Here's a couple of photos from the anchorage at Los Frailes. We've been having a great time here, hanging out with Tao and enjoying the warm weather and great swimming (turns out those little eel looking fish we saw are needlefish, and not anything to worry about). And, we can even get a patchy internet connection here, which is awesome, but a bit strange.

Yesterday we made the trip from San Jose del Cabo to Bahia Los Frailes. Imagine going upwind in the slot with 20-25kts of wind and a strong ebb, for about 30 miles. For you non-sailors essentially this means that we completely undid our boat cleaning from a few days ago, everything outside (this includes us) is now thickly coated with salt again, and a good bit of saltwater found its way inside around hatches, drenching the v-berth, the portside settee, the head, and the galley (ie. most of the boat). There was one particularly memorable moment as we bashed our way over the 5-6 foot chop, spray everywhere, when two humpbacks bigger than Pisces surfaced about 50 yards to windward heading directly towards us quite quickly. Things can get a bit hectic sometimes.

Los Frailes is a well-protected anchorage (our standard for this has definitely changed since we've left S.F.) that is only about a mile South of one of only three coral reefs in North America. A deep underwater canyon extends right up to the mouth of the anchorage, so you need to anchor on a very narrow shelf close-in to the beach. Depths go from off-the-sounder, to 90+ feet, to 70 feet, to 40 feet to 30 feet in a few boatlengths. When we arrived here at sundown last night there were approximately 10 other boats here, and we had to squeeze in fairly tight with another boat, but they were friendly about it and didn't seem to mind.

One of the things we have taken to doing at a new anchorage is making a little driving tour of the anchorage before anchoring. This accomplishes a couple of things. One, it lets you survey the anchorage for good spots, the best protection, depths, etc. But equally importantly, a friendly word or two shouted to each boat (a good icebreaker question is 'what depth are you set in?') seems to diffuse the normal 'new-boat-to-the-anchorage wariness' (generally when sailors see a new boat approaching the anchorage most everyone comes on deck to watch them, partly because it might be the biggest event of the day, and partly to make sure they don't anchor somewhere that they shouldn't).

This is truly a remarkable anchorage for the sea life. It's been referred to as a 'nursery for small manta rays' and we witnessed this last night. Tens and twenties of 2-3 foot wingspan baby manta rays were frolicking and leaping clear of the water. The way these guys play around makes dolphins look serious. Some of them were jumping 5 or 6 feet clear of the water, and flapping their wings frantically as if trying to fly between the swells, others were leaping straight up and down vertically and belly-flopping down in huge splashes, one kept jumping up and flipping head over...tail time and time again. There are also schools of fish about 6 inches long that skitter over the surface of the water for about 15 feet in a run, the pelicans are very interested in these guys.

All of this sea life made us think it would be fun to go swimming, but last night as I took a flashlight up to the bow to check our anchor snubber for chafe I noticed a whole bunch of eels or snakes, about a foot and a half long and a bright green color hanging around our chain...okay, no swimming for now. The plan for today is to put a bunch of our clothes and cushions on deck to dry in the sun, after that we may dinghy ashore and explore. After our experience yesterday we are not in a hurry to leave here until the weather forecast is perfect (the next upwind bit is about twice as long), so we will most likely miss Carnaval in La Paz...oh well. We are also hoping to meet up with our friends Shawn and Chris from Tao here soon (who we met at Cat Harbor over Christmas), they got in to Cabo San Lucas the day before we left San Jose and we were able to have a slightly garbled VHF conversation with them. It's great to be back at a nice anchorage after the craziness of Cabo and the marina at San Jose.

23 22' N, 109 25' W

We woke up this morning and decided to spend another day at the marina. The wind was still honking, the idea of 2 showers in as many days was alluring and our Baja travel guide says a lot of nice things about the town of Cabo San Jose. We spent the day wandering around the town, then ambled home along the beach. I even got a swim in on the way home. All in all a "10" of a day, with a shower still to come and a dinner with fresh bread from a French bakery we found in town.

Tomorrow we plan to head off topped up with fresh water and fuel, ready for another 6 weeks of anchorages.

This dog had dug himself a deep hole in the sand underneath some shady plants to try and keep cool.

For the first time in over 6 weeks we are in a Marina: Abundant fresh water! No swell! Showers!

This morning we left Cabo San Lucas at the crack of dawn, tired of the endless drunk jetskiers using Pisces as a turning mark. The original plan was to make the ~50 mile trip to the anchorage at Frailes, as a starting point to work our way up to La Paz. Half jokingly we dropped in our biggest cedar plug fishing lure we had bought (about 12" long). But, lo and behold, about an hour into the trip the line started smoking off our fishing rod. We stopped the boat, I grabbed the rod, and when I felt how hard the fish was fighting I said, "here Julia, I think it's your turn to land a fish."

It was an epic battle, that took almost an hour, and here's the catch, a huge Pacific Bonito (which by the way google assures us have a reputation as fierce fighters):

So, as soon as I got done dispatching and filleting the above sea monster, the wind piped up to about 25kts dead on the nose, not our idea of fun. Quick change of plans, and in to Puerto San Jose Marina we went. This is a relatively new marina, and very high end (read pricey). We originally had considered stopping here, and then decided we would wait until La Paz. However, with the building weather, a fresh fish to cook, and the possibility that we could be taking showers by that afternoon we decided to treat ourselves.

Today alone we've probably used as much or more water than we've used in the entire month preceeding. We washed the caked salt off of every single sail, cleaned the dinghy, hosed down the boat from stem to stern, and are currently filling our water tanks. After that, more water consumption is planned in the form of the first 'real' showers in too long.


Tommorrow it's most likely off again, after a quick stop at the fuel dock we should be good to go for another long bit. The plan at this point is Frailes, Ensenada de los Muertos, and then La Paz hopefully in time to catch some of Carnaval that starts on Friday and goes through Tuesday.


23 03' N, 109 40' W

Yesterday we took care of our formal international entry requirements. I'm going to walk through our experience here in the hope that it might be interesting or useful to anyone who follows. The disclaimer I'd add is that our experience was very different from what we had expected, and I have the feeling that part of the experience is that everyone's experience is going to be different. I would venture that a good bit depends simply on the mood of the officials that day, did they like their lunch? Did they get enough sleep? Did the guy before you in line piss them off? All of these things are probably at least as important as the 'official' process.

In the "Mexico Boating Guide" they say that Cabo has a ventanillas unica (basically a one-stop shop for all your clearing in needs) just like Ensenada. In to town we went, and without much trouble at all we had found the port captain's office, which the guide says is right next door to the ventanillas unica...After walking around the neighborhood a bit without any luck finding this fabled unica we went into the Port Captains office to ask. Our questions garnered some seriously blank looks, and we were told that we would need to go to immigration and then come back. Now, I'll be the first to admit my Spanish is not that strong, and it's quite possible that there is in fact a ventanillas unica in Cabo, what was clear however is that we were not destined to be taking advantage of that streamlined process.

So, across town we walked to find the immigration office, guided by Daniel, a local sailing school instructor who had helped us out in the Port Captain's. The immigration office had a bit of a train station feel to it, high ceilings, a small desk in the corner with 3 immigration officers, a couple of tables and waiting chairs all the way across the room, and a lady mopping the floor in what seemed to be a perpetually revolving cycle. The agent we spoke with didn't seem to care very much, but he entered our information and printed us an 'invoice' that we needed to pay by walking across the street to the bank. At the bank they stamped the invoice, and then back we went to Immigration. They took these invoices, and then a flurry of stamping ensued, including one stamp that was about the size of a half sheet of paper. After this (which took about an hour and a half with miscelleneous waiting included) we were issued our Tourist Visas for 180 days.

Sweet! Back to the Port Captains office where we waited for an agent to be available. This was actually a little tricky, as there was no clear queue, and the agents seemed to approach people's requests in a non-linear fashion. They might get the ball rolling on one person's paperwork, then put it down on the counter and start someone else's. The agent we got (who was very nice, clearly knowledgeable, but spoke no english) was sorry to tell us that we needed to have gotten stamped crew lists from Immigration. While Immigration had indeed stamped our crew list, they had kept it and we didn't have a copy. So, back across town, this time in a hurry because Immigration is only open from 9-1, and it was already 12. Luckily, when we got back to immigration they recognized us, and relatively quickly we had 3 copies of our crew lists + stamps.

Back at the Port Captains we handed over our paperwork, and then proceeded to wait. The waiting area was incredibly hot, as in 'wow, I might pass out hot'. They actually had air conditioning units, but they weren't on, at that point we realized that this was not the hot season, and we had to toughen up a bit. There was a nice bit of non-American logic on display in the port captains office: they had no photocopier and only one printer, which inevitably meant that things were quite slow, so to avoid the people being bored by the wait they had purchased a TV for the waiting area to play music videos. We paid about $40 USD in fees via credit card there (the other option would have been to go back to a bank and pay cash), and then we were 'done'.

(translated from choppy and incorrect Spanish)
"Uh don't we have to go to Customs?"
"You? no."
"Uhm...we need a temporary import permit for our boat"
"You said you're going to La Paz. You can get that there."
(another guy chimes in)
"Actually it's not in La Paz, it's in Pichilingue, near La Paz."

So, that's where it stands, we are checked in (mostly), and we'll have to finish up with customs when we are in La Paz. It was relatively painless (especially in comparison to the Australian guy next to us at immigration who had a stack of pages at least an inch thick, each page with a multitude of stamps, who was arguing with the immigration office about one missing signature on a stamp buried deep in the middle. Or the lady who seemed to be finally getting her problem resolved and was literally clinging to the immigration officers hand saying 'gracias gracias gracias'). Of course, who knows what'll happen when we visit customs in La Paz and try to explain why we need our import permit from them and why we didn't visit customs in Cabo...

That's right, we are happily anchored in Cabo San Lucas! Coming around Cabo Falso you realize quite quickly that you are in an entirely different world than the rest of the remote Baja peninsula where we have spent the last month. Jet Skiers, Parasailers, Glass Bottom Boats, Booze Cruises, Sportfishers, Kayakers, Swimmers, Water Taxis, Americas Cup Boats, Replica Pirate Ships, Whale Watcing Boats, and more criss-cross the bay. We had been forewarned, but it was still completely overwhelming to try and find anchorage along the narrow shelf of sand near the beaches while dodging all the above mentioned water traffic and trying to communicate over the loud music coming from the hotel beach bars.

For the astute reader, you may have realized that the fact we arrived in Cabo San Lucas on Valentine's day means we left Bahia Magdalena on...Friday the 13th. Which makes it all the stranger that we had one of the best passages we've had yet! We sailed off our anchor at Belcher's point and were immediately surrounded by whales in the narrow exit of Mag Bay. About halfway out a huge grey whale (must have been at least 40 feet long) came alongside, allowing us to get this video of it:



We flew down the coast with a strong following wind and sea, in fact by mid-afternoon on the first day we realized that what we had planned to be a two night passage would in fact probably only take one! The wildlife was incredible, as dolphins played around the bow, and later a 5' long billfish leapt repeatedly 5-6' out of the water off our stern (being chased or chasing?). When we arrived outside of Cabo we saw a grey whale breach, towering a good 15' feet in the air until slamming down in a huge cloud of spray.

From anchor up to anchor down we covered the 180 odd miles in just under 30 hours, not too shabby. After saying a quick hello to some of the other boats here (including the two Southbound boats that were having a hard time while in Bahia Santa Maria, who looked much much happier now), we jumped in the water (78 degrees) for a celebratory swim. Today the plan is to re-anchor in a slightly more convenient spot, then head ashore for a celebratory everything. Tomorrow we will attempt to navigate the vagaries of the international check-in process. After that, everything's up in the air...want to come down and accompany us on a 4 day offshore passage to Puerto Vallarta?

And now (since we are getting internet on the boat for the first time in over a month) here's a bunch of photos we haven't been able to add to our other blogs:

Today we made the 30-odd mile run from Bahia Santa Maria into Magdalena Bay proper. We are tucked into Belcher's Point anchorage with 2 other boats (one that we have been seeing at anchorages since Morro Bay). Mag Bay is about the size of SF Bay, and we are in the equivalent of Horseshoe Cove.

There's a nasty low on the coast much further north, so we'll stay here tonight, listen to the weather tomorrow and either stay tucked into Mag Bay for the low system through the weekend, or duck out of here tomorrow--next stop Cabo.

In much more exciting news, we spotted a pod of dolphins feeding on the way down here. We headed their way and Jacob caught an amazing yellowfin tuna. About 15 pounds, almost too big to fit into the net (to get it on boat). Pictures to come when we have a fast internet connection. So we have just finished our first sushi dinner (complete with chilled sake) and have great plans for the rest of the tuna in the coming days.

We are still hunkered down in Bahia Santa Maria, awaiting the arrival and passage of a Northwesterly gale that should move in to the area in the next several hours. It's the smallest bit claustrophobic to face not getting off the boat for a week or so; imagine not leaving your house (or in terms of size a more apt comparison might be not leaving your hallway) for over a week while a cold wind whistles outside. However, over the last several hours 10 large tuna fishing boats have joined us in the bay, and we figure if they are coming in to hide from the weather, we are definitely making the right choice.

Along with the fishing boats there are four other sailboats here, two Southbound and two Northbound. Greg & Loraine on Swamp Angel have been cruising Mexico for two seasons, and are now headed headed all the way back to British Columbia to be with family. The distance upwind ahead of them is enough to make your head hurt just thinking about it, but luckily they are not on any schedule. Erik is a young guy single-handing an Ericson 29 back to Half Moon Bay to work and build up some money for more long distance cruising of Central America. Unfortunately, he is on a schedule, and I can imagine that the prospect of spending a whole week here is driving him crazy.

The other two boats are Southbound like us, and it's been interesting to dinghy over and talk with them. As new cruisers ourselves we've been going through a period of adjustment as the realities (good and bad) of cruising become clear. As I think you can pick up from some of our earlier blogs, we've had our moments of feeling tired, scared, overwhelmed, and just plain beaten. The folks on the other two boats that are Southbound seem to be solidly in the middle of that same type of adjustment period. One couple is pinned down with engine trouble, tearing apart their heat exchange system for the second time in as many days, another couple is concerned about their water supplies and are dealing with some cuts and infection on the husbands leg and foot. When we stopped by this morning one of them commented, �this just isn't fun.� Our hopes are with them that they can persevere long enough that the good starts outweighing the bad.

As for us, we've been having a great time here, relaxing, cooking great food, enjoying the wildlife and rugged beauty of this remote bay. We're now using up the last remains of our fresh goods, so we're going to have to start getting creative with the canned and packaged goods. Luckily we have plenty of time to consider the menu, after all you can only read so many books per day (feel free to take that as a hint to write to our satellite email address and tell us all about what's going on with you!). We'll leave you with some highlights of the past few days:

A few nights ago when all the Marina Del Ray to Puerto Vallarta racing boats were here we decided to crash their onshore party/trophy presentation. So, we caught a high-speed panga ride ashore through the breaking surf along with the crew of Defiance (a Swan forty something). They were all super cool, adopting us as part of their crew (ie. sharing drink tickets), which was especially nice as it turned out they had won not only the leg but also were the overall leaders! Julia was a big hit, and I shared some of the glory of having somehow convinced a pretty girl to go off sailing with me (just for the record it was the other way around). They are probably on their way from Cabo to Puerto Vallarta right now, I'm sure that they are hauling ass in the big wind and seas. Go Defiance!

Last night around sunset we sat down in the cockpit for the Wenegrat de-stress happy hour when suddenly a whale spouted, only about 60 feet from the boat. We ran forward, and about thirty seconds later a grey whale, probably about 30 feet long, surfaced within 20 feet of the boat, sliding the length of it's entire back out of the water all the way to it's tail fin, which it lifted about a foot clear of the water and then disappeared. Absolutely incredible.

Lat 24 Degrees 46' N, Long 112 Degrees 15' W

At night when we are anchored one of us gets up every couple of hours to check the GPS and poke our head outside to make sure we weren't dragging and that generally everything is right with the world (and our anchoring situation). Losing a little sleep in order to have a little warning if something is about to go wrong is definitely worth it in my book.

Last night when we went to bed there were exactly three boats in the bay (including us) but each time over the night we did an anchor check more boats were piling into the harbor. By the time I got up at 6am to turn our anchor light off and start the coffee, there were 14 new boats anchored and about 5 more wandered in throughout the day. It turns out there's some coastal race on from somewhere in SoCal to Puerto Vallarta--at least that's what we have gleaned through listening to their radio communication on channel 16. It's blowing like stink here and a couple of boats left the harbor, presumably to try their luck at finding a more sheltered anchorage in Mag Bay around the corner. We watched one of the racers weigh anchor, motor out away from shore, pop their chute and promptly shred it within 5 secs of having it up. I hope they have a spare for the rest of the downwind run!

Weather forecast is for continued wind through the weekend reaching gale force over the next day or two. We are happily tucked into the anchorage and will stay here relaxing, having fun and exploring the area until the wind moderates but I'm sure these racers will be off into the gale. Best of luck to them!

Sent by Julia via Jacob's blog-link.

Jacob informed me recently that our trip computer on our GPS was over 1,000 miles since he set it in Half Moon Bay (our first stop after heading out under the Golden Gate, where we caught our breath and realized we had actually left) . Although I intimately know each mile that we have travelled it was a surprise to hear them all add up to such a large number, so I thought I'd discuss some details of the trip so far.

Top Speed: 14 knots
This is logged on our trip computer also, and was a shock to hear. I figure we probably clocked 14 knots running with the trisail in the gale in Channel Islands. We usually sail along between 3-6 knots, so I think I'd notice if we suddenly doubled our speed in normal sailing circumstances.

Fish Caught: 1.5
We caught a lovely 7 or 8 pound fish (from the tuna family) south of Ensenada and happily ate sashimi and seared tuna for a couple of days. A few days ago on our most recent passage we caught a baby tuna, so we put it back for someone else to catch when it was older. According to the charts and guide books we are now in prime fishing territory, so our fishing optimism is high.

Nights on passage with the moon visible: 2 (the most recent two)
This is unbelievable to me; we've gone over 1,000 miles, done multiple overnight passages and of all that time either the sky was totally clouded or the moon was not out for all but 2 nights. Having the moon out keeping you company at night makes night watches on passage so much more pleasant.

Cloud watching:
We have a lot of access to weather information and forecasting. We get text forecast and pressure charts via email, we get buoy reports daily, and listen via SSB radio to Don Anderson's Baja weather forecast every morning at 8:15am. However if we get wind from the SE at 20kts, who cares if the forecast was NW 10 kts. As this happens fairly often (the actual weather condition differing from the forecast) we are trying to cultivate the ability to judge weather conditions and changing conditions by using the age-old method of forecasting by observation. To be fair to the professionals, forecasting is a difficult procedure and they do a good job of generalities. I have 3 weather books onboard, each with sections about clouds and their meaning. Whenever there is a lot of cloud activity I dash down below and grab the nearest book, flip through the chapter on clouds and try to identify what they are foretelling. One of the books is a seemingly helpful book of photographs displaying common sky horizons and what will happen. However the only time I've been able to confidently identify our conditions with a page in the book the inference was that ÒA vigorous cyclonic situation exists upwind and so gales may blow up with the next 8-15 hours.Ó This reduced me to such a nervous wreck that Jacob banned me from using this picture book again. And no gale appeared.

On naming objects:
We have a few items on the boat that are so useful to us that we've named them.
Dinghy: Pescadito (little fish) or Pesky when he's being ornery.
Windvane: Brutus. Storm windvane: Brutini. These guys steer better than either of us, day in day out, in conditions that we would not want to hand steer.
Engine: Alpha Beta. This is a nod towards the model of engine: Beta Marine Diesel. This guy tirelessly chugs alongÑI love him.

Cocktail hour:
A week or so ago I instituted cocktail hour on a trial basis. The evenings and impending sunset can cause feelings of trepidation, particularly on passage. What will the night bring? The 12 hours of darkness can be intimidating, especially at the start of a night. Everything is more difficult at night, we are tired, it's colder, we can't see what's coming, or if there's a weather change on the horizon sail changes are more difficult etc. So now every night around 4 or 5 pm (by 6 the sun has set) we have a drink, and sit and talk. It helps immensely. Since there's nothing to be done about whatever will occur that night, having cocktail hour smoothes the transition into the inevitable.

Cooking:
One of the more common questions I get from our friends and family back home is what and how we eat so I figured I'd give an example of a couple of days worth of meals. Cooking is different, but in some ways it's better aboard, there is more time to prep and more time to plan. No more rushing home from work at 6:45 and throwing something together to stave off the hunger pangs. To be fair, when it's rough weather out or I'm tired, I don't hesitate to turn to Cup-A-Noodle Soup or canned chili (the vegetarian stuff from Trader Joes is amazing).

Tuesday (in transit on passage from Turtle Bay)
Breakfast: Oatmeal with honey and dried apricots and coffee
Lunch: Platter of fresh baked olive bread, salami, cheese, olives, pickles. Fruit plate with fresh banana, apple, oranges and blood oranges. Leftover coleslaw from yesterday lunch.
Dinner: Cup of Noodles (see?!)
Midnight Snack: Costco trail mix, coffee

Wednesday (arrived at Bahia Santa Maria, anchored by 11:30am)
Breakfast: Oranges. Fresh baked bread/toast with jam and Nutella for Jacob. 2 fried eggs and toast for Julia. Coffee.
Lunch: Lobster tacos.
Dinner: Mac'n'cheese bake with asparagus and crumbled crusty crutons on top.

Thursday (anchored at Bahia Santa Maria)
Breakfast: Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, coffee.
That's up to date!
The amazing thing with all of this is that with all of this eating we are both still losing weight. So that's itÑa pretty good spread all around!

Frankly, something has changed over the last couple of days for me. I'm not sure what caused it, it could be that the wind is warmer and the water is clearer, it could be that we are squarely in the southern part of the push down the Baja coast, it could be that we're gaining confidence in our ability and our choice-making or it could be something that our cruising friends Shawn and Chris said to us about their own approach which was "we don't know when we will be back here again, so we want to enjoy it now while we can." But whatever the cause, the result has been that I am happy, enjoying where we are, grateful to get to see the beauty of this isolated place, and excited to be on this adventure.

(written by Julia who has yet to configure her own email blog updates :)
Lat 24 Degrees 46' N, Long 112 Degrees 14' W

We are happily anchored at Bahia Santa Maria after a relatively uneventful 2 night passage down from Turtle Bay. The bay is teeming with wildlife, including huge numbers of Gray Whales, some of which have necessitated our changing course to avoid hitting them as they surface for air.

We had a fantastic lobster taco lunch (8 AA batteries = 8 Spiny Lobsters) with more lobsters waiting for dinner. We will most likely spend a night or two here, and possibly a night a few miles South at Bahia Magdalena, where word has it there is the remains of a whaling outpost on shore, complete with bones and vats. After that it's about 160 miles South to Cabo, where we will get to play tourist for a bit, and have a cold drink for the first time in weeks.

Water temperature is 72 degrees, and the air is at least 10 degrees warmer...is it possible that we have finally escaped Winter?

Lat 24 Degrees 46' N, Long 112 Degrees 14' W