Well, we left Puerto Vallarta in March, escaping the heat and humidity, taking advantage of a weather window of 3 days of calm. We beelined it to the North end of Cerralvo Island quite uneventfully till we approached the north channel around midnight of the third day. Then our peaceful journey turned into victory at sea once more. We struggled for hours against the crazy Southwesterly winds (Corumels) and waves,attempting to get into the lee of the land just north of La Paz. By morning we made it to the point just off Tecolote and radioed in to see if anyone in the harbor could hear us. Since the winds hadn't abated, we were concerned that we would have more of the same as we entered the channel to La Paz. As luck would have it, we were told by our friends on Merry Dolphin that conditions were balmy at 7 knots in the anchorage. Yahoo! We could look forward to a respite.
Again we enjoyed the friendships and the bustle of events in our favorite city in baja, while taking care of Ron's dental needs. Photos show us Participating in Bayfest, an informal race and friends Jay and Jane joined us while taking a break from their kayak trip.
We enjoyed a sail to Isla Partida with Bella Via, and after a day of hiking and then another of snorkeling with the sea lions, we bid them good bye as they sailed northward with Bu Kwiis and all of their kids, and us back to La Paz.
Once we finished the dental appointments, and participated in some of the events of the cruisers', fest including placing third in the fun race, we left La Paz on a fast track to visit friends in Bahia Conception. Of course we visited points on the way such as Agua Verde and the hotsprings north, the waiting room at Puerto Escondido, and Bahia San Juanico. These were incredible places that we want to go back to to spend more time there. As we entered the channel to Bahia Conception we were reminded of how inaccurate the charts of Mexico are. According to our position that we took, we should have been grounded but were safely in the channel. It is wise to travel by day. We were also enjoying recognizing the places where we kayaked the previous year, looking through the binoculars and identifying all of our camping beaches as we sailed northwards.
Once inside Bahia Conception, we reunited with our friend Dennis and hung around with him for a few days, using the Directway internet while on the beach. We drove to Mulege and visited with Kay and Larry, a couple we had met last year while kayaking. We met Leslie and Wayne on Wanderin Star and Diane had an open water swim buddy for a couple days. That was enjoyable, thanks Leslie! Got to do more of that next year.
Time was ticking away and knowing that we had to get Batwing hauled out and ready for storage before the end of May, we left the bay and headed to San Carlos --another overnighter and a bit rolly. After "cheating death once more" (to coin a phrase used by some other cruisers we overheard on the VHF)we arrived in San Carlos Bay to anchor near Bu Kwiis. Steve introduced us to the wireless internet we could subscribe to for a week at anchorage, as well as the cybercosecurity webcam that showed all of the boats at anchorage in the bay live! We had fun watching Steve call his friends in Canada while using Skype (Voice over IP phone) and tell them to get on the computer and go the the website, and watch him as he went to the bow of his boat to wave at them. We heard lots of "Can you see me?" all afternoon until the sun went down and then, of course, no one could see him at that point.
We toured Guaymas and a neighboring town with Wayne on Wanterin Star, and thanks to him we were able to find hardware stores, grocery stores, and a place get our van repaired, not to mention, he acted as a relay of Diane's email message to Ron when she was in Tucson. As a ham, Wayne can easily receive email messages through the black box used in conjunction with his radio. Batwing is not yet equipped of doing that, and we are not yet hams. Perhaps we will make that happen next year.
Lots of discussion went on regarding how to handle the job of getting a van to camp in for the summer and our solution you have read about in the previous blog.
