Travels of Wirewalker

Careyes and Food

2008-10-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

Jan 31 - Feb 1, 2008:

Careyes is a beautiful anchorage, located where the old Club Med "Playa Blanca" was located. It has now become a location for some of the more spectacular homes to be found on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Wow!

More importantly, what do sailors eat when they are cruising? Well, if you're with Diane, Ray, Jim and Darda (Bill's good for dishes and that's about it), you eat like royalty! Here are some sample dishes:

Around Cabo to Ipala; Oops ... Chamela

2008-10-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Jan 26th - 30th, 2008: After an early morning departure from Yelapa, we rounded Cabo Corrientes without difficulty. First lesson learned; even if you cleaned your boat bottom 2 weeks ago, Banderas Bay (and more specifically the anchorage off La Cruz) is amazing at growing beards on boats! Clean your bottom before rounding!

We were not able to make the speed we had hoped, but since our first stop was Ipala, 15 miles around the corner, it shouldn't be a problem. We arrived at Ipala about 10:30 in the morning and spent about 45 minutes anchoring. Ultimately, Bill (me) didn't like the limited room with the fish nets, etc. and decided to push off for Chamela, another 50 miles down the coast.

If the bottom had been clean, no problem. As it was, we couldn't squeeze more than 6 kts. out of Wirewalker so we arrived after dark into Chamela. First, my apologies to the crew, who didn't sign on for that kind of adventure! What made it better was our chartplotter's ability to overlay radar onto charts so we could tell where the land "really was" vs. the 150 year old charts. To add to that, we had some friends 'inside' Chamela already who relayed waypoints for rounding the entrance and avoiding an extensive outlying rock group. Very handy.

With the anchor down at 9:00 pm, we enjoyed a superb meal and rest. We spent 5 days in and around Chamela, enjoying the land and the sea.

Next Stop; Yelapa

2008-10-17T13:28:00.000-07:00

Better a palapa in Yelapa, then a condo in Redondo ... or so the saying goes. Yelapa continues to be one of our favorite places to visit in Banderas Bay! With the moorings that now exist, it's fairly secure to spend the night there, so we made the decision to visit Yelapa and 'stage' ourselves for a 3:00 am departure around Cabo Corrientes. Start early avoid, minimize the winds.

Yelapa lived up to it's reputation. All had a terrific time visiting this quaint little village with no roads (or cars). They do have "quads" and donkeys to provide help in moving things around, but no cars. All supplies arrive by boat. Very nice.

The Blessing of the Fleet; KJ'ers in Banderas Bay

2008-10-17T13:20:00.001-07:00

Jan. 20th - , 2008

The sad departure of our children; Elyse, Greg and son, Hayden, was softened a bit with the arrival the next day of our good KJ friends, Jim, Darda and Ray, who were joining us for the adventure south to Zihautanejo.

First things being first, we needed to provision and also make sure our friends had a chance to see some of the local color. La Cruz de Huanacaxtle provided that color, with the blessing of the fleet! Many of the local fishing boats were decked out in baloons, streamers, and (yes) fireworks for the parade/event. Like many of the good fireworks displays in Mexico, something will probably go wrong and, sure enough, not long after firing off a few of the fireworks, the entire crew of the boat dove overboard! Seems the inventory decided to go off prematurely! Oops. Well, it was still fun!

Children In Paradise

2008-05-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

Jan. 11 - 20, 2008: Okay, children in Paradise Village Marina, Puerto Vallarta.

The year started with our daughter, Elyse, her husband Greg, and our grandson, Hayden joining us at Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta. Oh to be 4 years old and the world your oyster! Hayden quickly made friends with many folks, including the captain of a 120' motoryacht who invited all of us aboard for tour. Wirewalker is a nice boat and all, but it doesn't compare to a yacht of this caliber.

And the title of this email is "Children in Paradise". Elyse and Greg are pregnant with another child (given that it has taken me 10 months to complete this, I now know the "who" is "Calyn Louise Foley"!).

Anyways, it was Hayden who did most of the playing:

Leaving Mazatlan; Maz to Puerto Vallarta

2008-01-03T16:24:00.000-08:00

Dec. 8th: While we were planning on leaving on the 5th, Bill got a bit of a cold and we delayed departure until Saturday, the 8th. Diane made sure we were well provisioned, managing to purchase some of the biggest shrimp we'd ever seen!

First stop was Stone Island, on the south side of Mazatlan. With the first segment being the 85 miles to Isla Isabela and requiring a 1:00 am departure to make it during daylight, we figured to position ourselves in an "easy out" location. Stone Island is fun, with gentle waves and palapas on shore selling great Mexican food. We kayaked ashore and enjoyed a feast.

When we woke up at midnight, the "exit" was full of shrimp boats. Oops. After an hour, we'd weighed anchor and weaved through the crowd and were under way. Nice to be moving again.

We arrived at Isabela at 2:30 pm. Bill was still fighting off the tiredness from the cold/flu, so asked Diane about 'holding off going ashore until the next day'. No problem since we planned on being there a few days. Well ...

On Monday morning the wind clocked around so that it was a south wind, a dangerous direction for the anchorage there at Isabela. At 9:00 am we decided it wasn't safe, and lifted the anchor for Matanchen Bay, about 45 miles to the ESE. You'll have to look at our Isabela pictures from April '07 to get a sense of Isabela; we didn't take any because Bill thought we'd have time on Monday ...

We arrived at Matanchen Bay about 4:00 pm. It is a gorgeous tropical bay about 3 miles east of the historic port town of San Blas. San Blas used to be the Pacific Ocean headquarters for the Spanish fleet (400 years ago).

The pictures of the sunset here don't do justice. It's beautiful and the town of San Blas is a quaint, historic town. Only watch out are no-see-ums (jejenes). They enjoyed the new meat in town!

We spent 2 days before leaving for Chacala, about 22 miles south. Chacala is just a small bight in an otherwise cliff lined coast, but is beautiful. It is very tropical in appearance and very friendly. No more than a couple hundred folks live there. We spent 2 very rocky, rolly nights (lots of swell) before casting off. We will return here.

Friday morning we were off to La Cruz, by way of Punta de Mita, a 40 mile trip. Like clockwork, the winds at Punta Mita piped up about 8 miles off shore making the reach/run into La Cruz wonderful!

While very short, our stay in La Cruz was great. Drinks at Ana Banana's, then on to Black Forest restaurant for dinner and music by "Latcho and Andrea", two gypsy flaminco guitarists. Cool.

Saturday morning we hauled up the anchor and moved into Paradise Village marina where Wirewalker is spending the holidays while Diane and Bill go home to visit family.

Marina Mazatlan - Boat Projects

2007-12-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

Nov. 5th - Dec. 8th, 2007: Mazatlan may be our favorite town on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. While it isn't far enough south to be the year round tropical paradise, it's still warm and beautiful and has a culture of its own, apart from tourism. The "old town" has a 150 year old theater and some of the best classical and contemporary musicians in Mexico. The malecon (beach walkway) is just terrific.

So, within a day of arriving, Bill's favorite haircutter, Luis, showed up on the docks offering hair cuts. A very proper Mexican gentleman who provides a shoulder and scalp massage as part of the haircut, all for a very pricey $5! Gotta love it.

Bill had planned on doing a lot of project work in Mazatlan. Way back in Gonzaga (Sept.) we met our KJ friends who, along with their good friendship, brought Bill massive quantities of boat parts, etc. with the plan that Mazatlan would be where they'd be installed.

The project list was daunting, 26 projects and only 30 days. Cutting to the finish line, he got 16 of the projects done (a record percentage completion)! This may have been a direct result of the local priest blessing the fleet, including Wirewalker. We'll take all the blessings we can get.

The good news was there was still time for playing in the evenings and weekends, where Bill and Diane saw the National Ballet Company of Mexico perform "Sleeping Beauty", the Mazatlan Symphony perform Requiem for Mozart (see the fancy duds we're wearing ... our friends couldn't believe we could actually dress up!), Rafael Rodriguez (Bill's favorite Mexican guitarist), along with competing in the Mazatlan 10k race. Diane did really, really well!

Ultimately, it was time to leave so we tossed off the docklines and set a course south!

Agua Verde, Puerto El Gato and San Evaristo

2007-12-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Oct 31st - Nov. 3rd: Yes, too many places and too little time. Our Baja adventures started last season (April '07) when we sailed from Puerto Vallarta to Agua Verde. Agua Verde is one of those post card settings that finds it's way onto the covers of many Baja books and articles. This picture again doesn't do justice.

This time, we arrived from Isla Carmen, requiring only 25 miles of sailing vs. 500. Much nicer. The anchorage was as beautiful as ever with the only challenge being swell that was coming in strong into the harbor askew of the wind direction. That puts the boat at an odd angle to the waves and can make for an uncomfortable stay. We still enjoyed ourselves, kayaked around, went for a run ashore, before heading out.

Puerto El Gato, named after a puma family that supposedly lived there many years ago, has some of the most spectucular rock formations on the Baja peninsula. It looks like melting strawberry and vanilla swirl ice cream! And the water, likewise, is clear an beautiful.

At El Gato, we met a local fisherman, Manuel, who caught us lobster (yum!) and had some shrimp from a shrimper who had spent the night at his village. We slept well after a great meal that night. Next morning Manuel returned asking for change for a large denomination mexican bill, which we helped him out with. Seems we found out later it was counterfeit! Live and learn. We don't believe he was printing the stuff, but likely got stuck with it and could ill afford to keep it. Net, we have the old maid!

Last stop on the Baja peninsula was San Evaristo, a small town about 65 miles north of La Paz. We swam, snorkled, ran and hiked. Too much to do there and not enough time. Humm. A familiar story.

At 12:30 pm, Saturday the 3rd, we hoisted the anchor and pointed towards Mazatlan, 255 miles away. Can't wait to get there!

San Juanico and Isla Carmen/Bahia Salina

2007-12-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

Oct. 29 - 30, 2007: Okay, we're clearly moving too fast. We have reservations in Mazatlan from the 5th of November on and we have a lot of coastline to see before then.

With an early morning start, we headed out of Concepcion Bay to San Juanico, one of our favorite anchorages. It's about 55 miles of sailing so you start early and arrive late. We got the hook set about 5:00 pm and quickly dropped the kayak over the side to do some clamming. Chocolate clams are the best! Bill showed Diane how to find them and in short order, Diane was pulling them up right and left while Bill was lucky to find one or two. Diane's the best dive/snorkle partner there is, she doesn't miss much! Needless to say, clams were on the menu for that evening's meal.

Early the next morning we went for a run through the hills around San Juanico. This is an out-of-the-way place so there's not much but coyotes, etc. Well sort of. Someone got the notion to build a couple of very nice homes up on a hill overlooking the bay. How they got the supplies to that location amazes me.

From there, we sailed the 30 miles or so to the east side of Isla Carmen. Most people go to the west side, which is directly across and only 7 miles away from Loreto. We chose to go to the back side where there's an abandoned salt mining town and a spectacular bay. We had to anchor about 3/4th of a mile out to keep 12' feet below us and take a major dinghy ride to shore. We met the "guard" of the island who gave us permission to explore and run. Very nice.

The water was amazingly clear. The sand dollar in this picture is in about 16' of water and the picture doesn't do justice to how clear the water was. We'll go back.

Concepcion Bay

2007-12-26T09:52:00.001-08:00

October 26th - October 28th: Not enough time!

No other way to say it; Concepcion Bay is beautiful! We sailed from Punta Chivato into Concepcion Bay with 12 - 17 knots of wind of the port beam. Gorgeous. Speed readings went to 9 knots where it stayed for a good long time. Gotta love it!

Entering Concepcion requires hanging towards the east side of the bay for 5 or 6 miles. Bill misread the guidebooks, so was favoring the the west side. Once the depth dropped below 12', it was time to recheck the books. Oops ... let's head to port a bit! All good.

Our first anchorage was El Burro cove, about 8 miles in on the west side. Beautiful! Only challenge there was Bill took a major spill while anchoring and lost the use of his left leg for a fair bit of time. Once the hook was set, major medicine was required. Margaritas and Rum & Cokes are great medicine!

We went for a hike the next day up the local mountain, looking at petroglyphs, etc. Nice place. That afternoon, they were predicting a norther and El Burro is not the place to anchor with stronger north winds so we moved to Santispac, north about 3 miles, but still on the west side.

We spent two days there, Diane fishing, clamming, etc. and Bill working on boat projects. Diane managed to "catch" something she didn't intend to; she got stabbed by a sting ray! The pain was amazing. Her description was like a hot knife coming up out of the sand and driving into the bottom of her foot. Fortunately, very hot water and the rum and coke medicine did the trick.

Concepcion is on our "must return" list, where we need to plan on several weeks in that bay. It's that beautiful.

Punta Chivato

2007-12-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

October 25, 26, 2007: Finally the winds settled down in Santa Rosalia, giving us time to dig layer after layer of fine dirt out of the boat. Bill had to go to the top of the mast with a hose and scrub brush, washing from the top to bottom. Diane, to Bill's comfort, controlled the halyard and therefore Bill's safety. All went well and we were under way!

Here's a picture of the Santa Rosalia harbor as we were leaving. Two things to note: The diagonal pipe going up the hill is a "chimney" from the old smelter which took the fumes away from the town before going up the vertical riser, shown in the background. The second thing to note is that it is calm! What a treat!

Okay, we only spent 18 hours in Punta Chivato but the scenery was spectacular. Here are pictures of both the moon rise, followed 10 hours later by the sun rise. Life is good!

Santa Rosalia and Northers

2007-10-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Oct. 17th - Oct. 25th: Santa Rosalia is one of our favorite Baja towns. It just doesn't fit the mold. It was built by the French in the late 1800's for copper mining. Now the French like to live in French style, so most of the construction is clapboard "tropical". The town could be built in a jungle in Malaysia and it would fit. Except it's in Baja where there's no lumber, but that didn't stop them. It's really very neat.

There's also Gustav Eiffel's "modular" church that he built for a world's fair in the late 1800's and the mining company brought it down, just 'cause.

Finally, the town's people have a great sense of town pride, while remaining exceedingly friendly. They celebrated their 122nd anniversary as a town this last weekend with 3 absolutely lavish days of festival. Gotta love it!

Now for the other side: Hurricane Kiko had been building for several days off Acapulco/Zihautenejo and had a possibility of coming north up the Sea. Not a good thing. Net, we stayed in Santa Rosalia until we had a better idea of Kiko's course and therefore our options. Kiko decided to go out to sea to the west and that was good.

In the meantime, a very high pressure was building over the 4 corners area of the U.S. That usually portends Santa Anna's in Southern California (it did) and "Northers" in the Sea of Cortez (it did). The challenge was Kiko. Kiko has been acting as a vacuum cleaner sucking up air, while the High pressure over the 4 corners has been acting like a popped balloon. The effect was wind flying down the Sea of Cortez following Kiko.

We've had 3 days of winds in the 30's and 40's, much longer lasting than typical for a norther. To add to the challenge, the marina here in Santa Rosalia is a picture perfect place in calm conditions, but not well built for rough conditions. Net, in the worst of it, we were seeing water breaking across the docks which connected Wirewalker (the furthest boat out) to the shore. A little disconcerting. We had lines to all the dock cleats and also tied to the pylons, just to be sure.

Would we stay here again? In a heartbeat! We love the town and the folks in the marina here are as kind and helpful as you'll find anywhere in the world. What the facility lacks in structural heft, the workers make up in effort and support. They are great!

Bahia de Los Angeles

2007-10-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

Oct. 11th - 15th, 2007: Another post under way. We'll add pictures when we get to a higher speed internet. By the way, if you double-click the pictures, you can make them much larger and easier to view.

We arrived into Bahia de Los Angeles, or Bay of LA, or BOLA on Thursday afternoon after a pleasant motor from Puerto Refugio. No real usable wind until the last hour or two when we were too lazy to raise the sails (Bill, not Diane). Our first choice of anchorage was Punta La Gringa in the northern portion, but when we saw it, it was open and a bit boring. We moved on. We finally settled into Puerto Don Juan, known as the "womb" of the Sea of Cortez. Absolutely protected from swell in the case of high winds/hurricanes. During our Hurricane Henriette over in San Carlos, there were 30 boats in Don Juan hunkered down just in case. All they got was 15 minutes of rain, to which they were more than pleased.

The next day, Friday, we sailed over to the town of Bay of LA. An easy 6 mile sail. We anchored and took the dinghy into shore where we met some "local" gringos who were over-the-top friendly, and perhaps a bit over the top, in general. Great people, nonetheless. They offered Diane and Bill rides to the gas station, store, whatever we'd need. We eventually took up the offer for fuel and got gasoline to fuel our dinghy engine and generator. By 3:00 pm, the wind started piping up to 25 knots. This
area is infamous for "Elephantes", very high local winds that can reach 80 knots under the right conditions. With the wind building, we decided to go back to Don Juan. Turns out to be a good choice.

The next morning at 5:30 am the wind really piped up. We hit the high 30's where it held until about 10:30 am. While we would have been fine at BOLA, it was much better to be in Don Juan for these winds. Diane and Bill decided to stay in the cove and take a hike. We hiked about 9 miles overland finding Bay after beautiful bay along the way.

The schedule (we never really follow it) said we should leave on Sunday to head to San Francisquito. There were reports of Whale Sharks at an anchorage called "La Mona" (female monkey), so we opted to stay another day and go there. No luck. Seems gringos in power boats had "herded" the sharks into a tight group so they could jump in and on the whale sharks. Now, whale sharks are very kind, but not stupid. They up and left so we had no luck in sighting these beauties. Our loss.

We did have a pod of dolphins who seemed to "live" in the cove. At sunset, they started swimming some distance from our anchored boat. We had on "Andrea Boccelli", which they seemed to like. With each circle, they came closer until they were right next to the boat, enjoying the music. From there, we think the music had it's effect because there was spashing and some amorous behavior that followed. We could have sworn they were smoking cigarettes, afterward.

Once again, the cruisers we met in BOLA confirmed our earlier learnings; cruisers are some of the friendliest people you'll meet; from Larry and Angie on Tao 8, to Wayne and Susan on Daydream, to George and Melinda on Southern Belle ... and many others.

All for now.

Puerto Refugio, Oct. 8th - 11th

2007-10-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

Puerto Refugio: Only word for Refugio: WOW! Most of our cruiser friends have told us that Refugio is their favorite in the Sea of Cortez. We get it. The landscape looks much like Mars; very desolate and craggy, with sprinklings of Saguaro cactus. As you start to look closer, you get it. The colors are like nothing you've ever seen. Sunset and sunrise are spectactular. The blue/green water is amazing.

We took a hike up one canyon on Isla Mejia, which borders the northwest side of the cove. It was lush with cacti, and very dramatic. At the start of the hike, there's a small adobe monument which stands about 5' high. It's sort of a church, but sized more like a very large adobe dog house. There are pictures of the virgin inside, so it is a shrine of sorts. Seems during Hurricane Marty, in 2002 I believe, one of the boats in Refugio sank and the owners made it to shore and stayed in the shrine
until the weather settled. Interesting.

Diane has fished every day with a good deal of success. She caught two large triggerfish on Tuesday, which served as fish tacos that night. Yesterday, Wednesday, she caught two Yellowtail Jacks, which will provide fillets tonight (Thursday). We had to eat chicken last night as it'd been in the fridge for 3+ days, always getting bumped by clams one night, triggers the next, etc. A tough life, cruising.

We're currently under way to Bay of LA, and are thinking of spending the first night at Punta Gringa, about 5 miles north of the town of B.L.A. Tomorrow, we'll drop down to B.L.A., get some supplies, then head out to another anchorage.

Until later ...

Oct 8 - 10th: Gonzaga to Puerto Refugio

2007-10-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Oct. 8th: We set sail out of Gonzaga Bay about 6:30 in the morning to a beautiful sunrise. Within moments, our friends Jim and Darda were hailing us on the VHF radio wishing us fair winds and following seas. They are good people! As we exited the Bay we could feel the effects of the last 2 days of Norther, the seas were up; at one point we had a train of 10 footers on short period come through, but mostly it was 4-6'ers ... and very little wind. By 10:00 am the north wind filled in and we shut
off the one engine we were using, enjoying a crossing to Puerto Refugio under beautiful sailing conditions.

The crossing takes about 48 miles, all tolled, but it was nice and we were snug in our anchorage by 4:00 pm. There are 3 other boats in here, but we haven't had a chance to meet them yet. Cruisers are, in general, remarkably friendly and giving people, but also respectful of privacy. There's a reason people cruise vs. going to mega-all inclusive resorts. Both can be fun; one is more quiet than the other.

We tried to take a picture and "dumb" it down enough to send via ham radio. We got the "dumb" part done correctly (17K size) but haven't figured out how to place it into the text. We'll try that over the next few days.

We should be leaving tomorrow morning, early for Bahia de Los Angeles and hope to arrive about 3:00 pm or so. We haven't picked an anchorage yet, but we'll have time while sailing. Thanks all for following our blog!

Beautiful Gonzaga

2007-10-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

Sept 26 - Oct. 7th: Yes, our current plans are to leave Gonzaga on Sunday, Oct. 7th. We will miss this place and our friends very much as hopefully the following pictures and stories will show.

Gonzaga is a bit magical. It's about 400 or so miles south of the Tijuana border on the Sea of Cortez side. You have to really want to get here to get here. The Baja 1000 goes through this place every November, so that should give you an idea of ruggeness.

Well, Jim and Darda Harrison found their little piece of paradise here. (That's Jim and Darda!). They named the place "The Parrothead Resort and Spa" and have entertained many people, including us, in grand and gracious style. Well, not exactly Hyatt Regency 'grand', but if you want that kind of grand, you're in the wrong place.

The sunrises and sunsets are spectactular, as the pictures attached should show. The water is beautiful and Jim and Darda have fully stocked all the play toys necessary to enjoy this, with kayaks, sailboats, windsurfers, dunebuggies, etc. for full enjoyment. It is an awesome place.

When we got here, we were greated by our many friends. We do not yet have a picture of all those who came down here, but we have it on good authority (Bill took the picture) that a picture of the group was taken. Once we have that picture, we'll edit the blog and add it.

We've also sailed over to Two-Headed Cove with the whole group to swim, snorkel and dive. A wonderful day trip and Wirewalker was more than happy to accomodate.

The picture below is of Bill enjoying the windsurfing toys here at Parrothead. It's important to note that the picture was taken microseconds before Bill went splat ... again.

And the wildlife accomodates also. The picture below shows a coyote just across the road from Parrothead and in front of the back bay.

Sunday, we will leave for Puerto Refugio on the northern end of Isla Angel de la Guardia for a couple days, then down to the Bay of LA for a few more days. From there, we'll head to Bahia San Francisquito and the 75 mile trip to Santa Rosalia. Once down to Santa Rosalia, we'll be in familiar cruising grounds from our trip up the coast last Spring and we'll move slowly but deliberately to Isla San Francisco, where we'll make the crossing to Mazatlan, the second week of November.

We'll keep the posts coming via ham radio, but there'll not be pictures again until we get to Mazatlan.

Gonzaga Bay

2007-10-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Sept. 26th - On: We arrived in San Luis Gonzaga at about 8:30 pm on Wednesday, Sept. 26th, after a 38 hour crossing from San Carlos. At this time of the year you can typically count on a southerly to help you sail north, as we were intending. Well, as Wirewalker luck would have it, the first norther of the season met us on the nose and we had to crawl uphill to Gonzaga. Also being a full moon, the currents in the upper sea played a bit of havoc with our speed; 8 knots on hour, 3 knots another.
It was all good and we made it to Gonzaga about 90 minutes after sunset, to the greetings of about 15 of our friends.

Well, almost made it. As we dropped the anchor in front of Jim and Darda's place, the anchor chose to separate from the chain and we had to scramble. Fortunately, our second anchor was available to hook us and we went ashore. The next day, 6 of us: Jim, Darda, Sandy, Gary, Diane and Bill donned dive tanks and began the search for the anchor. Success! Diane found it fairly quickly, along with the hardware that caused the problem in the first place. By Thursday afternoon, we were hooked up with
our favorite anchor and back to playing with friends.

There's a wireless sat signal ashore so we'll try to send a more formal update from there shortly.

17. San Carlos, Beautiful Country

2007-09-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Sept. 4th - Sept. 25th: Aside from the heat and humidity (intense), San Carlos has been a beautiful place to stay. They waters are spectacularly blue, the desert is as green as we've ever seen, and the people are wonderfully friendly.

The picture from the left is the entrance into the harbor of Marina Real, San Carlos.

Okay, so we had to have one picture from the day of the hurricane. The picture to the right is the sky after the hurricane had mostly past. Diane and I were feeling pretty good, so we walked out to the beach and captured this image.

Here's Diane enjoying the "post run" dip in the Bay. By the way, this bay "Algodones" was used in the film "Catch 22". It is beautiful.

Now, before you can swim, you gotta do the run. Here's Bill at the tail end of the daily run:

And finally, so you don't think that San Carlos is all about heavy running and swimming; here's a couple of pictures of "The Soggy Peso Bar" at the old Club Med:

We will be headed to the more remote areas of the Sea of Cortez so will not likely be doing any updates for about 6 weeks. Take care!

16. It's Tricky Tracking Henriette

2007-09-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sept. 5th: We arrived in San Carlos on Tuesday evening and made the decision to stay in a hotel; Hotel Creston. Wirewalker was "disassembled" as part of the preparations for storing her, and we were a bit tired from travelling ... the hotel sounded good.

We woke up on Wednesday morning (the 5th) and there was very little wind and a light sprinkle going on. Hey, looks like we're going to be spared Henriette! I checked the 8:00 am update from National Hurricane Center and it showed the storm would come ashore about Topolobampo, about 200 miles south of here. That makes it easier for us!

We checked out of the hotel and went to the boat. By 11:00 am the winds had started to pick up and it was raining harder but we figured we'd be fine to stay aboard. Our ride back to town left at 11:30 am, so we were here! No backing down.

Well, we pulled in the 11:00 am NHC update and it showed the storm coming much further north. Uh-oh. By 1:00 pm the winds were blowing 30 - 35 kts. so we put an additional line from our boat in the dock ashore and around a tree. We were not planning to go anywhere!

By 2:00 pm, Bill took the 1/2 mile walk to the marina office (closed, but if you go in the bathroom, you can pick up the wireless internet signal!). The winds were howling and hail was coming down. The computer was in a waterproof bag and Bill was wearing his wetsuit and his foul weather jacket.

The 2:00 pm update showed the storm now closing on Guaymas (just south of San Carlos). That was easy to tell, even without the weather update! The thing of most importance was, when would it pass?

About4:00 pm, things started calming down a bit. Bill took another walk to the office at 5:00 pm and the NHC update said the storm was just south of Guaymas and would come ashore in the next couple of hours. That didn't make sense with the winds starting to lighten up a bit. When Bill went outside, the winds had clocked around to the north, which can only happen if the storm is past you on the land side! Yippee! We should be okay!

Bill got the 8:00 pm update, just to be sure and Diane and Bill had an excellent pasta dinner (only thing on the boat) and a rum and Crystal lite (only thing on the boat).

The pictures, below, show the NHC projected tracks every 3 hours. The lesson here; take precautions ahead of time and don't take weather predictions as gospel. They're only guidance.

15. Return to San Carlos T - 1 day

2007-09-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

Sept. 3, 2007:

So our bags are packed and we're ready to go. The flight leaves tomorrow at 7:15 am (Sept. 4th).

The only problem is that our welcoming committee is Hurricane Henriette! What's up with that? We'd been following this system since it first showed up on the Navy weather database, over a week ago. Three days ago, it showed up on the National Hurricane Center site, but was targetted to skirt the outside of Baja ... then just barely cross the Baja ... and now it's gonna cut right across and head to San Carlos/Guaymas where Wirewalker is.

The consolation is that the projected winds when it reaches San Carlos are 50 kts. or less. While unpleasant, these are manageable winds. Our plans are to head out tomorrow, spend 24 hours retighting lines, etc., then spend the night in a nice safe hotel room.

If you're interested in tracking the weather, there are many, many sites that can help. Here are a few:

The Navy database:
https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/wxmap_cgi/cgi-bin/wxmap_DOD_area.cgi
?area=ngp_tropepac

The National Hurricane Center:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Sailflow (very good localized model for winds):
http://www.sailflow.com/windandwhere.iws?regionID=130®ion
ProductID=29&timeoffset=0

More when we get there.

14. Arriving/Staying in San Carlos

2007-08-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

May 14th - Summer, 2007: We left Santa Rosalia about 7:30 pm to make the 72 mile crossing at night. The first mile or so was calm, and that was the end of that! The winds picked up out of the south east, countering the waves out of the northwest. It was a washing machine! Fortunately, Wirewalker knows how to handle herself with grace and moved along at about 7 kts. through the night.

As we approached San Carlos (10 miles offshore), it became clear that the approach would be challenging. The waters were all worked up. We slowed down to 2 - 3 kts., a very uncomfortable speed in those sea conditions and waited until 8:00 am when the marina opened. As we closed on the jetty in Bahia Algodones, the seas calmed dramatically. It became a very smooth arrival from there on.

Wirewalker picked up a sideways slip in Marina Real (see the pictures to understand what a "sideways slip" is). We spent 5 days preparing Wirewalker for the long, hot summer in front of her, left the keys and our dreams in the good hands of Abel, our boat caretaker and flew home for weddings (daughter), births (granddaughter), baptisms (grandson), and travel (son to France, Diane and Bill to all sorts of places).

13. Loreto to Santa Rosalia

2007-08-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

May 5th - May 13th: For the first time, we were not on a tight schedule! What a novelty! We decided to sail San Juanico from Loreto for our first destination. It is truly beautiful. As we arrived, there were about 18 boats in the harbor, with space for many more. By the next day, there were only 4 boats remaining, even better!

We decided to dive the southern pinnacles in San Juanico ... again very cold and in this case, not nearly as clear as Monserrat. Oh well, you can get spoiled. We ran ashore through the desert, and snorkeled until our skin looked like a pickle. A friend taught Bill how to find Chocolate clams, which may have been consumed with gusto that evening!

Diane learned "the art of the deal" trading ice that we had to a local fisherman for a whole bunch of dorado. Wow!

We left San Juanico for Mulege, noteworthy for many things, including having the only "navigable" river in the Baja peninsula and "El Sobrerito", shown to the left. Well, "navigable" is debatable. We grounded our dinghy many times going up the river to the town, but it was well worth the trouble. Mulege is a fine little town and the beer is cold!

The anchorage at Mulege leaves a bit to be desired. It's a roadstead anchorage (no protection) and there's a lot of seagrass to fowl your anchor if you're not careful. Net, we only stayed there one night before heading on to Santa Rosalia.

Santa Rosalia is another fascinating town, mostly built by the French 120 years ago. They build the town in a clapboard construction style which i s just wierd (but it works) for Baja. We stayed in the Sinclar (gov't) marina that night and slept like babies! Do not miss Santa Rosalia ... it's cool.

Well, once again, schedules called us. It was time to leave for San Carlos, so Sunday evening, May 13th, we left.

12. PV through Loreto

2007-08-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

April 26th - May 8th: Time to leave Puerto Vallarta and get up north! After only two days to prep the boat, we headed out of the marina into Banderas Bay about 10:00 am on Thursday, with our first stop being Punta Mita, at the entrance to Banderas Bay. We made Punta Mita by 1:00 pm where we anchored and began cleaning the bottom. It seems the La Cruz area is so bad that you need to clean your bottom every week or so. We spent about 2 hours working on the bottom then took off.

Our first stop was Isla Isabela, a small island that is a bird conservancy and fishing camp and is about 65 miles north of Punta Mita. We arrived off the island about 1:00 am and simply did circles offshore until the sun came up enough to allow us to safely approach the island. We hiked, kayaked, snorkeled and finished the bottom cleaning before setting out again at 5:00 pm that evening for Mazatlan. We have Isla Isabela on our list of "must stop again" and will do so next year.

View Larger Map
We made Mazatlan by 7:00 am that next (Sat) morning but couldn't enter the harbor due to dredging. We anchored off Deer Island and slept for a couple of hours. Turns out that the harbor would only open at noon for a short period of time. We scooted into El Cid marina, fueled up (our reason for being in there), pulled in some internet weather and emails, then took off again!

There was no wind ... absolutely no wind for 80 percent of the crossing, so we set a rhumb line for Aqua Verde, 300 miles away, and motored. It was wonderful, calm, and except for the dash-blasted frigate birds ruining our windex's, was perfect! We arrived into Aqua Verde mid-day on Monday. We anchored and relaxed a good bit. We had 30 miles to Puerto Escondido (45 to Loreto) and 3 days to do it in.

We joined the other cruisers for a great potluck on the beach, snorkeled off the point (cold ... 70 degrees), went for a couple of runs and relaxed. Wednesday, we sailed on to Puerto Escondido, picking up a mooring (yep, that's how it's done now) and met the LoretoFest organizers.

Thursday, Gary and Sandy arrived in Loreto so we sailed just off the town shore, where Diane took the dinghy in to pick them up from the airport. Like clockwork!

After two days of LoretoFest, we were itching to do some exploring so went south to Isla Monserrat (SW anchorage) ... gorgeous. Possibly our best snorkel on the west coast of Mexico, and then from there, Isla Carmen. Wow!

We had to drop Sandy and Gary off for their return flight out of Loreto and transact some business. While Diane was taking them to shore, Bill was trying to pick up an internet signal to make a bank transaction (money from savings to checking), pay a bill and leave money for Diane to take a withdrawal out of an ATM in Loreto. It worked! Cruising has changed in the last 10 years!

11. South to Puerto Vallarta

2007-08-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

Feb. 20th - Apr. 26th: Seems there's a habit that the crew of Wirewalker can't break ... rushing to the next port. We had lost so much time from our schedule as a result of weather/repairs that we needed to quickly get down to PV so that Diane could catch her scheduled flight back to the states to work taxes, etc. How many times did the word "schedule" appear in the last sentence? Not good.

(Mazatlan on leaving)

We made the sail/motor sail down to Banderas Bay/La Cruz in about 30 hours, arriving at 3:00 pm on Wednesday. The most noteworthy part of the sail is, again, Diane caught a wonderful tuna as we were entering Banderas Bay. Once again, we were going to eat well tonight!

We quickly anchored and went to the local Port Captain to check in and he was gone, and would be gone also the next day. No big, we'll do it on Friday.

Now, many of the earlier cruisers have very fond memories of La Cruz ... the beautiful beaches, the palapas on the beaches, the quaint restaurants like Dos Felipes, Ana Banana's and Philo's. It's changed! They are building a large marina where the beautiful beach was, leaving and ugly construction-in-progress in it's stead. Landing your dinghy is hazardous and the waters are not the most clean as a result of the construction. Once you get past that, it's all good. It is, after all, Mexico and Banderas Bay!

Diane had a flight out on Sunday, Feb. 25th, so Bill spent the next 10 days as a bachelor on the hook off La Cruz. It was lonely and moderately eventful. Where La Cruz would handle 10 - 20 boats at anchor in years past, the shortage of marina space and the increase in cruisers led to 60 or so boats in that anchorage. We arrived to 25, but that quickly increased! The boat in front of us, a steel-hulled "teaching" vessel, had a poor anchor/rode set-up and dragged down on Wirewalker. 70,000 lbs of steel aiming for our home! Fortunately, some head's up boating neighbors spotted the drift hailed her (no one aboard) then climbed aboard, reset the hook away from Wirewalker and left. Thank you! When I returned from a shoreside trip, they had a good story to tell me.

Internet connecting off La Cruz is difficult, at best. If you hold your laptop up at just the right angle at the right time of day, you might possibly connect and get your emails. The other choice, take your laptop to town would be prudent if the landing wasn't so challenging as a result of the construction. Oh well.

So, Diane came back from her US trip and brought our daughter, Elyse, and grandson, Hayden (3 1/2), to visit for 10 days. They were troopers! Once they made the transition from the "usual" vacation to the La Cruz vacation with buses, etc. they were in the groove! Hayden made many local friends while we enjoyed watching the fun and helping teach Hayden how to bodysurf. Can't get much better!

If you haven't had a chance to stroll the old town Puerto Vallarta, you should. It's beautiful, with statues, beaches, and quaint shops ... once you make it past tourist central! We had the good pleasure of having Doreen and Dennis Beyer join us as we explored much of Puerto Vallarta.

We moved Wirewalker to Paradise Marina on April 5th. We were planning a vacation to Little Cayman to do some diving (a vacation from cruising? yep) so needed to put the boat in a safe place. We had a wonderful vacation.

As we returned to Puerto Vallarta on Monday pm, April 23rd, we knew we were in for another classic Bill/Diane/Wirewalker go like hell trip. We had roughly a week to get the boat ready and sail her 600 miles up to Loreto to meet our friends, Gary and Sandy, for the LoretoFest.

In 2 1/2 days, we'd provisioned the boat, shook out the latest repair bugs and got under way. Details in the next blog.

10. Carnaval in Mazatlan - Unbelievable

2007-08-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

Feb. 17 - 20th, 2007: Mazatlan really knows how to hold a party! On the Saturday before carnaval, Mazatlan does a seaborne reenactment of a famous French/Mexican battle. The weaponry is fireworks and it is awesome! We moved Wirewalker from the marina to Stone Island where we anchored for the night. Our SF friends, Barbara and Michael, flew down to join us for this event.

The fireworks from the anchorage were awesome but, sure enough, by early morning the next Norther had moved in. We hauled up the anchor and scooted back to the marina. All good.

That evening (Sunday) was when Mazatlan has their really big parade. They describe it as the third largest in the world, behind Rio and New Orleans. Because pictures speak a thousand words, we'll show some of the magic from that night!

9. Retired and in Mazatlan - Boat Repairs

2007-08-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

Jan. 7th - Feb. 22nd: We made it! We had an awesome bon voyage/retirement party with many good friends on the 5th and boarded the plane to Mazatlan on the 7th. Wow, it's finally here.

Our plan was to spend 3 weeks in Mazatlan, then head south to Puerto Vallarta and beyond. Our first lesson about cruising and schedules was about to be learned! Weather and boat repairs don't care about schedules!

The weather was what several locals described as the worst in a dozen years. Northers blew every few days or so and lasted a couple. The Port Captain kept closing the port so that leaving, even to go 10 miles south for our scheduled haul-out was impossible for quite some time. And sweatshirts became a part of the morning and evening attire. Sweatshirts? Yep.

We finally got to the drydock, Astilleros Malvinas, to: 1) Service the saildrives, 2) paint the bottom, 3) replace the saildrive skirts (should be done every 5 - 7 years). Since the yard only accepted cash and preferred dollars, Diane and Bill made regular and daily runs to the only ATM that dispensed US dollars. We also learned that if you push your bank (Wells Fargo), they'll raise your daily ATM withdrawal limit ... which we did. We stayed on the boat during the yardwork, enjoying sunset toasts in a commercial drydock. Needless to say, we had no other cruising couples in this "posh" environment. The only really noteworthy thing was a norther came through while we were up on the blocks, delivering winds of 45 kts. plus. We were wondering about the security of the blocks Wirewalker was sitting on ... but they held.

Four days later, we were in the water again with happy saildrives and bottom. So, while we thought we'd done "the repair thing" for the season, we were about to learn more. Both water heaters failed, both fresh water pumps failed, the port engine injection pump failed (requiring a new one from Sweden ... 4 days from Sweden to the docks in Maz!), failed anemometer, dinghy engine failures, etc. Ouch!

By Feb. 22nd we'd had enough and it was time to head south. As we started up the boat to get under way, the primary GPS failed to work ... then the secondary GPS failed to work! Geesh, are we cursed? Our mechanic looked at it, scratched his head and said, "you got a handheld GPS?". We said, 'yes'. He said, "Then get out of hear! If you don't leave now, you may never leave. Boats grow 'roots' if you don't leave" We left and that was a very good thing to do.

8. Long Beach to Mazatlan

2007-08-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Nov. 22nd - Dec. 3rd, 2006: Diane and Bill made the decision to retire this coming Jan. (2007) so we wanted to stage Wirewalker in Mexico (Mazatlan) to avoid winter weather off California. Net, we had (once again) limited time to move her 1100 miles south from Long Beach to Mazatlan.

We left on a cool Wednesday afternoon (the 22nd) out of the Long Beach breakwater with our wonderful crew of Jim and Darda Harrison. If you are looking for the best friends, sailors and shipmates, it's them!

As we proceeded we had no wind so the engines ran. We set a rhumb line pretty much for Cedros Island and began watch keeping. By Sunday, we approached Cedros and had 3 notable events, from good to not good:

Once again, Diane's fishing lines did their magic and she pulled in a beautiful yellow fin tuna. Nice! The only challenge was what was going on on the other side of the boat.

So, the second event: Bill was noting that the tachometer for the port engine was operating erratically so opened up the engine compartment to check. To his surprise, there was about 6 - 8 inches of water in the compartment and water splashing everywhere! Wow! He quickly shut down the engine and shut the through-hull supplying cooling water to the engine. Still have water coming in ... why? At that point, Darda noticed that water was streaming from the watermaker. The high pressure joint to the pump failed. We quickly shut that off, drained the water out, T-9'd the whole of the engine compartment, and got under way again. Long story short, the bilge pump had failed at the wrong time contributing to the problem. We lost the starter, but nothing else. Once in Mazatlan, we had everything cleaned and oiled by professionals.

Now for the third event: Also on that day, we saw a Catamaran headed north so Bill hailed them. They were a delivery crew out of South Africa taking a Voyager 44 up to Seattle. After 10 minutes of conversation, we said good-bye thinking we were glad we weren't them. On Dec. 10th their boat was lost off a 100 kt. storm off of Oregon ... just a couple hundred miles from finishing their 7500 mile sail. Wow! The weather reports had noted this storm well in advance so you can't be sure what the decision process was. The skipper was expert, so we'll never know. The real lesson is that sailing is not a completely safe sport. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the crew.

We continued past Cedros as the weather FINALLY began to warm up. As we started to think about relaxing and enjoying the warmth, the weather forecasts started to indicate that a significant Norther was building for the day after we expected to cross the Sea of Cortez. As the crossing from Cabo San Lucas to Mazatlan is 200 miles, if you're in the middle and the weather turns crappy ... you're stuck.

We made the decision to push Wirewalker hard until we got to Cabo San Lucas where we could look at conditions over the next 24 hours and either duck into Cabo or cross. We rounded Cabo about 4:00 pm and decided to go for it. We had about 12 - 24 hours beyond what was needed to cross ... not a lot ... but enough, so we went for it.

Benign is the best way to describe the first 130 miles. About 70 miles off Mazatlan, the wind started to pick up, then pick up more, then more. Within 25 miles of Mazatlan, we had only a reefed headsail up and were doing 9-plus kts.

Now, as we approached the Mazatlan Marina entrance, we had two major considerations: The first was the entry itself. Under the best of conditions, it is a tricky entrance. You can't see the opening as it requires a quick turn to port just before you go onto the reef and/or beach. Then you make a very sharp turn to starboard to stay in the channel. From there, it's easy ... as long as no current is running out the narrow channel. As Bill and Diane had been through this entrance several times over the last year, Bill decided he would do it ... if conditions allowed. So, the crew spent an hour or so rehearsing the route and each person's responsibilities during the entrance to be sure we did right.

The second consideration was the wind. With 25+ kts. blowing, Bill would not enter. However, the wind off-shore is often not the same as the wind on-shore, so we decided to get close enough to check it out before "bailing" out to either Deer island or Mazatlan's old harbor. Sure enough, the wind nearly died completely in the final mile before the entry, so we decided to go to the entrance and check conditions. Again, all good.

We made it into the harbor and tied up alongside the dock at about midnight, Wed/Thur. We have this thing about late night arrivals, I guess. We'd travelled 1100 miles in 7 1/2 days. Next time, we want to set a record by NOT going so fast.

7. Heading South from San Francisco

2007-08-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Oct. 27 - 29, 2006: After a wonderful summer with Wirewalker enjoying the brisk winds of San Francisco, it was time to take her south. With work (and limited vacation) as a critical consideration, we looked for a good weather window to sail around Point Conception ... while also being a weekend ... while also being late October. We were in luck. This weekend was a "go"!

Our son-in-law, Greg Foley, joined us for this sail, his first off-shore experience. He was awesome, asking the right questions, handling his watches well, effecting repairs. Thanks Greg!

With 14 kts. of wind, we sailed out under the Golden Gate, a great start. Within an hour, the wind had died down to less than 5 kts, where it would remain until Conception. That's okay, we have engines. Unfortunately, our efforts to get the bottom cleaned before we left were unsuccessful so we travelled with a very dirty bottom. The effect was probably a knot in speed ... a lot over the course of 400 miles.

View Larger Map
Somewhere off the Central Coast Diane did her magic. One of her fishing lines managed to find the mouth of a 5 lb. or so Blue Fin Tuna. Umm-umm. Greg and Diane worked together to bring it in and clean it, then prepare it for eating. Life doesn't get much better.

Point Conception really is a challenge to round, no matter the weather. Where our trip up was against 25 - 30 kt. winds, here we had 10 - 15 kt. stern quarter winds. The currents make the waters really agitated and to make sure you're having enough fun, there are enough bouys and oil platforms at that corner to make it feel like a pinball game!

Navigating at 3:00 am through this field was interesting. Just about the time we thought we were through, we saw 2 lights that didn't match the charts. Hmm! On closer inspection, they were ships, freighters, coursing along the southern edge of the Point. Sure enough, the North Conception chart doesn't show the shipping lane, but when you switch charts to the South Conception chart ... there it is!

Sunday morning broke beautifully, with clear skies and 10 - 12 kts from astern. We set the spinnaker and enjoyed 12 great hours of spinnaker running before the wind faded such that it had to be put away.

Several of our friends had joined aboard Gary and Sandy's pilot house cabin cruiser, Sea Chantey, and met us just before we entered the Los Angeles breakwater at 9:00 pm on a Sunday. They provided us an escort all the way to the Long Beach Yacht Club where we took up guest berthing for 2 weeks.

At 11:00 pm we were tied up to the dock and celebrating with our good friends the success of our first leg back south. 400 miles in 57 hours.

6. Mazatlan to San Francisco via Catalina

2007-08-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

May 17th -June 2nd, 2006: Like a visit to Mecca, we needed to bring Wirewalker up to San Francisco so that family and friends could see her before we headed back south to warmer climes. We'd spent most of the Spring of 2006 getting her ready to head north, hauling Wirewalker at Astilleros Malvinas to redo the saildrive seals (fishing lines off Costa Rica) and a hundred odd's and ends.

We returned on Monday, May 15th, for the final visit, provisioned her put on about 100 extra gallons of fuel for the 1100 mile trip uphill to San Diego (port of entry) and took off on Wednesday, May 17th. An absolutely beautiful day for leaving, but no wind so we motored. The only sad note was we found out quickly, that the swallows that were following us had a nest in the flaked mainsail. As we raised the main, we lost a baby bird. It happens.

The crossing to Cabo was uneventful and we arrived off the coast at about 8:30 at night ... not the desired time to round the Cape, but that's the time nonetheless. At 9:00 pm it was Diane's watch, so Ron (our other crew for the leg north) and Bill headed to bed. Sure enough, the wind really picked up, the water temperature dropped about 15 degrees and Diane had a real ride!

By 4:00 am things had settled down a great deal so we set a rhumb line for Cedros and continued on into steady 10 - 15 knot winds on the nose. By 3:00 am on the 21st we were rounding Isla Navidad to the south of Cedros. Well, we managed to pick up a few thousand pounds of kelp and came to an abrupt stop (or at least major slowdown). An hour or two of playing around got us clear and we were back under way, headed to the inside of Cedros and Bahia Vizciano.

We spent a good deal of the 21st passing Cedros and enjoying a rain shower that washed down the deck (good) and introduced a dramatic weather change; 25 - 30 knots on the nose! Get used to it.

About 2:00 am on the morning of the 24th, maybe 20 miles south of Ensenada, we spied a vessel on an intercept course with Wirewalker. Bill adjusted course and continued. It adjusted course. After several evasive maneuvers, the boat was within a 1/4 mile and closing. This was time for an "all hands" call, so Diane and Ron came topside from their deep sleep. With every light on Wirewalker on and the VHF broadcasts continuing, we finally got a response. It was the Mexican navy (normally a good thing) who wanted to see a visual of our boat I.D. Coming within 20 yards of our stern, we believe they got a good visual!

By the next morning as we approached Ensenada, we were beat and our fuel was a bit low. We made the decision to pull into Marina Coral to refuel and touch land for a short period. As we were casting off from refueling, Bill got no response from the starboard helm ... the cable had snapped! 8 hours later and many taxi miles, we had a new cable, had it installed and were ready to head to San Diego!

We hit the San Diego police docks to check into the U.S. about 3:30 in the morning. The Customs and Border Patrol folks we fast, efficient and friendly. Not bad for the middle of the night!

After a day of provisioning, we left San Diego at about 8:00 pm headed to Catalina Island, arriving at about 10:00 am the next morning. We had many, many of our dear friends sail over and celebrate Wirewalker's visit to the U.S. and California. Here are some pictures:

Come Monday, May 29th, we needed to leave, having recovered from the beat up the Baja coast. By 11:00 am we said 'good-bye' to our friends and set a course for the Santa Barbara channel via Santa Cruz island.

With no wind, it was a motor the whole way ... until Santa Cruz island, where we had the wind pick up to 25 - 30 knots, consistent, on the nose. To make a painful story short, it never let up for the next 300 miles ... on the nose ... until Half Moon Bay, where it went flat-calm again.

We entered the Bay at 4:18 am on Friday, June 2nd, travelling through the thickest blanket of fog we had ever seen. We were under the Golden Gate bridge before we saw the bridge! And once on the other side, it was crystal clear. Go figure!

We arrived at our temporary berthing (Marina Village, Alameda) at 6:30 am and were WAY TOO EXCITED to sleep. What a thrill. 6,000 miles after buying Wirewalker we had her in the San Francisco Bay where we had first learned to sail!

Life is good.

5. Golfito, Costa Rica to Mazatlan

2007-07-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Dec. 5th to Dec. 19th: With the weekend of R&R over in Golfito, it was time to get the show on the road. We left Golfito on Tuesday, Dec. 5th with the intention of covering as much turf as possible before sea conditions required us to head to shore. The big hazards on this route were: 1) countless fishing nets all along the Costa Rican coast, 2) the Papagallo winds in northern Costa Rica/Southern Nicaragua, and 3) the Tehuantepeckers. One out of 3 worked for us!

While travelling along the Costa Rican coast, we picked up some fishing line/nets which compromised our saildrive seals. Net, we had oil/sea water mix in our saildrives. What that required was changing the saildrive oil about 5 times between Costa Rica and Mazatlan (then hauling the boat to replace seals).

The Papagallos turned out to be a gift. We had 20 - 25 knots of breeze just aft of beam on the starboard side allowing us to turn in a 203 mile 24 hour run! What a thrill!

That leaves us the Tehuantepec winds. Our weather reports told us that, if we maintained speed we ought to be able to squeeze in front of the next gale force winds going through the region. But of course, the closer we got to the decision point, the lower our boat speed became, pushing us well beyond comfort. We made the decision to turn to starboard and go to Puerto Madero (now Puerto Chiapas). A smart move! Our chart is shown to the right.

As we approached the Mexican waters from the Guatemalan waters, we saw a small boat approach. It looked like an old PT boat. Sure enough, it was the Mexican armada working to intercept us. They did and informed us to head into Puerto Madero for inspection. Since that was our intention, no problem.

We got into Puerto Madero at about 9:00 pm and dropped anchor in the cove outside the Port Captain's office. Within an hour, a vessel with about 10 Mexican navy personnel and a drug sniffing dog showed up at our boat. They were very professional and very thorough. An hour later, they left and we had a late night's dinner, and the first night without a watch on in a while!

We checked into the Port Captain's on Saturday morning and he personally drove us to the airport to check into the country. He would accept no contributions for fuel; he was just a very nice guy. Thank you.

We needed to pick up some fuel, so went to the local Pemex station to fill up. Since their normal clientele was the shrimping fleet, the tie-up was a bit rustic (translation: nails and rebar poking out of the wharf wall).

By Sunday night, the weather forecasts were stating that the Tehuantepecker was settling down, so we took off. This required one more full inpection by the Armada (again, very professional), and we were under way again.

For the next 24 hours we had very benign sailing conditions, 15 or so knots, more or less on the nose. Then (there's always a "then" when it comes to the Tehuantepecs), about 7:00 pm all hell broke loose! The wind ramped way up and we headed closer into the shore (one foot on the shore). By 3:00 am the winds were gusting in the 40's, we had a triple reef in and the engines running. Now, to make it interesting, the shrimping fleet out of Puerto Saline were out in the same waters working! I guess they had to make a living and could exactly order up the weather they wanted.

What that required from us was a good deal of course negotiations to avoid the fleet, their nets, and the winds. By 6:00 am the winds had moderated and had moved more or less astern. Awesome! Let's get the spinnaker up. As soon as that was completed, the wind clocked around on our nose at 5 - 10 knots. Not awesome, let's get the engines started!

About 400 miles later our fuel supply looked limited. Based on calculations and a 200 gallon tank capacity, we should be okay all the way up to Barra de Navidad, right? No. The tank capacity turned out to be only 185 gal. and if you don't fill the final one inch or so, it's about 20 gal. less than that. We ran out of fuel, but fortunately, not out of wind and limped into Caleta de Campos, which though it had no fuel dock, did have a Pemex up the hill a ways.

We sent a shore party to meet the natives (taxi) and 3 hours later we were back under way.

Now, if you're going to make an error, might as well make a really memorable one! Bill decided to put the last of the Gerry cans of fuel in the tank. Well, he grabbed the gasoline can instead of the diesel can. Ouch! The engine didn't seem to like that too well. Time for another stop; this time in Barra de Navidad! Once we emptied the fuel tank (Fortunately it only had a few gallons of diesel/gas mix), cleaned it and refueled, we were off again for Mazatlan.

The sail from Barra to Mazatlan was beautiful, with one of the most amazing sunsets we've seen. These pictures were from outside of Banderas Bay, headed north.

So, December 18th, 6:00 pm we finally make it to Mazatlan, though too late to pull into the marina to the north of Mazatlan. We decided to stay in old harbor area that night and continue on to the marina in the morning. Arriving at 9:00 am into the marina, Diane and I caught a 3:30 pm flight back to San Francisco and back to work. Fortunately, Ron and Lloyd stayed an extra day or so to help put Wirewalker away properly and Diane and I returned 4 weeks later for more of the same.

4. Panama to Costa Rica via the Canal

2007-07-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

Nov. 18th - Dec. 1st. Nothing can prepare you for the thrill of a canal passage, except of course the long queue! Our need was to sail Wirewalker through the canal and up to Golfito, Costa Rica where we'd swap crew and proceed to Mazatlan, Mexico to keep the boat. We had 4 weeks to do this in. No time to lose.

We left Bocas del Toro, Panama on the 20th and headed directly to the canal zone.

It's a bit thrilling to sail in November through the night close to the canal zone. November is the height of rainy season, so squalls are everywhere, blanking out the radar. When the squall would pass, you to see the freighter 1/2 mile off your stern that you didn't even know was there while the squall was upon you! Life in the canal zone!

We wanted to get the paperwork shuffle going 1st thing Monday so we would be properly in the queue. We arrived at the Panama Canal Yacht Club at about 2:00 pm and quickly made contact with a person to assist us with the dance. Great progress, but we didn't make it onto the list on Monday. We did get the fees paid and joined the queue on Tuesday, with a tentative sailing date of Sunday. Yeah! No long wait.

The next issue on the list was a very stubborn helm that we'd noted on the sail down. Turns out that the nylon rudder bearing on the port side was seized. With the nearest place to haul in Cartagena, we had to figure out how to fix the problem while the boat remained in the water.

We had to dive on the rudder bearing and hand saw it out (under water). And while we had a spare rudder bearing, it was also oversized. Fortunately, we were able to machine it down, put it in place (under water) along with the rudder and get going again. The only cost? Two days of being in the not-so-clean water at Panama Canal Yacht Club. So far, no strange diseases noted.
(Bill and Jim diving on the rudder bearing in the Panama Canal).

With 3 or 4 days left on our wait for the canal passage, we decided to take a sail up the Chagres River. If you have the chance, don't miss this! While the entrance (bar) is a bit challenging, it is well worth the trip.

Now, for the canal: We finally got our spot and had to prepare Wirewalker for the passage. Because the shoreside line-handlers throw monkey fists to the boats in transit, we needed to protect our solar panels, ports, etc. from errant throws. After using all our cushions for this task and realizing more was needed, we pulled out the sail bags, life jackets, suitcases, etc. to make sure we were adequately covered. (see picture to right). And it turns out that it's a smart thing to cover everything. The monkey fists really can cause damage to unprotected gear!

For the passage, we rafted with a beautiful Morris 51' to our port. By far the most expensive bumper we've ever had! Here are some of the pictures while transitting:

When you see the Bridge of the Americas, you're through. What an amazing sight, and of course, the champagne had to flow!

Through the canal, but we still had 350 miles or so to go to Golfito, Costa Rica, and our time was really limited. We stopped in Flamenco Marina, Panama for about 2 hours to refuel, top off the provisions and then headed out. Just like the Caribbean side, the Pacific side is chock-a-block with freighters; five in one hour was not unusual. You keep your eyes open, and the prayers flowing!

Two and one half days later, we arrived in Golfito, for a weekend's R&R, and a change of crew.

Thank you, Jim and Darda, Gary and Sandy, and Ray for being a part of our canal passage!

3. Renaming Wirewalker; Our Trip to San Blas

2007-07-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Sept. 3 - 12, 2005. While "Snowcat" is a great name for a boat, "Wirewalker" is the name we had decided long ago would be the name of our boat. Why "wirewalker"? When we married many years ago, Diane had the following words engraved in Bill's ring: "Will you walk with me out on the wire, baby we were born to run".

Four of the lines from Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" song are:

Will you walk with me out on the wire
`cause baby Im just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real

So that's 'why' "Wirewalker".

Now, for the renaming ceremony: Our dear friends Jim and Darda Harrison and Gary and Sandy Butts joined us for the trip from Bocas del Toro, Panama to the San Blas Islands, Panama for this ceremony.

To the left, Sandy and Darda are buying a stalk of bananas for the trip from a local indian for the very steep price of $1.00 for the whole stalk.

To the right, Jim has the helm for the first stage of the open water portion of the trip.

The trip was roughly 25o miles if done directly. That was our plan. Unfortunately, weather helped us consider stopping off at Portobello for a day to let things calm down before continuing. We were warned by fellow cruisers in Portobello to be careful; theft is a very serious problem in that area. Net, we enjoyed the day but were very cautious about leaving things unguarded. Not a bad general rule, anyways.

Nothing can prepare you for the beauty of the San Blas Islands. It is Disneyland for the sailor. Perfect little islands with sand beaches, coconut palms, thatched huts ashore and Ku na Indians in dug out cayucas (canoes). Unbelievable!

We chose the "swimming pool" as the site of our renaming ceremony, with the guys removing the "Snowcat" decals and placing on the new "Wirewalker" decals and the gals ceremoniously swimming counterclockwise around the boat 3 times chanting:

"Fee fie fo fat, you are no longer Snowcat".

Once 3 laps were completed, they then swam 3 laps clockwise around the boat singing:

"Abra cadabra magic knocker, you are now Wirewalker!"

These two acts (decals and chanting) were followed by liberal quantities of the best champagne that Wirewalker could offer up (some to Neptune, though most to the crew and neighbors!) ... and it was done! Snowcat was now Wirewalker!!

(The proud owners of Wirewalker)

With this solemn, yet joyous occassion completed, we turned our focus on the more serious side of fun and enjoyed far too little time in the San Blas Islands. If someone ever suggests sailing to the San Blas islands and only spending 3 days there ... throw them overboard!

We needed to sail back to Bocas del Toro, put the boat away for a few more months, and return to work. Much to short.

2. From Honduras to Panama

2007-07-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

May 25th thru June 4th, 2005. So we bought the boat! What an awesome feeling! A dream of a lifetime materializes in Honduras. Only problem ... Honduras is in the hurricane zone and the hurricane season starts June 1st. We need to get the boat south to Panama where it'll be safe from hurricanes.

Sure enough, for the first time in recent memory a hurricane forms in the Eastern Pacific in May and decides to go backwards towards Central America and Honduras! They don't do that! Well they do and you'd better do something about it. We notified the boatyard, who spent a good deal of effort securing boats in place. Fortunately, the storm fizzled before making it across Honduras so we were safe!

We left Honduras on the 28th of May, headed east towards the Cabo Gracias a Dios, then south through the Meskito channel to Panama.

As noted from the pictures of Lloyd (to the left) and Ron(to the right), there was a bit of rain on occassion. Great for keeping the crew cool and odor free!

A beautiful sail and for the most, taking us to Bocas del Toro, Panama. Nothing short of a spectacularly beautiful location.

Diane, to the right, is on the bow checking to make sure the last 2 miles of the reef lined entrance, don't detract from what has been a wonderful sail.

We arrived there, 640 miles from La Ceiba, in only 100 hours, or just over 4 days. A great preview of what our boat can do.

1. The Survey

2007-07-16T16:48:00.000-07:00

May 6th, 2005: The Survey. Buying a boat is an interesting business, especially when you're buying a boat out of the country. We first spotted "Snowcat" on the internet. The owners, Dean and Karen Massey, were in Guatemala on the Rio Dulce, so there was no seeing the boat first to get a feel for condition, etc. beforehand. We dove into the deep end!

We worked with our broker to formulate an offer, subject to sea trials, inspection and survey.

We met the Massey's in Belize for the inspection and sea trials, then agreed to meet them in La Ceiba, Honduras to haul the boat out for survey. If all went well, we'd complete the purchase.

We arrived on the 5th of May with a surveyor (Geoff Williams, West Indies Marine Surveyors ) we'd hired out of the BVI's. Very, very talented guy but definitely not local! After a thorough top-to-bottom in the water inspection, we then proceeded to the travel lift to haul the boat out of the water.

Hauling your boat (then Dean and Karen's) is a harrowing experience. The slip at La Ceiba is about a foot and one-half wider than the boat's beam. You hold your breath then motor in. Next, you make doubly sure the straps are in place before they lift.

If all went well, you'll see where the sun don't shine. In this case, all went well and we became the proud owners of "Snowcat"!