More on Turtle Bay

This is the main dock at Turtle Bay.  People can get fuel here if they want.

Dan and I took the wagon to the gas station to get our 5 gallons.  We also bought groceries nearby.

This is how the locals take their ponga fishing boats out, if they are not trying to pull with a truck.

Having a few drinks with fellow cruisers Lou and Kari from Passport.

 More fisherman setting nets for fish.



We bought a barb-o-que chicken from this store for me.  Dan is a vegetarian, so I enjoyed it all myself.



Bev doing dishes on the deck.  We use salt water to conserve on fresh water.

There was a beautiful sunset off the stern of our boat.

Tomorrow Dan and I plan on taking off to head farther south.  We will definitely be out of WIFI for a few weeks.  Will post something when we get to mainland Mexico.

Exploring Turtle Bay

This is a stunning large bay with terrific shelter from ocean swells coming from the northwest, which is the general direction at this time of year.  There are many dolphins near our anchorage surfing for food, yet I have not been able to catch a good photo of one.  There are many pelicans and other birds around as well.  The stars at night are magnificent.  There is considerable moisture in the air every morning and the anything left on the deck gets totally wet.  Things feel rather damp inside as well, but will later dry as the temperature warms up.

We were given a general overview of the beach scene from the other mariners.   There is a rickety old dock from which you can get diesel at the hefty price of $7.00 per gallon. Mostly people bring their dinghy’s to shore on the left side of the dock and Pedro greets you, shows you where to park it and offers to watch your dinghy for you for a few pesos of course.  Usually 20 pesos per day.  (about a dollar per day).   It seems like a deal to me, but some of the cruisers think it’s a rip off.  Personally, I am delighted to know I can leave my SUP board and Paddle or dinghy on the beach and feel safe that it will be there when I return.  

There are two main restaurants as soon as one hits the beach - Maria’s and Antonio’s which is really just a bar, but sometimes serves food.  Both have WIFI (of sorts.) People would congregate there, share stories and give updates.

Victor and Maria are delightful people and made some awesome fish tacos.

Dan and Steve enjoyed lunch and a beer at the restaurant.  This is the same place where I am writing this blog and hope to send it via  WIFI soon.  As you can see, it has a beautiful view and nice shade from the sun.  The taco's were tasty as well.

This is the other place called Antonio's and it was a place people hung out at as well. Plus there was a bathroom - El Bano!

Fisherman are unloading their catch from the Pongos.   

These are the boats that have nets and circle them around to pull up the fish.  Dolphins, sea lions, birds galore!

The pelicans live on all the boats around in the harbor.

I took a day trip into town with "the young girls"  Ava, Hannah, Janni,  and then there was me.

Here is the local church and it was very pretty on the inside with lots of stain glass.

The town is located in a dessert, very dry, sandy, dirt streets, concrete houses.  

A restaurants but it was closed.



The main drag.

Car Wash!

There is an ever changing flow of boats that come and go in the bay.  The community gets friendly and a few social events get planned among some of the boaters.  The communication is  done via VHF radio on channel 16 and then moved to another channel.  This might be a typical conversation.:

“Slow-Motion, Slow-Motion, this is Malo on channel 16.”  

(repeat if no response)

once they reply:  

“Slow-Motion here on channel 16”

Malo would say:  

“Slow-Motion can you switch to channel 17?” (or another free channel, as 16 is for emergencies)

Once you are both on the same channel that is NOT 16, you can talk and make plans.  Thus people get together, or ask questions if need be over the VHF radio.  

That is some of the stuff I am learning, how to talk on the VHF!

Ava from Cinderella - she still needs to learn to stand up!  Ha Ha!

Dan's solution to getting the sand out of the dinghy.

I am going to send this off now, as not to make the blog too big.  This has taken awhile to put together, as the internet is so slow.  

Everything is going well though.  Once we leave this bay, we will probably be out of touch for a good three weeks, as we will be in areas without cell or WIFI.  But stay tuned for more eventually.  

Ensenada to Turtle Bay

Things have been speeding up for me and I am way behind on my blog.  Dan has managed to stay ahead on his, but I have not found it so easy.  We left Ensenada, Mexico with calm seas and a blue sky.  We figured it would be a 3 night sail to Baha Tortegas or otherwise known as Turtle Bay.

Eventually the winds picked up and we had a terrific sail.  It took me awhile to get used to the higher winds 15 to 25 knots with 6 to 8 foot waves coming from behind.  these waves had a short period between sets, so it made for a very rolly ride.  I did well with the scopolamine patch and was not sea sick at all.  Once again we were able to sail with mostly the jib and Malo really, really liked to surf the waves.  It was a cool feeling and took awhile to become more comfortable with helming under these conditions.  

We had great sunrises and sunsets as you can see from the pictures below.  After awhile it all becomes a blur and we hardly know what time it is.  The night watches are still tough for me though.  I take naps during the day when I can.   Below Dan is doing a heave too procedure to drop the main sail.  It always makes mea little nervous.

We were making incredible time, with Malo sailing 7 to 10 knots for much of the time.  After the second night however, the winds stopped suddenly and we were hardly moving.  Dan went to start the engine and it would not start!  Oh no, not engine trouble again!  We had about 30 nautical miles to go to get to our destination.  All sorts of ideas went through my head.  Dan stayed calm through it all and said we would just sail into the bay and drop anchor.  Great I thought, but we would have to spend another night at sea, as we were hardly moving even 1 knot at that point and we had 30 nm to go. I suggested we contact our friends on InReach (our satellite communication system) and let them know we had no engine incase we needed help in the bay. Curt from S/V slow Motion organized a crew to be on alert.  I felt better.

We sailed on at our slow1 knot speed, as there was little wind, and noticed a huge kelp bed ahead of us. We have had trouble with collecting kelp on our keel and our prop and Dan has already had to dive under the boat 3 times to clear off such a mess.  We were able to navigate through a lesser helped area and made it through without picking up much kelp.  

Then Dan decided to try the engine one more time and like magic, it started up!  Hurrah, we kept the engine going for the last 20 nm and motored into Turtle Bay.  Our backup support was not needed, but it was nice to know they would be there if needed.  

Hello Turtle Bay.....

We sailed by our friends Pajo and Ava on Cinderella…..

We sailed by our friends Curt and Lynn on Slow Motion

We sailed by our friend Steve on Mystique…..

Stay tuned for more.  It is difficult to blog here, but I will try.

Heading for Mexico

We are ready to leave the USA and sail into Mexico.  This has been a long awaited destination with much work on our boat to make this a reality - 20 months to be exact.  November 9, 2017 was the date we would depart.  A few last reflections on San Diego, which was really a wonderful place with much activity.  After taking a morning walk along the bay I noticed these two boats passing one another in the bay:  a navy ship and a passenger cruise ship.  They did not collide, but it looked like it could have been a possibility.

We were having a rather leisurely morning getting the boat ready for departure.  It gets easier, as we have gone through this routine many times now.  We also try to keep the boat in a "ready to go" state as much as possible.  Putting away the bikes, dinghy etc take the most time.  We were about ready and then we noticed this mega yacht pull up to the Harbor Police Dock, which is next to where we are staying.  There was even a helicopter on the back!

We left by 11 am for Mexico.  The weather was beautiful, winds were light but we were able to move along nicely with only the jib.  Because this passage to Ensenada was only 60nm, we had lots of time to take it slowly and we would make it to the harbor by 9am.  We sailed by Point Lobos in San Diego and said adiós to USA and Hola to Mexico.

Dan wanted to sail by the Los Corronado Islands which are just outside of San Diego and are in Mexico.  When he was a boy, he used to sail out there and snorkel.  check out his blog for more information on that.  https://onemoretimetosail.blogspot.mx



The Islands were rugged, steep and bare of much foliage.  There were a number of birds, but I was unable to identify them.
























For dinner, I made spiral zucchini noodles with some spinach on top.  I added a cilantra dressing and of course some grated cheese.  Notice the holders on the stove for the pots.  That is to keep the pans on the stove as the boat rocks back and forth and leans.  The stove also pivots to stay on a level plane, as the boat heals.



This was our first Mexican sunset!

The night watch became a blur.  Dan did some, and I did some.  It was one of the first times I was not really cold.  We had a nice amount of wind, but we wanted to slow the speed down to no more than 3 knots so that we would arrive in day light.  We used just a partial jib and at one point we only had 4 feet of it showing.  Malo kept moving forward.  There were many lights along the coast line, as we were only 10 miles off the shore.  This helps me with orientation at night.

I was on the early morning shift and got to see an incredible sunrise.



It took a long time to actually reach the harbor in Ensenada.  Here is what it looks like as we approached it.  The marina is located right behind the breakwater. You can see some of the sailboat masts.



We docked the boat, but Dan did a port side dock, and we needed a starboard dock.  His solution was to line the boat around to the side we needed to be on.

We met our neighbors on the boat Wing & Blade.  Incredibly nice and very helpful were Linda and Ken.  They have been here several months and knew the in's and out's and were most willing to share what they knew.

is was our walk to the marina office.  It looks really like a resort, a very different feeling than other marinas. The hotel is on the left.  All of the staff were incredibly good to us gringos.

We went to the office to meet the nicest group of people who helped us with getting the paperwork done to enter Mexico. Jessica and Jesus and their buddy in the middle, spoke great English and were very, very helpful.  Often this procedure could take a couple days and be very confusing.  We had heard that if you get an agent, it will help.   They then set us up with Jorge, and he drove us into town along with some other cruisers and worked with the officials there.  All we had to do was sign and pay the money.

The nest step was to be driven in a van with Jorge and go to Custom/Immigration/Port Captain/Bank  Office.  They had all these offices located in one building, which made it so much easier.  Here is one of the check points.

 

We were very thankful to have an agent, and Jorge did a terrific job.  Gracias Jorge!

The last official thing to do, was to hang the Mexican Flag.  Dan allowed me the honors.

We are officially in Mexico now.  Our next stop will be Turtle Bay and it will be a three day passage with us leaving tomorrow morning.