But, the thing which was the most strange about this particular passage, was that it was our last for the season. We are here in San Carlos (in a marina, with electricity, and water, and internet, and showers!) about to put Pisces away for a summer of dry storage. We have very mixed emotions about it, the experience up to this point has been the hardest, scariest, most intensely rewarding thing we've ever done, collectively and individually. We've both learned a huge amount about who we are, how we fit together, how people fit with nature, how other people are living, and how we might want to live in the future. We have also been pushed pushed pushed just up to our limit (and some times a bit beyond it), and we are both incredibly excited about thing slow afternoons at coffee shops with internet and newspapers, not getting up once during the night, cold everything, running water, friends & family, chinese food, indian food, pizza, hamburgers, milkshakes, frozen yogurt, etc.
We will post a few more blogs in the coming weeks, we'll post our list of to-do's so you can get a sense of how hard we will be working to prepare Pisces for the heat and winds of hurricane season, and we'll probably write a bit more of a wrap-up for the season. But now, we'd be interested if you as a reader have any questions!! An old salt wanting to know whether we use monel or stainless steel seizing wire? A landlubber wanting to know why some sails are white and some are not? Can't wrap your head around how we managed to spend the last 5 months on a boat doing ___ ? Ask away via comment or email and we'll let you know while it's all fresh.
And, to end this blog off, here's a blog post from Julia written yesterday while sailing that failed to upload due to technical problems:
We left Bahia Concepion this morning, following the fog out of the bay.
We are currently about 20 miles out of the bay barreling towards San Carlos at 5.7 kts. The wind is from the East and we are having a great sail with jib, staysail and single reefed main. The fishing line was out for a while earlier, but attracted too much attention from some nosy boobies and sea gulls, so we hauled it in not wanting to catch a bird on the line.
We can already hear the port traffic to the marinas and port captains of Guaymas and San Carlos as vessels clear in and out.
Hot, freshwater shower here we come!
Lat 27 11' N, Long 111 41' W
14 comments:
CONGRATULATIONS!
I have enjoyed following your travels and have a couple of questions.
1. Would you do it again, if so what would you do differently.
2. Will you do it again?
J&J
I would like to know what items you didn't need or use and what items you wish you had but didn't? Also how about a top ten, five, or three list or best and worst experiences .
Greg
Cyndi -
1. We definitely would do it again. Things we would do differently...we had assumed we would be crossing the Pacific this season and we prepared Pisces accordingly. For us it proved unrealistic to do both Mexico and cross the Pacific in one season, next time we would leave some of the offshore prep for down the line. We also would have done a better job learning about weather (primarily about weather sources as opposed to making our own forecasts), and building up our experience and comfort level with anchoring.
We also didn't give a whole lot of thought to what we wanted to get from the trip aside from sailing and a bunch of internal 'find ourselves' stuff. We quickly realized that people who had additional interests in the area they were cruising were having the best time, be it snorkeling, hiking, diving, kayaking, or just being really social. We would urge anyone who is doing a similar trip to spend some time up front learning about the history of the area, and what all there is to do and see by land.
2. Definitely! We are coming back next season, possible destinations include Mexico, San Francisco, Pacific Northwest by way of Hawaii, South Pacific, and more...
Greg -
I want to write a full post on gear, what worked/what didn't. But for the most part we have been very happy. A couple of things that we want to update include our windlass (which just doesn't always have the oomph we need and tends to freeze up or trip the breaker at inopportune times) and some of our running rigging (we have Sta Set-X throughout, and for the most part it's good, although we'd like a fancier jib halyard to minimize stretch and trips to the mast to tighten things up).
For me a couple top memories include:
1) The time we spent at Bahia Santa Maria, as it was after a very hard bit of sailing, and we were just starting to gain the confidence and skills necessary to not only complete passages but actually to enjoy them!
2) Cabo, not for the place but just for the sense of accomplishment having reached there.
3) Isla Partida with Tao before heading in to La Paz, completely out of fresh anything, anchorages to ourselves, absolutely beautiful.
4) Our 'dream day' from Bahia Concepcion.
Hard memories are for the most part just times we were anxious and tired, primarily at anchorages, although there are some tough sailing days in there as well. We are trying not to dwell on those too much right now ;)
Jacob
Fabulous stuff, you two. I've enjoyed following along with your adventures. I do have a couple questions, as we are prepping to leave this summer:
1. SSB - I think I recall you had a receiver only? How has that worked for you?
2. Web/Email - what has been your experience with getting online and staying in touch. Are you using internet cafes, some kind of high power wifi or an alternate solution? Any recommendations?
3. We have a hard dinghy too... any problems?
4. Money... we totally get it if this question is too personal... but I'm curious to know if you've found this adventure to be more/less costly than you? expected.
Hi Naomi,
1. SSB - Having a receiver only has worked well for our needs. It seems like half the cruisers we've met have a receiver only set up, and the other half have full SSB/Ham setups. Our receiver is not the easiest to get good reception with, although we've gotten a recommendation to make up a length of wire to clip the antenna to the backstay. A friend swears by this, saying that even a cheap handheld will work like a fancy rig (plus it lets you listen to the nets without going topsides which is great as many of the nets are early in the morning--pre coffee).
2. Web/Email - For email and blog updates we are using an Iridium Sat Phone, with email service provided by UUPlus.com. We have been extremely happy with the coverage and service. We check email almost every day, and with the occasional voice call, we've used approximately 250 minutes of airtime over the past 5.5 months.
We also have a great wireless amp/antenna setup from
We have found that we can get internet even at some very out-of-the-way places, at ranges up to a half mile or more. It seems like this setup outperforms almost everything else we've seen (although it's rough on the battery life due to it's power usage).
3. Hard Dinghy -- No problems at all, it's awesome. We have a sail kit, and have spent many great times at anchorages sailing around. There are definitely times where having an engine on the dinghy would be helpful, and we may buy a 2hp if we find a good deal this summer, but there have only been a few times where we felt we couldn't leave the boat because of the weather/distance whereas we could have in an inflatable.
4. Money - We have averaged about $1200 a month, including some big boat projects and shopping in San Diego. This also includes a basic 'catastrophic' health care plan, and insurance on the boat. We don't feel that we are particularly cheap, we eat out when the option is there, we have stayed at a few marinas, etc. But we definitely are careful when we shop, don't buy a lot of unnecessary things, and don't go out partying a lot. In the month of April we didn't spend anything at all, so that helped bring the average down too :)
We will probably do a post on money too, as we've kept very detailed records of our spending, and I think it's an interesting topic.
We hope your preparation is going great, if you are in the SF area this summer/early fall give us an email if you'd like a ride to the store/do some laundry/have a drink/or any of those sorts of things!
Jacob
Sorry, our wireless adaptor can be found at:
http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_74&products_id=677
Jacob and Julia,
Congratulations! What an accomplishment - I'm impressed with the knowledge, skills, and values you two have developed in (just!) 5 months. Way to go!
cyndimarcus
SV Quiet Moon
Did you repair your Monitor? Have you found it useful or would an autohelm be enough.
Cyndi,
The monitor is awesome, very easily in the top few pieces of gear aboard. It steers the boat so well, especially in ocean swell, that it is like watching the tiller movements of a human helmsman, it seems to almost anticipate the waves.
It was easy to fix, the main gears had become unmeshed, and after about 15 minutes at a quiet harbor we were able to put everything back in place.
A fair amount of people cruising down here seem to be using electric autopilots without incident. I would just say make sure you factor the power draw in to your electrical budget, and perhaps have some plan if it craps out on you in terms of replacement/repair/backup.
Jacob
What is the cost to put your boat on the hard in San Carlos. Do you have to pay all up front, or do they charge monthly fee.
Sounds like a LOT of work to prepare it for that.
Dry storage cost is around $150/month (depends on size of boat). They bill you monthly for it.
There are storage yards that are cheaper than Marina Seca, however we were impressed by the professionalism of Marina Seca, and felt the extra cost was worth it.
I can't seem to find it on your blog, do you have refrigeration? If not, how did you handle it?
We did have refrigeration, but we were pretty sparing with it (as it didn't really fit into our electrical budget). We really only used it for a few days after leaving a major re-stocking port. We also used it anytime we ran the engine, as at that point the electricity was more or less 'free' and the proximity of the icebox to the engine compartment means that if we don't run the refrigeration we end up with a 'hot box' (we learned this the hard way...
Julia also learned some great ways to keep food fresh and to make non-perishable substitutes for things. I'll try to get her to do a post on that.
Jacob