Images of our adventures

http://shawnchris.shutterfly.com/

The newest addition to our blog is that I've started the tedious task of uploading photos. I've placed the link above in the sidebar to the right just below our link to SPOT and above our Followers gadgets. I'm new to the Shutterfly site, so don't know all the details, but it should be free for anyone to view the pictures. You should not have to sign up at all unless you want to leave a comment (we do love to hear comments!) and then you have to make up a free account with an e-mail and a password. If you're interested in viewing our photos, I recommend looking at them in slideshow full screen mode (to do this first click on the album you want to view, next click slideshow, and finally click full screen. You can even change the speed by clicking on options). Currently I've uploaded two albums: one of our pre-trip outfitting and one with our first 3 months of cruising the Pacific from San Francisco to Cabo San Lucas. Check this link every once in a while, I plan to upload an album of our last 4 months in the Sea of Cortez soon!

The misadventures of SPOT

For all of our worries, we had an easy trip out of Mexico. The boarder patrol didn’t even ask about Grizzly and all of a sudden we were back in the States. Chuck from Pura Vida dropped us at the Motel 6 (the only hotel that actually welcomes pets) in Tucson, Arizona just after noon on June 2nd. Still reeling from the previous days of work and shell-shocked that we were suddenly in the fast paced States, Chris wondered aloud if we should send out a report because he wasn't ready yet to be barraged with cell phones. I said, no worries, we'll just leave our phones off and return calls when we're rested and ready. So, out went a SPOT report and were immediately surprised when the hotel phone rang shrilly and it was Chris’ father Dave who had done some detective work from the SPOT report and found us! Welcome Home!


The next afternoon Chuck picked us up again and we headed to Phoenix where he deposited us at the Radisson. We spent two days in luxury here thanks to Priceline.com. While there, we put SPOT out on the balcony to send a report. For some mysterious reason the report never went out (this has happened a few times previously, probably the OK button wasn't fully pushed). More importantly, however, SPOT had a little vacation out on that small balcony as we sadly forgot him there. So many times on the boat one of us would look at the other and say, “did you bring SPOT in?” and immediately run up on deck to find him, hours after the most recent report had been sent, still blinking away at us. We were worried that taking him off the boat might be a mistake, and this worry proved founded… But never fear, he was found by the cleaning service and mailed to Chris' rafting company in Idaho from the hotel. I managed to talk Chris into taking him along as he guides down the Middle Fork and Main Salmon this summer. So this summer we will all be able to continue to follow Chris' track in the wilds of Idaho via SPOT, and hopefully there will be no more SPOT-centric misadventures.

We have heard that SPOT has been very helpful in soothing worries of those land bound that care about us, and we tried to send out near-daily reports from Tao. One downfall is that the SPOT website only displays the past 7 days of reporting so if you are interested in a longer term map of where we have been, I want to remind you that while on board we also sent winlink position reports (although less frequently than SPOT reports) via the HAM radio and you can check the past several months of those positions by clicking here: http://www.winlink.org/dotnet/maps/PositionreportsDetail.aspx?callsign=KI6MTD. Keep checking back to the blog this summer we hope to upload several posts on our reflections of the past 7 months of adventuring as well as updates on our current whereabouts and future cruising plans. Let us know if you have any questions about our journeys and we'll try to post answers.

Race to the finish…

We had been nagged by a persistent worry of how we were going to get back to the States with Grizzly without the help of the Mexican bus system. Our back up plan was not fun, Chris taking a bus to Phoenix where we were to fly out, renting a car, driving back down to pick up Shawn and Grizzly was a lot of driving, time, money; possible, but less-than-ideal. Also less-than-perfect, but our ultimate path was a ride offered by a couple with a boat (Pura Vida) moored in Bahia San Carlos and now living ashore who were headed up to see family in Tucson and then fly out of Phoenix. The only problem with this plan was they were leaving 3 days earlier than we had planned. We lost two full days of time to get the boat in order, go gift shopping, relaxing, and it left our welcome to the States being 3 days of hotels and airport restaurant food. Still, looking at it positively, it was an otherwise perfect ride up with fun people and it forced us to efficiently (aka maniacally) close up Tao.

For those 3 days in the work yard, we raced around. We took Grizzly to the veterinarian on the Dahone for a certificate of good health for international travel, did 6 loads of laundry, climbed the mast before dawn (it gets HOT after the sun rises!) to remove the masthead light and blocks aloft, as well as cover the steaming light with foil, did a final engine flush of the Yanmar (yes, we started her on the hard!) and the Seahor(se), removed Moni and the boom, left bleach water in our water tanks to discourage algal growth, plugged all the through hulls (except cockpit drains to let rain water drain) to dissuade cockroach, spider, mosquito entry, organized on board medical supplies and food stores placing them low and in bags to hopefully survive the heat and if failure occurs reduce mess, cut and install porthole covers and grease gaskets, covered all deck gear with tinfoil, secured mosquito netting over cowel vents, cleaned the whole interior, closed down the refrigerator, removed life lines (attempted not to fall off boat!), removed all electronics, aerosols, paint, bleach, thinner, gasoline, lubricated all pumps, and organized paperwork to take to the States. Although this list might sound exhaustive, it merely scratches the surface.

The last morning (June 2nd) before our 6 am pick up from Pura Vida, we left a note for Plume, who came to ensure Tao was safely moved out of the work yard and onto hurricane posts in the dry storage later that day, and we had to fit the man-overboard-pole, boom (yes our entire boom!), spinnaker pole, whisker pole, Seahor and Moni down below just before locking up for the last time for the summer. Amid this craziness we did manage to have a few very much appreciated restful moments with friends; waffles with Estrella, dorado and New Zealand wine with Plume, and beers with Harmony; these moments kept us sane; thank you all! And all of a sudden we were on our way north to the US/Mexico border and we could start to reflect on our previous adventures and think about all the things that we had forgotten and still needed to do for our future ones.

Out of the water!

After several days of taking pictures and collecting every measurement we could think of that we might need over the summer away from the boat, we had a last dinner potluck with new boat friends (Smoke-n-Blues we met in Coyote Bay, Odyssey who since we’d seen them had exciting engine stories off San Francisquito, and Sea Tern, a couple who had just nearly lost their shaft and the 80+ year old woman dove in and hammered it back in to stop the inflow of water!) on Wednesday May 27th. We awoke the next morning early knowing the clock was ticking. We had already replaced most of our rigging with runners that we don’t mind degrading in the sun, and the mainsail was removed and taken to an awesome sail maker in San Carlos to have a third reef put in. So, no more sailing, we motored out 3 miles off shore, sent out a Spot report while we emptied our holding tank for the last time on this leg of our journey. (There are no pump-out facilities in San Carlos Bay, and sad to say, I don’t think many people take the time to go 3 miles off shore to pump out their holding tanks, Yuck!) We made our way back into the marina and tied up to a dock for one night for the first time since Ensenada.

We literally exploded onto the surrounding dock fingers. First we found a hose on the dock to borrow and washed down the deck and all deck hardware trying to reverse the corrosion that inevitably occurs. Next, we started the process of rinsing all the sails, canvas, and foul weather gear with freshwater and then hung it all out to dry before removing and folding them for the summer. We set up a 5-bucket system to rinse, then wash, then rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse all of our salt permeated lines and finally set them out along any already unused dock space (apparently we have mountains of lines aboard!).




In the midst of this craziness, Chris decided to take the cold-water wax off his surfboard for storage (yes, we have finally found warm water!). Shawn was in the bucket line with the ropes and heard a commotion along the finger of the dock we were tied to. Chris had lost a surf skeg into the water, immediately dropping to his knees to grab it, it floated down just below his fingertips and very seal like, he plopped down shoulder first, then head and finally feet slid into the water fully dressed between the dock and the next boat. He came up sputtering and cursing, his sunglasses askew. The skeg had been saved but he had lost a ¼-inch round chunk of his shin on some pipe-shaped object below the water. First aid ensued, a half-hour of irrigating the wound and then dressing it followed with close monitoring for the foreseeable future. Although wounded, the race against the clock and our 2pm haul out the next day continued. Rope washing continued (see the gauze on Chris' right shin?) and Rocky and all our other anchors were pulled off and washed along with associated rhode and chain (all together nearly 1,000 feet). As the sun set, the drying slowed and we had to leave all the ropes out for the night. We topped of the diesel with biocide, and flushed the engine and head with fresh water and vinegar. We enjoyed brief showers and basic dinner before we quickly fell into uneasy sleep thinking of all the tasks still on the list.

The next morning dawned wet- condensation, we willed the ropes to dry. We collected and re-organized all of our gear and tried to prepare the boat for hauling out. Last minute Chris had to ride the newly rinsed Dahone to the dry storage to pay the bill before hauling (we had incorrectly assumed that this could be done at the marina office), while Shawn scrubbed Eeyore’s bottom and set him out to dry, dry, dry! A persistent breeze was blowing from directly astern. Not wanting to have any motoring-in-tight-spaces-shenanigans, we lined Tao out of the too-small-slip and motored across the marina to wonderfully waiting friends from Plume, who caught our lines.

The next hour was a blur; a tractor pushed a huge trailer into the water under Tao. They hauled her up with Shawn aboard, who felt the shake as she slid- they had placed the keel support too far forward and the weight was resting forward of the flat part of keel on our cut-away. Back into the water and readjusted to the right spot, and quickly out of the water again. Tao, dripping wet and out of her element, was pushed by this tractor onto the road for a strange and thankfully quick ½ mile trip to the dry storage facility’s work yard. Once safely on stands, we checked the bottom, which looked great except for a few spots that had been knicked on the cutaway part of our keel in the first attempt out of the water, our zincs were toasted, and our propeller, rarely used, was 100% covered with barnacles. Totally physically and emotionally spent, we managed to clean the bottom before taking showers and having a nice chicken cacciatore and wine meal under the cover of mosquito nets as we mentally prepared ourselves for the 3 frantic days to follow.

Transitioning to Summer

"Pisces, Pisces, this is Tao on one-six" "Hey Tao, wanna go one-eight?" "One-eight" This has been a near daily beginning to our radio conversations with our buddy boat Pisces since we caught back up with them here in the Sea at Los Frailes. We awoke sad this morning as Pisces is no longer accessible via our VHF. Approximately a week ahead of our schedule, this morning they are driving "La Camioneta" (a sweet new-to-them van!) up to Tucson with their rudder on top, and we are gearing up for our last week of craziness preparing to transition into our summer. We've been anchored in Bahia San Carlos for a week now, slowly chipping away at closing the boat up for a few months while we head back to the states to visit family and hopefully make a little money for our cruising kitty. It is shaping up to be a bit of a heart-wrenching process as Tao is to be pulled out of the sea and put "on the hard" on stands in the middle of the Sonoran desert for several months through the heat of the summer. Not only are all these changes from our last 6 months of cruising proving to be psychologically difficult to adjust to, but the process of preparing a boat to be left in such heat is full of a million detailed tasks. In addition, to prepare for next seasons possible ocean voyaging we have created a list of priorities (200+ items strong) of things to buy while in the states or upgrade upon return. Overwhelming to say the least.

Poco a poco (little by little). It was invaluable to be able to observe Pisces' process and we have allotted ourselves extra time to try to keep this transition as mellow as possible. Over the past week we started by researching all the possible places to leave Tao on the hard. Upon sailing in, we were leaning toward Guaymas, as it is known to be the least expensive, and near "the big city" of Guaymas, a hub for local fishing and shrimping operations. Upon visiting, it is run by a very amiable Gabriel, and is quite a small operation in a dirt yard with a barbed wire fence for security (it was strange to see Outkast and Misty on stands without their people). It turns out that it is on the outskirts with quite a trek, requiring a bus, to get to town for buying parts to do work or even for finding a place to eat or grocery store which would make working on Tao upon return a bit difficult. Singlar is newer to the area and known to have exorbitant prices. Still we wanted to check it out. We were very impressed by their facilities (clean, paved and highly secure) and were pleasantly surprised that in trying to fill their small yard, they are offering 60% off their prices which bring them to a reasonable cost. The down side is there are no boat work services available through the yard, we would have to find everything ourselves. Marina Real, closest to the Sea, was immediately out as you are not allowed to live on your boat while working on it. Marina San Carlos tends to be the favorite among the majority of cruisers that want to work on their boats. It is obvious that they have done this for a while and are quite a well oiled machine. Because of the cruisers demand, services for both the boat and the cruisers, although more expensive, have popped up all around this little town. It is also where Pisces hauled out the first day we were here (and several others such as Plume plan to), so we were able to intimately check out their process. After weighing all the pros and cons, we have decided to haul out into Marina Seca in San Carlos because of the high level of experience, decent security, and the larger net of other cruisers experience to draw from there. We'll just have to battle the dust and mosquitos and the extra money is worth it to us for a little more peace of mind.

Over the last week we also managed to purchase tickets from Phoenix to our different destinations just in time for the 2-week mark; we both fly out on June 5th. It's quite complicated and more details will follow as things fall into place. The basic idea so far is that Shawn and Grizzly are flying to New York to visit family and Griz will be staying with GrandMum for a while. Shawn will then head to Idaho for a trip down the Middle Fork/Main Salmon with Chris and on to Oregon to hopefully work a few trips on the Rogue before checking out the yoga scene back in Berkeley. Chris is flying to Corvallis to visit his sister Sarah and pick up our chariot Pepe, and then working his way to Idaho for another season of river running with Canyons. Unfortunately, post ticket purchase, we found that the beautiful Mexican buses do not allow pets in the cabin. Yikes, now we find ourselves with a deadline in the states and no easy way to get there. We are practicing our zen and having faith that a ride from another cruiser will fall into place at the right time. Don't worry though, we do have a back up plan. We'll keep you posted. Until then, we haul on Friday at 2 pm local when the tide is high enough for our 5-ft draft. Tomorrow we plan to take a slip and drench everything in fresh water- it has been since the states since Tao has had a real fresh water bath and all of our running and standing rigging as well as our sails, canvas covers, windlass, Moni, Seahor(se), and Eeyore are screaming for a serious wash down. How different unlimited freshwater showers will be for us as well... Which brings us to today, we are madly scrambling around on board taking measurements, baking bread and cookies to use up the open flour, and generally trying to get all of the tasks that need to be done in the water completed while at the same time reminding ourselves to enjoy this part of the adventure as well.

One last push north

Friday the 15th dawned cool and foggy but the sun peeked through enough for us to see our buddies Outkast had found the anchorage in the middle of the night. After visiting Odyssey, a 44-ft Petersen and having nice chats, we went to visit Outkast with our cereal. The winds were coming up, but the fog was still lingering. What to do? Pisces had already left to cross to San Carlos and Scheherezade who was supposed to meet Outkast had been forced to return to Puerto Escondido due to engine troubles. A plan was hatched- let's head north, go on a long passage (for the Sea), a couple days if this wind holds and 100-nm up to Bahia San Francisquito. And we were off; around 1 pm we weighed anchor and sailed out into the finally clearing fog. Enjoying watching Outkast tack around, we made one tack bee line and came rather close to the low lying Islas Santa Inez, no problem since it was day and the fog had left only a haze behind. The winds were abating and Chris caught a little grouper (or cabrillo, we really need a fish ID book) but returned it to the Sea. We decided to head between Isla San Marcos and Isla Tortuga as the light slowly faded with the wind until it was pitch black with no wind and unfortunately a 2-ft swell from the south making the windless sails bang around so much we reduced to bare poles and drifted until about 3 am when a little westerly breeze joined the now south and north swells. At least we were moving, however slowly, in the right direction.

The next morning dawned windless with still sloppy seas, and hot. At this pace it would take several more days to make San Francisquito. Outkast decided to turn east and head for Guaymas to haul. We stayed on the rest of the day, under drifter alone relaxing, resting, reading, and even baking bread as we drifted toward our hopeful destination. That evening as the sun was lowering toward the Baja peninsula and we hadn't quite made 15 nm all day with 65 or so still to go, and NW flow forecasted the next few days (which would turn our journey into a beat to windward), we decided to take the evening ESE breeze that filled in and start the journey across the Sea a little early. Yet another lesson in non-attachment as our northbound plan just wasn't destined with those conditions. It was sad as we watched the sun set one last time behind Baja but felt good to be sailing east on favorable winds. And it was a most beautiful night. Five knot steady breeze on flat seas, phosphoresence in the water with pitch black skies marked by millions of brilliant stars. Even the fog that loosely surrounded us didn't mar the beauty of our crossing.

The next morning the winds relented briefly and then filled in from the forecasted westerly direction, building and pushing us directly toward our destination- mainland Mexico. As the winds veered to the NW we kept changing sails but in general flew along between 4 and 5 knots under some combination of drifter, full or reefed mains'l, or 100% jib alone. As the winds built and we approached land faster and faster, we realized that we weren't yet ready for the "big city" craziness that is on our schedule for the next few weeks. So we set a course for an isolated bay a bit north of San Carlos called Bahia San Pedro. About 8 nm off, as we were passing Isla San Pedro the fishing lines went taught! Not just one, but two fish on! Shawn hove the boat to and Chris enjoyed the fight that the bonito gave him as he reeled them in. We must've gone through a school of them because we had caught two large ones at the same time. Sure that we couldn't finish both we freed one and thanking the ocean, kept the other for dinner.

We got back under sail and headed upwind toward our hopeful anchorage while Chris cleaned Mr. Bonito on the high side of the boat. Just as the now fish-filled tuperware went into the just chilled refrigerator we reached Bahia San Pedro a beautiful little isolated bay where we found great protection from the solid NW winds. We sailed onto the hook under jib alone and started preparations for the feast that ensued. Shawn cooked up some rice and made an olive oil and vinaigrette dip for the fresh cooked garlic loaf and Chris grilled up amazing butter drenched bonito and in celebration we shared a COLD beer. In case you were wondering, Grizzly absolutely LOVES fresh caught bonito! The next day we slept in, recovering from our 3-day, 2-night passage and slowly sailed out figuring we'd head toward San Carlos and share the rest of our fish with Pisces. But the winds didn't cooperate so after an hour or so of becalmed bobbing around in sloppy seas, we brought down the sails and motored back into Bahia San Pedro figuring it must not be time yet to head into the city. We were quickly hailed by the other two boats in the bay and invited to a red meat burger BBQ. Day 46 since La Paz, fresh red meat sounded wonderful and we enjoyed the 10 person gathering on a boat even shorter than ours!

We were awaken soon after falling asleep that night by building waves. The winds had shifted to the south and were now coming directly into our anchorage. Although much further out than the other two boats in the anchorage, Juce and Circe, we were hanging toward the beach. Worried that the conditions would worsen, we immediately weighed anchor and motored to the south end of the anchorage for more protection. Of course there was no moon, and unfortunately we had not perused the south anchorage as we motored in earlier, so we conservatively set the anchor as close to the cliffs as we felt comfortable and settled in for a less-than-restful night. The protective cliffs were creating a huge eddy of wind and Tao sailed around strangely on her anchor often ending up beam to the swell that managed to wrap around the point. Trying to make sense of the wind patterns after setting the anchor, Shawn watched as a random gust flip Eeyore tethered too far from the protection of Tao. Luckily we always remove the Seahor, our 2hp engine, when conditions seem at all questionable. When the sun rose, we saw that the true sweet spot was closer to both the cliffs and the beach, but we were happy to have gleaned the protection we had and took it as a reminder to always scope out the alternative anchorages when possible. Since the winds were solid (although from the wrong direction) we weighed anchor and started our beat toward San Carlos and lots of changes.

Bahia Concepcion

It's amazing how quickly time slides by, we ended up spending 9 days in Bahia Concepcion. As mentioned previously, we started off with clam fests, hot springs, and whale sharks. We then got to know one section, Coyote Bay, a little by sailing around on the light and thermal breezes. In a short afternoon, we sailed in and out of most of the anchorages before finding the nice and mostly secluded Playa Santa Barbara. Over the next couple days we relaxed, star watched, had fish nibble on our toes, and shared more yummy meals (spinach dip, chicken cacciatore, fresh baked garlic loaf, brie!) with Pisces. We even took Julia and Jacob out for a light wind sail aboard Tao, the highlight of which (besides circumnavigating Isla Guapa of course) was sailing onto anchor with them cheering us on from their seats in Eeyore dragging behind.

The next day we had planned a sail on Pisces, but up came winds making Playa Santa Barbara a lee shore with several foot chop making it uncomfortable to leave the boat. Plans for a relaxing day vanished as we quickly prepped the boat and headed to the other end of Coyote Bay for protection in Santispac. It was a fun filled upwind sail in which we got to practice our man overboard skills leaving the anchorage when we heeled over and our solar shower, as of yet untied down, rolled off the deck into the water and then we lost a lure (the nice feather that Eric gave us) and a bunch of 100-lb test line to a big hungry fish as we tacked north through the channel. Once we got Tao settled in Santispac, we jumped in the water and swam to Pisces who motored over to pick us up for a sail. It was the antithesis of the prior mellow light wind day on Tao and we got to enjoy several of Pisces sail configurations in 25 knot winds. Very interesting to check out another cruising boat under sail and we were very impressed as they demonstrated sailing onto anchor while manuevering around not only other anchored boats but a high speed Hobie Cat and our previously introduced friend, the whale shark.









After a last meal the next morning with Pisces we waved as we slowly headed toward Playa El Burro in search of water, the weather guru Geary, and possibly some internet. Several hours later we sat becalmed at the entrance to our goal when all of a sudden the afternoon thermal winds piped up to 15 knots turning it into a lee shore before our eyes. Already full of boats anyway, we continued on back to the more isolated Playa Santa Barbara for the night. Ready to sail back into cooler sections of the Sea and in need of water reprovisions, the following morning, we motored to El Burro in the early morning calm. We enjoyed meeting Geary who has lived on the beach in El Burro for 15 years and provides an amazing service for the cruising community by gathering and providing the weather every single day. He was muy amable and although he soon left for town he allowed us to hang out on his porch and even use his Internet! So after four trips to nearby stores to fill our 5-gallon jug and a few quick internet tasks completed, we were ready to head out as the thermal afternoon winds again picked up.

We flew out of El Burro on strong SE winds and just out of Coyote Bay were becalmed in "the cone of no wind" until passing Punta Arena where we found solid NW winds. A mile apart and wind can be blowing in exactly the opposite direction, baffling. Still, it felt good to break free of the Bahia Concepcion scene. We had a beautiful sail and set the hook just before the sun set and the fog rolled in to our new home, Playa Santa Domingo, just outside the bay where the temperature is 15 degrees cooler and the breeze feels so refreshing. We'll see when the fog burns off tomorrow and who knows, maybe we'll go for a sail.