Tom and Theresa's Travels

 We finally left Mazatlán on April 16th - I use the word "finally" because we were a little tired of Mazatlán at that point.  Don't get me wrong - Mazatlán was/is great - lots of nice people, great food, lots to do, but we were tired of being in a city.  Our boat slip was next to a few nightclubs & locals party until 5:00 am many nights.  To add to that, local boat owners/workers sometimes start blasting their music at 6:00 am.  Needless to say, lack of good sleep was wearing on us.    Many Sounds of Mazatlan at Night : One of the nightclubs in Marina Mazatlan - the "cooler" is actually the door into the club. The biggest reason we were excited to leave Mazatlán was to finally be able to explore and boat in the Sea of Cortez.  Boating in the SOC was THE reason we wanted to buy a boat in Mexico.  But, since we bought our boat in December on the mainland, we quickly learned from other cruisers that going south along the coast was better boa...

Around 2AM, I heard a blow.  T was asleep in the aft cabin and Madison was asleep up front.  The engine was chugging along, pushing us from Mulege to San Carlos.  I first thought !whale! and because of horror stories we've heard about sailboats hitting whales, I scanned our path ahead.  Then to port I saw six streaks of greenish glow shoot towards the bow, swimming in parallel.  Dolphins!  One started flopping, repeatedly smacking its tail on the water.  I left the ship on autopilot and walked forward and hitched my arm around the jib.  Smaller fish were darting left and right while a large dolphin swam the in the bow wake.  Then splash!!, a dolphin hit the surface after an epic jump.  They swam away, and then they were back, always shrouded in bioluminescence, giving the appearance of glowing ghosts.  After about 10 minutes of enjoying the show, they disappeared.  I waited a minute or two and then walked back to the cockpit wi...

 Tom and I have a boat problem in that we really like boats - currently, we have 10 boats located in 2 countries and 2 states.  Our boats include:      One 12' aluminum fishing boat in Suttons Bay, Michigan to use on Grand Traverse Bay/Lake Michigan and/or inland lakes in northern Michigan Suzanne & Tom on Lake Michigan One 18' set of cataraft tubes (our big water/Grand Canyon boat), two 14' set of tubes (our smaller water rafts),  & one inflatable kayak in Anthem, Arizona. 14' Raft on top of RV in Colorado T&T on 18' raft in the Grand Canyon One 16' foot inflatable canoe in Chandler, Arizona; it's really versatile and can hold a lot (e.g., it's advertised to hunters in Alaska as being able to hold an elk, a bear, AND a moose  with all your gear ) Canoeing on the Ontonagon River in the UP One 43' North Wind Sailboat (our home) with a 55 HP diesel engine to use where ever we want (currently in the Sea of Cortez and West Coast/Pacific side ...

We left Mazatlán for the Baja Peninsula at Dawn and by sunset we'd made it 1/3 of the way across. Wind blew 15kts across the bow, close hauled, and this continued with building seas until 8pm. Winds diminished after that, and at midnight we fired up the diesel.    Here's a sunset video...   You may notice the jib is partially furled.  The main was reefed too.  We're still using the training wheels;  6 knots felt fast enough.

During our adventures south to Puerto Vallarta and back to Mazatlán, we noticed oil spilling out of the saildrive, along with excessive vibration.  The following picture shows an engine and a saildrive.  The saildrive is the transmission, hull penetration and shaft seal in a compact unit. I changed the gear-oil a couple times, and both times the oil was contaminated with water (not good!), so I called a mechanic in Mazatlán who helped with repairs when we purchased the boat. Patrick Fallon is a British (Irish?) guy living in Mazatlán.  He knows his stuff, and he enjoys explaining the details.  We decided to haul-out to repair the saildrive, and add a couple fresh coats of anti-fouling paint to the bottom while we're at it.  We were planning to have the bottom painted in a couple months anyway. Now the boat is sitting on stands in with Active Marine at the Fonatur yard in Mazatlán.   It doesn't take long for growth to thoroughly foul the bottom.  T...

 We stayed in Matanchen Bay for 3 nights.  The first night, there were 5 other boats; the last night, we were the only ones anchored.  The bay and the beach are fairly large and unpopulated except for the 34 restaurants along the beach (I know it was 34 because they were on the sign - I have no idea how these restaurants all make it given that they seemed empty while we were there).   Matanchen Bay is near San Blas, which we anchored in on the way south in January.  It's a great spot to anchor except for the jejenes (aka no-seeums) and other biting insects.  Before dusk, we closed all of our hatches and windows, which seemed to work.  Interestingly, the jejenes are one of the most important pollinators of the cacao plant https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/meet-the-flies-that-pollinate-cocoa-trees/ - so most everything has some purpose even when they are annoying 😉 We left Saturday morning at 8:00 am.  We knew the winds were going to be h...

After we left Yelapa, we anchored at Punta de Mita for one night, which is on the northwest end of Banderas Bay.  While we were leaving in the morning to go to Chacala, a couple of humpback whales were breaching quite a bit:   Chacala is a pretty anchorage that a lot of cruisers stop at going to the south or north.  There are a lot of beach side restaurants, a campground on the beach, and a few nice resorts.  Great beach to swim in.   I took the kayak to the beach to check in with the Port Captain and went to town to get a few groceries (not too many because I had to kayak back to the boat).  We refilled our water tanks and took the dinghy ashore for pizza (see Tom's post about the dinghy ride!).  Unfortunately, Chacala doesn't have much protection to the west.  We had both a bow and stern anchor set in about 20' of water.  We weren't going anywhere but the waves were rolly and choppy.  The rolling waves don't bother me - it's ...

  After being in the La Cruz area (marina and anchorage) for over 5 weeks - which I thoroughly enjoyed -  we left the La Cruz anchorage on March 10th headed to Yelapa.  Yelapa is on the south side of Banderas Bay and is a really pretty village that you can only get to by boat or hiking.  Tom fished along the way and caught 2 Bonitas.  We threw the first one back but the second one was too injured by the hook so Tom filleted it and made ceviche that he ate later for dinner.   I love fishing - I was my dad's fishing buddy - but the swells were huge when we stopped moving so stopping to land a fish was uncomfortable, especially since I didn't have my sea legs and I had to be the gopher and go up and down the companionway to retrieve fishing gear because we weren't prepared to catch fish...anyway, I was being a little bitch (sorry Tom!) and just wanted to get to Yelapa and not be distracted by fishing so much.....Back to Yelapa.... Because of the mountaino...