What have we been doing? Spring/Summer 2006

One word to describe us--BUSY! Back in May we again put Batwing on the hard so that we could escape the heat of summer in Mexico. We traveled north through California Oregon and WA visiting friends along the way. Check out the pics--Wayne and Tanya, Hubba, Dan, Ramone and Lew, Cindy and John, Judy and Bob, Nicole.
We even visited a couple national parks--JoshuaTree and Yosemite. Having had enough, we beelined it to Bellingham where we reunited with Erica and spent as much time as we could visiting with her between her studies and friends. This summer was the summer to attend both of Erica's college graduations--one for the College--Huxley and one for the University of Western Washington. She received the Thomas Huxley Award and was the student speaker at the Huxley graduation then went on to graduate cum laude with honors in
Environmental Science at the official Western Washington graduation. We are very proud of her! Check out her graduation gift from us (it is a Kahuna, made by the Feathercraft folding kayak company in Granville Island, Vancouver BC) which she plans to bring with her when she joins us in Jan for an"open ended" trip on Batwing.
Meanwhile, we are both working till Nov 1 earning more "cruising chips" for the coming sailing season. We hope to travel down the Mexican coast to Central America and Ecuador once we complete the work on Batwing that we started last year. That means we hope to go back in the water by Jan 2007--cross you fingers for us --we hope this last bit of work goes smoothly. Of course, we will inform you of what transpires.
There is still a bit of time to receive guests, Howard and Ann hope to make it out here end of September, and Brad just left after spending the Labor Day weekend with us. Being boatless, we have to enjoy the myriad of other activities that one can do here--kayak, hike, bike, and of course, pick berries! We have made it through salmon berries, thimble berries, raspberries, blueberries and now the end of backberry season is upon us. :( check out the pics of our wonderful cottage where we stay, formerly a chicken coop)--Ron even had a dream that a chicken pooped on his head while sleeping. We thank the Ellsworths, Joan and Steve for this great place--8 acres of lush tree covered property bordering the southern outlet of Lake Samish.

Circumnavigating Islas Carmen and Danzante

After a brief stay, hooking up with friends Dennis and Dan (both of whom we met during the year we kayaked for 2.5 months in Baja), we left Marjean, so that she could visit with friends. We then sailed south to establish ourselves in Puerto Escondido and get ready to kayak with our friends Jill and Bob Stecker from Colorado. You will see some pics of Punta Pulpito. (This is a point halfway, and our anchorage for one night) Jill and Bob had been in Puerto Escondido a day ahead of us, so we had timed our arrival rather well. We even had a greeter and escort, Elvin of Western Sea, and commodore of the Hidden Port yacht club. He led us to our mooring buoy and even offered to take care of Kitty Kira while we were gone.

Working for 3 months on Batwing, had captured our attention so thoroughly that we had to shift gears to get into expedition mode. We searched for our kayaking gear, spent a few days getting organized, paddling a bit to get loosened up and ready for 10 mile per day activity. Ron and I were terribly out of shape from being in the boatyard for so long, we hoped it was not going to be too hard on us to paddle day after day this distance. As you will see by these pictures, we saw incredible scenery and geological features. The weather was beautiful, only one day where the wind blew us off the water, we were blessed. And yes, we completed the circumnavigation of Islas Carmen, and Danzante.

Nine days of sharing our love of Baja with Jill and Bob and we managed to survive the activity! We had lots of fun!

Across the Sea of Cortes, again

After splashing and getting ourselves pulled off the reef AND spending several days working on the rudder—getting it to move freely again, we left Guaymas on a Friday, heading in the direction of Punta Chivato just northeast of Bahia Conception. Now some superstitious sailors would recommend not leaving on a Friday, so we asked Ray, a fellow NW sailor, and he said “being superstitious about leaving on a Friday depends on what religion ya believe in”, and since we didn’t have one, we left. Besides, we had a 36-hour window of favorable weather before a stiff norther was predicted to blow and we wanted to be in the protective bays of Conception before that happened. So off we went with some trepidation. (We still had a twinge of that superstition nagging in the backs of our minds) After all it had been 9 months since we had sailed and we had a lot of new stuff to get used to! We were basically on a shakedown test run across the 90 or so miles of this portion of the Sea of Cortes.

Yes, I had better mention that we also had Marjean along with us as a visitor this time. As some of you may remember we had a third crewmember when we sailed down the coast to San Francisco, and it was she! You will see her in the pictures that are published here.

Off we went sailing well after dark, making such good time that we arrived at Punta Chivato by full moonlight at midnight. Anchoring in the dark is not recommended in Mexico, but with the light so bright, and by using our radar to make certain that we were a prudent distance from the nearby islands and the shore, we settled into our calm anchorage for a brief sleep. After 6 hours of sleep we up anchored and headed into Bahia Conception, once again visiting some of the anchorages we scoped out last year.

SPLASH!

We finally made it to the water on Wed, Feb 1! Yahoo! But not without our problems, which we will detail in another post. The following pictures show our new cockpit benches and us enjoying ourselves on them. Marjean, our friend from Bellingham is now with us and you see her in the next to last picture. A big celebration is in order............

Pics of the new Batwing as of Jan 14

Working in the yard in guaymas

Pictures are of (top to bottom) Sunset in the boatyard, Eric and Sherrell from Sarana, view of San Carlos Bay and LoonIII going back into the water.
We arrived in Guaymas during a very hot fall--temps soared in the 90,s which made it very hard to work much longer than 4-5 hours a day. We learned the value of siesta very well. Shortly after we arrived, acquaintences but soon to be friends Aly and Iain from LoonIII arrived and we spent fun times driving around town getting food and water as well as getting to know them. We had first encountered them in an anchorage in the Bunsbys on the west coast of Vancouver Island, then in Sausalito and then in Baja. Also arriving shortly after were Monica and Jack of BellaVia, soon to be our mentors in this project to give Batwing a facelift. Days became work time in morning and early afternoon, then off to internet and possibly water and food shopping, trips to the ferreteria or hardware store then back home to early to bed on the boat. Throw in a weekend day to goof off exploring the coast north and south of Guaymas, trips to San Carlos to visit other cruiser friends, and you have our routine. Wait till we show you pictures of Batwing!

Back in Mexico

Weather has finally started to cool off to high 80,s and we are getting more work done. Stay tuned to the changes we are making on Batwing!
Great to be in the land of papayas and avocados. Avos are about a quarter apiece and papayas 2-3 $$ depending on the size. Guac rules!