Santa Rosalia and South

Santa Rosalia South:

We leave the harbor of Santa Rosalia on Thursday, March 29^th, 2007 after checking the latest Weather Buoy off Loreto. Looks good after a day…so we head for Punta Chivato on March 27, 2007. Make a call to Ed and Jean Epifiani and tell them we are coming.

The winds are 18-20 knots and the seas are rough…we sail fairly fast…about 7- 8.5 knots under Jib and Jigger (Genoa and Mizzen only…poled out the Genoa). When we take the whisker pole down…to prepare to go into Punta Chivato bay in high winds…it jams and Dave helps but it hits his hand…big time. I get it down but Dave may have broken a bone (later it appears not).

Ed stands on his roof of his “Eco” home (solar panels for all electricity and a deep well)…calls us on channel 16…we go to 22 and he directs us in…….winds calm down…we take in the Mizzen…and motor into a clam anchorage. Good place to hole up in a breeze. 27 deg 3.1126 N and 111 deg 59.2933 W.

Ed rows out to greet us…looks good for a retired Dentist J His row boat is like a dory but slimmer and trimmer. We inflate the Tinker…put out our boarding ladder…load up the engine and oars…and motor into the beach. No Surf…easy landing…tons of shells.

By this time Jean is back from Loreto (took friends to the aeroporto) and is there to greet us with warm hugs and smiles (Jean on the hugs…both on the smiles). We take a tour through their magnificent home…great kitchen…big “great” room…huge wood shop…upstairs is Jeans weaving room with 3 looms…next a computer room (satellite dish)…and a screened in breeze way….plus a guest bedroom and bath downstairs…and of course a master bedroom. All tiles and all stucco…beautiful place.

We go out for dinner and drinks…then into the dingy and motor back to a blinking red and yellow flashing light (the Noe Mar never drug anchor)…and a pleasant rest.

Up at 8 AM on the 30^th of March…and we head for Loreto or rather Puerto Escondido. Dave gets out my ocean first aid case (cost $600 but worth it) and gets splints out for his hand…and wraps it. Very sore…but hopefully it is not broken.

Out in the Sea of Cortez…the winds are 17 knots and sailing is bumpy but good….7-8 knots. I do raise the main after a while…and I have the Genoa poled out. When we raised the Jib leaving Santa Rosalia…it whipped and broke the radar reflector…I will build one myself when I get home.

We are still having computer problems…but I am able to keep it running…this is serious…and I need to fully download my new computer and sink the GPS plus get all the charts up and running on it (it was loaded but crashed a month before this trip)…Of course I can always get C-map for my radar…and we do have 2 GPS’s and paper charts…but that is more work. By the way…all charts a frequently off in the Sea of Cortez…so keep a look out and try not to sail at night…unless you have a good moon.

Back to our trip…Dave gets sea sick…so I turn on the motor and lower the main…smooth’s the motion out and picks the speed up to 9.5 knots…slow the engine down…our hull speed is 7.5 knots. We check Cunningham’s book for the middle Sea of Cortez and find a hole to duck into for the night….winds pick up to 25 knots…time to settle down.

We duck into Punta Pulpito 26 deg 30.718 N 111 deg 27.4055 W that night…….trouble lowering the spinnaker pole again…I will solve this…….after that we talk to 2 other boats anchored there for the last 2 days. We put out 100 ft of chain…need to raise that tomorrow.

We leave around 7 AM on March 31^th, 2007 and head out to sea…the winds died last night but the wind is up to 17 knots today…later it slows down to 15 knots Northerly. No pole today…but Jib and Jigger to Loreto. I had charted a course to down town Loreto so we could see the area, an oasis in the desert rugged mountains…nice spot. Highway 1 runs through it and Alaska Air flies into it. Sixteen miles south is Puerto Escondido and a harbor. Today we only sail and motor for 5 hours…we lower sails and go into the inner harbor.

Another Sinclair facility…all new, all Mexican government marinas. We call and request moorage….finally we are told ball 74 (very little English spoken and here I am with zip on espanol). We hook the line on the ball and get out the Tinker…over to the new marina. A Mexican family is having a picnic and nice music is coming out of the boom box. A young Senora comes and takes copies of all of our papers….ants everywhere…food laying around…big screen TV…no Wi Fi…no computers…however; the bano and showers are the same. This marina will never have regular docks…but will have fuel and water shortly. No hot water in the showers…but hey…it is clean and refreshing.

The Iridium phone lets both of us keep in touch with our wives and allowed me to have Micro Soft re-register my XP operating system…yes it was MS that shut my system down and it took me around 100 minutes to get it re-registered…at a nice cost of $1.70 per minute…thanks a lot Bill Gates. Fortunately I had an Iridium phone and could re-register with it…because I did not have the ability to be on the internet. Without this process, my main computer would shut down. I do like the C-map on a Furno radar…but it sucks more juice and is not nearly as nice a format as MaxSea (which I have) or Noble Tech (which Ocean Planet used). I might add, thanks tons Pat (my tech son-in-law…seems the Oregon State Police have encountered this shut down my MS).

We left Puerto Escondido this morning at 7:30 Am on April 1, 2007…headed to La Paz…no wind (zip) so it is motor all the way (unless the wind god is favorable).

Just out of Puerto Econdido, Dave sees a lot of “fin whales”…and the tourist panga watching them. They put on a good show for him…I get to scan my computer that crashed again with Lava Soft….unfortunately I cannot use most virus protection software because it interferes with Ocens…etc….Oh, well, I am getting good at it. Both computers go home for a total check up …thanks Pat and Bruce (our work IT guy) for all of your help and keeping these things working. Later, I find all is well, just need to tune my systems up a we’ bit.

Today is bad sailing…no wind (3 knots) and 75 deg F outside…82 inside…apparent wind is 9 knots…so we create a nice breeze…but the motor is running…L very, very “treste”. Dave is busy reading about Captain Cooks boat (a replica) and it’s crew as it sails around the world. Apparently it has a big Aussie crew that sings ditty’s that irritate the women crew members….like: “I wish all the women were bricks in a pile and I could lay them all” ???? Apparently these Aussies don’t have Candy as a wifeJ. Dave says the women complained about sexual harassment…but it didn’t get them far. Apparently this replica of Endevor is very accurate and they have all volunteer crews that sign on for a short tour.

Well, we are going to take the Canal de San Jose…should cut an hour off our sail…at this minute we are off Punta San Marcial (for those with a map of the Baja).

We are going to make an all night run for La Paz…Dave needs to get home…and I could use a little time to straighten up the Noe Mar…sorry all of you sailors…but we have seas of glass until around 3 AM…by then it is to late to set sail…and to dark. Dave’s hand is still very sore. Check the next blog about La Paz.

Skipper of the Noe Mar……….Ken