Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Nuevo Ano

Happy holidays to everyone from La Paz Mexico. It is difficult for us to believe it is Christmas, it is warm (daytime it's in the 70's at night it dips to 58 or so) and sunny. Everywhere we look we see blue skies filled with palm trees and blue, blue water. I've got to rub it in, because I know it is very cold in Bend.
The residents of La Paz have gone all out and decorated for Christmas. They have strung ropes of white lights around all the palm trees along the maelcon (water front There are a couple of life-size nativity scenes, one in the plaza al central in front of the church and another in front of a governmental building near the marina. They have also created large christmas trees, 40 or 50 feet high, made of artificial evergreen garlands strung vertically in a conical shape, then hung with large ball ornaments and festoon with wide ribbon. Juxtiposed against the sand and palm trees is the wide scale use of snowmen and Santa Clause.

We are in Mexico

We left San Diego on October 31 after staying 5 nights anchored off Coronado Island near the Coronado Bridge, joining the Baja Ha-Ha fleet of about 130 boats. San Diego harbor is incredibly busy with all manor of pleasure boats as well as US and Canadian navy destroyers and aircraft carriers and several cruise ships.
From the Captain's log: "We sailed all day and into the night. At first we reefed the main sail and we're making 6.5 knots in about 10-15 knots of wind. Whooee. By nightfall the wind is down to less than 7 knots then drops to less than 3 knots at 02:00. The wind dies completly by 08:30 so the engines are turned on and we motor-sailed all the rest of the day, through the night and into the third day." We arrived at our first stop, Puerto San Bartolome (Bahia de Las Tortugas)about 72 hours later. Our goal was to try to sail the entire way but at the same time try to maintain forward progress of about 3.5 knots per hour in order to clear Islas Cerdros before the weather changed and to arrive at the mouth of the bay in daylight.
On the first day, gosh darn, I was sea sick again. I guess it's a good thing that I have such a poor memory, because I so easily forget how awful I feel and get back on the boat again.
There are four of us on the boat now, on a watch rotation of four hours on and eight hours off, with Leslie and I standing watch together. It's cold, so we wear our "foulies", hats and gloves. Joe has the forward berth, Steve claimed the port settee and Leslie and I share the aft berth with our baggage taking up about 1/3 of the berth. While underway and because I feel so awful, we usually don't prepare meals, each on our own for eating. The most frequently eaten item is peanut butter and jelly in a flour tortilla. We try to keep a thermos of hot water, but have to be careful; if you pour the boiling water in and shut the lid, it just spews hot water everywhere. So you have to let it cool a bit before latching the lid, but also try to remember to latch it before it cools too much. And of course, chocolate must be on board; candy bars and M & Ms.
We have our fishing licenses for Mexico, that is, one for the boat, one for the dinghy and one for each of us on the boat even though only Joe has the gear and is the real pescadero on Sea Lady. This is required by the Mexican government and is pretty expensive. Steve and I don't know how to fish or how to fillet one if we were to catch one. Joe is pretty lucky, and lands five fish on the voyage to Cabo San Lucas. Two (one Wahoo and one Bigeye tuna) of the three were too small and had to be thrown back. The other three, 2 Blackfin tuna and 1 Yellowfin tuna, were between 20 and 30 lbs. Joe gives Kay lessons in filleting the fish and prepares sashimi, lumi lumi and cooks a fabulous meal with the tuna. We have enough fish to share with a couple other boats when we reach our second anchorage in Bahia Santa Maria. His luck runs out then and he doesn't catch any more on the final third leg. He did have a Mahi Mahi following his lure, taunting him, but it doesn't bite. A short while later, when we turn on the engines to recharge the batteries, we discover it had been hiding out beneath the boat.