams because they are brown. You dive between six and ten feet and dig these out of a sand bottom. They are difficult to spot and when they sense you coming they pull in their feeding tubes and hide so it’s a little bit of a sport. After you catch a few, you hang them in seawater in a bag and allow them to spit out sand for a day or so then you steam them and have a feast. Chocolates are about half the size of your fist and on a good beach you can get enough for a meal in about ten minutes. The second kind of clams have no name as far as I know so I’m going to call them thumb-nail clams. This actually is a pretty optimistic name as most of them are between the size of your pinkie fingernail and your ring finger fingernail. Fortunately they live right on the beach at about the half-tide level. You take an old, empty shell and dig about 3 inches down and pick up 2 or 3 at a time. Of course you need quite a few to make a meal but you can probably get all you need in 2 or 3 hours. However, this has been the fun part (a bit like picking blackberries). After letting them spit for a while, you steam them until they open and then you have to dig each one out of its shell individually! This takes forever but it’s worth it ‘cause they make great chowder or clam pizza. We’ve also learned how to get scallops and oysters. Since we have arrived in Mexico we have only actually bought meat twice so we’re doing all right in that department. One last word on wildlife. We have visits from moths almost every night. These are not what you’re thinking. These moths have a wing-span of five inches across, their bodies are the size of small mice and they have vampy red eyes and black wings. They seem utterly harmless but they always freak me out. Susan seems to like them since Twiggy gets a bit of exercise chasing them. In the morning we often find tattered moths that can no longer fly, lying about and yellow moth blood here and there.

Puerto Escondido is a really great harbour as it is completely landlocked other than a very narrow channel. We spent part of each week there since I had to take the bus down to La Paz in order to get cellular service so that I can pretend to work. The harbour is natural but the Mexican government started to develop it in the mid-eighties. It now has a breakwater, dinghy docks, garbage pick-up and tap water. Almost more service than we can stand although the nearest town is twenty miles away. Most of the harbour is deep, but right at the water tap it is only about six feet. One day another boat was filling up with water and just as they were leaving they went aground. Normally going aground is a calamity for a boat, equivalent to a fire in a house. However, here the tide only goes down a couple of feet, the bottom is soft mud and because of the breakwater there are no waves. The worst that would happen would be for the boat to lean over at an embarrassing angle for 8 or 10 hours. The people on the boat gunned the engine and with four dinghies pushing at full throttle we managed to get it free. A couple of days later the local people in Loreto asked if any of the yachts wanted to participate in their annual fiesta. This is a local festival in which a statue of the Virgin of Loreto is carried by boat from Puerto Escondido to Loreto. This Virgin saved the local fishing fleet several hundred years ago and somehow lost her arms in the process. We thought that this would be fun and the fiesta to follow the delivery sounded great. There were four sailboats involved, one had the statue and 10 or so local kids on board, the rest of us were just required to look good. As you will appreciate, “Day Dream” did very well at that job! We had a really nice sail up to Loreto but when we arrived we were really uncomfortable and not sure that we would stay as the anchorage was exposed and the wind was blowing pretty good. Normally we don’t like to anchor in less than about thirty feet of water in case the wind comes up and the waves start to break. At Loreto we discovered that you passed the thirty foot level about a quarter mile from the shore. As a result we were driving around in circles discussing the situation and trying to decide what to do. The boat with the statue and the kids on board kept right on going in until it finally went aground on the beach. This was a really ugly situation. With the wind blowing straight onto the beach and the waves building there was a real chance that these folks could lose their boat. I think if they had been almost anywhere else they would have been in huge trouble. However, within five minutes two Mexican pongas roared out, hooked up and started to pull. We got our dinghy behind to push and the sailboat had its engine at full bore. After a couple of minutes it popped free. Meanwhile Susan was sailing back and forth out in front of the town. By the time I got back to the boat in the dinghy, all the other boats had decided that this was a bad anchorage and we all turned around and headed for Escondido with our tails between our legs.

After two months spent in and around Puerto Escondido, we finally said good-bye and headed for La Paz for Christmas. We decided to do the grand tour of offshore islands on the way down. First stop was Isla Monserrat. As we were heading into an anchorage, we ran out of fuel. I guess when you only fill up every few months, it kind of slips your mind. Fortunately we had a little bit in another tank because the nearest fuel dock is over a hundred miles away. Susan sailed us around in circles while I bled the engine and we finally got to anchor. We didn’t find a single lobster that day so we left the next morning for Isla Santa Catalina. Catalina is well out in the sea so we thought there should be lots of lobster. There were none, but the trip was worth it for the thousands of bright tropical fish. Luckily we didn’t go hungry that night because a small cruise ship (70 paying guests) anchored nearby and the captain sent over an invitation to dinner. What a pleasure to eat great food that someone else prepared and is going to clean up. We stayed after dinner to watch a video of some spectacular film taken from an old square rigged ship rounding Cape Horn in a storm in 1939.

We had planned to spend a day or two at a little island called Las Animas. This island is way off the beaten track and in fact as far as we know there is no chart for it. Due to the lack of commercial traffic in this area charts range from indifferent to downright laughable. Most of the surveys were done in the mid-1800s and there are many places that have never been surveyed or whose positions are off by as much as a couple of miles. Anyway, there is no official chart of Animas or even a sketch in any of the guide books so it sounded like a cool place to us. When we arrived we found that it is about a half mile from where it’s supposed to be. Unfortunately, we could see that it would not be safe to spend the night, so we just cruised slowly by while drawing a sketch chart. Now if you need to go to Las Animas, you’ll know where to get a chart.

Susan

Just a short note from me about the weather in these parts. We are enjoying the cooler weather now especially after arriving back to such intense heat at the end of September. Daytime temperatures were always in the 90’s and the water didn’t even provide much relief. It’s been gradually cooling down to daytime highs of 75 or so with the nights in the sixties sometimes. The water temperature started to change dramatically in mid-October and we are now wearing our full (but thin) wet suits in order to stay in the water for a while.

All in all we are having a great time, especially learning how to live off the sea a bit. We are now in La Paz and plan to stay through Christmas and part of January. Later in the year we hope to be in Panama and then we’ll probably go west toward Tahiti and beyond.

Wayne

Well, it’s now September and we’re still here. However, we are planning to head south on September 26 and arrive back at the boat October 4th at the latest. I’ll try to bring you up-to-date on what we’ve been doing this summer.

The reason that we came to Utah was to start a business. We did that. The company is called SpeechTel and it has kept us busy doing work-like stuff for the last four or five months. We have, however, managed to squeeze in a few fun things as well.

I took a hang gliding lesson with Brad. It was fun even though we never got more than about 10 feet off the ground. We did discover that it is incredibly hard work, both of us were stiff and sore for about a week afterwards. I keep meaning to go take another lesson, but never seem to have the energy and the money at the same moment!

Susan managed to get home to Victoria for a visit in June. She had a lot of fun, even managed to go sea kayaking at Long Beach. I better let her tell you about all of the exciting stuff she did.

Susan

It was a great trip to Victoria. I took the wonderful bargain airline (Southwest) to Seattle for $39 then hopped on the Victoria Line ferry from Seattle to Victoria. It was so good to be back on the ocean even if it was in a stink-pot (power boat). I had certainly missed the cedars and their wonderful aroma. My friends Helen and Debbie met me at the ferry and we went straight downtown to meet all the ‘girls’ for a fabulous dinner out. While I was in Victoria I got a chance to visit with everyone and a chance to try my hand at sea kayaking which I’ve always wanted to do. Bobbie and Helen were kind enough to introduce me to this sport by taking me out in the pouring rain to paddle madly from Sidney to James Island and back. I thought for sure I was going to have to trade in my arms for new ones that night. Despite the wet and dreary day I still had a great time and was looking forward to the camping/kayaking trip to Long Beach planned for the next weekend. That trip also started out with a lot of rain and perhaps we should have taken it as a sign. The camping on Long Beach was wet but fun. I haven’t been camping in years and I definitely cannot remember the last time I sat around a camp fire listening to ghost stories. The kayaking was also great. We started from Tofino and the weather gods were good enough to withhold the rain for the entire day until we returned. That has got to be some of the most beautiful country in the world. The next day signalled the last day of the trip and it was decided unanimously to forgo any more kayaking for a day at Long Beach. This is where things went wrong. One of our party was struck by a rampaging boulder while climbing one of the many rock hills just off the beach. This nasty boulder did some serious damage to Darren’s ankle and we had to rush him to the nearest hospital. Luckily it was only a few miles away in Tofino. It turned out to be a broken ankle and a cast was required. Not a great end to a great weekend. Unfortunately this wasn’t quite the end of it. On the drive home, the borrowed jeep that Bobbie, Helen and I were in, decide to blow its top. Literally! The hard, removable top of the jeep simply took flight and crashed to earth about a block behind us. Luckily we weren’t going very fast at the time and luckier still, there was no one behind us. We didn’t trust the roof to stay on so drove the rest of the way back with it in the back seat. It was a bit chilly but safer I’m sure. So ended a great mini vacation.

Before I turn this back over to Wayne, I want to tell you a little about the weather around here. We have had some pretty interesting stuff. When we arrived here in mid-April there was still a lot of snow in the mountains very close. It even snowed a few more times right into May. It was quite a shock after the temperatures we were used to. After that came the rain. Immense quantities of rain along with some spectacular electrical storms. When summer finally hit, it hit with a vengeance. Summer is typically hot and dry here and this one was no exception. Temperatures each day could be counted upon to be somewhere between 90° and 100°. It was sure nice to be in the basement suite then. We also had a freak wind storm with winds topping out at 95 mph a little ways north of here. The news featured shots of the dozens of flipped semi-trucks and motor homes on the I-15. Things are finally beginning to cool off here as fall approaches. The days are pleasantly warm (about 80° to 85°) with the nights cooling down to the 50’s and 60’s. Enough of the weather.

We’ve enjoyed the mountains here. We’ve even done a fair bit of hiking, most of it uphill it seems. Unfortunately the mountains cannot begin to replace the ocean for us. We’re suffering from ocean withdrawal and are counting the days until we return. It’s only a couple of weeks now so there is plenty to do before we leave. One of the things we’re doing is canning. Can you believe this of Wayne and me? We bought a pressure cooker and a really good book called “Stocking Up”. So far Wayne has canned chicken breasts and his home-made chili and I’ve tried my hand at pickled veggies combinations. We hope to can some nectarines and peaches, more pickles, and more meat. We’ll keep you posted when we finally consume these goods and tell you if we’re any good at it. Well enough from me, back to Wayne.

Wayne

My Dad and Mom and brother (Gary) drove down here from Calgary for a short visit on the May long weekend. It was really good to see them and they brought our old car down as well. This was a welcome relief from borrowing cars, bumming rides and walking. We never really minded not having a car in Mexico, but it really is tough to get around here without one. Besides, people look at you funny here when you walk.

On the Canada Day long weekend (Fourth of July here) we decided to drive up to Calgary and see everyone there. It was a bit of an impromptu trip as we first thought of it at 8:00pm on Friday and were on our way at 9:00pm. We had a really nice time, the drive is picturesque and not too long (about sixteen hours). Also it was great to see friends and family in Calgary, most of whom we hadn’t seen for over a year. We also really enjoyed seeing Calgary in the summertime. Its been several years since we were there in the summer and it really is a beautiful city when the trees have leaves and the grass is green.

Our trip back to Orem was made interesting by the U.S. immigration service at Waterton Park crossing. They decided that we must be trying to get into the U.S. to work illegally and after an hour or so of questioning and the most thorough search that we have ever experienced they decided not to let us in. The nearest supervisor is at Sweetwater which is about 150 miles away. We headed for Sweetwater, with a stop at Lethbridge to have our bank fax statements for our accounts. We figured that at least we could prove that we didn’t need to work. When we arrived at the Sweetwater crossing, the supervisor couldn’t have been nicer. She barely glanced at our statements then said that she couldn’t understand why we had been turned away in the first place and let us in.

When we arrived in Orem, Brad mentioned that he had been turned away at the same crossing years ago. From his description we suspect it was the same guy so maybe it’s just how he gets his jollies. Anyway, if you’re driving down to the U.S., avoid the Glacier Park border crossing.

In late July, we decided that we couldn’t stand being away from our boat for so long so we went down to La Paz for a visit. Because we are feeling poor, we flew to San Diego ($39 each way), took the trolley to the Mexican border, then took a bus from there to La Paz. The bus was great, clean and modern with air conditioning, movies and a bathroom. It was a 22 hour trip though and we were very happy when we arrived. The boat was in perfect shape, no bugs, rats or storm damage but it was in desperate need of a wash down.

We had mail for Dennis and Judith from “JAD” and had arranged to meet up with Judith in La Paz. Their boat is in Puerto Escondido which is about 200 miles North, so Judith took a bus to La Paz as well. Judith invited us to spend the balance of our long weekend on their boat. We were very excited about her offer as we had never been to Puerto Escondido and we really wanted to visit with Dennis and Kathie and Jamie from “White Squall” who were also there. Besides “Day Dream” is in a marina in a city and we really prefer to be at anchor away from the cities.

So Judith, Susan and I took a bus up to Puerto Escondido (only five hours). The bus just stopped on the side of the highway near the bay and let us out, then we walked the mile or so to the water. We had a terrific time on “JAD” as their hospitality was incredible. It was really good to see our old friends again and besides those that we were expecting, we also ran into Carol and Greg from “Vagrant Lady”. We had last seen them just before Christmas in Cabo San Lucas.

This was an extremely short trip but we managed to cram a totally great time into only two days. While we were there we went diving for clams. Susan and I had not done this before and we really enjoyed it. They weren’t hard to get and after being steamed for a few minutes they are delicious with garlic butter. Dennis and I attempted to harvest fruit from a cactus. Speaking from experience, I am now strongly recommending that you do not try to harvest a cactus while wearing a bathing suit! These cactus are about 10 feet tall and have spines about 3 inches long. The fruit always grow just out of reach and are also very spiny. We poked at them with sticks and after nearly falling onto the cactus many times we would knock one off. They usually come hurtling down from overhead aimed straight at any bare skin that you happen to have. No one was critically injured during this operation and eventually we had ten or so, which we thought would make a nice dessert for the six of us. Each fruit was about the size of a large strawberry and liberally supplied with spines. Once back on the boat I got roped into removing the spines. I held the fruit on a fork and hacked at them with a knife and after losing about half of the fruit overboard I had spread most of the spines around “JAD’s” deck. After all of that we forgot to eat them before we left so we still don’t know if they were any good!

We did have a good reason for forgetting and that was the rest of the food. If you haven’t eaten lately, you had better put this down and go have a bite, otherwise you are likely to find yourself at an expensive seafood restaurant ordering something that you can’t afford. Judith and Kathie are very good cooks and Dennis and Jamie are very accomplished fishermen. Dennis and Jamie had recently caught some lobsters while diving. The lobster, combined with a recent catch of scallops and three different kinds of clams to make this really incredible pasta dish. Some of our other culinary delights while visiting were steamed clams on the half shell with garlic butter, Judith’s pickled squid, Judith’s pickled veggies and a fresh salad! Easily some of the best meals we’ve ever eaten.

We were very sad to leave when the time came but knowing that we would be back in October helped a little. We arrived at the bus station in Loreto to purchase our tickets and found that our bus was full. We explained in our best Spanish how badly we needed on this bus in order to meet our flight in San Diego. Between the bus drivers, the ticket agents and a few passengers, they found us one seat to start with and agreed to let me stand for the first 100 miles. In typical Mexican fashion, when the time came to board they somehow found us both seats. And then to top it all off, a kind gentleman travelling alone traded seats with Susan so that we could sit together even though he was giving up a much better seat. Once again Mexico shows off its great people charm.

In the middle of the night, the police boarded the bus checking for criminals. Not having shaved for four or five days apparently made me look fairly suspicious. Naturally they asked for my tourist visa which I had failed to get stamped in Tijuana and then hauled me (politely) off the bus for a little questioning. Fortunately, Susan, who didn’t have a stamped visa either realised that she would tend to make me look less sinister so she hopped off the bus as well and we apologised profusely for being such silly gringos. Finally they told us that they were supposed to charge us but if we promised not to do it again they would let us go. We earnestly promised and that was that! I hate to imagine what would have happened if a foreigners paperwork were not in order in Canada or the USA.

After shaving and changing into clean clothes, we made it through U.S. customs (whew). Considering our last U.S. immigration experience we were a little nervous but it was no problem. Since we had a few hours to spare, we went to visit some friends who run a yacht equipment shop in San Diego. While we were there we bumped into Chris and Susan from the yacht “Jenny Gordon”. We had met them in Zihuatanejo and had last seen them at Didi and Allen’s wedding. They had left their boat at anchor in Puerto Escondido and were planning to spend a few months visiting family and travelling through Canada and the U.S. Small world!

It’s hurricane season in Mexico now and we have been worrying a fair bit about “Day Dream”. We get the NOAA weather broadcast on our shortwave radio and so far we have had three near misses. The first, hurricane Flossy, passed about 110 miles from La Paz. This put us just outside of the danger zone but since you never know in advance exactly where they are going to go, we had a few sleepless nights. The second, Hurricane Henriette, was forecast to pass within 15 miles of La Paz with 110 mph winds. We decided that we couldn’t leave the boat alone at such a time, so I flew down to make sure it was OK. As it turned out, Henriette turned left and we never had more that 45 knots (about 55 mph) of wind but I was very happy to be there. Henriette did hit Cabo San Lucas squarely and the last I heard there was no water, telephones or electricity there, but no one had been killed. The most recent scare has been Hurricane Ismael which whizzed by our boat on the east side, straight up into the Sea of Cortez. Once again it was close. We’re growing more gray hairs by the day.

Well that seems like all the news that’s fit to print. We are leaving here on September 26th and looking forward to being back on the boat. We will drive to San Diego and do a little last minute boat shopping for us and some friends since we have a car to fill. Then it’s a few more days of driving down the Baja Peninsula to La Paz. We can hardly wait. We’ve missed the cruising life.

Susan

We are now pretty much settled in the land of pale people. This is not an insult to the people of Utah but just a general comment about the tan or lack of tan of most of the people north of Mexico. We are fast joining the ranks of the pale people as our tans fade. They have faded quickly what with all the snow, hail and rain we’ve been experiencing in the normally sunny and warm Salt Lake area. Well, I guess you might like to know how we ended up here when we last left you in sunny Zihuatanejo. As I remember it, we hadn’t been in Zihuatanejo long when our last chapter was written. Quite a lot has happened since then so here goes.

As I’m sure we’ve mentioned before, we really like Zihuatanejo. It is a classic little fishing town that has been effected by tourism, but minimally, and mostly in good ways. Thank goodness they built Ixtapa (tourist trap) 6 miles away from Zihuatanejo to house most of the rampaging tourists. I believe that some of them never even leave the strip of hotels and restaurants in Ixtapa. If they only knew what they were missing out on. We enjoyed our stay in Zihuatanejo to the max. Having our good friends Allan and Didi from “Ave Peregrina” there only made it that much better. We spent our days lounge surfing, bobbing around in the water to stay cool, shopping, eating, sewing awnings for shade, and just generally enjoying ourselves to no end.

I decided to go and visit my folks in Palm Desert, California for 10 days in mid-February since it might be a long time again before we were this close. Wayne agreed to stay and look after the boat while I was gone. My mom and dad take their motor home down to Palm Desert in the winter and stay in a lovely RV park (I don’t think the word campground would quite describe it). The park is surrounded by its own golf course (one of about a million in the Palm Springs area), 2 pools, hot tubs, and a game room. Pretty snazzy all around. Palm Desert itself was a very nice looking place, so clean and green. I was expecting a brown deserty place. It was quite a culture shock actually, coming directly from Mexico. I especially liked the place because they seem to have banned children from the entire area. At least I didn’t see any. I, of course, was sent with a long list of boat parts and other sorely missed items that needed to be purchased and returned to Zihuatanejo. When it was time to return to Mexico, I had some very interesting luggage. I had to borrow a bag from mom and dad to fit it all and it weighed a ton. I was bringing back zinc plates (heavy, heavy metal slabs), cheese, salami and many other weird and wonderful things. I should have known that once I had gone to all of the trouble of finding all this stuff and packing it, the airlines would misplace my luggage.

The moral of this next paragraph is….. Are you ready? Always fly AeroMexico whenever possible and always fill your suitcase with very heavy things that aren’t worth as much as they weigh. Eventually one of my two bags showed up, but the other is sitting in some large storehouse somewhere filled with rotting cheese and some very heavy but relatively useless chunks of zinc. After a fair amount of pestering and finally camping out in the AeroMexico office at the airport, we arranged a mighty fine settlement. They would pay us the maximum amount for the lost baggage ($600 U.S.). And since we suffered such mental anguish over the whole thing, they would provide us with not one, but two return tickets to Los Angeles from Zihuatanejo. What a deal! I’m going to arrange to have them lose my luggage more often. I must admit that this was one of my most frustrating experiences in Mexico but once you figured out how things worked, I think it worked out pretty well!

During the time that we were attempting to track down my luggage, plans were underway for Allan and Didi’s wedding on the 28th of February. Allan’s mom and Didi’s dad were flying down for the occasion and we wanted to do whatever we could to make it a great day for them. We sneaked around the anchorage (that’s hard to do in a dinghy with a loud outboard) getting pictures of all the wedding attendees and their boats to put into a wedding album for the bride and groom. The evening before the wedding, Didi’s dad very kindly treated us all to a pre-wedding dinner at an exclusive outdoor restaurant overlooking its own private bay and beach lit up with torches. Needless to say it was wonderful.

Allan and Didi had asked us to be witnesses at the Mexican civil ceremony along with another couple from another boat. We were honored. The ceremony was unforgettable. First we all arrived at the civil registry office a few minutes before the ceremony was scheduled. The doors were still locked, so we milled around on the sidewalk in our finery (boat finery that is) watching the bride and groom grow increasingly nervous as the minutes ticked by and the office remained closed. But this is Mexico and we knew better than to worry. The judge arrived 15 or 20 minutes later and after a short wait, we were all admitted to the judge’s quarters. Picture this. A small room, the size of a standard elevator, now containing: one desk, one judge, four witnesses, one bride, one groom, one father of bride, one mother of groom and one good friend from another boat who had volunteered to come along to translate the vows (her Spanish is excellent.) Take it from there. I don’t think any of us will ever forget that wedding. Rhonda did a fabulous job of translating the vows on the fly as the judge read each section in Spanish. They were certainly interesting vows. If anyone’s interested, I have the original and Rhonda’s translation that I typed up for their wedding book. Next of interest was the fact that the bride and groom had not yet decided on their wedding bands. Wayne being the thoughtful fellow that he is had thought to bring along two small hose clamps (stainless steel I might add) to add that special touch to the ceremony. Each of the four witnesses then was required to sign at least 8 copies of the marriage documents. During all of this Sarah, one of the witnesses, was trying to take photos in the cramped office. Once they were successfully married up, we were glad to return to the street as it was only 90 or so out there and it had been a wee bit warmer in the office. As I said before, it was quite an experience not to be forgotten soon.

After the ceremony, we returned to the bungalow/condo that the parents had rented for their stay to enjoy the party. It was a truly incredible place with air conditioning. It also had a gigantic patio surrounded by palm trees with an exceptional view of the bay and all the lovely sailboats but that paled against the lure of the air conditioning. Just kidding. Dinner was catered by a restaurant close-by and included all our favourite Mexican dishes. I never did get an accurate count but there were upwards of 50 people who attended and as far as I know a great time was had by all.

After we had recovered from the wedding, Wayne and I decided to use the airline tickets but we didn’t want to go to Los Angeles as we had been there before. We checked out all of the places that AeroMexico flies and decided on New Orleans as we had never been there. Besides, New Orleans has a West Marine store so we would have a chance to replace all of the things that I had bought in Palm Desert and then lost in the luggage. Another trip to the airport followed to see if they would consider changing the ticket. We expected some problems but they were as nice as can be and before you know it we were booked to leave on March 8th with a stopover in Mexico City both ways. Allan and Didi very kindly agreed to watch the boat and Twiggy the cat while we were gone.

We enjoyed Mexico City although we didn’t have much time there going either direction. We did not, contrary to what we were expecting, find it particularly smoggy. Certainly the last time we were in LA there was more smog. It was also a lot colder than we were expecting but our blood has gotten thin, I guess. The subway system in Mexico City is clean and well organized and a great way to get around. It is  are also very inexpensive. You can go anywhere in the subway system for just 40 centavos (about 10 cents Canadian). We were also surprised at the people. We were expecting big city people who don’t make eye contact and are rather cold compared to the small town people that we had been used to. Wrong! Almost everyone there was very helpful and nice. Whenever we stood around and looked confused in the subway, people were quick to offer directions. So much for stereotypes. We were also surprised by the wealth displayed here. You hear so many horror stories about the millions of wretchedly poor in Mexico City but we saw very little evidence of this in the places we visited. If anything, I would have labeled most people quite wealthy by the look of the clothes they wore and the quantity of cellular phones being carried. Certainly one of the restaurants that we stopped at was a bit pricey for us but was obviously full of local office workers. For all you architecture/history buffs, we visited the most incredible old church in the Zocalo (square). The whole thing was sort of sinking and settling and I guess wouldn’t withstand another earthquake so it was full of metal scaffolding supporting all of the interior columns. One last thing about Mexico City. We discovered a little bakery across from our hotel that had exquisite cone pastries filled with the best thick whipped cream I’ve ever had. Needless to say we stuffed down as many as we could on the way to the airport. I even tried to get more on the return trip. Unfortunately we stayed at another hotel and I had to battle rush hour traffic on the subway to get there. After all that effort, they didn’t have any that day. If any of you are planning a trip to Mexico City, I’ll be glad to show you where it is on a map and you should make it your first stop.

We arrived in New Orleans with all of our luggage and found a cheapish hotel in the French Quarter. Once again, we realized that the U.S. is not always what you build it up to be in your mind. We have this image of it being so clean and then we’re reminded that it really isn’t. It’s also so expensive (especially with our dollar) that it makes it hard to have too much fun if you’re watching your money. Let’s face it, there is very little to do in the U.S. that doesn’t cost something. We toured the French Quarter on the first night in town. After a rather unpleasant ‘sleep’ with excessive heat in the room and a wild man on the street banging on the hotel door outside and yelling for hours, we decided to move to a motel close to the airport where the price and the sleep would be better. We spent the rest of the time in New Orleans satisfying all our food cravings and spending a lot of money on boat stuff and clothes to replace what I had lost.

Speaking of shopping, I forgot to tell you the shoe story. When we were waiting at the boarding gate in Zihuatanejo for our flight, one of the men that works for AeroMexico (he had changed our ticket for us) approached us. He had a very grave look on his face as he asked Wayne if we would do a favor for him. Wayne told him of course we would if we were able. He then smiled and pulled out a piece of cardboard cut out to look like a footprint. He wanted us to bring him back a pair of new Nike Max II basketball shoes in the specified cardboard size. He then proceeded to hand Wayne (a total stranger) $150 U.S. These shoes were obviously very important to him and we were happy to do him this favor. We got him the best deal we could and he was thrilled to get his shoes when we returned. I only hope that they fit.

We arrived back in Zihuatanejo to find that the cat had nipped Allan while we were gone but other than that everything was fine. It was time for us to start moving on south. We hurried to get ready so that we could leave for Acapulco with Allan and Didi on March 17th. It was really sad to leave Z-town as we had had a great six weeks there. We had whales swimming under the boat, rays swimming with us beside the boat, great evenings with friends at Noemi’s restaurant, and watching videos on the deck under the stars. We had enjoyed the double feature movies, the great ice cream, and agua frescas but now it was time to try to pull the anchor back up and get moving.

The sail to Acapulco was really nice but there wasn’t much wind so it took us a day and a half to get there. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we sailed right into Acapulco Bay and right up to our buoy at the yacht club.

Acapulco was like Mexico City in that it was not what we expected. I personally thought I was going to dislike it because it is such a touristy place. But it was a nice surprise. Acapulco has been a tourist destination on an off for so long that it has adapted. It’s a gigantic city with everything that your little heart desires. They have the biggest Wal-Mart I’ve ever seen along with every kind of food or shopping that you might want including Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Tony Roma’s. I had also heard that the bay is quite polluted but I’ve certainly seen much worse. There are people out every day with weird little boats to clean up any floating junk that may be on the water. The view at night from the boat of all the city lights in the hills surrounding the bay is truly magnificent. We entertained ourselves by stocking up at the Wal-Mart, going to a museum, watching the cliff divers and Didi, Allan, and Wayne even went to the bullfights. I didn’t think I wanted to see them, so I opted out. I’ll let Wayne tell you all about it here. For those of you who choose to opt out of reading this next section, I understand.

Wayne

Mexico is famous for its bullfights. Since Allan and I had both just finished reading James Michener’s Mexico which revolves around bullfighting, we felt that it was necessary for our education to experience one firsthand. Susan couldn’t be convinced that a public slaughter would further her cultural understanding but Didi (the happy carnivore) thought that seeing her food on the hoof wouldn’t hurt. Acapulco’s bullring probably holds 5000 people but our seats were only one row back from the ring and right below the judges. These are nearly perfect seats since you are almost close enough to get bloody and most of the action happens right in front of the judge’s section.

Basically the way a bullfight works is this, first the bull is sent out and it charges anything that moves in the ring. There are three or four matador apprentices in the ring at this point and this can get fairly exciting although no one is expected to risk life and limb at this point. The bulls look a little smaller than what you might expect, but they are solid muscle with long sharp horns and they can probably hit 25 miles per hour. After about 5 minutes, a picador is sent out on a horse. This fellow wears armour (actual metal plate) and the horse is armoured on one side with what looks like a futon mattress. The picador carries a lance that is about 12 feet long and has a needle sharp tip. His job is to damage the bull’s neck muscles so that it cannot lift its head all the way. This is intended to even the odds. The bull charges the picador’s horse and since the horse is blindfolded he just stands there and takes the hit. Several times we thought the horse would be knocked off its feet and that would have to result in at least a dead horse. The horse apparently isn’t hurt because of the armour. As the bull connects, the picador leans over with his lance and drives it into the bull’s shoulders with the entire weight of his body. The lance goes in about eight inches and gore immediately begins to geyser out of the hole. This happens two or three times with the crowd getting angrier every time. The picador is very unpopular since the more damage he does, the easier the matador has it. Finally the picador leaves and the apprentices return. At this point their job is to anger the bull. They do this by jabbing pointed little sticks (called banderolas I think) into the bull’s shoulders. This is really dangerous work as they are expected to do it from in front and only when the bull is charging them. They tease the bull into charging and when he is practically on top of them, they leap up and sideways and plant the sticks as the bull goes by. If they can put them in far enough so that they stay stuck for a while, they are cheered, if the sticks fall out immediately, the crowd gives them a good hissing. After five or six sticks have been planted, the matador enters the arena. The matador is more of a dancer than anything else. However, he is expected to perform within an inch or so of the horn tip of a thousand pounds of enraged beef that just happens to be going by at about 20 miles an hour. After five minutes or so of dancing, the matador is given a thin springy sword to make the kill. He is expected to get the bull to charge, then go over its horns and bury his sword about twenty inches deep. The matador is supposed to make a clean kill and that means doing all of this only once and finding the heart through all of that bone and muscle. If he does it right, the bull is dead 10 seconds later. If he hits a bone, the sword springs 10 feet into the air and he must try again. If it goes in only a foot, but doesn’t hit anything vital, he has to get it back out and try again.

There are five bulls in any bullfight. Our five ranged from disgusting massacres where the picador caused too much damage and the matador was so scared that the bull basically died of blood loss to a truly skillful display where everything went just as it should. My favorite, however, was one where the bull and the matador seemed to be fairly evenly matched and there was some doubt about who would kill who. He was the last matador and had probably the toughest bull. In addition, he definitely had the most courage (stupidity might be the right word) and he was a real athlete. He began by kneeling in the middle of the ring before they released the bull. The bull came out at a dead run straight at him. The matador was probably planning to scuttle sideways on his knees but this bull was really moving and he couldn’t get out of the way in time. The bull went straight over top of him and he went tumbling head over heals, losing his hat and his cape. Fortunately he was able to get to his feet before the bull could get stopped and turned around. Later in the program he decided to plant his own banderolas.  Banderolas are about 16 inches long which means that you have to get pretty close to get the job done, this guy had to do better so he broke his down to about five inches. Even if you couldn’t figure out for yourself how dangerous this was, you could tell by the crowd, as there was instant respectful silence. When he successfully planted them and did it behind his back as well, the crowd went absolutely nuts. In the end, when he had dispatched his bull, the crowd gave him a Mexican standing ovation. The way this works is the matador walks around the ring waving and people throw him things. Lots of hats were thrown, some flowers, quite a few ladies shoes and several full wineskins. Most of these things were immediately tossed back to their owners, but he kept flowers, wineskins and one really nice sombrero.

Susan

Little did we know that this was our last bit of time in paradise for now. We made the fateful phone call to Utah and found out that our business was now a going concern and Wayne’s marketing skills were desperately needed. It was a really hard decision but we finally came to the conclusion that we had to give the business our best efforts for the summer and return to this life in the fall. It probably wouldn’t have been so hard to leave if it hadn’t been for our good friends, Allan and Didi. We couldn’t really leave the boat safely in Acapulco so we had to turn around and slog uphill (upwind) to get out of the worst hurricane risk for the summer. We went out for one last evening with Allan and Didi and then headed out of Acapulco Bay at 11 pm on March 23rd. I’m glad we didn’t wait for morning because I’m not sure my resolve would have held.

So we were off, heading north. Originally we were intending to go all the way up to San Carlo on the west coast of Mexico but way up in the Sea of Cortez. There is a marina and a dry storage area (on land) there that is really inexpensive. Most people who leave their boats in Mexico during the hurricane season leave it there. But it’s over a thousand miles from Acapulco and little did we know that sailing upwind in a rush for that kind of distance is no picnic.

We sailed from the night of the 23rd to noon on the 28th (non-stop) to Manzanillo. We saw something very big in the tide line when entering the bay that looked suspiciously like a really big shark, but we’ll never know for sure. We decided to stop and get fuel because we had been there before and knew the routine. We also needed a bit of a rest. After a 20 hour stop-over we were on our way again on the morning of the 29th.

The next bit of sailing took us to La Cruz (near Puerto Vallarta) at daybreak on the 31st. This trip was a bit more exciting. After dark on the 30th as we were sailing along, Wayne spotted what looked like a silent fighter jet (in the water) zooming up behind us! Wayne estimates it at least 20 feet by 10 feet. It must have been a large ray of some kind. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time. It would glide silently up from behind then zip under the boat to appear on the other side, then wing off in the distance, then appear from behind to begin again. We, of course, weren’t actually seeing the ray because it was dark but its phosphorescent trail as it disturbed the water. “Wow!” is all I could say then and all I can say now. On the 30th during the afternoon, Wayne was disturbed on his watch by what sounded like the bow wave of a ship. You know, if you’re close enough to hear it, that the ship is way too close. He jumped up and began looking for this ship only to discover that it was a gigantic herd of leaping dolphins zipping along at 20 knots or so. They were really moving! To finish off this journey, we rounded the famous (for its winds and currents) Cabo Corrientes at night. The wind does the strangest things around this large point of land and it lived up to its ornery reputation that night. First we had hardly any wind but from sort of the right direction. Through the next couple of hours we had wind from every compass direction and of every strength. At one point we were screaming along with a sustained boat speed of over 8 knots. For our boat, that’s flying! On this same night we saw a huge phosphorescent field. It made the ocean look like the stars and all of the living, swimming things left trails like snakes. It was indescribably beautiful!

We stayed in La Cruz for only 30 hours. Only long enough to take a bus into Puerto Vallarta to check out the possibility of storing the boat there. There was one marina that was interesting and inexpensive but the channel getting into it has been silting in and we may not have been able to get in without going aground. So we scrapped that idea and decided to head for La Paz next. La Cruz was a very nice little place and we look forward to coming back and spending more time in that area this fall.

From April 1st to April 5th we sailed to La Paz. The first couple of days were really tough as we were battling particularly nasty wind waves and sailing upwind, so our progress was pretty slow. After arriving we had a much deserved rest after 13 days at sea.

We spent the next five days cleaning up the boat, clearing everything off the deck including taking down all the sails and removing the barbecue and liferaft. We made sure that the boat was tied up for a hurricane and placed traps for every kind of pest known to man, just in case. We packed up everything that we thought we would need in Utah and that we could carry on the plane, including the computer CPU (no room for the monitor) and of course the cat.

On April 11th we flew from La Paz to Salt Lake City. Brad and Becky (our friends and business partners) picked us up at the airport and immediately made us feel at home by setting us up in their Mother-In-Law suite.

Well now I’m writing this from a place with all the comforts of civilization. It’s nice to have all the fresh water you want, restaurants, television (especially Thursday nights), and a car. As nice as it all is, it just can’t compare to life on the boat in Mexico. The novelty of all of these things wears off quickly and then you realize how much everything costs here and Mexico looks especially good.

Orem is really a pretty place though. I keep hearing about how nice their spring weather is normally but I haven’t seen any yet. There has been a lot of snow, rain, thunderstorms, and hail here since mid-April and only 3 or 4 sort of nice days. We are finding it hard to adapt too. Especially the cat, since she shed most of her hair in Mexico, she’s so cold she has to huddle behind the refrigerator. Things are looking up however in the weather department as it was 80 here yesterday. We’ve been getting out exploring on the weekends and have been up to Sundance ski resort a couple of times. It’s only 30 minutes away and it’s gorgeous there. We even saw Robert Redford one afternoon which is not all that surprising I guess since he owns Sundance. We both really miss the ocean but I think the mountains sort of make up for it for Wayne. Wayne’s parents and brother came out to visit on the Canadian May long weekend and were kind enough to deliver our old Nova to us. We took advantage of having our own car by driving four hours south to Bryce Canyon Park in southern Utah. There aren’t really words to describe this whole part of the state. The rock in the canyons is every imaginable shade of red, the formations are spectacular and the sheer drops are dizzying. We hope to go back again and explore a little more in better weather.

On my birthday a few days ago, I had the great surprise of a phone call from Allan and Didi who are now in Costa Rica. The connection was the pits but it was so great to hear from them that it didn’t matter. We also had a phone call from Judith (“JAD”) and Kathie (“White Squall”) who are friends from other boats. They are both in San Diego picking up some boat parts and renewing their visas. We will be seeing Judith and Dennis from “JAD” in the fall when we return to La Paz as they are spending this summer in the Sea of Cortez. It will be great to see them again as we haven’t seen them since New Years.

Next week I’m flying to Seattle then taking a ferry to Victoria to visit with friends and go on a kayaking/camping trip to Long Beach. I’m really excited about seeing old friends and the ocean again.

So I’ll finish this chapter with a summary of our future plans. As usual, we aren’t actually sure what we’re doing but we do know that we will return to the boat in the fall. From there, who knows. We may go north into the Sea of Cortez for a while or scurry south to catch up with Allan and Didi or head across to the mainland for a while, then head south. As I said, who knows.

Wayne

By November 20th we had been in San Diego for two weeks buying supplies, prepping the boat, etc. Finally we were almost ready to leave for Mexico. The hurricane season ends around mid-November so we thought that if we arrived in Cabo San Lucas by December 1st, we would be fairly safe. We had come to the conclusion that there is never such a thing as completely ready. Eventually you just burn the list and leave or you never get to go. Because San Diego is one of the big jumping off spots, there are lots of boats that have literally been there for years ‘getting ready’ to go.

Just a couple of days before, Dennis and Judith on “JAD” had mentioned to us that they were planning to go past Guadeloupe Island on the way down the coast. They asked if we would like to come along. This sounded like fun as the island is 145 miles offshore and it is rarely visited by anyone. There is, however, a small community of fishermen and a minor naval base there. We asked around and were told that a permit was required to go to Guadeloupe, and that it could be obtained in Ensenada. This sounded too much like work for us, so we decided that we would just go, and ask permission when we got there. We figured at worst they would likely let us stay a few days. Jamie and Kathie on “White Squall” wanted to come as well but couldn’t be ready to leave until the 21st, so Susan and I decided to go ahead and meet the others at the island.

We left San Diego Harbour at about 3:00 pm on the 20th and sailed at 2 miles per hour until the next morning when the wind began to come up. Around 11:00 am Susan spotted a Mexican fishing panga. These pangas are large open boats powered with big outboards and used by the Mexicans for all kinds of fishing and diving. This particular boat was about 60 miles west of Ensenada and was fishing with a quarter mile long net for blue shark. We turned to avoid the net and then had to turn again as it was longer than we had thought. When we finally got passed it, we realized that the fishermen were waving at us in more than just a friendly manner. Actually we were tipped off by the guy who was waving a life jacket. When we are far away from land and going the right way, changing direction or stopping is not something that you can do instantly. It probably took us 20 minutes to get our sails down, the self steering vane off and the engine started. We eventually returned to the panga and asked in fractured Spanish if they needed assistance. They replied (in much better Spanish) that they needed a mechanic. Since nobody is ever likely to mistake either of us for a mechanic, we offered to give them a tow instead. They agreed and asked to go to Ensenada. Ensenada is almost the exact opposite direction from where we were going, but towing them 60 miles in the wrong direction sounded a lot better than towing them 150 miles to Guadeloupe. By this time we had gotten a pretty close look at our charges, and a more piratical lot couldn’t be found outside of Universal Studios. Since we were still within radio range of the U.S. Coast Guard, we called to tell them what we were doing and to request that they expect a call from us every few hours. The Coast Guard very politely said that we could help if we wanted, but as these were obviously Mexican nationals they didn’t want to know about it or talk to us unless we had an actual emergency. The Coast Guards are usually the best people that you could ever talk to so this surprised us, but I guess they have their rules. All of this time the three guys in the panga had been pulling in the net and filling their boat up with 5 and 6 foot long blue sharks. When they finished, we motored slowly past and threw them a line, which they tied onto the panga, then we put the sails back up, turned off the engine and headed for Ensenada. About this time the wind had started to blow just the way we like it best and we were able to head directly for our destination at almost 6 miles per hour. This was good as I’m not sure how impressed our fishermen would have been if their rescue had taken a couple of days. We sailed until around midnight and then as the wind had died we had to motor the last 15 miles into Ensenada harbour. It was about 3:00 am when we arrived. We were in a rush to leave again but that was out of the question until after we had been presented with 10 pounds of freshly filleted shark meat.

We had a pleasant and uneventful sail to Guadeloupe Island during the second attempt, arriving there at 9:30 am on November 24th. As we approached the island we began calling the navy to ask permission to anchor but as we received no response, we decided to go ahead and anchor and apologize profusely if they showed up. Because of the extra 100 and some miles that we had added to our trip, “JAD” and “White Squall” arrived shortly after us. The blue shark made a nice dinner for everyone that night.

Guadeloupe is a really impressive island, with steep bluffs, fairly tall mountains, lots of vegetation and very few people. Also the water is very clear with piles of fish and there are herds of elephant seals on the beach. While we were there, we never saw a single person although we didn’t go all around the island.

On the 25th, Jamie and me decided to go spearfishing. We were a little bit reticent to go into the water because of the white sharks reported there, but on the other hand we were hungry for fish. Hunger won and we took the dinghy out and shot 5 or 6 fish. We were just about finished when we saw two giant (around 12 foot) elephant seals swim by within 3 or 4 feet of us. These guys don’t bite or anything, but we thought that they might decide they wanted us for their harems, so we beat it back to the dinghy and home. Subsequently, we learned that elephant seals are so dangerous in the water that the Monterey Aquarium has been unable to purchase underwater footage of them.

Everyone in all three boats slept badly that night as the wind had started to blow strongly and we were in a very poor anchorage. In the morning the wind was blowing over 30 miles per hour during gusts and we all decided that we had better get out while we still could. We had our anchor up by 7:00 am and we headed for the San Benitos Islands. These islands are about 20 miles off the Mexican coast and around 150 miles from Guadeloupe. All that day and the following night and day the wind blew between 25 and 40 miles per hour. Dennis has a long range radio (a single side-band) and was able to get a Coast Guard weather report that said we should expect 45 MPH winds and 18 foot seas. We find it hard to estimate sea heights but several waves went right over the top of the boat, leaving squid behind on deck and entering the boat at every single possible crack and cranny. Our instruments were generally showing 30 MPH with gusts to 40 and we were dipping our main boom in the water from time to time. We eventually took the mainsail down and continued under a jib alone. This didn’t slow us down much and we were a lot more comfortable. We arrived at San Benitos at 2:00 pm on the 27th having gone 172 miles and averaged almost 6 knots for the first 24 hours.

The San Benitos islands are three small islands about 20 miles offshore. They are rough, dry islands with only 2 or 3 permanent inhabitants, a church, a lighthouse and several burros. When we arrived there were eight people there and they had run out of water, so as “JAD” has a watermaker, Dennis took 15 gallons ashore. As a result, we were minor celebrities for a few days and were given the key to visit the lighthouse and had the occasional abalone delivered to the boat. 

The visit to the lighthouse was very interesting. This is one of Mexico’s major lighthouses. It is a beautiful 70 foot tall white tower with a small house at its foot. The light is electric and the power is supplied by a diesel generator. It is a steep 3 mile walk over very rough terrain to get to the lighthouse from the village. That doesn’t stop the keeper from going up every night to turn it on and back up every morning to turn it off. The burros are used to transport fuel up for the generator. Because it is several hundred feet up a cliff, the view is really spectacular. We thought that it would be a good place for an artist or a writer to get away from it all.

The second day that we were at the islands, the abalone season opened and as a result the village went from 8 people to about 50 in one day. The fishermen came from another island about 20 miles away and brought entire households with them including stoves, TVs, satellite dishes and families.

San Benitos is a really nice place and we enjoyed ourselves there but on December 4th we decided to leave for Magdalena Bay. Mag Bay is about three hundred miles south of San Benitos. “JAD” and “White Squall” didn’t want to go that far yet, so we said good-bye with plans to meet up with them in Cabo San Lucas or La Paz.

When we left, there was so little wind that we had to motor, then the wind came up a little and we had a really nice sail for a few hours. Around 4:00 pm the wind really started to build and and it switched to the opposite direction. For the rest of the night it blew hard and rained buckets. In addition the waves were big enough to leave squid on deck and squirt water through closed windows. It got so rough and uncomfortable that we gave up trying to go to Mag Bay and just blew straight out to sea. We had only the jib up and that was reefed down to about 1/2 of its total size. Around 4 am the wind started to drop and we put out the rest of our jib and turned more or less in the correct direction. Twenty minutes later we heard a loud bang that sounded like a shotgun had gone off inside the boat! We jumped out on deck and discovered that our masthead fitting had broken. We had no backstays at all and no forward support for the mast as the bobstay had been sprung off of the dolphin striker. All of the above ‘stays’ are 5/16th stainless cables which in various ways hold the mainmast up. Masts are designed to handle very little bending strain by themselves as normally the stays take all of that load. It’s important that the masts stay up since they cost about as much as a small car and you can’t sail without them. In addition they weigh a lot and if they came down they would likely severely damage the boat and any resident humans. Anyway with a lot of excited yelling but absolutely no bad language we managed to get the sail rolled up and then used every available line to support the masts. During all of this, with the boat pitching and rolling in 10 to 12 foot confused seas and in near total blackness, a small dark bird decided that I might be something good to eat and it began attacking me around the neck. Actually we think that it was confused or hurt in the storm. We aren’t sure how long it took but sometime before 7:15 am we got all of the halyards holding the mast up, all of the loose rigging on deck and tied down, the engine started and we headed for Turtle Bay. On the 700 mile long west Baha coast there are only 4 towns bigger than about 100 people and we just happened to be 51 miles offshore of one of them. Also Turtle Bay is one of the few well-sheltered harbors on this coast. Of course the wind went back up to about 20 miles per hour from more or less where we were going and the seas became even more confused. The trip to Turtle Bay took about ten hours and we were pretty green most of the way since the sails were not available to steady us. Somewhere along the way our jib managed to partially unwrap itself and begin to flog. This was particularly uncool as the forces on the mast were really enormous and our jury rigged stays were not providing the support that we would have liked. We worked frantically to straighten out the mess. We had just about come to the conclusion that the sail would have to be cut away, when we managed to partially unroll it and get it rolled in again properly. We arrived at Turtle Bay just as the sun went down, put out two anchors and slept like the dead for the next 14 hours.

“JAD” and “White Squall” meanwhile had gone to Cedros Island but when the wind came up they had decided that their anchorage was dangerous so they had also gone to sea and ultimately to Turtle Bay. They had arrived just a few hours ahead of us. The morning after we arrived Dennis from “JAD” showed up on our boat. After having a good laugh at our polite refusals of assistance, he spent the entire day helping us first guy the mast very carefully then take the rigging apart. By the end of the day we had the masthead fitting almost ready to take down. This was a miracle of speed and efficiency and probably couldn’t have been done any faster at home. Dennis really deserves a lot of credit as we discovered that he was very knowledgeable about boats in general and guying up masts (and telephone poles) in particular.

On December 6th we got up bright and early and just in time to greet a search party, complete with machine guns, from a Mexican Navy ship that had arrived in the night. The search was very polite and fairly thorough but absolutely routine. When they had finished checking our papers, we asked the commander if he knew of a place in town where we could have stainless steel welded (Susan had been frantically looking up stainless steel and welding in the Spanish dictionary). He said he didn’t but that he would check with the ship. We assumed that he would ask for information, but instead he asked the captain if they could weld it for us. The captain agreed so the commander said that he would go search a few more boats until we finished removing the fitting. We finally finished at 11:15 am and as I came down the mast, the search party abandoned its current search and headed for us. They bundled me and the fitting into their inflatable and we headed out to their ship. I don’t know what sort of ship it was but it was 200 or 300 feet long and appeared to be in perfect condition. Half the crew, including their best English speaker and the first lieutenant, turned out to help the ship’s welder understand what I needed. The welder did a beautiful job. When he was done, I was allowed to go up to the bridge to say my thank-yous to the Captain and then I was taken back to “Day Dream”. Although we would have been happy to pay, in the rush it never occurred to me and no one on the ship suggested it. Now I’m glad that the topic of payment didn’t come up because I think they probably would have been insulted. During all of this the ship was hove-to with its engines running but the minute I was gone, it headed out to sea and the inflatable had to catch up as best it could.

The fitting was now back to approximately original strength but for obvious reasons we didn’t feel terribly happy with that. We decided to see if we could have it strengthened in Turtle Bay. This is a small community of about 2000 people whose basic industry is fishing. Fortunately the fish are canned right in town and the canneries have well-stocked workshops. The first cannery was happy to help but they had no stainless and no tools capable of bending the spare bits that we had. The second cannery not only had material, they also had all of the necessary tools. The head welder and his assistant dropped whatever they were doing and after considerable discussion about what was best for us, began bending, cutting and welding. Two hours later they were finished and the fitting was probably twice as strong as it had ever been. To accomplish this they had used a 2 inch by 1/4 inch piece of stainless that was about 2 feet long. At home this would be $75 or $100 worth of stainless. I was presented with a bill for $30.00 U.S. and this included their time! After intensive bargaining they agreed to take $50.00 instead. Reverse bargaining; can you believe it? To celebrate our success, we had a lobster dinner on “JAD”. There were 17 lobsters to split between eight of us. A friendly fisherman had given them to Dennis and Judith and we certainly didn’t want them to go to waste. Needless to say dinner was divine.

A couple more days had our rigging all back together and in better condition than it had previously been. We were ready to leave. One other interesting thing that happened was the ‘Saga of the Dragging Boat’. When you anchor a boat the intention is that the boat should stay pretty much where you left it. Apparently not everyone agrees with this as one night a large powerboat (name withheld to protect the guilty) began to slowly drag out of the harbor. There were about 20 English speaking boats there at the time and everyone started to yell over the radio about this dragging boat. As there was no response from the powerboat and it had no lights on, no one knew if the owners were asleep or ashore. Turtle Bay is about 1 mile across and this boat had started out approximately in the middle. Before too long it was actually approaching the entrance to the bay. This was pure good luck as it just as easily could have gone the other way if the wind had been blowing at a different angle. Jamie and I were going to take a dinghy out and rescue it but then a sailboat named “Toad” said that they would take up their anchor and go.

Just at about this time the lights came on in the powerboat, someone came up on deck and brought it back in. They put down their anchor again and turned off all their lights. By this time the wind was blowing pretty strongly and everyone else in the anchorage was a little worried about their own anchors. About 1/2 hour went by and the powerboat slowly began to move downwind again. Since they weren’t perfectly lined up with the entrance now, they were headed for a reef. No one got too excited this time around. Once again there was no response on the radio. Sure enough just before they got to the reef the lights came on and they motored back into the anchorage. 

This time they decided that it would be a good idea to anchor as close as possible to “Day Dream” and straight upwind. As we still couldn’t raise them on the radio we got out our 2 million candlepower search light and destroyed their night vision for several years to come. This finally got a response and we asked them to move. After some rather huffy comments about how they “…weren’t just going to let their boat drift…”, they agreed. Surprise, surprise they got it right this time and the boat was still there in the morning.

We left Turtle Bay on the 11th of December at 3:00 am for Santa Maria Bay, about 250 miles south. The sail down was fast and pleasant with winds up to 25 miles per hour but nothing very rough. Susan fed 3 or 4 of our best fishing lures to a giant yellowfin tuna and that was the most exciting part of that trip.

We have come to the conclusion that the weather is a little odd this year. Most years there is so little wind on the Baja west coast that people motor all the way to Cabo San Lucas from San Diego. This year 15 to 25 knots has been the norm.

We had guests coming to meet us in La Paz for Christmas so after just one day in Santa Maria, we set out for Cabo San Lucas. The trip to Cabo was our nicest sailing so far. For the first time we wore shorts day and night and the days were really a little too hot! We even caught a fish, but threw it back as our book said it was not good eating. The wind was always from behind or the side and varied between 12 and 20 knots. We had a very fast, easy passage until about 8 miles off of the cape when the wind died completely. After wallowing around for a couple of hours, we gave in and motored the rest of the way. We arrived at about 11 pm on the 15th of December. Our plan was to spend only one or two days in Cabo San Lucas as La Paz is 120 miles away and it’s upwind all the way. 

We spent our two days in Cabo and really enjoyed ourselves. We ran into old friends from various places along the coast and made some new ones. We even made friends with some people who were not on a boat. David and Sarah had flown down for a week of vacation and we met them at a party at the local yacht club (the Broken Surfboard). We took them snorkeling, which they hadn’t done before, at Lovers Beach. We were having far too much fun in Cabo to leave and anyway there was bad weather in the Sea of Cortez. The long and the short of it is that the days slipped quickly by until suddenly it was December 23rd. This was the day that we were supposed to be in La Paz to pick up Ron and Diane at the airport. The plane was due in at 11 pm so a bus trip would have meant spending a night in a hotel. That would have meant leaving the boat alone for a little too long as far as we are concerned. We decided to rent a VW bug and drive to La Paz. Dennis and Judith, from “JAD” had arrived by this time and they kindly offered to watch the boat while we were gone. This may sound a little paranoid but Cabo’s anchorage is really lousy with protection only through 180 degrees and there had been enough wind lately to worry us. When we got off the boat that day, the wind was blowing pretty intensely straight onto the beach and it was raining so hard it was difficult to tell the ocean from the sky. By the time we got to the dinghy dock, the wind was up to maybe 25 knots and there was 2 inches of water on the roads. We borrowed a radio and called Dennis. Did he want us to come back? He told us not to worry; he’d watch out for the boat. At that moment Wayne on the sailboat “Respect” broke in to say that “Melita” was dragging down on “Day Dream”! Dennis left to save us once again and we decided that the boat was probably as safe as a house in his hands so we left for La Paz.

The road to La Paz wanders through a really beautiful desert which that day was in full bloom. This apparently is pretty rare but there had been a lot of rain that morning. The rain had also washed out pieces of the road and we had to find our way through some puddles that were hundreds of feet across and 6 or 8 inches deep. Generally the road was pretty good and the road crews were already out fixing it up. On the way to La Paz we went through Todos Santos which is the site of the Hotel California. Naturally we stopped to look. As far as we could see there were no old rock stars trapped there. We picked up Diane and Ron at midnight and slowly drove back to Cabo. This road is not very safe at night as it is free range land and there are cows, horses and burros all over it. The locals say that they are attracted by the heat that the road retains at night. We arrived back at the boat at about 5 am and everyone got a few hours of sleep.

In case anyone is wondering, Ron and Diane were not, repeat not, arrested at the airport. Susan had asked that they transport 4 or 5 kilos of popcorn seasonings. They agreed before they knew that the seasonings would be contained in ziplock baggies and look like a certain white, illegal powder. Anyway, they made it through customs without a hitch.

We had a really great Christmas with them, although it wasn’t very traditional as we had lobster rather than turkey and spent the day lounging and snorkeling at Lovers Beach.

A couple of days after Christmas, Ron and I pulled a couple of people out of the water after their dinghy overturned. Mike and Linda on the sailboat “Buck-a-Loose” had been returning to their boat when they were overturned by a wave. When we got to them they had been drifting for 10 or 15 minutes with the contents of the dinghy trapped underneath it and the outboard still attached to the back. We managed to rescue everything in the dinghy and Mike later got the outboard running again, but unfortunately their camera was a goner. They had a really interesting trip down from the U.S. as “Buck-a-Loose” is a engineless 25 foot Pacific Seacraft sailboat. They had sailed non-stop from LA using Isla Guadeloupe as a check on their navigation. In all, their trip had taken 11 days, including 2 days of drifting within sight of the cape.

Ron and Diane left on the December 29th. As we had more guests coming to meet us in Cabo on January 7th, we thought that it would be appropriate for us to be in La Paz (ha ha). We left on December 31st and had a nice trip up the coast, stopping every night. 

On January 7th Randy and Leanne arrived in La Paz. Soon after their arrival we left for Isla Espiritu Santo. This island is only about 20 miles from La Paz, but it is absolutely unspoiled. It is uninhabited, mountainous and green with cactus. The water is very clear (about 50 feet of visibility) and swarming with fish. We found a nice little anchorage with no one in it. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we didn’t move until it was time for our guests to go home. There is a reef there with literally thousands of fish on it, an old well on the island where we had showers and some old gravesites (we think) up on a hill. The weather was perfect and our guests were jolly, so we all had fun.

We returned to La Paz on the 13th to drop off Randy and Leanne and for only the second time since August we put the boat on a dock. We had discovered another piece of stainless in the rigging that looked like it was ready to break and we couldn’t face the idea of another major repair with the boat at anchor. The old Pepsi plant in La Paz made us a beautiful new bowsprit endcap and charged far less than they should have. We installed the endcap, tuned the rig and left for Manzanillo the next morning.

Manzanillo is about 500 miles south of La Paz and on the Mexican mainland. “JAD” had left for that area on December 27th from Cabo and “White Squall” had followed on January 5th. In addition we had heard via the single sideband grapevine that Allan and Didi on “Ave Peregrina” (friends that we had met in San Diego) would be there soon. The trip down was pretty nice. On the first day we motored almost the entire day as there was no wind. The second, third and fourth days were great with a perfect wind from the beam. On the second last night we had too much wind and too much sail up. The result was too much adrenaline and minor broken parts. Our problem was that we had had 9 to 12 knots of wind for so long that we thought it would never end. We had twin gennys up on spinnaker poles which is a lot of sail, but not too much if the wind is light. When the wind started to go up, we realized that we had never taken down our free-flying genny in any kind of wind before without having the mainsail up. Putting up the mainsail was out of the question at this point without turning upwind and if we could’ve done that we wouldn’t have had a problem getting the genny down. So, this was a conundrum. We thought about it for a while and then did the exact wrong thing. Rather than gybing the sail and then hauling it down, we decided to tack and haul it down. The sail began to flog wildly and finally broke the shackle at the foot. At this point we dumped the whole mess into the water and hauled it in from there. It wasn’t very elegant but it worked! By the way, Susan was voting for the gybe, and I was for tacking. We eventually got to Manzanillo on January 19th having missed “JAD” and “White Squall” going north. Even though we didn’t get to see them, we did get a chance to talk to them on the radio as we passed in the night. They had gotten tired of Manzanillo and decided to start north a little early. “Ave Peregrina” was in Manzanillo and we hadn’t seen them since San Diego so it was really good to meet up with them again.

Didi and Allen are getting married in Zihuatanejo, a little town about 200 miles south of Manzanillo, and we plan to be there for their wedding. They are heading south then through the Panama Canal and eventually to an island called Bequia in the Grenadines. Didi’s father owns some land on the island and they want to live there for a while and start a restaurant or something. Somewhere along the line we agreed to go down to Costa Rica with them for the hurricane season. We had planned to meet up with “JAD” and “White Squall” again and spend six months or so in the Sea of Cortez. However, the sea is very hot in summer and there is a risk of hurricanes. Besides that, a sail down to Costa Rica sounds like fun.

While at Manzanillo, we were anchored in front of a luxury hotel called Las Hadas. The hotel allowed us to use the pool, dinghy dock and showers for a small fee, and we really enjoyed ourselves there. After a week of living the life of the idle rich, lounging around the pool, we headed down to Zihuatanejo.

This is the nicest Mexican town we have seen so far and we’ve liked every one that we have seen. It is not terribly clean, but the tourist influence isn’t too strong either. The people are really friendly and they have a great open air market. This is the kind of market where you go buy a hunk of cow, chickens with heads, all kinds of fruit and veggies plus almost anything else that you might want. From where we leave the dinghy, we have to cross the mouth of a small river to get into town. The local people have built themselves a footbridge out of tree trunks, old boards and some galvanized wire. It’s about 100 feet across and the bridge is about 15 feet up to allow fishing boats room to pass underneath. The bridge is perfectly steady but looks like something out of Africa 100 years ago. The fishermen here bring in sailfish for meat every day. These are huge fish, many 8 or 9 feet long, with a sail that stands up 18 inches and a sword that is a couple of feet long. I’d like to buy one and have it stuffed, but a certain short blonde person says that it’s the fish or me. Oh well!

We plan to be here in Zihuatanejo for about one month. We have some repairs to do on the boat and a lot of being lazy to catch up on. So far we have been busy making awnings for the boat as the temperature day and night runs between 85 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. In that kind of heat we need all the shade we can get and as much air flowing through the boat as possible. Early in March we will head for Acapulco, then in late April we will jump off for Costa Rica. We haven’t yet decided if we will stop in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Susan

We are having a great time here in Z-town. I’m writing this at 9:30 at night and it’s still 82 degrees in the cabin. Yesterday we tried our hand at a new sport that we’ve dubbed Lounge Surfing. It requires only an air mattress and a little surf on the beach. I’m sure you get the picture. A great time was had by all and the only adverse effect evident from this new sport was bathing suits full of sand. I’d like to give you a quick list of some things about this cruising life that may or may not interest you. Some of these things are good or great things and some are not so good. See if you can figure out which is which:

• learning a new language
• eating, eating, eating and more eating
• lounge surfing with friends
• making great new friends
• missing great old friends
• catching a bus across town for a peso (33 cents)
• buying fillets of fresh sail fish – four for 6 pesos (2 bucks)
• trying new food
• limes, limes, limes on every thing you eat
• watching rays, whales and dolphins swimming around and under our boat at anchor
• sailing in perfect weather
• sailing in not so perfect weather
• laundry
• jumping over the side when you get a little too warm
• temperatures that were too cold (San Diego and all points north)
• places that are a bit too warm (here, but we’re adjusting)
• authentic Mexican tacos (yummy)
• Mexican ice cream and fruit ice products (double yummy)
• all the avocados that you can eat without taking out a loan
• the friendliest country (Mexico of course) that I have ever had the pleasure to be in
• sand between your toes and in your shoes (and your bathing suit after lounge surfing)
• lack of air conditioning and central heat
• not having to get up and go to work
• putting the TV on top of the dodger and watching a movie under the stars with friends
• dolphin phosphorescent trails when you’re on the 2-5 am watch

Well, these are just a few of the thoughts that strike me tonight and it’s about time that I turned in. We old retired folks need our rest you know. Tomorrow is a big day. We actually have two appointments! There is a book exchange on another boat at 10 am and then we’re off to the movies tomorrow night. It’s a double feature. “True Lies” with Arnold Swartzenegger and “33 and a Third”. It’s the bargain of the century at 5 pesos a person ($1.60 Canadian). There is, of course, no air conditioning and the sound is sometimes a bit fuzzy but the good news is that we’re beginning to read the subtitles in Spanish.

Susan

Well, we left you at Santa Cruz Island in the last chapter. We enjoyed that place to no end. We continued our adventure there with some hiking inland to see natural waterfalls and some snorkeling. The snorkeling was a real treat! There were tons of multi-colored fish and sea urchins and a ray. Hopefully it was only a taste of what is to come in Mexico.

Our next stop was Santa Barbara. We didn’t stay long as the anchorage was a wee bit on the rolly side (that is an understatement to say the least). Here we once again ran into our friends from “White Squall” and spent a bit of social time with them and another boat. Can you believe how sociable we’ve become?

From Santa Barbara it was a quick trip back to Santa Cruz Island and then on to Santa Barbara Island. We only stopped for a few hours at as it wasn’t a very hospitable looking place. We continued from there to Newport Harbor. On the way there we had some middle of the night dolphin experiences. The phosphorescent trails that they leave behind are unbelievable.

Newport was an interesting place. There is more money floating around in that harbour than in some small countries. The enormous yachts and water front properties were astounding. We spent 6 days there buying everything in sight. We’ve done so much shopping in California that we think we should be allowed to vote there. We bought an 8.5 foot inflatable dinghy and a 9.9 hp engine to drive it. It is a lot more convenient than putting along in our hard dinghy with the 2 hp engine if we have a long way to go. The engine is an antique I’m sure. It looks like a space alien and is about the same age as me. We call it E.T. It’s an Evinrude Sportwin (circa 1964) for all you outboard buffs. We also acquired a new anchor here but we didn’t buy it. We also didn’t steal it. We actually “caught” it with the first “cast” of our anchor when we arrived. We thought it was extremely kind of Newport Harbour to provide us with a new spare anchor.

Next we headed for Dana Point. We weren’t planning to stop here but some boating friends in Newport invited us to do a little Costco provisioning in Dana Point. We couldn’t pass this up as they had friends there with a car. We now say “with a car” with awe and longing. We only stayed there a couple of days but we must have added a couple of years worth of supplies. The sail from Newport to Dana Point was fantastic, especially after the last few trips with little or no wind to speak of.

From Dana Point it was off to Mission Bay. After two and half months on the road (read water) we were finally going to get to San Diego. YAHHHHH! We enjoyed Mission Bay for 3 days but quickly found out that all of the things we needed (boat stuff) were in San Diego Harbour. So the next day we moved there and anchored off of Shelter Island in ‘rock and roll land’ as they call it here. We have the pleasure of watching all sorts of gigantic Navy ships (including an incredibly large aircraft carrier) pass by not too far from our boat. Unfortunately we also get to enjoy their wash (waves).  It isn’t quite as rolly as Sausalito but on the weekends it’s close. We have once again been buying anything and everything. 

There is a store here called Downwind Marine that is stupendous! I can’t say enough good things about these guys. They have a great marine supply store and the most helpful staff. They allow you to use them as a mailing address for gear that you’ve ordered and general mail. They even have an “express” service to the Baja for anything you might need for your boat. They also have a truck that you can reserve for half a day to do your last minute provisioning. They’ll even lend you their Costco card if you don’t have one. We jumped at the chance to buy yet more stuff and proceeded to fill the back of the pickup with enormous quantities of food from Costco and over 40 pounds of cat food. We were absolutely certain, after making two very full dinghy trips to the boat, that it wouldn’t all fit. We thought we’d have to have a sale or something, but after a long day of pulling things out and putting them away again we finally did it. But that’s it! We simply cannot buy another thing. I say that but today we picked up our Super Snorkel that had been shipped to Downwind Marine. It is a floating air compressor with two 40 foot hoses and regulators that will allow us to dive to 35 feet or so for an hour at a time. We are really, really excited about this new toy. It’s not really a toy because we can clean the bottom of the boat with it, honest! We’ve studied the PADI Open Water Diving Manual as some of the principles are the same. One advantage, however, is that we don’t need all of the bulky expensive equipment and we don’t need to go get air tanks filled after every dive. Wayne bought an ancient, second hand spear gun at a swap meet and will be expected to bring home dinner every night.

Downwind Marine runs a cruiser net every weekday morning on the VHF radio. Each morning they sign on and ask  who’s arrived and who’s leaving and then the rest of the 40 or 50 boats check in. This way you can contact other boats that may not be near you because San Diego Harbour is a big place. The net also has a buy, sell and trade segment. We sold our 2 hp outboard this way as we didn’t really need two of them. This cruiser’s net can get rather tiresome (we’re not that social) but it has allowed us to meet up again with our friends from “White Squall” and “JAD”. We also met another young couple here from San Francisco who are headed for the Grenadines in the Caribbean. Their average age of 30 (they are both 30) makes them the youngest couple we’ve met so far. We rank second with an average age of 30.5 and “White Squall” is a close third with 33. Anyway this new couple (boat’s name is “Ave Peregrina”) is a lot of fun and I hope we meet up with them again. They have just left for Mexico and we should be right behind them.

We think we will be leaving here either Saturday or Sunday. That will be November 19 or 20th. We certainly are ready to get out of Dodge before we go broke. We’re also a little tired of the noise, the crowds, the rules and the yucky weather. It’s been 45-50 degrees at night which is mighty chilly when you’re sleeping on a boat. Supposedly this weather is quite a bit cooler than San Diego is used to at this time of year. However, we’ve been hearing that story since we left home and we’re beginning to think it’s all a big cover up.

Wayne

We ended up spending an entire week in Morro Bay. This was the result of day after day of gale warnings with gusts in the bay as high as 34 knots. We eventually found a place to anchor with the Harbor Patrol’s help but because the anchorage is so crowded, we had initially only put out 50 feet of chain. This was in 20 feet of water and is barely enough to keep you in one place with no wind blowing. Along with the wind, we had a current that switched directions four times per day. We were fairly nervous at first that we would wake up and find our boat had become part of one of the shoreside restaurants. Eventually we put out a little more chain and after a while we became pretty confident that the boat wasn’t going anywhere. 

While in Morro Bay, we met another couple about our own age. This was a bit of a surprise as most of the people out here are a bit older than we are. Jamie and Kathie are from Washington and they have a small boat that they just bought and learned how to sail last spring. We also renewed our acquaintance with several other sailors and made some new friends at a dock party.

You may be wondering why we are taking so long getting to San Diego. From Morro Bay it is only about 300 miles, which even in a sailboat you can do in about three days. Our original plan was to sail direct from San Francisco, however, once we started to talk to people there we realized that this was likely going to be a mistake. The hurricane season doesn’t end in Mexico until about mid-November, consequently, San Diego Harbour gets really full of boats from mid-September on. Prices go up, the harbour police are difficult and anchorages are full. That, in any case, is our excuse. We’ve been enjoying this leisurely trip down the coast. If it would only get a little warmer, we’d be happier.

Finally on Monday, October 17th, we got away from Morro Bay. The gale had ended and we had waited a day for the waves to go down. The swell had been reported as high as 16 feet, which would have made for a very uncomfortable time if we had left immediately. We left at about 8 in the morning and had little or no wind all day long. We motored a lot and tried all sorts of sail combinations including the spinnaker. First we would put up some sail and sail for a couple of hours, then we would drift with the sails flapping, then we would take down all the sails and motor for a while. We had about 120 miles to go to Santa Cruz Island which is about 25 miles offshore and across the Santa Barbara channel. We were a little nervous about this passage for several reasons. The first reason is that the shipping lane in the Santa Barbara channel is one of the busiest in the world and we would be crossing it at night. Secondly we would be passing Point Conception which is called “The Cape Horn of The Pacific”. Finally, Santa Cruz Island is pretty inhospitable with very poor anchorages. Of course we would be crossing the shipping lanes and passing Cape Conception in the middle of the night. With a little clever forethought, I managed to maneuver Susan into the shift that would see us across the channel and past the Cape. As it turned out the Cape was extremely pacific with near perfect visibility. Our major complaint was a lack of wind. The channel didn’t live up to its reputation either except for one close encounter and a herd of oil rigs. These rigs are right out in the middle of the channel and lit up like small cities. You couldn’t possibly hit one if you were awake, but, it’s hard to tell what they are, as fishing boats are often lit up like this as well. Anyway, after a lot of rig dodging, Susan got us right out in the middle of the shipping lanes just as two ships approached on reciprocal courses. She had the radar on and had just counted eight ships within eight miles of us. These two particular ships were yelling at each other in some oriental language on channel 16. This is illegal as 16 is for hailing other ships and distress calls only. This went on for about ten minutes. Finally an anonymous voice came on the radio and said “Get off channel 16 you knuckleheads!” There was a pause then a different voice said “You’d better try another language!” A third voice said “Don’t worry about it, they’re going to run into each other in about four minutes.” By this time Susan had woken me up because the west-bound ship was going to run us down prior to colliding with the other ship. We had right of way over the west-bound ship and in fact had a responsibility to stay on our course and allow him to avoid us. Of course we never demand our rights with ships that are twenty times our size. In any case we were happy to give way so that he would be able to comfortably avoid the east-bound ship. We called him on the radio to say that we would alter course, but he ignored us. He probably thought that we would demand that he avoid us. 

Once they were passed, we resumed our course and watched the two ships pass within an 1/8th of a mile of each other. Way too close! A few minutes later we had to alter course again to avoid the east-bound ship (he had right-of-way). These ships are normally very obliging. Whenever visibility is bad, we call them when we get them on radar or see them and tell them our position, course and speed. We want to be sure that we are not mistaken for a floating log!

As the day began, we saw three whales including two that appeared about 100 feet ahead of us, then dived before we got there. We are still arguing about what sort of whales they were, so to avoid being abused later by a small blonde person, I’ll just say that they were substantially longer than the boat. Several herds of hundreds of porpoises passed us as well. None of them had time for more than a couple of hops beside the boat. They all seemed to be going to a very important meeting somewhere to the south. We also saw two groups of seals do something that we have never heard of before. They followed our boat (at about 7 miles per hour) by swimming along and leaping out of the water every couple of seconds. They looked a little like porpoises, but they could only keep it up for a few minutes before they got tired and were left behind.

At about 4:30 pm on the 18th we arrived at our intended anchorage. Just to bug us, the engine decided not to start. As you will imagine this was the occasion for several rude remarks from a certain small blonde person! I made knowledgeable sounding noises with some tools for a few minutes and was just about to suggest that a couple more days sailing down to San Diego might be fun, when it started! Naturally I took credit for the repair. The anchorage was too small for us to feel comfortable and we ended up going back up the coast a couple of miles where we found a reasonable place just before dark. This was fortunate because this coast is not safe to approach in the dark. Our only options would have been to continue south or to sail back and forth off the coast all night long.

Santa Cruz is a really beautiful island. It is volcanic, mountainous and desert-like. The rock has caves, holes and tubes all through it and very little soil. What vegetation there is, is low scrub, cactus and short twisted trees. The few anchorages are all at the end of valleys in the mountains and when you look up them you think of an Edgar Rice Burrows novel. The island is only about 60 miles from LA and yet is uninhabited and virtually in its natural state.

The main reason that we had come here was to see the painted cave. This cave is at sea level. It has an entrance 120 feet tall, goes back over 600 feet and has naturally ‘painted’ walls. If you get there at low tide, when there is little or no swell, you can go to the end of the cave and pass into a chamber that the sea closes at high tide. Rumour has it that a seal colony lives there. Unfortunately our visit happened at high tide as we weren’t sure how long our anchorage would remain safe. It was about 2 miles from the boat so we put the little outboard on the dinghy. The dinghy ride along the coast was absolutely spectacular with cliffs that fall hundreds of feet into the water. There were many caves, both big and small, at sea level, under water and hundreds of feet in the air. The painted cave itself is really huge! As we rowed in, the roof and walls gradually got closer and the light got dimmer. The swell was about four feet high that day. As it roared in, it would lift us toward the roof and rush us deeper into the cave. A moment later the backwash would carry us exactly the same distance back out. Every swell would cause a deep booming groan from the back of the cave that was quite eerie. The entire time that we were in the cave, I had an optical illusion that I was looking down a steep bumpy slope that we would slide down and not be able to row back out of. The total effect was like one of those nightmares where you are running as fast as you can in molasses. We got about four hundred feet in before we decided that the swell was too dangerous to continue, so we headed back out. Even as deep as we went, we never had less than 10 feet of space over our heads and 15 feet on either side. However, there was a passage just ahead that was only about 8 feet wide. The swell was rushing through that passage with tremendous force and this is why we decided to leave. We have since been told that if we had continued, the passage would have opened up into a high chamber, hundreds of feet across, with its own beach. The ‘paint’ was green, brown and gold colored mosses on the roof and walls and was really not that spectacular compared to the rest of the cave.