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Delightfully Messy Mexico!

Nov 3rd, 2011
by Sara.
8 comments

We arrived in Ensenada yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon; we have officially sailed to Mexico! It took us two tries to leave the San Diego Police Dock however. The first time we departed was at 0200, which would give us plenty of time to make the 65 miles to Ensenada, our first port in Mexico by afternoon. We had motored out the channel past Point Loma in the dark and about two miles out I noticed the cat was not in her, I mean Holly’s carseat where she usually rides when the engine is on. We searched all over the boat but quickly knew it was fruitless: she was not on the boat.

A gritty sunrise over Mexico

We did consider not turning around, but for want of a suitable explanation to the girls as to where their cat had gone we turned Wondertime around and  motored back to the Police Dock, cursing once more at our difficult feline crew. We were still a hundred feet away from the dock when we heard the MREOWWWW! of our panicked cat and spotted her standing on the end of the last finger pier waiting for us. We nudged the bow toward the dock, Xena jumped aboard and we were finally off to Mexico.

The next 65 miles held a little of everything for us. Motoring in a glassy sea under a starry sky. Then as the sun rose a startling hot wind began to blow from shore and we had a romping sail for an hour or so in about 20 knots. Dust was blown out to sea, little bits from Mexico and it gave the morning sky a caramel hue like in a Coen Brothers movie. We could feel the grit in our eyes and in our teeth and it stuck to the salt spray on deck. It even brought with it the smell of Mexico: earthy, smoky and human.

Our fun was soon over though and we found ourselves motoring in calm seas once again. Then the southerlies started. Being no purists, or rather not wanting to arrive in Ensenada in the dark (a good thing since the Mexican charts are horrific; our path on our electronic chart travels right over the charted breakwater…) we motored on through light winds on our nose the rest of the day.

Patiently waiting while Mom and Dad ping-pong around the Centro Integral de Servicios completing check-in papers

We arrived in Ensenada at 1530 and docked at Baja Naval, with employees catching two of our lines and a fellow cruiser catching the third. A lovely warm welcome! After securing the boat the four of us meandered up to the marina office through the spotless Baja Naval boatyard to check in. The super friendly manager completed our paperwork quickly. He mentioned that the CIS offices were closed early that day due to it being Dia de los Muertos so we wouldn’t be able to check-in with immigration, customs and the port captain until the next day. “Go have fun in town!” he said with a grin. “No one is going to come chasing you down!”

So we did. We wandered around until we found a restaurant that was a few blocks out of the tourist areas. Oh, how delightful it is to be back in Mexico! It’s such a messy, comfortable place, like going to someone’s home with toys and books everywhere and a fluffy couch with holes and a few stains and you are encouraged to put your feet up. You have to watch your step everywhere you walk because pieces of the sidewalk are bound to be missing. There are unfinished – or under demolition? – buildings scattered amongst hopping, thriving small businesses. Everything is painted in bright colors with bars on the windows. Chickens and dogs dart down alleyways. My favorite part is the people. Friends, couples, families: groups of people everywhere just walking around, sitting, talking, eating standing up around a crowded taco stand. Kissing. Loitering is expected here.

Back to our restaurant. We found a place with the menu in pesos, wooden tables, Mexican music blaring from overhead speakers and señoras busy making fresh tortillas in the open kitchen in the back. We sat down, ordered, and minutes later our waiter returns with delicious carne asada and piping hot corn tortillas. Paired with 27 peso (that’s less than $2USD!) bottles of Negra Modelo it was a celebratory feast we’d come a long way for. And for only $22USD for a family of four, a bargain.

A little dangerous maybe, but still fun

Today we walked over to the Centro Integral de Servicios to check in with Migración, Capitánia de Puerto, and Aduana (customs). While all these offices, including the bank and copy centers, are all located in one building now (hurrah!) the process wasn’t exactly as smooth as promised. Maybe it was because the office was closed early the day before or the workers were a tad hung over from Dia de los Muertos but the lines were long and things got a little confusing at times as we shuffled back and forth from the immigration counter to the bank, back to immigration, to the port captain, etc. The woman helping us with our port captain papers up and went to lunch right in the middle of our turn at the counter. But the customs fellow loved the girls and let them each push the button for the red/green streetlight that indicates if your boat is going to be visited (red) or not (green). It was green both times. After nearly three hours of ping-ponging around the building, he took the customs forms from Michael, and not even looking at them, smiled with a hint of a wink and said “Muy bien!” We were done, officially checked into Mexico.

We gathered up all of our stamped papers and went back outside, blinking in the bright Mexico sun. Smiling, we walked back down the malecon, towards the waterfront playground to let the girls play after being cooped up all morning waiting patiently for all our paperwork to be completed. Some things stay the same.

A Beautiful but Tempestuous Coast

Oct 13th, 2011
by Sara.
2 comments

Since we are well into October we thought it best to boogie down the California coast as quick as we can since frankly, we are tired of wool socks and mildew was still sprouting everywhere on the boat. And we are only weeks away from crossing the border into Mexico. Oh my!

We waited out some southerly weather in Half Moon Bay for a few days, then as soon as it abated started down the coast again towards Monterey Bay. We stopped into Santa Cruz for the night, making the dire mistake of taking the girls for an evening walk to the famous boardwalk. There were copious amounts of tears as we looked through the gates of the darkened amusement park and the charming carousel horses. A couple of scoops of ice-cream though and spirits were soon lifted.

Oh glorious non-moving land!

The next day, after a good romp around the beach, we had a perfect sail across the bay to Monterey: sunny, clear blue skies, steady 12 knots of wind on the beam for 20 miles. Marvelous. We anchored out off the harbor for several nights and enjoyed a day-long visit to the amazing Monterey Bay Aquarium. Heavy swells were predicted to come rolling down from the northwest again (making the anchorage very uncomfortable) so we took to the dock our last two nights in Monterey. We also once again waited out a southerly weather system which brought lots of wind and amazing amounts of rain for the area.

The weather finally shifted in our favor again and we set off for our first overnight sail as a family to Morro Bay. I’m happy to say the night went flawlessly; we left Monterey right at noon and picked up 15-20 knots from the northwest as soon as we cleared the bay and started south. It was a beautiful night: a clear sky full of stars, a nearly-full moon ahead of us, a path of moonlight lighting our course south. The wind stayed with us until after midnight, then it was glassy until our arrival at Morro Bay at 0900 the next morning. Michael and I took our usual watches of 3 hours each and the girls slept through the whole night like it was any other.

We only spent one night in Morro Bay as our weather window to round Point Conception (the “Cape Horn of the Pacific” according to our Charlie’s Charts guidebook) was already upon us with nearly gale-force winds forecast later in the week. So off we were again. The forecast was for 15-20 with gusts of 25 around the Cape so we stayed well off the coast fearing a Blanco-like situation. I was so nervous I got seasick – incapacitatingly seasick — for the very first time ever and Michael had to manage the boat for nearly the entire 100-mile trip. He is truly amazing!

The world's best aquarium (dolphins playing with Wondertime, enroute to Ventura)

The passage turned out to be perfect and my anxiety was all for nothing of course. We rolled out the genoa once outside the Morro Bay bar and sailed the entire way into San Miguel Island. We even got to put our spinnaker up for a few hours just north of Point Conception. Indeed, our highest winds were about 25 knots but Wondertime was just delighted and rolled and boogied down the waves with ease. Michael had to slow the boat down so we could enter the harbor at daybreak and it was such a relief to set the Rocna in the still-windy but non-moving waters of stunning Cuyler Harbor.

Our first day at San Miguel was spent napping and watching movies but on the second day we were fit to launch the dinghy, head ashore with our friends on Convivia, play on the huge sugary sand dunes and watch the white waves roll into shore from the turquoise sea. It was a delightful afternoon.

Until the wind. It was already quite breezy when we took the dinghy into shore but we were all aware that the number of whitecaps on the water were steadily increasing, sand was starting to blow around us and our boats looked like they were rolling a lot more than when we’d left them. It was time to head back. Swell had started to roll into the bay so we had our first dinghy launching into the surf which went flawlessly thankfully.

Hot hot hot!

The next 12 hours were spent clinging to Wondertime as steady 30-knot winds came blasting down the hillsides with sharp williwaws easily twice that speed being thrown at us like daggers. We actually had spindrift flying past us and two foot chop coming from the shore just a few hundred feet in front of us. It was enough wind to pick our new RIB dinghy up and fly it into the air like a kite as we were trying to heave it back onboard between gusts. We slept none too soundly that night.

But our mighty anchor held and the wind had eased by morning. With a huge swell rolling into the bay we were rolling gunnel to gunnel  and were happy to hoist our chain and set off for Ventura. Along the way we shed our fleece, wool socks and hats as the temperature got warmer and warmer with each mile we traveled east. We have finally reached our perpetual summer. And a calm harbor for a long, long, nap.

Prying ourselves loose from the Bay

Sep 29th, 2011
by Sara.
4 comments

Sausalito has really really sticky mud. And nearly all of Richardson Bay has depths of 15 feet or less which means that about 50 feet of our 60 feet of scope was smothered in thick, black, gooey muck when we finally cranked it in for the last time yesterday. Despite taking an absurdly long time to wash the chain off with our bucket, the process wasn’t nearly as difficult as starting to hoist the chain in the first place.

We’ve had an amazing time in San Francisco, splitting our time between the conveniences of Emeryville and the quaintness of Sausalito. We had friends and family scattered all around the Bay and spent nearly every day visiting with someone. It was a nice change from what was sometimes a lonely cruising life up in B.C. and if the hoards of southbound cruising boats indicate anything it’s that we’re not likely to be lonely again for a long time.

Golden Gate finally astern (and one of the newest members of our solar farm)

When we weren’t visiting, or exploring downtown San Francisco, or eating Dim Sum in Chinatown, or ice-cream in Sausalito, or riding the BART to visit old friends in the Mission district, we were spending money. Lots of it. Sadly, our old Costco dinghy finally bit the dust when the transom drain plug rotted out and we couldn’t keep the water out so we picked up a new West Marine RIB. Despite scouring Craigslist for months we were unable to find a used dinghy at a decent price so we broke our longtime tradition and bought a new one. The price was right and after zipping around in a RIB for the past week we’ll never go back to a flat-floor dinghy again. Oh, boy is it fast, stable and fun!

We also added two more solar panels to our aft rails, a project we knew we’d have to complete in San Francisco. With four panels we now have 530 watts of solar power, plenty to keep our little vacuum running daily to pick up all the cracker crumbs that are constantly finding their way to the floor. And the laptops, autopilot, stereo, toaster, lights, HAM radio….

So, despite having many many reasons to stay for another week in the Bay we were getting itchy to keep making our way south as October(!) is only a few days away. We reluctantly washed the Sausalito mud from our anchor chain for the last time and motored out the Golden Gate yesterday. With a perfectly clear blue sky and a 4 knot flood current against us we had plenty of time going out to gaze at the brilliant orange bridge we’ll always be fond of.

The water is getting warmer! (Half Moon Bay)

Our 25-mile trip down to Half Moon Bay was pretty uneventful, excepting a 12-15-foot high swell that was rolling down from the NW storms brewing off the coast back home. It was more than a little nerve-wracking crossing the infamous San Francisco bar (what if there’s a rogue wave? Oh god, this one is like a mountain, what if it’s going to be the one that breaks??) But despite our sweaty palms we were in deep water soon enough and greeted with a pleasant SW wind that kept our sails full and nearly on the beam for a few hours.

By late afternoon we’d made the easy entrance to the Half Moon Bay break-watered harbor and were anchored in 10 feet of perfectly still water, the anchor quickly setting into sticky black mud, no doubt.

Sweet life in San Francisco

Sep 21st, 2011
by Sara.
2 comments

I gripped the clear plastic frosty cup in one hand and with the other held the green straw steady so I could take a sweet long pull on my drink. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head as the icy taste hit my tongue. We had held out for nearly three days after arriving in Sausalito but we couldn’t resist that green sign with the mermaid and the “free wifi” sign on the door any longer. Before we knew what was happening the four of us were sitting in Starbucks, the girls slurping down organic vanilla milks, Michael with a java chip frappacino and myself deliriously inhaling a caramel frappacino, my first in nearly three months.

Will that be an ice-cream cone or margarita? California has something for everyone!

Since we had arrived in Sausalito late on a Friday evening, the customs agents didn’t arrive until nearly noon the next day to clear us in. [Note to anyone sailing directly to San Francisco from Canada, or any other foreign port: do go directly to Oakland as the customs agents suggested we do, it is the fastest way to check in.] After the agents had left the boat once the five-minute check-in process was completed, our amazing crewmember Garth hightailed it to the airport to catch his afternoon flight home in time and we stayed onboard the boat for yet another hour or two just wondering what to do next. Finally we put on our shoes and walked ashore to meander down the Sausalito streets.

The land swayed underneath our feet as we made our way through the Saturday throngs of tourists. It was dizzying in other ways: it felt like we were suddenly weaving our way through millions and millions of people after not bumping elbows with a single soul for months in Canada. Cars, buses, bikes, planes, ferries hurtled by; we were overwhelmed by the huge variety of sights and sounds around us after seeing only sea, trees and rocks for so long. One thing was for sure, we were hungry for a non-home cooked meal and made our way to our favorite hamburger joint, waited in line for about a half hour and walked across the street to the park with our bag of huge, juicy handmade cheeseburgers and fries. Paradise.

We quickly adjusted though and after a day or two were dancing with joy at all the easy access to, well, everything here. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not really the cheeseburgers, cheap delicious beer, amazing Mexican food, Starbucks, Targets, West Marines, Trader Joes (oh hallelujah!), fresh juicy produce, rich dark coffee, mail deliveries, sunshine, free anchorages, free hot showers, or copious wifi that’s got us loving life here. It’s the people, of course. Our days have been jam-packed with visiting friends both new and old. We’ve met up with fellow boats from the Northwest also on their way south, a number of close family and friends that live in the area, a huge handful of friends that we cruised with nine years ago that make their home in the Bay again, and of course, new friends.

Leah & Ruby

A few days after arriving in SF we rolled out the genoa and scooted eastward across the bay to Emeryville where our kindred spirits on Convivia have been living on and readying their Cal 43 for cruising, now only days away from their own departure date. We’d only “met” online up to this point but minutes after we pulled into our borrowed slip on their dock their daughter Ruby, 7, and Leah were already skipping down the dock holding hands and making plans for their slumber party that night. We talked into the afternoon, then talked over dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, then tucked all four kids, Leah, Ruby, Miles and Holly, into bunks on Convivia while we parents sipped Tucker’s famous margaritas and talked and laughed late into the night.

The people here are the sweetest part of this city for sure.

Two Months.

Aug 29th, 2011
by Sara.
5 comments

how we hope to spend next week

We left Olympia two months ago today. In some ways it seems like we left E dock yesterday, but the heavy weight of our buckets of memories makes it feel like years ago.

Our friend and crewmember Garth will join us on Friday. If the weather forecast is still clear we will sail due south from Ucluelet towards San Francisco. Our plan is to stick to the inshore route, that is, 10-20 miles off the coast. This area typically has lighter winds although we will have to contend with more shipping traffic and possibly more fog. However should the forecast turn unfavorable we can easily stop in Grays Harbor, Newport, Coos Bay, Crescent City, Eureka.

We’re extremely grateful that we decided to sail down the west coast of Vancouver Island after all; the trip has given the girls and us valuable experience sailing in ocean swells and much greater confidence in sailing together as a family. It’s going to be a whole different ballgame sailing 24/7 for six or seven or eight days straight though without the chance to stretch our legs. I’m thinking it will be like our other long days off the coast have been with lots of naps and much of my time just spent preparing food and cleaning up the aftermath of meals. And hanging on.

For weeks I’ve been quite nervous about our upcoming passage, to the point where I’d be nearly shaking with anxious chills. This is my third trip down this coast and I know how ugly it can get out there. But as the time to depart has come closer I (we) have gotten more and more excited about simply being in California and all the new and old friends we are anxious to meet up with. Weather forecasting has gotten a lot better in the past 10 years and we’ve certainly gotten better at reading it. And after navigating around all these treacherous rocks and islets off Vancouver Island the past few weeks I’m truly looking forward to being out in clear open water for a while.

It’s been becoming more and more of a struggle to stay focused on the present, to savor these last days in the Northwest. At least five times an hour I think of the upcoming trip and what’s on our to-do list before we depart on Saturday and get a little shiver of nervousness and a flutter of excitement about the long glorious hours of sailing ahead and our landfall in an entirely new landscape.

So, today, two months after leaving in Olympia, we pulled back into Ucluelet which is our last Canadian port. We’ll do laundry again, buy some provisions, sew up some leecloths for the girl’s bunks, inspect the rigging, restock our ditch bag, button up down below, and head to the playground in town a few more times. The shakedown is over, now it’s time to sail.

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