Thursday, May 29, 2014

May 28th - San Diego

Great day. Lots accomplished. Checked in with the Marina. Did 7 large loads of laundry up at the laundrymat here at the Marina. All bedding, blankets and all throw rugs. Vacuumed entire boat. Blue Moon cleaners coming to was outside of Janabanana tomorrow. Gale from Worknot took David over to Mark and Nicole's to pick up our truck. Ordered parts for our vacuum that broke recently. Talked with the Mfg of our boat to discuss boatyards and warranty repairs that must be made to the Janabanana with our hull and water intrusion which is resulting in the breakdown of the core material.

Had a great dinner with our friends Marty and Debbie from M/Y My Susy. Met them at San Diego Yacht Club and had a good time catching up since we last saw them.

While we were at dinner our beautiful daughter Lisa texted this pic of her and Katie relaxing with a Mimosa. They are headed to Vegas.

And here they are ready for the evening in Vegas, thanks to Facebook! Stunning!

We received this picture from Alan and Lindy Rosen on S/V Enchante taken while we were rescuing/towing them to the anchorage at Isla San Francisco after they made a call for help over the VHF radio. They had something tangled around their shaft and had to shut their engine down, no power. They called us Super Heroes :-)

Thank goodness it was such a beautiful and calm night. The night before had been high winds and rough seas.

 

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

May 27th - Ensenada to San Diego

Our last night in Mexico. We stayed on the boat last night for dinner. Worknot is docked right next to us here at Cruiseport Village. Mary made a batch of chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and brought over a bunch to us. They were delicious! Thanks Mary!

So many little fish schooling around the lights behind our boat and Worknot's boat. The bigger fish were getting bigger.

Leaving Ensenada Kevin is stowing the bumpers. It has been the best having him with us for the last two weeks. A huge help!

We left Ensenada just before 7:00 am

As we are leaving, a big cruise ship is coming into port. Perfect timing to leave as the town will become crowded with tourists.

This little bird on the fighting belt on the cooler hitched a ride with us for quite a ways.

So cute!

San Diego customs dock just before 3:00. Cleared after a 2 hour wait and then back to Cabrillo Isle Marina. Got Kevin a flight back to Portland at 6:05 so he rushed off to the airport as soon as we hit the dock. Got to visit with our friend Jose Suarez on M/Y Pilar. Got our Direct TV all hooked up so I'm happy. Just stayed on the boat and relaxed. Have lots to do over the next couple of weeks. I will keep the blog going as long as I have content to report!

 

Monday, May 26, 2014

May 14th - 26th -Cabo San Lucas to Ensenada

Changed our crew list with the Port Captain and turned the rental car in. Picked up more beer and headed for the fuel dock.

Left the fuel dock and crew Kevin gets right to work putting lines and bumpers away.

A big cruise ship in the bay.

Kevin at El Arcos.

Cheese! We left El Arcos at 11:45. Fished until sunset, no hits or bites.

Clear sky sunset. Our ride has been pretty good. Some white caps and wind but we are going into the wave to we can deal with that. I can even cook!

We had a garlic stuffed roast beef, garlic roasted potatoes and salad. I'll do first watch from 9-12, then David from 12-3 and Kevin has 3-6.

Went into Mag Bay the morning of the 15th. Anchored and had breakfast. There were no other boats in the bay. The Port Capitan came out and visited us and did our paperwork. We gave him a tube of aspheric realm so his wife could massage it in. :-). Whatever.

It was so nice and calm that we decided to leave right after breakfast and run for Turtle Bay, 256 n.m.

And we are heading north into the fog and cold why?

But then the sun came out and we were fishing and the ocean was like glass. Perfecto!

They call this the Baja Bash, I think not. Fished all day but no bites. We did see dolphins and a whale. Our overnight passage was again good.

Here we are on Friday around 2:00 pulling into the worst fuel dock on the west coast, Enrique's.

The baron, dusty dirty scenery of Turtle Bay.

The wind blows here and dirt devils fly everywhere.

What a joke of a dock! The dock is slanted so you almost fall off, then you have to jump to the stairs that are barely attached.

Kids are jumping and swimming here at the fuel dock. David and Kevin are coming back from paying cash for 300 gallons of fuel. His credit card machine NEVER works.

We kept watching weather and could not get a good window to leave. Had a nice sunset one evening.

We had a delicious dinner of Dorado fish tacos, it was one of Kevin's favorites.

A typical scene. Hmmmm, what are we going to do now? The boys did go to town to try to buy internet time for our Mexican phone and find a Cajero Automatico (cash machine) but neither exists in Turtle Bay. David wound up calling our good friends Chris and Cindy Bouchard in La Cruz and they saved the day for us. They went and bought us 3G of internet for our phone number so we could now check weather reports and I could check Facebook. Thank you so much Bouchards!

Thought this looked cool with the clouds.

Mary and Gale on Worknot joined us in Turtle Bay the same Friday we arrived. During the week they took their dinghy to the fuel dock to go to town. Mary had an accident and fell over backward and hit her head. She seized and was non responsive. Gale called and brought his dog and dinghy back to his boat and Kevin and David took care of getting him back to shore where they road in an ambulance to a hospital on bad dirt roads for over three hours. The boys took care of Worknot, running the generator to keep the batteries charged and to make sure little Keela the dog was ok. Mary checked out ok so the ambulance brought them back and they radio'd us around 1:30 am that they needed to be picked up. Kevin and David, both with flashlights and headlamps launched both our and Gale's dinghy to do the pick up. Kevin beached Worknots dinghy so that they could get on board and shuttled them back to their boat. Just so glad that Mary if good!

Thursday night Jerome and crew on Daybreak joined us in Turtle Bay. We also had El Tiburon come in. Funny that 4 of the boats that traveled south are all headed back up at the same time. We see more people that we know here in the middle of nowhere than we see in Tigard any day.

Friday night, this will be our 8th and final night, we are cooking up turkey burgers. It was so windy we had to fire up the weber.

Saturday morning we passed Worknot. Now we are bashing! This was a rough passage and I hated it. I even wimped out and did not pull any overnight duty. We got a call from the Mexican Navy where they wanted to know about our vessel, the skipper and where we had come from and where we were heading. They were a big ship and pointed right at us. Kind of intimidating to say the least. Then they just told us to have a nice trip. David and Kevin went all night taking turns napping for 45 minutes or so and switching. I felt like I needed to strapped into the bed, felt like I kept going into free fall. No fishing either. Next boat has to have stabilizers! Sunday morning was still sloppy and beaming us until we got about 5 hours out of Ensenada. Pulled into Ensenada around 2. The boys washed the boat and we went out to dinner in town. It was the first time I had stepped off the boat in 12 days.

Today we went to the Capitania de Puerto to check out of Mexico.

Peter and Leslie of Skybird were here checking out too. Leslie lost her Visa so she had to buy a new one as did David and I since we overstayed the limit of 180 days. Got it all taken care of then walked back to town to check it out and have lunch.

David and Kevin found the perfect store. It's so nice to be in a big town again. These two cleaned Turtle Bay out of Pacifico's.

 

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

May 14th - Cabo San Lucas to Mag Bay

We are headed out today for our cruise up the Pacific coast of the Mexican Baja. We will stop in Mag Bay tomorrow and then in to Turtle Bay on Saturday. Then the weather looks snotty and we may have to wait their for two or three days before we can get to Ensenada and then finally back to San Diego and the great United States of America! We will be off the grid for a while. See you all soon!

John and Deb off Moonshadow sent us this picture of Janabanana in Caleta Partida.

Inside Moonshadow's salon, about to enjoy John's famous homemade spaghetti.

John shuttling us to Moonshadow.

 

May 13th - Cabo San Lucas

David dealt with the parking ticket this morning. It was a fiasco to say the least.

Drove to the airport to pick up our pal Kevin Beale. He is a Coast Guard approved Captain and will be a big help crewing with us to bring the JB up the coast.

Uh oh Joyce, look at what Kevin is looking at! Well, David too!

These two have checked out all the boats on the dock.

They've been apart too long. The permagrins are in place.

Little popcorn clouds tonight. We've been waiting to hear from the Hester's to meet up with them for dinner or drinks but no word so we are headed out to the Marina for dinner. As I'm walking up the ramp, I hear hey Jan!

It's the Hester's! Rick, Sandra, Quinn and his friend Sebastian were walking around the Marina to find us.

Dinner at the ECOBAR.

Fun catching up with friends in another country!