Refuge in Refugio

Puerto Refugio, BC, Mexico

Well, we made the break from Bahia de los Angeles, at last. We have traveled some 40 miles further north to the tip of Isla Angel de la Guarda, the most northerly island of any size in the Sea of Cortez. It was a windless journey, motoring the entire way, helped for most of the way by a following current - a very pleasant trip.

Puerto Refugio is a very picturesque and secluded anchorage which is surrounded by various very rugged islands and rocky islets, lending themselves to snorkeling and diving. The anchorage itself is quite large and mostly open to the north - not a place you want to be in north wind and waves. The main bay is divided by reefs into three bights, the west, middle and east, of which the middle is the largest and has the least hazards. So of course it was the middle bight we headed for.

When we anchored, there were 2 boats in the west bight, 3 boats in the east bight and 3 other boats in the middle bight with us - a busy place. After a very calm night, all but 3 of the boats left, including everyone from the middle bight except us, heading for various points south. As usual, our appearance has prompted everyone to leave.

We had a lovely day, taking the dinghy over to the nearby Isla Granito, on which a sea lion rookery can be found. It was an incredible experience to float down the coast of this island with sea lions swimming around us, watching mothers with their pups and occasionally being threatened by the big bulls out to protect their harems. Back nearer the boat, we did some snorkeling along one of the reefs, followed by a brief swim in the late afternoon - a pretty perfect day.

Last night, around 2 AM, a nasty swell started to roll into the anchorage, making us rock and roll around and making it difficult to sleep. In the morning, the remainder of the boats still in the anchorages, either left or moved to a smaller western bay to try and get away from the swell. We elected instead to just move to the western bight of this bay to see if it was any better there. By the time we successfully got the anchor set (took 3 tries), the swell had pretty well abated, so it is hard to say if this was a good decision or not. We shall see tonight.

Meanwhile, the big issue is hurricane Hilary, which is currently churning away down south of Cabo San Lucas. A lot of the weather gurus are predicting that this could be a bad one for the Baja. Hurricanes this late in the season have a tendency to turn north, following the outside of the Baja peninsula, then sometimes turning east to cross the peninsula and into the Sea of Cortez in the northern portion, right where we and all of the other boats are currently spread out. It is too early to tell just yet what we will do if it looks like it is heading our way. We could head back south to Puerto Don Juan, or we could try going another 45 miles north to Willard bay, the only other reasonable hurricane hole on this coast. It was our hope that Puerto Refugio would be the furthest north point we would be going this summer, but time will tell. Here is hoping!

{GMST}29|32.33|N|113|33.4|W|Puerto Refugio, BC, Mexico|Puerto Refugio, BC, Mexico{GEND}

First year in review

Bahia de los Angeles Village, BC, Mexico

Yes, it is our anniversary!

It was one year ago, on September 21, 2010, that we cast off the dock lines at Stones Marina in Nanaimo.  Just for the fun of it, here are some statistics for our first year:

Total mileage: 3050 NM
Engine hours: 491.5
Sailing hours: 191.3
Average speed: 4.467 Knots
Days spent on the boat: 340
Days spent off the boat: 25
Nights in Marinas: 256
Nights at Anchor: 92
Nights at Sea: 17

As you may notice, we have been more or less essentially a power boat for much of the year, particularly on the way down the west coast of North America, where we were harbor hopping from marina to marina (or dock to dock).  A lot of the nights at anchor have only happened in the last couple of months, here in the Sea of Cortez, since we left La Paz.

What will the new year bring?  Your guess is as good as ours...

Today we left the anchorage at Puerto Don Juan with a mind to head further north before the summer season ends (also getting further out of the way of the potential of hurricane Hilary, which is just getting up some steam off the southern Mexican coast).  However, before we could venture further afield, we had to make a quick stop at the village again to pick up some more bread (literally).  So we will spend the night here and continue tomorrow - as with all things in Mexico, there really is no rush.

Although I seem to have picked up a Wifi Internet connection here in the anchorage, it does not appear to be up the task of downloading any pictures.  Sorry!

{GMST}28|57|N|113|33|W|BLA Village, BC, Mexico|BLA Village, BC, Mexico{GEND}

Winter comes to BLA

Puerto Don Juan, BLA, BC, Mexico

Well maybe not real winter, but definitely a cooling trend for the Sea of Cortez.

After a few mostly overcast days, including the aforementioned Chubasco, we are now experiencing some cool clear fall-like days. The nighttime temperatures have been much more enjoyable - we had a low of around 24 degrees last night. The daytime highs are no more than 33 or 34 and the humidity is much lower, making everything more comfortable. Sue has even started using the oven again!

Otherwise, not much to report. We made a day trip over to the village yesterday to finish off some internet business (and grab a burger at Guillermo's). While there, I did attempt to update this blog, but with little success - so it is back to sailmail for the time being. What the trip to town did make very obvious was that the bottom of the boat is in bad need of cleaning. When we were motoring we seem to have lost a good 2 knots on our speed (ie: when we should be going 5.5 knots at 1400 RPM, we are now only getting 3.5).Today's task has been to tackle the jungle that has been growing on the bottom of Sine Timore. It is hard to believe just how much crap can accumulate in a short time in these warm waters. I got about half of it off and will continue the battle tomorrow.

Otherwise, we are just carrying on as usual, eating, reading, playing scrabble and going for our daily social swim in the afternoon. All in all, life in paradise is not so bad.

{GMST}28|56.5|N|113|27|W|Puerto Don Juan, BC, Mexico|Puerto Don Juan, BC, Mexico{GEND}

Food, fun and forces of nature

Puerto Don Juan, BLA, BC, Mexico

A pretty exciting week for us.

We were in the anchorage at Ensenada la Gringa for the "Full Moon" party. We arrived a couple of days before the big event in order to attend a talk that one of the cruising couples was putting on, regarding cruising south from Mexico to Ecuador. This took place on Sunday afternoon (in order for all of the American football fans to listen to a game on their satellite radios in the morning).

We all gathered at around 4:30PM as a dinghy raft-up near the beach - there were about 20 people attending. We did this in spite of the ominous-looking black clouds full of lightning and thunder that we could see just at the south end of the bay. Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the talk, we heard a shout from one of the boats nearby, warning us of an approaching line of rough water. You never saw a bunch of dinghies move so fast! By the time we got back to our boat, the wind was blowing at 20 knots and the seas were beginning to build. We managed to get the motor off of the dinghy and get it stowed on the back of the boat, and then just sat back and watched a repeat of our horrible experience of the Chubasco just a week ago, right here in the same south exposed anchorage. When will we ever learn?

The winds did not get over about 30 knots but it was coming directly from the south where the 10-mile fetch allowed the waves to really build up before expending all of their energy on us. Again we found ourselves hobby-horsing up and down and putting an enormous strain on the anchor (and our snubber, now attached with a rolling hitch instead of the chain hook that we lost during the last storm). But this time, instead of being virtually alone in the bay, we had a total of 26 boats in the anchorage, one of which seemed to be no more than 50 feet directly behind us. I started the engine just in case, but our anchor held and, in the end, we were none the worse for wear. The whole squall did not last much more than an hour, although the seas did not calm down quite as fast. As far as we know, only one boat had an anchor drag and they were able to get re-anchored OK. Two boats left altogether to find a less-exposed anchorage. The talk was postponed until the day after the party.

The "Full Moon" party was a hoot. A lot of people dressed up in wild costumes and created some very inventive "floatees". There is a lagoon at one end of the bay here. The water flows in and out of this lagoon whenever there is a high tide (such as we have during a full moon). So the whole idea is to get onto some kind of raft (floatee) and let the current send you into the lagoon just before high tide; then out again about an hour later, just after high tide. There are prizes for the most inventive rafts and costumes. High tide on the day of the party (Monday) was at 2:15PM, and the weather actually cooperated (no Chubasco). In the evening everyone gathered on the beach for a pot-luck supper and prize awarding ceremony. This is sort of the culmination of the entire summer cruising season here in the BLA area - there were about 50 people at the event, and everyone had a great time.The next day (Tuesday) we attended the rest of the talk on cruising south, and in the evening experienced a little taste of an "Elefante" wind. These winds come from the west, over the peninsula, and last for several hours. Fortunately, from that direction the anchorage has no fetch and there are no big waves - the winds were steady at around 15 to 20 knots, never really getting much higher - this was much less traumatic than the Chubasco. Reportedly the winds were a bit stronger at the BLA village, which we understand is normally the case.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we decided to stop pressing our luck and finally left la Gringa. With more westerly and NW winds forecast for the next few days, we just made a quick trip into the village (about 5 miles south of la Gringa), had a late breakfast at the Costa del Sol restaurant, got some important paperwork done on their internet connection (we have to renew our boat insurance), and then left for the very protected anchorage at Puerto Don Juan, where we knew we could have a very restful night without having to worry about wind from any direction! Don Juan is the only real hurricane hole in this area.

Last night, we were kindly invited over to a fellow Canadian cruiser's boat for a supper of clams and brownies. While sitting out in their cockpit in the evening in the calm, with a perfectly clear sky above, we saw a sight that will stay with us for a long time. We witnessed the death of either a meteor or a piece of space-junk that was truly spectacular. An object that traveled across the sky, visible for about 15 seconds, leaving a flaming trail of green, then yellow and red, till it seem to break up before our eyes.

In summary, I guess this sort of exemplifies cruising. There are times when things seem to be going so bad that you wonder why you are out here. Then something happens that makes you wonder why everyone isn't doing this. Eventually we will figure out which camp we are in.

{GMST}28|56.5|N|113|27|W|Puerto Don Juan, BC, Mexico|Puerto Don Juan, BC, Mexico{GEND}

A day in the life

Village of BLA, BC, Mexico

Not much happening here - just trying (and not always winning) to keep cool. Temperatures are pretty consistent, in the mid 30s during the day, falling to around 29 or 30 at night. The humidity is the real killer though, varying between about 40 and 90 percent. Basically just hot, hot, hot!

The nights are usually very calm, no wind at all, so we sleep with a fan blowing on us continuously (both night and day actually). Our day typically begins at 6:30AM, when we tune into the Sunrisa HAM net. A lot of the boats check in each morning (we do once in a while) to give a brief summary of their weather and what they are up to. The boats are spread throughout the Sea of Cortez, with the majority being in the BLA area, so there is a lot of repetition. At around 6:50AM, an amateur weatherman (currently a guy in Arizona) gives a weather prediction for next couple of days - this is most helpful as we have no reliable internet here in BLA. Then the process is repeated on the Amigo SSB net, starting at 7:10AM, with weather from Don Anderson up in Oxnard, California at 7:30AM. In this way we are kept informed as to the likelihood of a hurricane coming our way - so far so good on that score.

Breakfast for us usually consists simply of cereal, as it is too hot to think about cooking anything. One of the greatest inventions of the 20th and 21st centuries has got to be long-life milk - this stuff keeps forever without refrigeration and tastes just the same as any other milk. Lunch usually consists of sandwiches (no heating required again). Note: Bimbo bread (think of Wonder bread) is available everywhere and also seems to last forever - we are not sure what is in it, and I am sure it is really bad for us, but it is so nice to always have a fresh supply of bread on board. Supper is the only meal that gets the stove going - basic one-pot-wonder kind of meals most of the time, but Sue does manage to make up some pretty amazing feasts as well. We still have a fair supply of various meats in our freezer and the village here has a reasonably well-stocked store where we can get fresh fruit and veggies once in a while. Since a lot of the more ambitious cruisers fill their time with fishing, they always seem to catch more than they can use, so there is a ready supply of fresh fish available, especially Dorado (Mahi Mahi), which seem to be very abundant in the BLA area (fresh Dorado on the barbecue is hard to beat). Being by the village, we also have the option of taking the dinghy to shore and having an occasional meal at one of the many restaurants nearby.

The rest of our day is mostly spent reading, playing various games, and just watching the wildlife. The snorkeling is not so good here by the village, but the daily visits by the Whale-sharks kind of makes up for it. We quite often go for a swim, sometimes in company with other nearby crews, around 4PM. Even though the water temperature is close to 30 degrees, it is still very refreshing.

As the days are getting shorter now, it starts to get dark around 7PM. We quite often have a rousing game of Scrabble or Train Dominoes before hitting the sack around 9 or 10. There is another SSB net (the Southbound net) that starts at 5 minutes to 6, with weather at 6PM, so we have another chance to catch the latest predictions for the next day, and catch up any exciting news from the other cruisers (lots of fish stories and such).

Tomorrow we will be making our way back up to the anchorage at La Gringa, where there is to be a big "full moon" party and potluck on the beach on Monday. On Sunday, one of the cruising couples is also putting on a little talk and Q&A session on sailing through Central America, so we though we would catch that as well.

So there in a nutshell is our day to day life. Boring it may be, but it still beats working!

{GMST}28|57|N|113|33|W|Bahia de los Angeles Village, BC, Mexico|Bahia de los Angeles Village, BC, Mexico{GEND}

Current score

Bahia de los Angeles Village, BLA, BC, Mexico

We have been tested, and found wanting.

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a shot rang out. Oh, wait a minute, that's a different story.

After 3 blissfully quiet nights in the bay at La Gringa, we finally experienced our first weather "event" of the season. In the evening, around 8PM, it was perfectly calm and we were watching a movie on DVD, when suddenly we noticed that there was a flash of light outside. We poked our heads out the companionway to find a nice light show (sheet lightning) going on just to the east of us, out in the center of the Sea of Cortez. This has happened a couple of other nights and nothing has ever come of it, so we went on with our movie, although we did make sure to stow anything that was on deck that seemed likely to blow away if the wind were to come up (in this regard we were a little negligent).

Around 8:45PM, the boat started to swing around to an east wind and the lightning was getting brighter and there was a tiny sprinkle of rain. We closed the hatches and turned on our wind instruments and chartplotter and sat in the cockpit to watch what was to develop. Within a few minutes the wind was howling at us from the east - this was definitely our first taste of the dreaded "Chubasco" (summer time convection storm). The first big gust of 40+ knot wind caught our "roving" solar panel that we had completely forgotten we had just lying on top of the dodger - it was quickly tossed away into the sea. After that, the winds kept blowing a steady 25 to 35 knots - the highest gust we recorded was about 42 knots. Since we were in the lee of a spit of land on our east side, the seas were not an issue and the boat just did its usual thing, sailing back and forth around our anchor, seeming eager to be somewhere else. By watching our track on the GPS chartplotter, we were able to confirm that our anchor was holding and we were not really going anywhere. This kept up for about an hour and a half and then seemed to slack right off. We, and apparently everyone else in the area (lots of talk on the VHF radio), assumed the worst was over and we went to bed.

Almost as soon as our heads hit the pillows, the winds came up from the south. They really never got over 25 knots this time, but we had no real protection from the waves in that direction and we were soon hobby horsing up and down as badly as we have ever experienced. The bowsprit was just touching the water when the bow plunged down, and the dinghy, which was lashed onto our davits on the stern, was dipped into the water as the stern took its turn. It was impossible to sleep with all the motion but we figured that was the worst of our problems. Then there was sudden "Bang" from outside! I surveyed the deck and found that our anchor snubber (a length of rope that we use to lessen the noise and strain on the anchor chain) had snapped in two - we were now riding on the chain rode itself. As it turns out, this was not really a big problem - just a bit noisier. Unfortunately it did mean we lost our one and only chain hook that we were using to attach the snubber to the anchor rode.

By midnight, the wind and seas calmed down and the worst was over. The final score: Sea of Cortez 2 (one solar panel and one snubber) and Sine Timore 1 (we survived relatively unscathed).

Today, after another very quiet peaceful night at La Gringa, we motored the 6 miles into BLA village where we have made a shopping run and are now sitting back with some ice cold Diet Cokes and congratulating ourselves on our mostly successful weathering of our first Chubasco. Listening to the other cruisers in the area, it appears that we were not the only ones to suffer from snubber withdrawal, and it was apparently even more exciting by the village. Lots of boats in close proximity and they recorded winds in excess of 50 knots here. They were exposed to the same south seas, so they suffered the same rocking and rolling as well. No major damage though.

As for our losses; the solar panel was not really much of a loss - it was very old and I was never able to get much power out of it. I wouldn't have used it at all except that it came with the boat and I did not have the heart to discard it. Now it doesn't take up any space on the rear berth any more when not in use. Still it is annoying that I forgot about it. As for the chain hook, it seems as though most of the experienced sailors do not use them and just tie their snubber lines on with a "rolling hitch" knot instead. I got out my book of knots and tried it and it does seem to work fine - one less item of equipment we have to worry about. We will become real salty sailors yet!

{GMST}28|57|N|113|33|W|Bahia de los Angeles Village, BC, Mexico|Bahia de los Angeles Village, BC, Mexico{GEND}

August gone

Ensenada la Gringa, BLA, BC, Mexico

It seems as though August has come and gone. Nothing particularly exciting to report, which is a generally a good thing.

After spending 5 nights at La Mona, about 5 miles south of the village of BLA, we have moved to Ensenada la Gringa, a long crescent-shaped beach lining the north side of the bay, about 5 miles north of the village of BLA. While it was windy for much of the time in La Mona, here it has been very calm; just a light breeze occasionally to help keep the heat down. This has meant that we have been able to take a swim any time we want and that really helps keep us cooler as well. Overall the weather has been great. The highs during the day peaking around 37 to 38 degrees, cooling off to as little as 28 the last couple of nights. For some reason 28 degrees now feels a quite cool to us.

We will probably make our way back to the village of Bahia de los Angeles tomorrow as we need to replenish our bread supply, among other things (we have heard that there is a laundry service there somewhere). We have been keeping clear of the village the last few days while it is crowded with a lot of the "social" cruisers having a party for the SSB and Ham radio controllers - there are currently 16 to 20 boats anchored by the town (the majority of the boats in the entire area). Here in la Gringa we have had the place to ourselves except for one other boat that arrived yesterday.

With September now here it means we are entering into the peak hurricane season for the Sea of Cortez. As yet, there have been no threats at all and at the moment it does not sound like too much is brewing down in the hurricane breeding grounds off of Central America. As we understand it, that could change rapidly, although to date this has been an overall mild year for east Pacific hurricanes.

We are just hoping that with the coming of fall the temperatures might moderate a bit. Our fridge and freezer are running very high duty cycles just now and we are struggling to keep our batteries full. On a positive note, the last few days, with no clouds in the sky and slightly lower temperatures at night, have meant that we have not had to run the engine at all - the solar panels are just barely able to keep up with the demand - we are even able to run the watermaker enough to keep up with our current requirements. Ideally we do not want to have to refill our diesel tank until we are further south again - lugging jerry cans from the gas station in the village to the dinghy and back to the boat doesn't look like that much fun. So far, so good.

{GMST}29|02.33|N|113|32.8|W|Ensenada la Gringa, BC, Mexico|Ensenada la Gringa, BC, Mexico{GEND}