6/17/05

We took a tour from Bahia Concepcion to Mulege with two other boats, Loon III and Icarian. Our guide picked us up from the beach and took us on a fantastic tour of the desert and ancient Indian paintings. He told us the secrets to finding water in the desert, how to make jam from a cactus, which plants were poisonous and even a special cactus flower that�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s an aphrodisiac when smoked. He also pointed out the medicinal plants and how to use them. We should be set for the summer, if we can only bare the HEAT!

Since we�?¢â�??¬â�??¢re unable to access the internet for now, these logs will all get updated at once. If everything goes well, there should be some new pictures posted in the photo gallery. You�?¢â�??¬â�??¢ll see attacking fish, a 500 year old cactus, 4000 year old carvings, and 5000 year old paintings. Don�?¢â�??¬â�??¢t miss it.

6/17/05

If there�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s a splash on the water keep your eyes on the deep, because these guys rise from the shadows to see what landed in the water. It doesn�?¢â�??¬â�??¢t matter if it�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s me diving in, or a tomato, these fish rise up and come in close to see if it�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s eatable. The attacked a tomato, drug it down to the bottom, fought over it, and it was never seen again. I call them �?¢â�??¬�?�??Sherrell�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s Monsters�?¢â�??¬ because they like to come in close when you�?¢â�??¬â�??¢re swimming to see if you�?¢â�??¬â�??¢d make a good snack, and it freaks Sherrell out. She prefers to watch the monsters from the boat.

6/16/2005

We�?¢â�??¬â�??¢re slowing baking in the heat. It got up to 94F inside the boat and the water temperature is 89F. Jezebel was so hot, that we decided to pull out the clippers and give her a buzz cut. We removed her fur in handfuls for almost 30 minutes. By the time we were done, our cat lost half her size and most of her hair. There�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s nothing professional about this hair-cut, that�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s for sure. It looks like she got in between two lawnmowers fighting over a psychotic weed eater. Well, I guess we can cut �?¢â�??¬�?�??professional pet grooming�?¢â�??¬ of the list of possible future jobs.

At least she seems to like having a lot less fur, it�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s 8:30 am and 83.3F this morning and she�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s curled up instead of spread out on the floor. That�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s an improvement, but once it gets up in the 90�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s I don�?¢â�??¬â�??¢t think there�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s any way to still feel cool. It will be an interesting summer!

Bay of Conception is a cool spot that is well protected from all wind directions.  The coolest part is there are several little islands and lots of beaches to check out.  The water is an amazing 82 degrees and there’s lots of fish life in the water.  There aren’t many boats here now, but we’ve heard that a large crowd of boats (20 to 30) gather here for 4^th of July.

From our informal count of boats heading to Bay of Los Angeles for the summer we estimate about 20 boats will be spending the summer up there.  A little bigger crowd than we had hoped for, but the place is big and I’m sure we’ll find lots of places to ourselves.

We made some tortillas yesterday and today we are going to check out Coyote Island and Santa Barbara Beach before heading to another little anchorage here.  This place is so compact that in a good hour you can do a full tour.  It’s pretty cool to be in such a large bay, but full of things to see.

Well, some kind sole here in Bahia Concepcion is allowing public wireless access to their satellite uplink for 1 hour a day.  So through this link (there’s no phones here) I’m able to update some of our website.  Check out the 6 new photos in the Photo Gallery of Baja Mexico!

Well, we spent a couple of weeks moving up the sea from Loreto.  We met up with Loon III and Icarian in the roadstead anchorage at Loreto and explored the town together.  For cruisers, this means wandering every street looking for the freshest produce, cheapest internet connection, cheapest beer, and fuel (and for those of us without refrigeration, ice).  We did manage to visit the old Mission museum, which was kind of interesting but that was about all we had time for site-seeing.  When we couldn’t walk another step, we headed back to the boats, weighed anchor and headed to Isla Coronado for the night, just a few miles away.  Sherrell and I decided to stay an extra night at Coronado and watched the sting rays jumping all over like popcorn.  We then went on to La Ramada, just north of our intended destination of Caleta San Juanico to get out of the strong SE winds and swell.  We found Loon and Icarian hiding in there as well and they showed us a nice hike that went over to the bay.  Gazing out on the beautiful bay of San Juanico, we all decided that we should move there.  No to mention there was a strange Northerly swell that rolled us from side to side making it very unpleasant and the late night Katabatic winds blew like a banshee from the west all night long.

There seemed to be no good summer refuge in this area, as we tried to hide behind some rocky reefs and rocks from the SE winds in San Juanico, while we explored the beaches and snorkeled.  But despite the beauty, after 3 days of suffering the steep wind waves, we left the other boats and did a long haul (12 hours) to Bahia Concepcion—a much more protected area.

On the way up, we had north winds the entire way, while the other boats down in San Juanico still had strong SE.  So as luck would have it, our own personal headwinds forced us to motor-sail almost the entire way.  We did see a large school of dolphins who leapt 6+ feet out of the water in unison, many large manta rays doing perfect back flips, and Boobies (the avian type) trying to land on our boat for a free ride.

Anyway, we’re going to hang out in this area for a while, before heading further north.  If you’re able to read this, then through the miracle of technology and the generosity of someone here, we are connecting to you via a wireless link that is routed through a satellite connection once a day at 7-8 am.  There are no phones here, no power, but we’ve found ice, some provisions and lots of little protected islands to explore.

We`re in Loreto for a few hours to reprovision and get some fuel. We were unable to bum a ride from Puerto Escondido to Loreto by land, so we went by boat. The anchorage is sketchy, so we have to shop then bolt.
Anyway, Sheila made it back to Seattle ok. Her bus from La Paz broke down in dramatic style, smoke and all. The driver managed to nurse it to a town where they could get some tools to work on it and get it running again. Fortunately, she had plenty of time for her flight, and eventualy made it back with about 4 billion sea shells, all intact.
The water here is getting clearer and the sea life is really amazing. I`ve been a snorkling fiend, but we can watch the fish from the boat just as easily. Manta Rays leap out of the water, dolphins feed in the bays, and large schools of fish move like clouds through the water. FANTASTIC!
So we plan to keep working north to Santa Rosalia then on to Bahia de Los Angeles. But we are going to hit as many anchorages as possible along the way. We are also planning on doing a hike where you have to ford a river and swim up some canyons! We probably won`t have email access until Rosalia in two weeks or so, so we hope everyone is doing well!

Sheila, Sherrell and I all stood patiently on the side of a dusty highway
at 7 am waiting hopefully for a bus. Life is sometimes surreal. We told
the port captain that we needed to catch the bus to La Paz (in our broken
Spanish) and he called the bus office in Loreto where the station is to
request that the driver on such and such day look for us at this juntion
and pick us up. Often these things work better than you might expect.
But when you haul all your junk 2 miles out into the dusty unknown slowly
baking in the morning sun, you have to wonder if your Spanish skills were
really up to the task. Perhaps somewhere there was a taxi driver circling
around looking for us, or maybe they are trying to deliver a pizza to us.

I`m pretty sure the port captain told us to make sure we were there before
8am in case the bus was early. And I`m pretty sure we got the day and
place right. But an hour later we were getting hot and beginning to
wonder.

Just as we were discussing what time we should give up waiting, the big
fancy bus rolled up the hill, pulled over, and picked up Sheila and
Sherrell and off they went.

I had previously arranged to go hiking into the Arroyo (canyon) nearby
with another couple. They wanted to go eary, 6am. But they still hadn`t
shown. I figured they bailed, but halfway back to the waterfront they
appeared, and we got to hiking.

The arroyo was a deep cut inside massive steep mounts called the Giants.
It was filled with carved rocks, trees, birds and a few pools of water.
As we climbed further up into the arroyo we had to climb through rock
caves and caverns that we could barely fit our bodies through. We kept
climbing until we reached an impass. It was hot and we didn`t feel like
exerting oursleves climbing the next set of cliff like boulders. So we
just took in the view.

Reddish rocks, green trees and lots of birds (humming birds, bright red
cardnals) were all over the place. Sometime when we find a place to hook
up the computer we`ll get them posted!

For now, though, Sherrell will be back tomorrow and Sheila will be at home
in Seattle. We plan to head further north and enjoy some island time!

Well we took Sheila on a whirlwind tour from La Paz to Puerto Escondido by
way of Isla Partida (2 days), San Evaristo (1 day), Agua Verde (3 days),
and then a hot springs and finally here. She is no longer a land lubber
and she has a new understanding of why we spend most of our days dealing
with logistical challenges.

We saw dolphins, tropical fish, coral, sea birds, goats, and lots and lots
of sun. Agua Verde was very beautiful, we enjoyed swimming, hiking and
watching the fish swim around our boat. The water was a clear aqua color
and the visibility was about 35 feet.

Sherrell is going to travel with Sheila by bus down to La Paz leaving me
by my lonesome for a couple of days. Naturally I have a list of crap that
needs to be fixed while she is gone.

We heard the first Hurricane of the season has already struck El Salvador.
This is the first E. Pacific Hurricane to move eastward in recorded
history. Normally this time of year they move out towards sea. It could
be an interesting year for hurricanes, so the further north we go, the
safer we'll be. If you look closely on a map, you might be able to spot
the biggest town near us, Loreto.