Do you want to learn a few quick solutions to some common health problems that a lot of seniors face?
Did you know that there is a home remedy for arthritis that the main stream medical field doesn’t know about, or doesn’t believe in? It is simple, and it has worked for many years and for many people. It can work for you too. There are a whole group of exercises that are called isotonic. They work much quicker than the regular exercises you get at the gym. And they can be done at home with the equipment you have around the house. Most herbal remedies take more time and need to be used more often than modern drugs. But they are safer and they can really help.
There are home remedies for many of the things that plague us as we get older. Here are a few solutions.
Arthritis
Arthritis is caused by painful swelling in the joints. The swelling and pain is caused by poor diet and stress. You can overcome arthritis if you stay away from sugar, pop, junk food, salt and animal proteins. Instead eat lots of fresh vegetables and a little fruit. Use fresh homemade juice and sprouts. One book I read claimed that you can overcome arthritis by drinking eight glasses of fresh apple juice a day. This is said to soften any deposits that are in the joints. I haven’t tried it, but it sounds like a great diet to me. It couldn’t hurt anything and it would taste good. So try it if you like.
Achy joints may also be caused by food allergies or Candida. If we have a food sensativity, it causes inflammation which can settle in our joints. This can be solved by figuring out what foods we are sensative to and leaving them alone.
Make a poultice to help ease the pain. Use heat or cold to help with it too.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Our Trip Home
May 23rd, 2009
We didn’t get the van last night like we expected. But the mechanic worked on getting the plates until after 8:00 pm. Then he told us to call back at 10:00 in the morning.
May 24th
We called at 10 but there was no answer. We tried again at 11 with the same results. But at 11:30 he answered and said he had been running down the plates. He usually hires someone to do this, but it didn’t get done soon enough, so he did it himself. What kind of Mexican is this? The van is ready, license plates and all.
We called a cab. The fellow was off today but he came and picked us up anyway. He brought his wife with him. We got the car and headed back to the boat. We decided to try to pack and leave tonight. That was going to take some doing.
I packed things in plastic bags because that is all we had to work with. I put them into a bucket and lowered them over the edge of the boat, (about 13 feet since the boat was on the hard) and down to Jim who put them into the van. We both worked as hard as we could. Then Jim came up and started lowering things down or carrying them down the latter. There was a boy there who wanted to help. He took things to the van and loaded it. It was working like an assembly line. I would pack things and put them into bags. Jim would get them off the boat and Hector would take them to the truck.
When we were almost done, I sent down our best clothes which were hanging in the closet and ask Jim to set them on top of everything else. There were still some things to be put into the van but we were almost done. When I finished, I went down and sat on a chair to recoop for a break while Jim and Hector finished.
Then, when they were done, I saw the loading that Hector had done for us. I was so upset that I couldn’t look into the back of the van. The clothes had things stacked over them, including a 5 gallon bottle of water. Potato chips and cookies were on the bottom and things were just thrown wherever they landed. But we were ready to go. We got into the van and away we went. Things would have to be straightened out when we stopped somewhere. Meanwhile, I would just pretend it was done right.
Saturday evening, May 23rd, we were on our way. We were finally going home. We drove out of the city and through suburbs, then into the country.
By the time the sun was setting, we were in the middle of a cactus forest with heavy underbrush. The road was narrow and wound back and forth like a canyon road. There were no shoulders on the road and the lanes were just wide enough for a semi truck. I wondered how two trucks could pass, since in many places the road dropped off on both sides within an inch of the white lines on the edges. I felt like I was in the middle of a western movie. The orange sunset made the cactus look like silhouettes. It was really pretty. Jim had to concentrate on driving because the van proved to be hard to control. It wanted to wander and there was no place to wander to. After a few hours, we stopped for the night at a little motel that accepted dogs.
The next day was more of the same. The road proved to be about 400 miles longer than we expected it to be because of all the curves. By the time we reached Ensenada, we had crossed 5 mountain ranges, or as Jim puts it we crossed the same mountain range 5 times. The road didn’t get any better. After we passed the state line that separates Baja Calif Sur, from Baja Calif Nor, the cactus changed. The landscape began to be laid out like huge rock gardens with cactus and wild flowers and other plants peeking out here and there. It was beautiful too.
We reached Ensenada on the third day, in the evening. We wanted to get across the border before dark so we hurried on. That was our mistake! We should have stopped for the night. Because when we got to the border, we waited in line for two hours. Then just before we were ready to go through the gate, our line quit moving. We waited for a full hour with out one more car going through the gate. The attendant that was working in our line, had disappeared. Finally another attendant appeared and we got through the border. By that time it was 11:30 at night and we were really tired. We had traveled 500 miles and waited 3 hours. Now we had no place to sleep. We didn’t want to stop in LA basin because we figured it would be hard to find a motel that would take a dog. We also thought the motels would be pretty pricey there. So we decided to go a little farther.
We didn’t know the shortcut to get to I15 and Jim really didn’t want to drive all the way into LA to catch it. We stopped and he pulled up the GPS on his computer to show us the way. We figured that if we stayed on state roads we would miss the toll booths. This was important because the toll booths didn’t take pasos and we didn’t have enough US money. Actually we had $2 between us.
We were wrong. The road we ended up taking had a toll booth and when we tried to feed our two $1 bills into it, it took one but would not take the other. We were stuck. We tried and tried to make it work but the bill had a small tear and it would not except it. There was nothing to do but to keep going. When we came to the next toll booth, we just kept going. We couldn’t think of anything else to do. So we decided we would just pay the tickets when they came. Trouble is, that we have our Mexican plates on the car and we aren’t there to get the tickets when they come, if they come. I don’t know what they will do to us now. They may not let us back in California. I don’t know how they handle it when a Mexican car runs the toll booth without paying. But we kept on going.
We tried to pull over and sleep twice during the night. First at a rest area that was too full. Then up the street a ways we pulled over again for a while, but couldn’t sleep because the seats were too uncomfortable so we kept going. When we finally came to an area where we could get a motel, it was already morning. If we got a motel now, we would have to be out of there by check out time, around 11. Or we would have to pay for two days. We decided to keep going.
We finally made it to St George. By this time I was pretty cranky and Jim was having problems too. We decided to stop at Karen’s, even if we were too tired to be much company. But Karen wasn’t home. We kept going.
We stopped in Beaver around 2:30 and got a room. We slept the rest of the day and all night, with only a short break to get cleaned up.
Then we headed for home, refreshed and ready to go. We arrived home around noon on Wednesday. We were really ready to be home!
We didn’t get the van last night like we expected. But the mechanic worked on getting the plates until after 8:00 pm. Then he told us to call back at 10:00 in the morning.
May 24th
We called at 10 but there was no answer. We tried again at 11 with the same results. But at 11:30 he answered and said he had been running down the plates. He usually hires someone to do this, but it didn’t get done soon enough, so he did it himself. What kind of Mexican is this? The van is ready, license plates and all.
We called a cab. The fellow was off today but he came and picked us up anyway. He brought his wife with him. We got the car and headed back to the boat. We decided to try to pack and leave tonight. That was going to take some doing.
I packed things in plastic bags because that is all we had to work with. I put them into a bucket and lowered them over the edge of the boat, (about 13 feet since the boat was on the hard) and down to Jim who put them into the van. We both worked as hard as we could. Then Jim came up and started lowering things down or carrying them down the latter. There was a boy there who wanted to help. He took things to the van and loaded it. It was working like an assembly line. I would pack things and put them into bags. Jim would get them off the boat and Hector would take them to the truck.
When we were almost done, I sent down our best clothes which were hanging in the closet and ask Jim to set them on top of everything else. There were still some things to be put into the van but we were almost done. When I finished, I went down and sat on a chair to recoop for a break while Jim and Hector finished.
Then, when they were done, I saw the loading that Hector had done for us. I was so upset that I couldn’t look into the back of the van. The clothes had things stacked over them, including a 5 gallon bottle of water. Potato chips and cookies were on the bottom and things were just thrown wherever they landed. But we were ready to go. We got into the van and away we went. Things would have to be straightened out when we stopped somewhere. Meanwhile, I would just pretend it was done right.
Saturday evening, May 23rd, we were on our way. We were finally going home. We drove out of the city and through suburbs, then into the country.
By the time the sun was setting, we were in the middle of a cactus forest with heavy underbrush. The road was narrow and wound back and forth like a canyon road. There were no shoulders on the road and the lanes were just wide enough for a semi truck. I wondered how two trucks could pass, since in many places the road dropped off on both sides within an inch of the white lines on the edges. I felt like I was in the middle of a western movie. The orange sunset made the cactus look like silhouettes. It was really pretty. Jim had to concentrate on driving because the van proved to be hard to control. It wanted to wander and there was no place to wander to. After a few hours, we stopped for the night at a little motel that accepted dogs.
The next day was more of the same. The road proved to be about 400 miles longer than we expected it to be because of all the curves. By the time we reached Ensenada, we had crossed 5 mountain ranges, or as Jim puts it we crossed the same mountain range 5 times. The road didn’t get any better. After we passed the state line that separates Baja Calif Sur, from Baja Calif Nor, the cactus changed. The landscape began to be laid out like huge rock gardens with cactus and wild flowers and other plants peeking out here and there. It was beautiful too.
We reached Ensenada on the third day, in the evening. We wanted to get across the border before dark so we hurried on. That was our mistake! We should have stopped for the night. Because when we got to the border, we waited in line for two hours. Then just before we were ready to go through the gate, our line quit moving. We waited for a full hour with out one more car going through the gate. The attendant that was working in our line, had disappeared. Finally another attendant appeared and we got through the border. By that time it was 11:30 at night and we were really tired. We had traveled 500 miles and waited 3 hours. Now we had no place to sleep. We didn’t want to stop in LA basin because we figured it would be hard to find a motel that would take a dog. We also thought the motels would be pretty pricey there. So we decided to go a little farther.
We didn’t know the shortcut to get to I15 and Jim really didn’t want to drive all the way into LA to catch it. We stopped and he pulled up the GPS on his computer to show us the way. We figured that if we stayed on state roads we would miss the toll booths. This was important because the toll booths didn’t take pasos and we didn’t have enough US money. Actually we had $2 between us.
We were wrong. The road we ended up taking had a toll booth and when we tried to feed our two $1 bills into it, it took one but would not take the other. We were stuck. We tried and tried to make it work but the bill had a small tear and it would not except it. There was nothing to do but to keep going. When we came to the next toll booth, we just kept going. We couldn’t think of anything else to do. So we decided we would just pay the tickets when they came. Trouble is, that we have our Mexican plates on the car and we aren’t there to get the tickets when they come, if they come. I don’t know what they will do to us now. They may not let us back in California. I don’t know how they handle it when a Mexican car runs the toll booth without paying. But we kept on going.
We tried to pull over and sleep twice during the night. First at a rest area that was too full. Then up the street a ways we pulled over again for a while, but couldn’t sleep because the seats were too uncomfortable so we kept going. When we finally came to an area where we could get a motel, it was already morning. If we got a motel now, we would have to be out of there by check out time, around 11. Or we would have to pay for two days. We decided to keep going.
We finally made it to St George. By this time I was pretty cranky and Jim was having problems too. We decided to stop at Karen’s, even if we were too tired to be much company. But Karen wasn’t home. We kept going.
We stopped in Beaver around 2:30 and got a room. We slept the rest of the day and all night, with only a short break to get cleaned up.
Then we headed for home, refreshed and ready to go. We arrived home around noon on Wednesday. We were really ready to be home!
Life in La Paz
April 11, 2009 Happy Birthday Amy
Life is smooth and soft here in La Paz. The Mexican people never seem to be stressed or in a hurry, except when they are driving. Then watch out!! We need to get used to waiting. Mother used to say, “Some body has to do the waiting”. That is especially true here. We spend a lot of time on our boat sitting in the cockpit or listening to the radio or working on the internet. I have learned to cut the dog’s hair which is a noticeable savings for me. It was also a necessity since I couldn’t find the groomer here and her hair was getting really knotted and shaggy. However, I still need to find a groomer because they do a better job than I did.
La Paz is built in a rather hilly place and instead of smoothing the ground out, they just built on hills. As you walk down the side walk you will go up stairs and down stairs and you have to be careful of drop offs and holes in the sidewalk. The houses look like southern California but most of them are older than what I am used to seeing there. They all have fences. Some are rot iron and some are stucco. Some are a combination of both. The stores have bars on the windows too. There is a lovely old cathedral in the center of town. It makes me glad that the temples in SLC have fences and peaceful yards around them.
The stores open around 9 in the morning like they do in SLC. But they have a siesta around 2 which lasts a couple hours. Then they open again and stay open till around 8 or 9 pm. People here are hard workers. They sweep the sidewalks in town a lot. But they still need sweeping all the time, probably because of all the sand. But there seems to be trash too. I would think that with all that sweeping, people would be careful what they drop but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In Mexico you can’t fire your employees, if they have worked for you for 6 months or longer. If you should go out of business, you will have to pay each employee a lump sum which can amount to several thousand dollars each. Each case is different but it is enough so that people don’t mind getting laid off and people usually don’t get fired. I am not sure how it works. I know that many people work for tips and they will wash your car if you stop at a stop light. (With a very dirty rag) They will try to find ways to be helpful because they expect a tip for everything they do. Someone said this is the Mexican retirement plan.
Another difference here is that they have many products in the store that mimic the products we have in the USA but are not the same. Cheetos are one of them and V8 juice is another. They create a product that looks like what I am used to buying but when I get it home, it isn’t nearly as good. But they do have V8 juice once in a while. The butter isn’t salted. I guess that is the case in Europe too.
April 15th Tax day
Luckily, I got the income tax done, thanks to Wendy’s running all over town for me, many times. I wonder what it will be like next year, now that we are on Social Security. I hear that they are having Tea Parties all over the USA. I wonder how those will go. If any of you are interested in the conspiracy theory in the government, as I am, there is a web site you may want to check out. On the La Paz cruisers net this morning, someone suggested that we should look it up and see what it says. I did. I was surprised to see what this person claims, is going on. You may be interested too. To find it you type “JFK Bush Hoover Memo” into your web browser. Check the sites that come up until you find the interesting one. Then you read the large entry at the bottom and draw your own conclusions.
There are a group of cruisers that get together and talk on the VHF radio every morning at 7:15. We use their program like an alarm clock. Most of them are pretty liberal and they think Obama is doing a wonderful job. But there is at least one who thinks they don’t have all the facts. He is the one that mentioned the web page above. They discuss the news and the weather and whatever else they decide to talk about.
Then at 8:00 every morning, we tune to a different channel on the VHF radio and they have a net. They give you the weather report and welcome any new comers. They have announcements from their club and exchange ideas. They also try to solve any problems you may have like, “Where can I find this or that?” After that they have a swap and trade session. We can’t sell anything in Mexico so we trade for “coconuts”. We aren’t allowed to work while we are here either. The Mexican government is much stricter about this than we are in the USA.
Jim has gone over to see if he can help Chris with his electrical problems. He has tried not to get too involved but now Chris is ready to sell his boat and get a condo because of all the problems he has had. That would be a shame because it is really a beautiful boat. I hope Jim will be able to help. He has worked on it a little but hasn’t gotten into it deep enough to really solve anything. I think he could fix it if he had enough time. Both Chris and Jim started out with big problems on their boats. We think our main problem is fixed. It would be nice if Chris’ could be fixed too.
I stayed here to make bread, work on my journal and work on the “screen door” for the companion way hatch, which I haven’t started yet, and it is now 5:00. Maybe I should start on it before it gets dark.
April 19, 2009
I would tell you about our weather but I don’t want to make anyone jealous, so I will skip that for today. I hear the weather is pretty bad in UT this week.
Jim showed Chris where the problems were with the wiring. They managed to find several things that had been done wrong. Chris was very grateful since several people have tried to solve the problems and failed. He took us out to breakfast the next day.
I still haven’t started on the “screen door”. But it has been a pleasant and busy week. Our plans for our trip to Utah are shaping up. We are going to purchase a car to drive home. It looks like it belongs to a Mexican or a red neck, depending on where you are. But it seems to be mechanically sound. I hope Jim can get the air conditioner to work. Iif not then it is sweatsville all the way through all that desert. It would not be legal in the USA because of the broken windshield. We will need to get Mexican drivers licenses and insurance, etc.
We have made arrangements to put the boat in dry dock for a few months. They will pull the boat out of the water for us and place it on the hard. Then we will climb into the old black blazer we are purchasing and head for UT. We will be able to see the inner part of the Baja Peninsula while we travel. We expect to take a few days to get home. We will probably get a hotel here and there.
We are planning on spending a couple months in Utah and renewing friendships. Then we will come back down here and live in the boat while it is “on the hard”. That will be tricky, but not impossible. The dry dock we found is a safe hurricane haven so we will leave the boat there till hurricane season is over this fall. Then we can put it back into the water and we can continue with our long vacation, or whatever.
Today there was a swap meet here at the marina. Jim got a water generator. This is a propeller that you drag behind the boat to generate electricity. He also got a little dingy. We are a two dingy family now! This one is small and easy to maneuver. Jim also sent the larger outboard motor to the repair man to be reconditioned. Then we will have two dingys and two motors. What more could anyone want?
I got a wind scoop for the hatch and a couple cook books. Now I can tell you how to kill a chicken and take the feathers off, in case you want to know. If you want to learn about that, just ask me and I will let you borrow the book. But I still don’t know how to cook a fish and make it turn out so you want to eat it.
April 23rd
Karen (Jim’s sister) is going in for surgery today. Our prayers are with her. She will be fine we expect.
We have had a busy week this week. We have been trying to finalize the deal on the car. Monday we went with the couple we are buying it from and their interpreter (agent) to the DMV to get the title changed. We found out that we needed to have Mexican driver’s licenses to drive a car with Mexican plates, and since we were at the DMV we began working on that too. Then we learned that we needed to get an FM3 visa for Mexico before we could get drivers licenses. We have spent the rest of the week walking from one place to another and back again trying to get that accomplished. Willie has gone with us and helped us for two days. So did Greg and Laura who are selling the car. We learned that the title will not be clear until they send the papers to Mexico City and someone there looks through a bunch of boxes of papers to try to find the original. Then they can certify that the car really belongs to Laura and Greg. This is because when they bought the car, it was OK to give them a copy of the original with a blue stamp on it to prove that it was original. Now it is not OK. So the copy they got when they bought the car will no longer work to sell the car. The law was changed 2 months ago.
While we are waiting for the certification to come back, we will be trying to get our FM3 so that we can get driver’s licenses to drive the car. We also need insurance and I have called the company twice and given them the information. Both times they promised to call me back, but they haven’t yet.
We have had our blood taken and filled out forms. One had to be typed so we went with Willey to find a typist who works out of a little wooden booth in a plaza just off the street. This little old man has a copy machine and an old typewriter and he sits in the wooden booth and has a line of customers waiting for him all day. He must earn good money. He had me pull back my hair so he could see the shape of my forehead. He wrote down the shape of my nose and the size of my mouth and the shape of my chin, etc. This all had to be on the form. We spent 2 days getting our pictures taken and going from one office to another trying to meet all the requirements for the FM3. Yesterday we turned in the paperwork and we will have to wait a week for them to check it. Then we went to find the place we get our physicals for the driver’s licenses. We didn’t find it yesterday but today we tried again. We walked to the place we thought it was and it wasn’t there. We kept looking and finally ask a policeman. He directed us to a different place and we didn’t know if we should go in or try again to find the place Willey had told us to go. We finally decided to try again to find the right place.
When we found it, we went in and give the lady the note Willey had given us saying what we needed. She said something in Spanish. When I told her I didn’t speak Spanish, she said she didn’t speak English and turned around and walked away. If she would have stayed, I think I could have made her understand or perhaps I would have understood what she wanted me to do, but she didn’t even try. We had walked about an hour to get there and I was upset. Jim was too because he turned and walked out of there. I decided there was nothing I could do but follow, so I did but then I was upset at him and the lady in the window.
We had left the dog at the groomers and couldn’t pick her up for 3 more hours so we just looked around the town for a while. Mostly when you are walking around town you just look at sidewalks because if you look up, you may trip over some edge or stumble into a hole. I am getting to recognize the sidewalks but not the stores or the store windows.
We walked around for about an hour, then we decided to go back to the clinic. The lady was gone and the man that was there pointed to the doctor’s offices in the hall. We tried the door of the first office and found the doctor was busy with a patient. We waited. After a while, a lady came out of the second office and Jim opened the door and motioned for me to follow, so I did. This doctor spoke a little English and he told us we were at the wrong clinic. He told us we needed to go back to the one the police man had told us to go to. It was about a mile away from this one.
When we got there, there was a line at the door. People kept coming out but no one went in. We waited in that line about an hour. Then Jim realized that they were probably at siesta. That is why no one was going in. Around 3 they started going in. The line was about 30 feet long by this time. We waited a little longer and realized people were paying in advance to get their appointments. We were worried that if we had to pay in advance, we may have to leave before we were seen because we had to pick up the dog by 4. We left and walked the 8 blocks back to get the dog. Then we took a taxi home. That is pretty much how every day has gone this week, but we are making progress. We called Willie and he promised to meet us in the morning and go with us to the clinic. That will make it easier.
The next morning we went with Willie to the Clinic to get our physicals. He took us to the back door of the Clinic and he talked to a doctor there. He said that he told her that we had waited all day the previous day and not been able to get our physicals. She sent us to the cashier and then to the optometrist. While we waited for the optometrist, a nurse took our vitals. The doctor waived our physical and a few minutes later we were walking out the door with our certificate. We went right past the long lines waiting for help.
Willie talked to the people at the DMV and they said they would give us our driver’s licenses as soon as we get far enough with getting our FM3 so that it has been approved and paid for. Immigration told us we will need to wait till Wednesday to do that.
April 29, 09
This is Wednesday and we walked up to the Immigration office to finish our FM3. The girl there told us that we needed to pay for our visa again if we didn’t have a receipt for the last visa we got which we obtained last November. So we walked back to the dingy dock and went back to the boat. We were in a hurry because we needed to go up to central city to the bank to pay the fee and then get back to the Immigration office before one pm. They will not work on FM3s in the afternoons.
We did get the receipts and went to the bank. When we got there, there was a long line of people and rows of chairs in the lobby. The bank was like the DMV in Salt Lake. We took a number and took a seat. After we had sat there for a few minutes, the lady in front of us turned around and offered us her number. She said someone had left and given her their number so she had a spare. We were grateful because we were in a hurry and the new number was 40 places in front of the one we had.
After we finished there, we hurried back to immigration. We made it before one o clock and were seen. The attendant there took the papers they wanted and told us to come back in 10 days. That is a Saturday and we were hoping to be able to leave here before that. Oh Well!! We will need to wait till the following Monday. We will not be able to leave until the license on the car is cleared anyway, and we have no idea when that will happen.
We called Willie and ask him when we could go get our driver’s licenses and he told us that he needs to work today and Thursday. Friday is a holiday so we may have to wait till Monday. If we had our driver’s licenses, we could drive here. We cannot leave until we have our FM3s and our car license plates so now we don’t know when we can leave for the USA.
While I am waiting, maybe I will work on making that screen for the companionway hatch. But not today because it is too hot now.
Meanwhile, the swine flu scare is threatening to close the borders. Oh no, that was yesterday. I heard this morning that they have decided that it is too late to do that, so I guess we will be able to get home. The incubation for the flu is only 2 days so by the time we got home, we should be clean. But that isn’t much of a worry since they have no confirmed flu here in the Baja peninsula YET. A lot of people are walking around with masks on and the schools are shut down.
It is getting hot here during the day time. It was 93 yesterday and gets down to the 60’s at night. The water in the bay is 80 degrees now. It is too hot to do very much in the afternoons. I am reading a book. Jim usually plays solitare.
The people here have more freedom in their personal lives than the people in the USA. But their opportunities are stymied by their countrymen. They don’t need to have safety inspections to drive their cars. They do have a seat belt law but it is only for the driver. They can smoke in cafes if they choose to and the owners don’t object. They can park in their yards if they want to, but most people don’t do it. They may have less freedom of speech but if that is so, it isn’t noticeable. Their taxes are very very low and their utility bills are very very low compared to those in the USA. Most people are quite considerate and helpful. And the sunsets here are beautiful!!
When we get through the lack of technology and we get our license plates and our FM3s and our drivers licenses, we will be headed home. We plan to visit a few of the old missions on our way home and taking some desert pictures. So we will see you all soon.
Love,
Jim and Donna
Journal March 16th La Paz
La Paz means “The Peace”. There are several cities in Mexico that have that name but just one in Baja Sur Calif, Mx. It is nice here. The days are quite warm. The temperatures now are between 70 and 90 degrees during the day and they drop to about 50 at night which makes it comfortable to sleep. We have been busy trying to restock and find the necessities, (showers, food, water, etc.)
We now have an internet connection but the signal is not strong enough to stay connected long enough to send the journal or use the email system much. We need to keep looking. A couple people we met in Cabo said that they were using TelCel which is a phone company in Mexico. I want to check into that and see if we can afford it.
Tony is here on Windstrutter and he is an engineer of some kind. I am not sure what he is an engineer of, but he seems to understand engines.
Jim has about run out of ideas to fix the engine. He has tried everything he can think of. And he has tried everything anyone has suggested that worked for them. Jim offered to pay Tony if he can fix it.
March 22, 09
Tony came over and spent a day and a half working on the engine. He had Jim change the oil and flush out the system with fresh oil then change it again. He did several things like that to improve the cooling. He bled the air out of the cooling system. He had Jim re-plumb the water heater into the engine system which had been disconnected. Then he re-plumbed the system the way that Jim had done it a few weeks ago. He put the transmission and the oil cooler into the salt water system. And he straightened out the salt water plumbing system by rerouting the pipes. Jim says that the main problem was air in the cooling system. He had tried to get it out before but with Tony’s help they removed more air. It looks like the problem is fixed. Finally!! Now I can put the house back together and try to get the black grease off things.
We have found most of the things we need to survive here. I located a fabric store and a craft shop. There is a café on the dock and several little cafes along the walk way. I even found some salt and pepper shakers which I really like. So I guess we will be fine. We will really need to live conservatively in order to stay within our budget. But I think it is possible.
Tony gave me a recipe for Sour Dough bread which I made yesterday. It turned out good and I didn’t have any left when I went to put it away for the night. I guess I need to make more next time. Oh, I guess I can’t because my oven will only hold 2 loves. Oh well, two loves are usually enough for us.
I took the computer to shore yesterday to send my journal and to find the LDS ward. It is about 3 miles from here. I haven’t figured out how to get there and back yet. The only way I can think of to get to church is to take a taxi and they won’t be available to return home. I can’t call them because I don’t speak the language. I haven’t even been able to make the phone work because I don’t understand what the voice on the phone is telling me. I will figure it out if I am here long enough and Jim seems to want to stay. He said yesterday that we better try to get long term visas. It is a little confusing because one day he will say we need to get long term visas and the next he will say we need to get out of here. But the weather is beautiful and if you know Jim, you know how he hates the winters in Utah.
I wish I could make a trip home. That is something I can work toward! My leg is fine and my hand is healing so I am in good shape. The engine works and we are repairing all the little things that went wrong on the boat so the boat is going to be in great shape too soon.
March 27, 09
Jim had the bottom of the boat cleaned today. A man in a wet suit came out and scraped it clean. You need to do this every few months because plants grow on it. Our bottom paint is old so it doesn’t do a lot to inhibit the plant growth.
I am making a couple of blouses. I forgot how much work they are to make. I have learned that this heavy duty sewing machine is not for making blouses. When we bought it, they said we could just adjust the tensions and use it for lighter material with lighter thread but it sure doesn’t work as well for light fabrics as it does for heavy ones. I have had to do much of the sewing by hand because the stitches aren’t very good quality and the material doesn’t feed the same. Oh well, I have learned a lesson.
We are enjoying the great weather and beautiful scenery here. We have been staying pretty much to ourselves so we haven’t met many people.
I bought a USB port modem so that I can get the internet from the boat. It works anywhere there is phone service. I am hopeful that it will make my internet connections much better. I pick it up today around 1 pm. The fellow at the store said that in order to “unlock” it, so that it will work in other countries and with other networks, he has to send it to someone else. It should be back today at 1:00pm. I hope it works! When we had our phones unlocked so that we could use them down here, it only took a few minutes. I don’t understand why it is such a big deal, but I already paid for it and I can’t get my money back so I will wait.
I will go shopping after we get the modem. I hope to go to Sam’s Club. It is quite a ways and I will have to take a taxi. It may cost too much. If it does, I will need to go somewhere else instead and get by with what I can get!!
April 2, 09
It has been quite a while since I wrote in my journal. I have been busy. Monday we took the washing in to the laundry mat and got the propane tanks full. We got gas for the dingy and generator and we got the water bottles filled. Then we went back and picked up the clothes. The fellow that was getting the modem unlocked finally gave me my money back. We waited several days and made several trips to his store. He never did get the modem unlocked. We went to another Telcel store and got a different modem. The man at the store said he would have to get the modem from the store house. He would bring it over to us about 4:00pm. So at three we went to a café. We ate dinner and waited for him to come. We called him a few times. About 5;30 he told us that he had to send to Tiawana and it had not arrived as fast as he thought it would. He said he would call us in the morning. He didn’t! And he didn’t call all day. But yesterday when Jim called him he said it was in and we could go get it. So we did! Now I have an internet connection that is slow but sure.
Yesterday I decided to finish the blouses I was making. I got so disgusted with them that I put them away. I don’t know if I will ever finish them. We will see what happens later. I have also found Sam’s Club and Walmart. When I take a taxi they always want to wait and bring me back so I let him wait for me. Sam’s Club and Walmart are too far away to go there very often but I just learned that there is a bus that goes there so perhaps one of these days I will catch the bus and go to Walmart and see what they sell there.
I have worked hard all week and today I am taking the day off!! Imagine that. I can take a whole day off if I want. I am sure many of you can do that too. But it still seems like a real luxury to me Well, I still have to fix meals and that kind of stuff, but that is OK.
I am sitting in the cockpit of the boat in the middle of a beautiful bay with about 20 other boats. We can park here for free and we get into the dingy and go to shore when we need something. The boats need to be spaced far enough apart so that they don’t swing into each other in the wind. But two days ago, the navy towed a boat into the bay and parked it right by our boat. Jim told them they were too close but they couldn’t move because their engine overheated. (That sounds familiar.) So we have been watching the boats swing around since then. They come pretty close sometimes. Their boat lost its engine and they called the navy and ask the navy to tow them in. They have had more experience that we have. I thought the navy would probably charge us to tow us. And I have heard stories about when the navy boarded your boat they sometimes took it away from you. I guess that isn’t usually the case. The couple on the boat said they didn’t have to pay the navy to tow them. That is good to know.
In most anchorages, the boats all move together as the wind shifts. But in this anchorage that isn’t true. The currents move the boats in one direction and the wind moves the boats in another direction so the way your boat faces has a lot to do with the shape of the hull. And it is possible for all the boats to face every which way at the same time. Jim and James, on the other boat, have been keeping a close eye on the two boats. We don’t want to move, so Jim just pulled in some of our chain so that we won’t swing so far. Today, he told James that it looks like they are all right. James wants to move the boat into a marina for repairs. Tony has gone back to England so he can’t offer his help with the engine. We were very lucky to have his help even though it was expensive.
There is a side walk that runs around the edge of the bay. It is called the Malacon. It is about 10 feet wide and winds around the bay between the road and the beach. It is paved with red and gray cement. The curvy red strips that run through the walk extend over and run through the road in many areas. About every 100 feet there is a statue or a bench or a table with a grass roof over it or just a grass roof on a pole. In places the sidewalk gets very wide and forms a patio on the beach side. This sidewalk runs about 2 or 3 miles. It is really pretty and it is a good place to take a walk, but it is quite hot because there is no shade.
We have been walking to the center of town about 3 times a week. We quite often walk along the Malacon part of the way. If I get a chance to get a picture of it, I will send it. If I don’t, you can see a picture of it on Google-Earth.
Well, I guess I have had my day off. Jim is scrubbing the deck and I wanted to scrub the cockpit. It would be nice to have them both done at once so I will do that now.
April 4,09
It took me 2 days to scrub the teak bench and floor in the cockpit and oil it. The problem is that the wood wasn’t clean enough and probably needed sanding in some places. I used salt water to wash it and there are places where the salt is caked and white on the edges of some of the boards. It doesn’t look very good with oil on it. It is uneven and places are discolored. Jim was not happy with it either. I guess I need to scrub it off. I kind of wanted to put another coat on to even it out and sand and clean it again before I did. He wants me to just scrub it off. That is certainly the easiest thing to do and he likes the silver color better anyway.
April 4 and 5th
We spent the week end listening to conference. I am really glad that we can get it. I thought it was exceptionally good this time.
April 6th Happy Birthday Kevin and Aurora
Today I scrubbed the oil off the cockpit floor as much as I could. The rest needs to wear off I guess.
The weather is gorgeous here. Every day is sunny and warm. Every night is cool with a breeze. Yesterday was Sunday and the bay was so calm and peaceful, I felt like the water must have known it was Sunday too, but it didn’t last all day long.
Today I am going to start making mosquito netting for the companionway hatch. Then I plan on altering the shade over the cockpit so that I can hang mosquito netting from that too.
April 7, 09
Late yesterday afternoon, we went to shore to get water. Our big tank was empty. Jim let me drive the dingy. It was fun but the current was so strong that the dingy didn’t go the way it was headed. It was a learning experience. We stopped to talk to people on other boats and the current took me right into the side of their boat at about 4 nautical miles per hour. I had almost no control at all. Luckily the dingy has inflatable sides and we just bounced off the side. Like I said, it was a real learning experience. I found that when I approached our boat to dock, I could not do it. Jim explained that the propeller had to be moving in order to steer the boat. There was no rudder. That helped a little but honestly, it will just take practice.
This morning Jim suggested that we get in the dingy and go down to look at the marina which is the farthest in along the channel. Someone said their slips were cheaper than the rest of the marines. We decided to go look. It was a great ride. The marina was probably a couple miles away and the water was really flat and smooth. Pelicans glided over the water with their wing tips so close to the water that they occasionally made a ripple in the smooth surface. Sometimes they would glide for hundreds of yards that way and one time I spotted a dolphin swimming about 20 feet from the boat, but he soon disappeared into the water. We passed hotels that were sticking up out of the middle of palm tree groves, and we passed barren deserts with old run down shacks. We saw two different ships that were rotting in the water. One was almost rusted away. The water was so shallow in some places that the motor to the dingy got caught in the mud. It would be a hard place to get the boat into.
When we got there, we learned that they were full and their slips were much more expensive than we had been told. But it was a fun ride so I am not sorry we went.
I am sending a couple pictures I took last night from our boat so that you can see the area. It is beautiful here.
I will start a new chapter and send this before it gets too long.
Love ya all,
Donna and Jim
Journal February 17, 2009 Cabo San Lucas
Here we are in the playhouse of the rich and famous, Cabo San Lucas on the bottom of the peninsula of Baha Calif Mexico. I feel like I am living in the middle of a post card. The bay is full of pleasure boats of all kinds and the beaches are full of people sipping cool drinks and wearing summer attire. The beaches are lined with beautiful hotels with palm trees and swimming pools and volley ball courts. Water taxis whizz around the water looking for customers and glass bottom boats take people out to see the fish and the whales. Cruise ships lumber into the bay and their passengers fill glass bottom boats and water taxis to capacity. Restaurants line the area that is the marina. And their tables are out in the open with wonderful views of the huge and expensive trawlers in the marina.
Yesterday Sharon, Tera and I went to the laundry mat. We walked about 6 blocks carrying 8 loads of washing in a cart that resembles a wheel barrow. We spent most the day at the laundry mat. I only took two batches of clothes because I didn’t see how we could carry more clothes that far. The day before yesterday, Sharon had shared her granny cart with me when we went grocery shopping and the wheel broke under the weight of the few groceries we were able to buy at the expensive grocery store that was within walking distance.
When the wash was done, we took the laundry back to our dingy in her “wheel barrow” and the wheel on that broke too. Then we went to lunch with Chris and Jim. It was an expensive lunch since we ate in a restaurant by the water’s edge. But we enjoyed it.
I was not able to wash all our clothes so I have been washing clothes by hand today while Jim and Chris went to try to buy a generator. Our engine overheats so fast now that we cannot charge the batteries on our boat. This means I cannot get on the internet (which is shakey anyway) and I can only use the computer for a few minutes a day.
Jim was not able to use his credit/debit card again. The credit union just cannot get it straight that we are in Mexico. They deny our purchases most the time. It is a real hassle. But he found the generator he needs and will probably get it tomorrow. That will be sooooooo nice. You don’t realize how much you need electricity until you don’t have it. We cannot even light the propane stove without it because of the solenoid switch. And we usually go to bed shortly after dark because we don’t want to waste electricity on things like computers, lights, radios and etc.
Yes we are in paradise but I am washing clothes by hand and we walk all day long when we leave the boat. We are not living like the rich and famous but the scenery is wonderful and it is plenty warm here.
They have a little newspaper that is kinda like the magic nickel ads but only has a small section of want ads. It is called “The Gringo Gazette”. There is an article in it each week about the celebrities that visit here. One CEO from a company that was bailed out last year had promised not to use the company jets in order to save money. Then he flew his family down here for New Year’s Eve and stayed in a hotel where some of the suites were $10,000.00 a night. What suite could be worth that much? The article did not say how much his suite cost.
Sunday 22nd
Jim went over to Bright Star to help Chris go up his mast again. After he gets the mizzen sail fixed they will probably leave. We will need to stay until we can get our engine repaired. Jim has the head gasket ordered. He has decided that someone must have put the wrong head gasket on it. The book says it may be the injectors or something else that I don’t remember. What ever it is, he is going to have to take the heads off to see what it is. Everything else works great. He said that it looks like the mold the head was made in, may have been off set enough to cause problems. If that is the case, we will need a new engine. We will see what happens. This is what Bright Star looks like from our boat.
Look at the beach behind her.
I gave Cheri her first home made hair cut the other day. She is pretty rugged but I had to cut out a lot of knots. She was really getting shaggy.
Since this is Sunday, I plan on reading the Teachings of Presidents of the Church – Joseph Smith. Perhaps I can keep up with the lessons. I miss my ward and the people there. There are some great people out there in Magna.
I have tried several times to send pictures but our internet connection won’t stay solid long enough to send them. Since we are not paying for it, I don’t have any one to complain to. If we were in the marina, I could complain. But out here in the bay, I can’t. I am trying to make them part of the letter. We will see how that works.
There are some famous rocks in Cabo San Lucas. This is what they look like from the bay. You usually see them from the other side. There is a tunnel like the one in Moab. But this one is not red and is surrounded by water. I took a picture of it but it isn’t very good because it is so far away.
The night we were stranded at sea, I took a picture of the sun going down. I was trying to get the sail boats that were silhouetted in the sunset. But they are so far away that you can barely see them.
Here we are in the playhouse of the rich and famous, Cabo San Lucas on the bottom of the peninsula of Baha Calif Mexico. I feel like I am living in the middle of a post card. The bay is full of pleasure boats of all kinds and the beaches are full of people sipping cool drinks and wearing summer attire. The beaches are lined with beautiful hotels with palm trees and swimming pools and volley ball courts. Water taxis whizz around the water looking for customers and glass bottom boats take people out to see the fish and the whales. Cruise ships lumber into the bay and their passengers fill glass bottom boats and water taxis to capacity. Restaurants line the area that is the marina. And their tables are out in the open with wonderful views of the huge and expensive trawlers in the marina.
Yesterday Sharon, Tera and I went to the laundry mat. We walked about 6 blocks carrying 8 loads of washing in a cart that resembles a wheel barrow. We spent most the day at the laundry mat. I only took two batches of clothes because I didn’t see how we could carry more clothes that far. The day before yesterday, Sharon had shared her granny cart with me when we went grocery shopping and the wheel broke under the weight of the few groceries we were able to buy at the expensive grocery store that was within walking distance.
When the wash was done, we took the laundry back to our dingy in her “wheel barrow” and the wheel on that broke too. Then we went to lunch with Chris and Jim. It was an expensive lunch since we ate in a restaurant by the water’s edge. But we enjoyed it.
I was not able to wash all our clothes so I have been washing clothes by hand today while Jim and Chris went to try to buy a generator. Our engine overheats so fast now that we cannot charge the batteries on our boat. This means I cannot get on the internet (which is shakey anyway) and I can only use the computer for a few minutes a day.
Jim was not able to use his credit/debit card again. The credit union just cannot get it straight that we are in Mexico. They deny our purchases most the time. It is a real hassle. But he found the generator he needs and will probably get it tomorrow. That will be sooooooo nice. You don’t realize how much you need electricity until you don’t have it. We cannot even light the propane stove without it because of the solenoid switch. And we usually go to bed shortly after dark because we don’t want to waste electricity on things like computers, lights, radios and etc.
Yes we are in paradise but I am washing clothes by hand and we walk all day long when we leave the boat. We are not living like the rich and famous but the scenery is wonderful and it is plenty warm here.
They have a little newspaper that is kinda like the magic nickel ads but only has a small section of want ads. It is called “The Gringo Gazette”. There is an article in it each week about the celebrities that visit here. One CEO from a company that was bailed out last year had promised not to use the company jets in order to save money. Then he flew his family down here for New Year’s Eve and stayed in a hotel where some of the suites were $10,000.00 a night. What suite could be worth that much? The article did not say how much his suite cost.
Sunday 22nd
Jim went over to Bright Star to help Chris go up his mast again. After he gets the mizzen sail fixed they will probably leave. We will need to stay until we can get our engine repaired. Jim has the head gasket ordered. He has decided that someone must have put the wrong head gasket on it. The book says it may be the injectors or something else that I don’t remember. What ever it is, he is going to have to take the heads off to see what it is. Everything else works great. He said that it looks like the mold the head was made in, may have been off set enough to cause problems. If that is the case, we will need a new engine. We will see what happens. This is what Bright Star looks like from our boat.
Look at the beach behind her.
I gave Cheri her first home made hair cut the other day. She is pretty rugged but I had to cut out a lot of knots. She was really getting shaggy.
Since this is Sunday, I plan on reading the Teachings of Presidents of the Church – Joseph Smith. Perhaps I can keep up with the lessons. I miss my ward and the people there. There are some great people out there in Magna.
I have tried several times to send pictures but our internet connection won’t stay solid long enough to send them. Since we are not paying for it, I don’t have any one to complain to. If we were in the marina, I could complain. But out here in the bay, I can’t. I am trying to make them part of the letter. We will see how that works.
There are some famous rocks in Cabo San Lucas. This is what they look like from the bay. You usually see them from the other side. There is a tunnel like the one in Moab. But this one is not red and is surrounded by water. I took a picture of it but it isn’t very good because it is so far away.
The night we were stranded at sea, I took a picture of the sun going down. I was trying to get the sail boats that were silhouetted in the sunset. But they are so far away that you can barely see them.
The Great Exodus from Turtle Bay
January 26th 2009
The Great Exodus from Turtle Bay
We left Turtle Bay yesterday around noon. Before we left I went to shore and tried to bind Marsadies’ broken rib but I didn’t have the proper brace. I tried to use an ace wrap which was a total failure. Now I wish I would have left it alone. She would probably have been more comfortable without the ace wrap because it just kept rolling up into a little ball. Then when I wanted to take it off she said it helped a little so I left it on. Now I am worrying about it. Wish I would have left it alone or at least removed the ace wrap when it didn’t stay in place. Too late now! I hope she took it off.
Chris and Sharon left on “Bright Star” this morning. With them went “Wind Strutter” and “On-Verra”. “Wind Strutter” is a larger boat and they invited Isabel and Russ to ride with them. Isabel has relatives down here and she will be a big help to us all when we stop at Abreojos to see the whales because she speaks Spanish and knows these people. We all love her and Russ and we are glad they came. The “caravan” wanted to leave at 4:00AM for some reason that I didn’t understand. “Andauma” left a little later. Jim and I decided to leave around noon. We decided to travel straight through to Abreojos (Ab-bray-OH-hoz) where the whale reserve is. (The name of the place is a command to open your eyes.) We expected to arrive around 7:00AM the next morning. The other boats were going to stop and rest at Asuncion harbor about half way there. Then they would meet us at Abreojos the day we arrived.
We left the harbor with a mild wind behind us and began our journey. The seas were big. That means we had a very bumpy ride. It reminded me of taking a house for a roller coaster ride except that the roller coaster moved more side to side than up and down. About four hours out of Turtle Bay we saw some whale spouts. We knew we were on the right path.
The waves were pretty rough. Sometimes the waves were about 8 feet tall. Most of the time they didn’t break, they just rolled and so did we. It was impossible to get any sleep. We ate a few sandwiches but not much else because it was just too rough and we were too busy to think about food.
We planned on making water with our water maker while we traveled but when Jim hooked it up we found that it no longer worked. We paid 3,000 dollars for it just a few months ago and now it doesn’t work. We don’t know why it stopped working. This means we need to be really careful with water. We didn’t fill our tanks before we left because we thought we could make water on the way and fill them while we traveled.
Monday Jan 27th
We arrived safely at Abreojos around 7:00 AM as planned and were grateful to find a safe harbor. We both ache all over from holding on while the boat rocked and we are both dead tired, even though I did get a little sleep this morning. I am sure we are doing things wrong. If everyone finds sailing so much work, no one would be doing it except as hard labor punishment. But we are here. And we are safe.
Now I see that we would have been better off to leave at 4:00 AM and stop for the night like everyone else did. I couldn’t see it before but we are beat and when we passed Asuncion we wished we could pull in there for a break. But we kept on going because it was dark and we didn’t want to try to enter the harbor or anchor in the dark.
After resting a few hours in Abreojos, we heard Alicia from“On-Verra” calling us on the radio. They had come through from Asuncion alone while everyone else stayed to rest. Alicia told us that Isabel was sick the whole trip. The other boats are planning to lay over there an extra day in hopes that the sea will calm down. They will be here tomorrow. We are glad for the rest and will have a chance to get caught up on our sleep before we go whale watching.
As the day rolled on the wind got worse and the waves got bigger and bigger. Jim was really concerned about our anchor’s ability to hold us here in an unprotected harbor. Our bow roller is not very strong and the anchor chain is not marked so he can’t tell how much chain he really has out. The amount of chain you put out is important to the holding power of the anchor. You should use 5 times as much chain as you have depth of water when you anchor.
After the wind came up, Alicia called on the radio to tell us that they were going on. They would rather be sailing than waiting in these rough conditions. We decided to wait since we had told Chris and Sharon we would be here.
The winds picked up and the boat crashed and pitched from side to side and from end to end. Toward evening we were both getting really worried. Jim suggested that this would be a good time for one of those prayers so I started praying. I prayed that nothing would break and that we would be safe and come through the wind storm unharmed.
After that I went below and took more seasick medicine. I had a great feeling of calmness come over me and I felt like we had an angel hovering over us to protect us. The calmness was so intense that it felt like I could reach out and touch it. I began praying silently that Jim would feel it too, so that he could relax and get some sleep. The wind howled outside and the boat rocked and rolled but inside the boat was so peaceful that it was like another world.
That night Jim decided to sleep on the settee so he could get up faster if he needed to. He got up several times during the night but said he slept quite well after about 2:00AM . I slept as well as I have ever slept on the boat. When we awoke my muscles were sore but the wind had subsided. I think that is the first bad windstorm we have been through where nothing broke! Not one thing!
We decided to wait one more day for the other boats. If they do not come we will go on to the next stop. Santa Maria has much better protection than Abreojos.
Jim keeps saying that the further south we go, the colder it gets. I agree. It doesn’t seem to be getting any warmer.
Thursday January 29th
The other boats still haven’t arrived and we really think we need more protection than we get here because we are exposed to the ocean front here. We wanted to see the whales with Isabel and Russ but it isn’t worth the risk of another wind storm. Jim said that if the winds blow from the ocean side we would be in big trouble so we are going to go on to the next stop which is Santa Maria.
The day was peaceful at sea. This was the kind of day that Jim has been dreaming about for so many years. There was a little breeze and we just moved slowly across the water. The water had ripples but no big waves. We just enjoyed the day. And we saw a sea turtle! I thought they were extinct but we actually saw one just about 10 feet from the boat. He was just swimming along like he belonged there. I was really thrilled to get to see him. We only went about 70 miles all day and all night.
Friday Jan 30th
Another peaceful day at sea. But today was too peaceful. There wasn’t any wind after the first few hours. We tried to motor but our engine overheats so we have to go very slow. We were moving at about 1 to 2 miles per hour all day and all night. It was obvious that we were not going to get to Santa Maria till way after dark. We didn’t want to try to maneuver past the opening and anchor in the dark so we decided to go right on by and then turn around. We figured that if we went 7 miles past the opening then turned around and went back we should arrive about sun rise. This was a good plan but a little wind picked up and we moved a little faster than 1 mile per hour. We arrived back at the opening to the bay around 4:00AM. Jim started into the bay. There was a boat and a mountain on his left side. He went up to lower the main sail. After he finished the boat and the mountain had vanished. It took a while to get his bearings again. The fog had come in and covered the mountain and boat completely in just the space of a few minutes. It took him a while to figure out what had happened. He decided to leave the bay and come back after it got light. By the time we had left the bay and traveled back into the ocean again there was enough light to maneuver so we went back into the bay again.
Saturday Jan 31st
We moved into the bay with the first rays of the sunshine. The fog moved around the mountains and the rocks, making things look like a fairy land in the sunrise. There was another boat there on the radar screen so we stayed away from the area where they were anchored. We couldn’t see them in the fog and we knew there wasn’t much chance “On-Veera” would still be there.
After we got anchored we got a call on the radio. It was “On-Veera”! Alicia and Alfred were still here. We were very tired after getting very little sleep for the last two nights. We made arrangements to meet with them later and we set about getting things in order enough so that we could crawl into bed and get some much needed sleep.
I tried to shower in salt water before I went to bed. I don’t see how people do it. The soap doesn’t work at all. The shampoo doesn’t work either. I just ended up using regular water and being really careful not to use too much.
Sun Feb 1st
Today we feel better. Jim is going to try to fix the engine but he doesn’t have the tools he needs and there are no stores here. He will have to be careful not to take too much of the engine apart because he cannot get parts here to get it going again.
It is Sunday but we cannot go to church because there isn’t one.
Santa Maria is a cove that has a small fishing camp and a few houses scattered on the hill side. I don’t know if anyone really lives here full time. If we could land the dingy we could talk to people (in Spanish?) and find out if anyone lives here, but we can’t land the dingy because it is too heavy to pull out of the water and onto the beach. Maybe we can take it for a ride around the bay tomorrow and try out the new motor.
Alicia and Alfred came over this morning and visited for a while. They told us a little about themselves. They have been sailing together for 5 years. They have been around the world and then some. They are planning to go to LaPaz and then up the Sea of Cortez in the spring so we may meet them again later. They will leave their boat up at the north end of the Sea of Cortez and go for a walk. They are planning on walking from Mexico to Canada. They have done long walks before. Once they hiked around the bottom of Mount Everest. No, not all the way around it. But they said there are lots of trails to hike on, in the foot hills there. They also walked from Maine to Vermont one time. They are walking every chance they get so they will be in good shape for the walk. Alicia got her first sailboat when she was 12. She has been sailing ever since. She said her father always wanted to go sail around the world but never had the chance. She was determined she was going to do it and she has. They use a kayak for a dingy. She doesn’t like dingys with outboard motors. She would rather row because she can depend on herself more than on a motor. She is a very small lady. But a powerhouse just the same.
And they saw a sea turtle on their way down too! It was the same color and size as the one we saw! I can hardly believe that we all saw the same turtle on different days in the same ocean. The ocean is just too big! I don’t know how that could happen. But now you know all about Alicia and Alfred.
Jim took apart some of the hoses on the engine and tried to find the reason it was over heating. He doesn’t think he fixed anything but tomorrow we will go for a ride and see if it gets hot.
He caught 4 fish today but they were small so he threw them back. We need to get bigger fish if we are going to flay them. We are conserving water and are still using the water we had left in our tanks. We also have 4 bottles of 5 gallons each. One of them is only part way full since Jim had to put water back into the engine after working on it.
Feb 2, Monday
This morning we decided we will need to leave here when our water tanks are empty. It is 180 miles to Cabo San Lucas where we can get more water. We need at least 3 bottles of 5 gallons each to be sure we can make it. If we still have engine problems we may need to continue on at 1 to 2 miles per hour. That could take us a week to get there. We certainly hope that won’t happen. We hope the engine will be fixed and that the wind will blow enough so that we can have a pleasant sail down the coast and around the corner to Cabo San Lucas. But since water is necessary, we need to plan on the worst case scenario. We want to wait for Bright Star but if they are not here when our water tanks get empty, we better go on alone. We are also getting low on propane. We don’t know for sure how much we have but we know we are using the small tank and the large tank is empty. We know we can survive without propane. But we need water!
Jim was fishing this morning while I washed dishes and straightened the cabin, etc. He keeps catching all these strange fish. One had long fins on top like an angel fish. I didn’t want to cook it so he threw it back. He caught a little bass and several others that he thought might be tuna. We don’t know which are which. I do know a yellow tail tuna because I saw one of those. Two of the fish he caught were blow fish. They puff themselves up to prevent other fish from eating them. They are poisonous and he threw them back. He threw all the fish he caught today back because the other day I tried to flay one of the fish he caught and we realized that the little ones are not worth the trouble of flaying them. We need bigger fish to flay them. But the ones he threw back were bigger than most trout you catch in Utah. I wish we knew which ones were eatable. We will buy a book when we get to a city.
Around noon a ponga boat with three fishermen came by and traded us some lobster for some spam and corned beef in cans. They wanted something to drink and were disappointed when we didn’t have anything to drink on board. I was excited to try out the lobster salad that Isabel taught me to make. We had to use the lobster right away. We are not supposed to have lobster on board because it is illegal to catch it here. I went ahead and made the salad and it turned out ok, but not as good as it was at Isabel’s. I think that perhaps the company we had that day made it taste better. It was still good. Isabel calls lobster “poor man’s food” in Mexico. This is because so many people here earn their living by catching and selling lobster so they have plenty of it for themselves too.
After lunch we moved the boat to another spot in the bay so that we could see if the motor still overheats. It does. Jim will tear into it again this afternoon or tomorrow.
Wednesday Feb 4, 009 Happy Birthday Tony!!
Yesterday “Cat’s Paw” and “Mollyhock” showed up here in Santa Maria. This is the first time we have met Pam and George from “Mollyhock”. They travel with “Cat’s Paw”. We already knew Cynthia and Rick and it was good to see familiar faces. Cynthia and Rick sold us a propane tank that was full. They were going to sell it when they reached LaPaz. We needed to buy a second one so it worked out well and solved our propane problem too. Then they invited us over for dinner and fed us with fajitas and lobster. (The fishing boat had been by during the day and traded them lobster for canned meat.) The fajitas were very good and she gave me the recipe which I was glad to get. They suggested that we go “next door” to Mag Bay where we can get more water if we need it. Hay! What a great idea! We hadn’t even thought about that. We may do that but Jim is still running the water maker and making salty water. He thinks it is getting better. I think it is wishful thinking.
He worked on the engine again today but still didn’t find the problem
Feb 5, Thursday
There is fog here every morning. It is about 11:00AM and the fog is just starting to lift. The air is so moist that this morning there was steam on the mirrors when we got up. We have decided to leave tomorrow if the other boats don’t come in today. They may have gone on by. We have done so much waiting since we left Ensenada, first at Turtle Bay and now down here. We need to get down to LaPaz so we can get a dingy we can handle, so that we can get on and off the boat. We just put the dingy back on the boat and it took about an hour just to lift it up with the halyard. It is more than we can handle. If we are going to be successful at sailing, we need a dingy we can handle! I have been off the boat only once since we left Turtle Bay. That was the day before yesterday when we went to “Cat’s Paw”. I am getting stir crazy! It may sound fun to be able to read and do needle work but it is not fun if you have to read the same books over and over. I get tired of studying Spanish and can only do it for so long. I make bread and rolls and read and work on my cross stitch but I must either lie on the bed, sit at the table (which is very uncomfortable) or sit in the cockpit all day long in the wind or the sun or whatever. Oh yah, the cabin still needs to be cleaned and meals need to be fixed but I cannot wash clothes because of the water situation. So I sit and wait.
I am trying to use my time constructively by losing weight (unsuccessfully), studying Spanish and being patient but my patience is about shot.
Jim will work on the engine again today and we will leave tomorrow if he finds the problem or not.
8:00pm
We think Jim fixed the problem with the engine!!!
We leave in the morning. We decided to go to Mag bay and get water. We have heard that a storm is coming and Jim is thinking of putting in there till it passes. We have waited here for a week and we waited at Abreojos for 2 days. We may never see Chris and Sharon again if we leave but they have probably gone on by so there is no point in waiting anymore. We are really sad that they didn’t come. They must have changed their plans.
Friday Feb 6, 2009 Happy Birthday Jim and Grant H
Jim’s birthday present was getting the engine to run cool, but when he started the engine this morning it was heating up again. And it is worse now than ever.
We woke up this morning to a bay full of boats that had come in during the night. The Del Ray yacht clubs race to LaPaz is here. But still no Chris and Sharon. But then, a few hours later we spotted a boat coming into the harbor. It was them!!! Chris and Sharon made it. They didn’t pass by and go on to the next port!!
Chris and Sharon arrived tired to the bone! A few hours later “Windstrutter” came in with Tony and Jackie on board. They all slept and recuperated all day.
Saturday Morning Feb 7,
Chris asked Jim if he could help him get back the halyard to his mizzen sail. The rope that holds up the sail had come undone somehow during the rough ride they had during the night and now Chris would have to climb the mast to get the rope and reconnect it. Jim was glad to go help.
We heard Jackie call and invite them to go to shore and to town with her. They plan on calling a ponga. I really don’t think that is an option here. And there isn’t a town here either. But since I haven’t been on shore myself and I am only going by what Alicia said, I let it go. Jackie invited us all to have dinner with her on “Windstrutter” tonight. I will make a fruit salad and we will all go to Windstrutter to talk about our adventures.
At dinner we found that Chris has infection in a sore on his foot. It is pretty bad and is swollen and red. Sharon is going to soak it and put a pollace on it.
Sunday Feb 8
Another Sunday without church. Jim found a problem in the engine today. There was a hole that had rusted through the block right by the output of the water pump. He patched it and tomorrow we will see if it fixed the problem. It sounds like Chris and Tony are planning on leaving tomorrow. They were on the radio talking about going to Mag bay. Perhaps this is where we will part. We will see what happens.
Monday Feb 9, 09
Windstrutter went over to Mag bay and Bright Star stayed here with us. Windstrutter said they would go on down the coast alone if Bright Star wanted to wait for the wind to die down. Chris and Sharon decided to stay. Later in the day Andeauma showed up. They had been surfing and now they returned to the pack.
Our engine overheats worse than ever! Oh dear, What do we do now?
Chris has infection in his foot and we need to try to keep him out of his dingy because it is so wet in the dingy and he cannot get that open sore into the ocean water. It has to heal first. Keeping him out of the water will be a big job.
Jim took the engine apart again. This time he took the back of the engine apart. He has checked everything he knows except the injectors and something else that I don’t remember. He doesn’t have what he needs to get it back together if he takes them apart here.
Tuesday Feb 10, 09
I woke up this morning with a bad knee. I don’t know what is going on but it feels inflamed on the back. I cannot put any weight on it. I will take Ibuprofen and see what happens. We need to get Chris some antibiotics which I have on board. Jim may have to put the dingy into the water again. He hates doing this because the dingy is so big and hard to maneuver even with the halyard to help lift it. We ran out of water in our tanks this morning too. Now we have 3 bottles of 5 gal each. Then we are in trouble. I also need to get to the internet because I need to pay a bill on the 20th. I don’t want to be late with my payment. The winds and waves on the ocean have been predicted to get up to 30 knots with big waves and we don’t want to get out there.
Sharon said that Chris’ foot is better. It has scabbed over and he can get in the dingy as long as he keeps it dry so it doesn’t get reinfected. They are coming over this morning and perhaps we can make bread.
Sharon and Chris came over and Chris helped Jim take the engine apart and put it back together again. Now Jim has rebuilt every part except the head of the engine. All the pumps and the hoses and the things that move the water around the engine work well. But now the engine overheats worse than before. He cannot take the engine block apart in Santa Maria because there are no stores here. He cannot get the parts to put it back together. We will have to continue on with an engine that overheats to boiling in about 10 minutes even when idling. It is much worse now than it was in Ensenada. In Ensenada it worked well enough so that we motored most the way down to Turtle Bay. Now we don’t think we can motor at all.
Wednesday Feb 11
The weather is breaking and we have decided to head south. There is no point in staying here now. There is nothing more we can do to the engine until we get to civilization. The water maker has not worked since we treated it (per the manufactures instructions) with the chemicals to clean the filter.
Jim is totally defeated. He has worked so hard and still things aren’t going right. If the wind isn’t right for sailing we have to depend on the engine. He can’t get it running right so we may have no engine at all. At least he is worried that it won’t keep us off the rocks if we need it to do that. It overheats so fast now that we cannot keep our batteries charged unless we run it many times a day. The water maker won’t work and we are short of water. We are going to try to go as far as Cabo San Jose. But Jim has the responsibility on his shoulders and it is a heavy burden right now. He can’t see his way clear.
Prayer solves my problems. I can depend on God. Jim doesn’t seem to be able to rely on God’s help.
We are leaving tonight! Sharon and Chris are leaving with us. We plan to leave around 5:00pm. If we could go 5 nautical miles per hour, we would arrive in San Jose around 5:00am on Friday.
We left Santa Maria as planned but there was no wind that night. Jim tried several different sail combinations but there was not much wind and we went very slowly. We sailed at one to two nautical miles per hour all hour. The next day things were a little better and at 5:00pm on Thursday we had traveled 60 miles. Jim worked hard changing sails and trying different combinations of sails. The mizzen would not go up the mast. He got the WD40 and that helped. The wind picked up and with the mizzen and the Genoa up we were doing 3 miles per hour most the day. The toilet quit working on this trip and we decided to use a bucket. (We didn’t have a lot of options.) Then the first time we tried to empty the bucket and rinse it out, we lost it overboard. Both the wenches that work the head sail broke during the trip too. The part that holds them together fell off and they came apart. Jim said the threads were stripped on both of them. Then the plastic part that holds the rope from slipping out broke on both of them. This left us pulling in the head sail without the mechanical advantage that we needed.
Late morning we were overtaken by a trimaran called HanaHoy. They were also sailing south but they had left Santa Maria that morning while we had left the night before. We ask them to take a message to Bright Star and let Chris and Sharon know that we were all right but just slow because we could not use the engine. They said they had met Chris in Turtle Bay. That figures, he knows everyone. (Reminds me of Marlow Draney)
The captain on “HanaHoy” said that he was a diesel mechanic and would look us up in San Jose and might be able to help us. We were moving along about as fast as they were at the time and they stayed just in front of us all the rest of the day and into the night. Then around 5:30AM they pulled down their sails and went below and went to bed. Their boat just drifted around and it crossed our path at one point then drifted farther out to sea. We were really surprised but the chance of them being hit was very low so I guess they were all right. We passed them up.
When it got light we could see why they had decided to stop and take a nap. We were in a parking lot for fishing trollers. There were about 300 fishing boats mulling around trying to catch fish. We figured that HanaHoy had decided to wait and fish in the morning.
We could see the end of the Baja Peninsula in front of us about 3 hours away.
Feb 13, 2009
As we rounded the cape (Cabo) we spotted 2 whales playing in the water about 200 feet from the boat. We saw the famous rock formation that is in so many advertisements. And there was a cruise ship in the bay. Then we heard Windstrutter calling Chris and Sharon on the radio. Later they told us that they had stopped here because they had engine problems and could not continue on. They had called for help and Wind Strutter had called them back on the radio. Wind Strutter had stopped here too because they had engine problems. They told us to pull in too because there was a free anchorage with free internet right here. This was about 2:00pm in the afternoon.
We didn’t know if we could sail into the bay or not. Jim wasn’t confidant and the wind was coming straight out of the harbor. You cannot sail directly into the wind and we did not have a motor. We tried to tack back and forth in a zig zag line to get into the bay. There was a lot of traffic and the sails were not easy to adjust. We would go one way then try to turn to go the other and something would be in the way or we couldn’t get the sails changed fast enough and we would stop dead in the water. This happened many many times. Then we tried going in as far as we could and starting the engine to try to go the rest of the way but it was too far and the engine got hot too fast. We got more and more discouraged. If we couldn’t get in here, we couldn’t get in anywhere. We kept trying. The sun went down and we still tried. It got later and later and we still tried.
Around 9:00 it was evident that we just could not get into the harbor with our sails and our engine would not take us in either. We called Chris and Sharon to tell them that we were going to go on to the next harbor because we could not get the boat into the bay.
Chris was not there. We called Wind Strutter to have them relay a message to Chris. Tony said they would see if they could come up with a solution. A few minutes later, Tony called back to say that the Mexican Navy was on their way.
Oh No!! That was the last thing we needed. We couldn’t even speak Spanish. If they could help, we may be charged for their service. They may find a reason the take our boat. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want the navy involved.
We kept praying and trying to call Chris and Sharon. Sharon had been trying to get a hold of Chris who was on the beach with Tera his sister who is sailing with them.
Then Sharon called us back. She said that she had guests there that evening and they would come and tow us in. Some people who Chris had met on the beach and invited to come to his boat that evening, just happened to have a tow rope and they have done it before with their other boat.
The catamaran called “Puddy Tat” pulled us into the bay. We anchored and then they went back to visit with Chris and Sharon. And we thought God had forgotten about us!! Here we were down here in a strange land without knowing the language or the people. Someone with experience towing a boat just happened to be sitting in the cabin of a boat where our friends were. They had just met that day. And they had decided to visit that night and be there waiting to help us when we needed it.
On this trip we had the toilet get clogged up, 2 wenches broke, the sails didn’t want to work, we lost our only bucket, the water maker quit working, and the clothes closet got mildew in it. We are glad we are in a safe port at last.
This isn’t the place we planned on coming but it is beautiful. Jim said it reminds him of Hawaii. Resorts line the beaches with tables and chairs outside all along them. We are in the middle of a beautiful bay with palm trees everywhere. There are skee-doos and sail boats and tour boats and boats pulling parachutes everywhere. There are pirate ships that give tours and provide entertainment. There is a huge mall on the beach. There is music in the air. There is a boat like the one we rode on in Puerto Rico where they had a dance hall on the boat. (Steve and Amy will remember) And we are stuck here in the most expensive resort area in Mexico until we get our engine fixed! Tough luck!! I guess we may as well sit back and enjoy it. (But it would be nice to have some water.)
Feb 14 Jim spent the day taking the toilet apart and fixing it. We also went the Chris and Sharon’s and ate lunch. Jim worked on their antenna and Tony worked on their engine starter.
Chris hurt his knee during their emergency landing here. Today it is swollen and red. We are encouraging him to stay off it for a while. He also drank alcohol last night and his is sick today. Chris has cirrhosis of the liver and should not be drinking at all. But he has a hard time staying down.
During the evening Silva and Dave from “Puddy Tat” came over and visited, bringing their own refreshments with them. (Rum and pistachios) She is from South Africa and he is from England. She said that in South Africa they consider it rude to drop in on someone without bringing refreshments. Since your host should not be expected to have things on hand.
Sunday, Feb 15
Last night the toilet quit working again. Jim needs a day off!!
Today Sharon and I went grocery shopping. It is very expensive here but we really needed supplies. The only eggs we have had for the last two weeks are powdered eggs that Wendy sent as a surprise when we had our material delivered to a friend’s friend in San Diego last fall. We still have water and we can get some now because there is a dingy dock here. We can use our dingy. It doesn’t cost anything to anchor out in the bay. I guess I will have to try washing our clothes in salt water again. I decided last time that I wouldn’t do that again, but I guess I will.
Jim took the dog to the beach today. He walked around looking for a Chandlery (boat supply store).
When we got back from grocery shopping, we learned that Chris is very sick. He has been running a fever and having chills all day. His temperature is 101. I told him that if he were my patient, I would call an ambulance and send him to the hospital. Sharon is doing all she can and he has decided to stay in bed.
Windstrutter leaves in the morning for LaPaz. Cat’s Paw was here when we got here but they have gone on. Pisces arrived yesterday and they will stay a few days. I guess that if we are all going the same direction it is not so strange that we keep bumping into each other.
The Great Exodus from Turtle Bay
We left Turtle Bay yesterday around noon. Before we left I went to shore and tried to bind Marsadies’ broken rib but I didn’t have the proper brace. I tried to use an ace wrap which was a total failure. Now I wish I would have left it alone. She would probably have been more comfortable without the ace wrap because it just kept rolling up into a little ball. Then when I wanted to take it off she said it helped a little so I left it on. Now I am worrying about it. Wish I would have left it alone or at least removed the ace wrap when it didn’t stay in place. Too late now! I hope she took it off.
Chris and Sharon left on “Bright Star” this morning. With them went “Wind Strutter” and “On-Verra”. “Wind Strutter” is a larger boat and they invited Isabel and Russ to ride with them. Isabel has relatives down here and she will be a big help to us all when we stop at Abreojos to see the whales because she speaks Spanish and knows these people. We all love her and Russ and we are glad they came. The “caravan” wanted to leave at 4:00AM for some reason that I didn’t understand. “Andauma” left a little later. Jim and I decided to leave around noon. We decided to travel straight through to Abreojos (Ab-bray-OH-hoz) where the whale reserve is. (The name of the place is a command to open your eyes.) We expected to arrive around 7:00AM the next morning. The other boats were going to stop and rest at Asuncion harbor about half way there. Then they would meet us at Abreojos the day we arrived.
We left the harbor with a mild wind behind us and began our journey. The seas were big. That means we had a very bumpy ride. It reminded me of taking a house for a roller coaster ride except that the roller coaster moved more side to side than up and down. About four hours out of Turtle Bay we saw some whale spouts. We knew we were on the right path.
The waves were pretty rough. Sometimes the waves were about 8 feet tall. Most of the time they didn’t break, they just rolled and so did we. It was impossible to get any sleep. We ate a few sandwiches but not much else because it was just too rough and we were too busy to think about food.
We planned on making water with our water maker while we traveled but when Jim hooked it up we found that it no longer worked. We paid 3,000 dollars for it just a few months ago and now it doesn’t work. We don’t know why it stopped working. This means we need to be really careful with water. We didn’t fill our tanks before we left because we thought we could make water on the way and fill them while we traveled.
Monday Jan 27th
We arrived safely at Abreojos around 7:00 AM as planned and were grateful to find a safe harbor. We both ache all over from holding on while the boat rocked and we are both dead tired, even though I did get a little sleep this morning. I am sure we are doing things wrong. If everyone finds sailing so much work, no one would be doing it except as hard labor punishment. But we are here. And we are safe.
Now I see that we would have been better off to leave at 4:00 AM and stop for the night like everyone else did. I couldn’t see it before but we are beat and when we passed Asuncion we wished we could pull in there for a break. But we kept on going because it was dark and we didn’t want to try to enter the harbor or anchor in the dark.
After resting a few hours in Abreojos, we heard Alicia from“On-Verra” calling us on the radio. They had come through from Asuncion alone while everyone else stayed to rest. Alicia told us that Isabel was sick the whole trip. The other boats are planning to lay over there an extra day in hopes that the sea will calm down. They will be here tomorrow. We are glad for the rest and will have a chance to get caught up on our sleep before we go whale watching.
As the day rolled on the wind got worse and the waves got bigger and bigger. Jim was really concerned about our anchor’s ability to hold us here in an unprotected harbor. Our bow roller is not very strong and the anchor chain is not marked so he can’t tell how much chain he really has out. The amount of chain you put out is important to the holding power of the anchor. You should use 5 times as much chain as you have depth of water when you anchor.
After the wind came up, Alicia called on the radio to tell us that they were going on. They would rather be sailing than waiting in these rough conditions. We decided to wait since we had told Chris and Sharon we would be here.
The winds picked up and the boat crashed and pitched from side to side and from end to end. Toward evening we were both getting really worried. Jim suggested that this would be a good time for one of those prayers so I started praying. I prayed that nothing would break and that we would be safe and come through the wind storm unharmed.
After that I went below and took more seasick medicine. I had a great feeling of calmness come over me and I felt like we had an angel hovering over us to protect us. The calmness was so intense that it felt like I could reach out and touch it. I began praying silently that Jim would feel it too, so that he could relax and get some sleep. The wind howled outside and the boat rocked and rolled but inside the boat was so peaceful that it was like another world.
That night Jim decided to sleep on the settee so he could get up faster if he needed to. He got up several times during the night but said he slept quite well after about 2:00AM . I slept as well as I have ever slept on the boat. When we awoke my muscles were sore but the wind had subsided. I think that is the first bad windstorm we have been through where nothing broke! Not one thing!
We decided to wait one more day for the other boats. If they do not come we will go on to the next stop. Santa Maria has much better protection than Abreojos.
Jim keeps saying that the further south we go, the colder it gets. I agree. It doesn’t seem to be getting any warmer.
Thursday January 29th
The other boats still haven’t arrived and we really think we need more protection than we get here because we are exposed to the ocean front here. We wanted to see the whales with Isabel and Russ but it isn’t worth the risk of another wind storm. Jim said that if the winds blow from the ocean side we would be in big trouble so we are going to go on to the next stop which is Santa Maria.
The day was peaceful at sea. This was the kind of day that Jim has been dreaming about for so many years. There was a little breeze and we just moved slowly across the water. The water had ripples but no big waves. We just enjoyed the day. And we saw a sea turtle! I thought they were extinct but we actually saw one just about 10 feet from the boat. He was just swimming along like he belonged there. I was really thrilled to get to see him. We only went about 70 miles all day and all night.
Friday Jan 30th
Another peaceful day at sea. But today was too peaceful. There wasn’t any wind after the first few hours. We tried to motor but our engine overheats so we have to go very slow. We were moving at about 1 to 2 miles per hour all day and all night. It was obvious that we were not going to get to Santa Maria till way after dark. We didn’t want to try to maneuver past the opening and anchor in the dark so we decided to go right on by and then turn around. We figured that if we went 7 miles past the opening then turned around and went back we should arrive about sun rise. This was a good plan but a little wind picked up and we moved a little faster than 1 mile per hour. We arrived back at the opening to the bay around 4:00AM. Jim started into the bay. There was a boat and a mountain on his left side. He went up to lower the main sail. After he finished the boat and the mountain had vanished. It took a while to get his bearings again. The fog had come in and covered the mountain and boat completely in just the space of a few minutes. It took him a while to figure out what had happened. He decided to leave the bay and come back after it got light. By the time we had left the bay and traveled back into the ocean again there was enough light to maneuver so we went back into the bay again.
Saturday Jan 31st
We moved into the bay with the first rays of the sunshine. The fog moved around the mountains and the rocks, making things look like a fairy land in the sunrise. There was another boat there on the radar screen so we stayed away from the area where they were anchored. We couldn’t see them in the fog and we knew there wasn’t much chance “On-Veera” would still be there.
After we got anchored we got a call on the radio. It was “On-Veera”! Alicia and Alfred were still here. We were very tired after getting very little sleep for the last two nights. We made arrangements to meet with them later and we set about getting things in order enough so that we could crawl into bed and get some much needed sleep.
I tried to shower in salt water before I went to bed. I don’t see how people do it. The soap doesn’t work at all. The shampoo doesn’t work either. I just ended up using regular water and being really careful not to use too much.
Sun Feb 1st
Today we feel better. Jim is going to try to fix the engine but he doesn’t have the tools he needs and there are no stores here. He will have to be careful not to take too much of the engine apart because he cannot get parts here to get it going again.
It is Sunday but we cannot go to church because there isn’t one.
Santa Maria is a cove that has a small fishing camp and a few houses scattered on the hill side. I don’t know if anyone really lives here full time. If we could land the dingy we could talk to people (in Spanish?) and find out if anyone lives here, but we can’t land the dingy because it is too heavy to pull out of the water and onto the beach. Maybe we can take it for a ride around the bay tomorrow and try out the new motor.
Alicia and Alfred came over this morning and visited for a while. They told us a little about themselves. They have been sailing together for 5 years. They have been around the world and then some. They are planning to go to LaPaz and then up the Sea of Cortez in the spring so we may meet them again later. They will leave their boat up at the north end of the Sea of Cortez and go for a walk. They are planning on walking from Mexico to Canada. They have done long walks before. Once they hiked around the bottom of Mount Everest. No, not all the way around it. But they said there are lots of trails to hike on, in the foot hills there. They also walked from Maine to Vermont one time. They are walking every chance they get so they will be in good shape for the walk. Alicia got her first sailboat when she was 12. She has been sailing ever since. She said her father always wanted to go sail around the world but never had the chance. She was determined she was going to do it and she has. They use a kayak for a dingy. She doesn’t like dingys with outboard motors. She would rather row because she can depend on herself more than on a motor. She is a very small lady. But a powerhouse just the same.
And they saw a sea turtle on their way down too! It was the same color and size as the one we saw! I can hardly believe that we all saw the same turtle on different days in the same ocean. The ocean is just too big! I don’t know how that could happen. But now you know all about Alicia and Alfred.
Jim took apart some of the hoses on the engine and tried to find the reason it was over heating. He doesn’t think he fixed anything but tomorrow we will go for a ride and see if it gets hot.
He caught 4 fish today but they were small so he threw them back. We need to get bigger fish if we are going to flay them. We are conserving water and are still using the water we had left in our tanks. We also have 4 bottles of 5 gallons each. One of them is only part way full since Jim had to put water back into the engine after working on it.
Feb 2, Monday
This morning we decided we will need to leave here when our water tanks are empty. It is 180 miles to Cabo San Lucas where we can get more water. We need at least 3 bottles of 5 gallons each to be sure we can make it. If we still have engine problems we may need to continue on at 1 to 2 miles per hour. That could take us a week to get there. We certainly hope that won’t happen. We hope the engine will be fixed and that the wind will blow enough so that we can have a pleasant sail down the coast and around the corner to Cabo San Lucas. But since water is necessary, we need to plan on the worst case scenario. We want to wait for Bright Star but if they are not here when our water tanks get empty, we better go on alone. We are also getting low on propane. We don’t know for sure how much we have but we know we are using the small tank and the large tank is empty. We know we can survive without propane. But we need water!
Jim was fishing this morning while I washed dishes and straightened the cabin, etc. He keeps catching all these strange fish. One had long fins on top like an angel fish. I didn’t want to cook it so he threw it back. He caught a little bass and several others that he thought might be tuna. We don’t know which are which. I do know a yellow tail tuna because I saw one of those. Two of the fish he caught were blow fish. They puff themselves up to prevent other fish from eating them. They are poisonous and he threw them back. He threw all the fish he caught today back because the other day I tried to flay one of the fish he caught and we realized that the little ones are not worth the trouble of flaying them. We need bigger fish to flay them. But the ones he threw back were bigger than most trout you catch in Utah. I wish we knew which ones were eatable. We will buy a book when we get to a city.
Around noon a ponga boat with three fishermen came by and traded us some lobster for some spam and corned beef in cans. They wanted something to drink and were disappointed when we didn’t have anything to drink on board. I was excited to try out the lobster salad that Isabel taught me to make. We had to use the lobster right away. We are not supposed to have lobster on board because it is illegal to catch it here. I went ahead and made the salad and it turned out ok, but not as good as it was at Isabel’s. I think that perhaps the company we had that day made it taste better. It was still good. Isabel calls lobster “poor man’s food” in Mexico. This is because so many people here earn their living by catching and selling lobster so they have plenty of it for themselves too.
After lunch we moved the boat to another spot in the bay so that we could see if the motor still overheats. It does. Jim will tear into it again this afternoon or tomorrow.
Wednesday Feb 4, 009 Happy Birthday Tony!!
Yesterday “Cat’s Paw” and “Mollyhock” showed up here in Santa Maria. This is the first time we have met Pam and George from “Mollyhock”. They travel with “Cat’s Paw”. We already knew Cynthia and Rick and it was good to see familiar faces. Cynthia and Rick sold us a propane tank that was full. They were going to sell it when they reached LaPaz. We needed to buy a second one so it worked out well and solved our propane problem too. Then they invited us over for dinner and fed us with fajitas and lobster. (The fishing boat had been by during the day and traded them lobster for canned meat.) The fajitas were very good and she gave me the recipe which I was glad to get. They suggested that we go “next door” to Mag Bay where we can get more water if we need it. Hay! What a great idea! We hadn’t even thought about that. We may do that but Jim is still running the water maker and making salty water. He thinks it is getting better. I think it is wishful thinking.
He worked on the engine again today but still didn’t find the problem
Feb 5, Thursday
There is fog here every morning. It is about 11:00AM and the fog is just starting to lift. The air is so moist that this morning there was steam on the mirrors when we got up. We have decided to leave tomorrow if the other boats don’t come in today. They may have gone on by. We have done so much waiting since we left Ensenada, first at Turtle Bay and now down here. We need to get down to LaPaz so we can get a dingy we can handle, so that we can get on and off the boat. We just put the dingy back on the boat and it took about an hour just to lift it up with the halyard. It is more than we can handle. If we are going to be successful at sailing, we need a dingy we can handle! I have been off the boat only once since we left Turtle Bay. That was the day before yesterday when we went to “Cat’s Paw”. I am getting stir crazy! It may sound fun to be able to read and do needle work but it is not fun if you have to read the same books over and over. I get tired of studying Spanish and can only do it for so long. I make bread and rolls and read and work on my cross stitch but I must either lie on the bed, sit at the table (which is very uncomfortable) or sit in the cockpit all day long in the wind or the sun or whatever. Oh yah, the cabin still needs to be cleaned and meals need to be fixed but I cannot wash clothes because of the water situation. So I sit and wait.
I am trying to use my time constructively by losing weight (unsuccessfully), studying Spanish and being patient but my patience is about shot.
Jim will work on the engine again today and we will leave tomorrow if he finds the problem or not.
8:00pm
We think Jim fixed the problem with the engine!!!
We leave in the morning. We decided to go to Mag bay and get water. We have heard that a storm is coming and Jim is thinking of putting in there till it passes. We have waited here for a week and we waited at Abreojos for 2 days. We may never see Chris and Sharon again if we leave but they have probably gone on by so there is no point in waiting anymore. We are really sad that they didn’t come. They must have changed their plans.
Friday Feb 6, 2009 Happy Birthday Jim and Grant H
Jim’s birthday present was getting the engine to run cool, but when he started the engine this morning it was heating up again. And it is worse now than ever.
We woke up this morning to a bay full of boats that had come in during the night. The Del Ray yacht clubs race to LaPaz is here. But still no Chris and Sharon. But then, a few hours later we spotted a boat coming into the harbor. It was them!!! Chris and Sharon made it. They didn’t pass by and go on to the next port!!
Chris and Sharon arrived tired to the bone! A few hours later “Windstrutter” came in with Tony and Jackie on board. They all slept and recuperated all day.
Saturday Morning Feb 7,
Chris asked Jim if he could help him get back the halyard to his mizzen sail. The rope that holds up the sail had come undone somehow during the rough ride they had during the night and now Chris would have to climb the mast to get the rope and reconnect it. Jim was glad to go help.
We heard Jackie call and invite them to go to shore and to town with her. They plan on calling a ponga. I really don’t think that is an option here. And there isn’t a town here either. But since I haven’t been on shore myself and I am only going by what Alicia said, I let it go. Jackie invited us all to have dinner with her on “Windstrutter” tonight. I will make a fruit salad and we will all go to Windstrutter to talk about our adventures.
At dinner we found that Chris has infection in a sore on his foot. It is pretty bad and is swollen and red. Sharon is going to soak it and put a pollace on it.
Sunday Feb 8
Another Sunday without church. Jim found a problem in the engine today. There was a hole that had rusted through the block right by the output of the water pump. He patched it and tomorrow we will see if it fixed the problem. It sounds like Chris and Tony are planning on leaving tomorrow. They were on the radio talking about going to Mag bay. Perhaps this is where we will part. We will see what happens.
Monday Feb 9, 09
Windstrutter went over to Mag bay and Bright Star stayed here with us. Windstrutter said they would go on down the coast alone if Bright Star wanted to wait for the wind to die down. Chris and Sharon decided to stay. Later in the day Andeauma showed up. They had been surfing and now they returned to the pack.
Our engine overheats worse than ever! Oh dear, What do we do now?
Chris has infection in his foot and we need to try to keep him out of his dingy because it is so wet in the dingy and he cannot get that open sore into the ocean water. It has to heal first. Keeping him out of the water will be a big job.
Jim took the engine apart again. This time he took the back of the engine apart. He has checked everything he knows except the injectors and something else that I don’t remember. He doesn’t have what he needs to get it back together if he takes them apart here.
Tuesday Feb 10, 09
I woke up this morning with a bad knee. I don’t know what is going on but it feels inflamed on the back. I cannot put any weight on it. I will take Ibuprofen and see what happens. We need to get Chris some antibiotics which I have on board. Jim may have to put the dingy into the water again. He hates doing this because the dingy is so big and hard to maneuver even with the halyard to help lift it. We ran out of water in our tanks this morning too. Now we have 3 bottles of 5 gal each. Then we are in trouble. I also need to get to the internet because I need to pay a bill on the 20th. I don’t want to be late with my payment. The winds and waves on the ocean have been predicted to get up to 30 knots with big waves and we don’t want to get out there.
Sharon said that Chris’ foot is better. It has scabbed over and he can get in the dingy as long as he keeps it dry so it doesn’t get reinfected. They are coming over this morning and perhaps we can make bread.
Sharon and Chris came over and Chris helped Jim take the engine apart and put it back together again. Now Jim has rebuilt every part except the head of the engine. All the pumps and the hoses and the things that move the water around the engine work well. But now the engine overheats worse than before. He cannot take the engine block apart in Santa Maria because there are no stores here. He cannot get the parts to put it back together. We will have to continue on with an engine that overheats to boiling in about 10 minutes even when idling. It is much worse now than it was in Ensenada. In Ensenada it worked well enough so that we motored most the way down to Turtle Bay. Now we don’t think we can motor at all.
Wednesday Feb 11
The weather is breaking and we have decided to head south. There is no point in staying here now. There is nothing more we can do to the engine until we get to civilization. The water maker has not worked since we treated it (per the manufactures instructions) with the chemicals to clean the filter.
Jim is totally defeated. He has worked so hard and still things aren’t going right. If the wind isn’t right for sailing we have to depend on the engine. He can’t get it running right so we may have no engine at all. At least he is worried that it won’t keep us off the rocks if we need it to do that. It overheats so fast now that we cannot keep our batteries charged unless we run it many times a day. The water maker won’t work and we are short of water. We are going to try to go as far as Cabo San Jose. But Jim has the responsibility on his shoulders and it is a heavy burden right now. He can’t see his way clear.
Prayer solves my problems. I can depend on God. Jim doesn’t seem to be able to rely on God’s help.
We are leaving tonight! Sharon and Chris are leaving with us. We plan to leave around 5:00pm. If we could go 5 nautical miles per hour, we would arrive in San Jose around 5:00am on Friday.
We left Santa Maria as planned but there was no wind that night. Jim tried several different sail combinations but there was not much wind and we went very slowly. We sailed at one to two nautical miles per hour all hour. The next day things were a little better and at 5:00pm on Thursday we had traveled 60 miles. Jim worked hard changing sails and trying different combinations of sails. The mizzen would not go up the mast. He got the WD40 and that helped. The wind picked up and with the mizzen and the Genoa up we were doing 3 miles per hour most the day. The toilet quit working on this trip and we decided to use a bucket. (We didn’t have a lot of options.) Then the first time we tried to empty the bucket and rinse it out, we lost it overboard. Both the wenches that work the head sail broke during the trip too. The part that holds them together fell off and they came apart. Jim said the threads were stripped on both of them. Then the plastic part that holds the rope from slipping out broke on both of them. This left us pulling in the head sail without the mechanical advantage that we needed.
Late morning we were overtaken by a trimaran called HanaHoy. They were also sailing south but they had left Santa Maria that morning while we had left the night before. We ask them to take a message to Bright Star and let Chris and Sharon know that we were all right but just slow because we could not use the engine. They said they had met Chris in Turtle Bay. That figures, he knows everyone. (Reminds me of Marlow Draney)
The captain on “HanaHoy” said that he was a diesel mechanic and would look us up in San Jose and might be able to help us. We were moving along about as fast as they were at the time and they stayed just in front of us all the rest of the day and into the night. Then around 5:30AM they pulled down their sails and went below and went to bed. Their boat just drifted around and it crossed our path at one point then drifted farther out to sea. We were really surprised but the chance of them being hit was very low so I guess they were all right. We passed them up.
When it got light we could see why they had decided to stop and take a nap. We were in a parking lot for fishing trollers. There were about 300 fishing boats mulling around trying to catch fish. We figured that HanaHoy had decided to wait and fish in the morning.
We could see the end of the Baja Peninsula in front of us about 3 hours away.
Feb 13, 2009
As we rounded the cape (Cabo) we spotted 2 whales playing in the water about 200 feet from the boat. We saw the famous rock formation that is in so many advertisements. And there was a cruise ship in the bay. Then we heard Windstrutter calling Chris and Sharon on the radio. Later they told us that they had stopped here because they had engine problems and could not continue on. They had called for help and Wind Strutter had called them back on the radio. Wind Strutter had stopped here too because they had engine problems. They told us to pull in too because there was a free anchorage with free internet right here. This was about 2:00pm in the afternoon.
We didn’t know if we could sail into the bay or not. Jim wasn’t confidant and the wind was coming straight out of the harbor. You cannot sail directly into the wind and we did not have a motor. We tried to tack back and forth in a zig zag line to get into the bay. There was a lot of traffic and the sails were not easy to adjust. We would go one way then try to turn to go the other and something would be in the way or we couldn’t get the sails changed fast enough and we would stop dead in the water. This happened many many times. Then we tried going in as far as we could and starting the engine to try to go the rest of the way but it was too far and the engine got hot too fast. We got more and more discouraged. If we couldn’t get in here, we couldn’t get in anywhere. We kept trying. The sun went down and we still tried. It got later and later and we still tried.
Around 9:00 it was evident that we just could not get into the harbor with our sails and our engine would not take us in either. We called Chris and Sharon to tell them that we were going to go on to the next harbor because we could not get the boat into the bay.
Chris was not there. We called Wind Strutter to have them relay a message to Chris. Tony said they would see if they could come up with a solution. A few minutes later, Tony called back to say that the Mexican Navy was on their way.
Oh No!! That was the last thing we needed. We couldn’t even speak Spanish. If they could help, we may be charged for their service. They may find a reason the take our boat. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want the navy involved.
We kept praying and trying to call Chris and Sharon. Sharon had been trying to get a hold of Chris who was on the beach with Tera his sister who is sailing with them.
Then Sharon called us back. She said that she had guests there that evening and they would come and tow us in. Some people who Chris had met on the beach and invited to come to his boat that evening, just happened to have a tow rope and they have done it before with their other boat.
The catamaran called “Puddy Tat” pulled us into the bay. We anchored and then they went back to visit with Chris and Sharon. And we thought God had forgotten about us!! Here we were down here in a strange land without knowing the language or the people. Someone with experience towing a boat just happened to be sitting in the cabin of a boat where our friends were. They had just met that day. And they had decided to visit that night and be there waiting to help us when we needed it.
On this trip we had the toilet get clogged up, 2 wenches broke, the sails didn’t want to work, we lost our only bucket, the water maker quit working, and the clothes closet got mildew in it. We are glad we are in a safe port at last.
This isn’t the place we planned on coming but it is beautiful. Jim said it reminds him of Hawaii. Resorts line the beaches with tables and chairs outside all along them. We are in the middle of a beautiful bay with palm trees everywhere. There are skee-doos and sail boats and tour boats and boats pulling parachutes everywhere. There are pirate ships that give tours and provide entertainment. There is a huge mall on the beach. There is music in the air. There is a boat like the one we rode on in Puerto Rico where they had a dance hall on the boat. (Steve and Amy will remember) And we are stuck here in the most expensive resort area in Mexico until we get our engine fixed! Tough luck!! I guess we may as well sit back and enjoy it. (But it would be nice to have some water.)
Feb 14 Jim spent the day taking the toilet apart and fixing it. We also went the Chris and Sharon’s and ate lunch. Jim worked on their antenna and Tony worked on their engine starter.
Chris hurt his knee during their emergency landing here. Today it is swollen and red. We are encouraging him to stay off it for a while. He also drank alcohol last night and his is sick today. Chris has cirrhosis of the liver and should not be drinking at all. But he has a hard time staying down.
During the evening Silva and Dave from “Puddy Tat” came over and visited, bringing their own refreshments with them. (Rum and pistachios) She is from South Africa and he is from England. She said that in South Africa they consider it rude to drop in on someone without bringing refreshments. Since your host should not be expected to have things on hand.
Sunday, Feb 15
Last night the toilet quit working again. Jim needs a day off!!
Today Sharon and I went grocery shopping. It is very expensive here but we really needed supplies. The only eggs we have had for the last two weeks are powdered eggs that Wendy sent as a surprise when we had our material delivered to a friend’s friend in San Diego last fall. We still have water and we can get some now because there is a dingy dock here. We can use our dingy. It doesn’t cost anything to anchor out in the bay. I guess I will have to try washing our clothes in salt water again. I decided last time that I wouldn’t do that again, but I guess I will.
Jim took the dog to the beach today. He walked around looking for a Chandlery (boat supply store).
When we got back from grocery shopping, we learned that Chris is very sick. He has been running a fever and having chills all day. His temperature is 101. I told him that if he were my patient, I would call an ambulance and send him to the hospital. Sharon is doing all she can and he has decided to stay in bed.
Windstrutter leaves in the morning for LaPaz. Cat’s Paw was here when we got here but they have gone on. Pisces arrived yesterday and they will stay a few days. I guess that if we are all going the same direction it is not so strange that we keep bumping into each other.
Friday, January 16th
We are still here! Waiting. I wrote to our old neighbor in Ensenada to ask him to see if he could contact the boat that is bringing us our dingy motor. He will do that and let us know when “Cat’s Paw” will be headed this way. That will help!
It is beautiful out here today. The water is peaceful and calm. The breeze is soft and the sky is blue. There are a few dolphins out today and many seagulls and even a few pelicans fishing in the bay. Other than that there are 3 sail boats left here. Chris and Sharon on “Bright Star” are still here and there is another boat here named “Andiahma” (And-de-ah-ma). We three have been here for quite a while. Andiahma came in during a wind storm on Christmas and their boat was grounded on the beach. They had to cut away their anchor and are trying to find it and retrieve it. It looks like someone has taken it and is using the chain for a buoy mooring. They can’t prove it unless they can find the anchor at the bottom but the end is buried and they haven’t been able to see the anchor.
Jim is fishing and I am thinking about washing out a few clothes after lunch. I have been answering email all morning. I feel like I need to get busy. I am not accomplishing much. I am working on a cross stitch and reading a book in my spare time but it doesn’t seem natural to just sit around and read or sew. I guess it is. It seems like I should be doing something. I am not use to having time to do things like this. I am sure I will relax and enjoy it after a while. After all this is what I wanted to do.
Yesterday a boat came in called “Wind Strutter”. Tony and Jackie told us that they met “Cat’s Paw” on the way down and it is still coming. They are pulling into a port each night because a lady on board does not want to travel at night. I didn’t know there were that many places you could pull in between here and Ensenada. We were glad to know they are still coming. Chris brought us water today. We really feel handicapped without a dingy. But Chris is always willing to help.
“Aundiahma’s crew is still looking for their chain and anchor. The chain is unusual because it is stainless steel just like the new chain on the buoy. The men have not been able to uncover the bottom of the chain to see if the anchor is attached.
The boat owners, Dave and Maureen, bought new chain today. Of course you cannot get stainless steel chain around here so he just bought galvanized steel. And another boater sold him an anchor so he can continue on his way.
We spent the last two nights at the palaypa eating fish tacos. Marsadies let us help make them and now we know her secrets. The first night she breaded and fried the fish. Last night she made a delicious pocket of fish with vegetables to unwrap and put in tacos. She used foil but she said they usually use banana leaves. She didn’t have any on hand. Then tonight she invited us back again for another kind of fish tacos but Jim and I stayed on the boat. We are short of cash and decided we would be better off if we just stayed here and fed ourselves. That is fine because I have a fresh batch of bread and some soup in the Fridge.
Jan 23, 09
Our ship came in last night!!! Finally! They got onto a sand bar and got stuck for a while. I haven’t heard the details but we are glad they are all right. Today they brought us the motor and several bronze wool pads for scrubbing steel and teak. Most surprising of all is the fact that Downwind wasn’t mixed up when they said that Rick and Cynthia were on a 41 food “CT” like ours. This is the first one we have seen since we left Salt Lake, (except ours of course). We thought Downwind was mixed up and gave us the description of our own boat instead of theirs. But they didn’t. We spent a pleasant afternoon visiting and learning about all the improvements they have made to the boat they have. They do have some good ideas!
Yesterday “Wind Strutter” had a get together and invited most of the people here including Russ and Isabel. It was good to see them again. Since our dingy is so hard to maneuver we have been pretty well stuck on the boat. That isn’t entirely true since we can always call a taxi and Chris has volunteered to chauffer us back and forth. I really dislike the taxis because they are so dirty inside and Chris is always busy. We hate to ask him. So we just stay here on the boat. But after a few days I get “cabin fever”. Maybe tomorrow we will call a taxi and go over and look at “Cat’s Paw” and actually see all these wonderful features they added.
For now Jim is planning our course to leave. I really wanted to stop and see where the whales come to breed and give birth to their young. Jim doesn’t want to leave the boat that long. He has some good points but I still want to stop. I know I can push the issue but I know he is feeling the responsibility for our safety really heavy. I guess I will wait and see if he decides to do it on his own. Maybe I should reconsider my opinion but why have a boat and go sailing if you aren’t going to go to shore and see things?
Jan 24, 09
Today was a great day! I went to shore with Sharon and washed clothes at Isabel’s house. I took a shower too. She has lots of hot water and she and Russ are very helpful. Russ came home from fishing with a couple fish. Each one was about 20 inches long. Isabel taught me to flay a fish. Russ also brought home some lobsters and so Isabel taught me to cook lobster and make the most delicious lobster salad. We ate it for lunch. Chris, Maureen and Dave and Tony and Jackie all showed up too.
Our plans are made to leave here. I guess everyone is going together early tomorrow morning. Jim and I prefer to leave later in the day. We will leave here tomorrow afternoon and travel straight through for about 20 hours till we get to the Whale Reserve. Everyone else will leave around 5 in the morning. They will travel about 50 miles then stop for the night. They will leave that spot early the next morning and meet us down at the Whale Reserve. We expect that it will take us about 20 hours of travel to get there.
We may spend a day or two there. Maybe longer. Then we will go on to LaPaz where I will try to contact my family again as soon as we get an internet connection. I don’t know how long that will take but the trip from the Whale Reserve to LaPaz will probably take about 3 days.
I will stop here because I want to try to send this before we leave here.
We love you all and are thinking about you. I will try to send some pictures. I think my computer processor is very limited. This may be part of the problem I am having. Maybe I just haven’t learned enough to be good at it.
Love,
Donna and Jim
We are still here! Waiting. I wrote to our old neighbor in Ensenada to ask him to see if he could contact the boat that is bringing us our dingy motor. He will do that and let us know when “Cat’s Paw” will be headed this way. That will help!
It is beautiful out here today. The water is peaceful and calm. The breeze is soft and the sky is blue. There are a few dolphins out today and many seagulls and even a few pelicans fishing in the bay. Other than that there are 3 sail boats left here. Chris and Sharon on “Bright Star” are still here and there is another boat here named “Andiahma” (And-de-ah-ma). We three have been here for quite a while. Andiahma came in during a wind storm on Christmas and their boat was grounded on the beach. They had to cut away their anchor and are trying to find it and retrieve it. It looks like someone has taken it and is using the chain for a buoy mooring. They can’t prove it unless they can find the anchor at the bottom but the end is buried and they haven’t been able to see the anchor.
Jim is fishing and I am thinking about washing out a few clothes after lunch. I have been answering email all morning. I feel like I need to get busy. I am not accomplishing much. I am working on a cross stitch and reading a book in my spare time but it doesn’t seem natural to just sit around and read or sew. I guess it is. It seems like I should be doing something. I am not use to having time to do things like this. I am sure I will relax and enjoy it after a while. After all this is what I wanted to do.
Yesterday a boat came in called “Wind Strutter”. Tony and Jackie told us that they met “Cat’s Paw” on the way down and it is still coming. They are pulling into a port each night because a lady on board does not want to travel at night. I didn’t know there were that many places you could pull in between here and Ensenada. We were glad to know they are still coming. Chris brought us water today. We really feel handicapped without a dingy. But Chris is always willing to help.
“Aundiahma’s crew is still looking for their chain and anchor. The chain is unusual because it is stainless steel just like the new chain on the buoy. The men have not been able to uncover the bottom of the chain to see if the anchor is attached.
The boat owners, Dave and Maureen, bought new chain today. Of course you cannot get stainless steel chain around here so he just bought galvanized steel. And another boater sold him an anchor so he can continue on his way.
We spent the last two nights at the palaypa eating fish tacos. Marsadies let us help make them and now we know her secrets. The first night she breaded and fried the fish. Last night she made a delicious pocket of fish with vegetables to unwrap and put in tacos. She used foil but she said they usually use banana leaves. She didn’t have any on hand. Then tonight she invited us back again for another kind of fish tacos but Jim and I stayed on the boat. We are short of cash and decided we would be better off if we just stayed here and fed ourselves. That is fine because I have a fresh batch of bread and some soup in the Fridge.
Jan 23, 09
Our ship came in last night!!! Finally! They got onto a sand bar and got stuck for a while. I haven’t heard the details but we are glad they are all right. Today they brought us the motor and several bronze wool pads for scrubbing steel and teak. Most surprising of all is the fact that Downwind wasn’t mixed up when they said that Rick and Cynthia were on a 41 food “CT” like ours. This is the first one we have seen since we left Salt Lake, (except ours of course). We thought Downwind was mixed up and gave us the description of our own boat instead of theirs. But they didn’t. We spent a pleasant afternoon visiting and learning about all the improvements they have made to the boat they have. They do have some good ideas!
Yesterday “Wind Strutter” had a get together and invited most of the people here including Russ and Isabel. It was good to see them again. Since our dingy is so hard to maneuver we have been pretty well stuck on the boat. That isn’t entirely true since we can always call a taxi and Chris has volunteered to chauffer us back and forth. I really dislike the taxis because they are so dirty inside and Chris is always busy. We hate to ask him. So we just stay here on the boat. But after a few days I get “cabin fever”. Maybe tomorrow we will call a taxi and go over and look at “Cat’s Paw” and actually see all these wonderful features they added.
For now Jim is planning our course to leave. I really wanted to stop and see where the whales come to breed and give birth to their young. Jim doesn’t want to leave the boat that long. He has some good points but I still want to stop. I know I can push the issue but I know he is feeling the responsibility for our safety really heavy. I guess I will wait and see if he decides to do it on his own. Maybe I should reconsider my opinion but why have a boat and go sailing if you aren’t going to go to shore and see things?
Jan 24, 09
Today was a great day! I went to shore with Sharon and washed clothes at Isabel’s house. I took a shower too. She has lots of hot water and she and Russ are very helpful. Russ came home from fishing with a couple fish. Each one was about 20 inches long. Isabel taught me to flay a fish. Russ also brought home some lobsters and so Isabel taught me to cook lobster and make the most delicious lobster salad. We ate it for lunch. Chris, Maureen and Dave and Tony and Jackie all showed up too.
Our plans are made to leave here. I guess everyone is going together early tomorrow morning. Jim and I prefer to leave later in the day. We will leave here tomorrow afternoon and travel straight through for about 20 hours till we get to the Whale Reserve. Everyone else will leave around 5 in the morning. They will travel about 50 miles then stop for the night. They will leave that spot early the next morning and meet us down at the Whale Reserve. We expect that it will take us about 20 hours of travel to get there.
We may spend a day or two there. Maybe longer. Then we will go on to LaPaz where I will try to contact my family again as soon as we get an internet connection. I don’t know how long that will take but the trip from the Whale Reserve to LaPaz will probably take about 3 days.
I will stop here because I want to try to send this before we leave here.
We love you all and are thinking about you. I will try to send some pictures. I think my computer processor is very limited. This may be part of the problem I am having. Maybe I just haven’t learned enough to be good at it.
Love,
Donna and Jim
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About Me
- Donna M. Colbert
- A few years ago, my husband and I bought a boat in Ensenada Mexico. We have traveled back and forth from time to time since then. We sailed down the coast of Baja Calif and into the Sea of Cortez. The boat is currantly in La Paz Mexico. A few months ago we returned to our home in Salt Lake City for a time. We intend to spend some of our time sailing and some of our time in Salt Lake with our family and friends. We have the best of both worlds now.