Spines And Skates

Woke up to beautiful skies and calm winds over Isla Ventana and we decided to take advantage of the snorkeling around Islas Pata and Bota about ½ mile from Ventana. While we were snorkeling I was able to talk to some Mexican shell fishermen and found out it would be clear for the rest of the day and the next, a prediction we would come to regard with some doubt. But regardless with the intelligence we had at the moment we decided to take advantage of calm seas and head farther south where the waters are warmer and, as it turns out, the phosphorescence surrounds your body like a ghost when you swim at night. But that is getting ahead of ourselves.

Moonrise over LA Bay

We waved goodbye to Ventana with a northwest breeze encouraging the baby swells behind us and struck out for Santa Rosalia about 80 miles down the coast. We cruised until about 12 am, mike and I being old hands at this point with the dark of night piloting a sailboat thing, and dropped anchor in the west bay of San Fransicito while a pod of about 20 porpoise frolicked in our bow wave. Amazingly cool.

Mike on the beach, San Fransicito

We woke up to a magnificent white sand beach and the wind shrieking through our rigging which combined to turn our adventurous feet and spirits to shore. Mike and I took little boat into the inner harbor where a gentleman named Alberto perpetrated some highway robbery on us by selling us gas at $5.00 a gallon. Thankfully it was only 5 gallons. It was at this point we also learned there were an airstrip and a restaurant/bar about a mile down the road and we resolved to explore the beach where we were anchored and then head into town for a drink as all of our back stock had been depleted.

The Gypsy Queen, lying at anchor, San Fransicito

Well things went off without a hitch and we explored the desert around the beach for several hours, took Little Boat into the harbor, about a 10 min ride through some respectable chop, and walked to the restaurant/bar and refreshed ourselves. As it was getting dark we returned to Little Boat and began the chain of events that would mark our time at San Fransicito as nothing less than an adventure.

Exploring the mainland, San Fransicito

Now to be descriptive Little Boat is an 8 foot Zodiac style inflatable with a 1980 Evenrude 9.9 horse outboard. Now let me ask you, “How long does it take a 1980 Evenrude 9.9 horse outboard to clear flooded sparkplugs?” Don’t know?

One of the numerous caves

Neither do I. What I can tell you is that you can pull on the pull cord for about 30 minutes and nothing encouraging will happen. So at this point Mike and I had a choice, continue pulling the cord and pray for exceptional night vision as we navigate through low tide back to the boat or walk back the, can’t be more than 2 miles right . . ., to the boat and pray for exceptional night vision & etc. I would like to think the increasing wind turning the inner harbor entrance to a maelstrom of 3-4 foot chop didn’t effect our decision at all. But either way we made the fatefull decision to walk and so after securing flashlights from the friendly Alberto, no charge, we set off.

Setting the anchor, somewhere off Baja Mexico Sur

Whenever you hear, “don’t worry there is a trail all the way to the beach," alarm bells should be ringing, and ringing. About 20 minutes into what would turn into a 2 hour hike while navigating a particularly cactus rich spot at the nub end of dusk mike took a wrong step and after impaling his foot on a vicious cactus fell spread-eagle into the worst cactus patch I have ever seen. Having no alternative but to roll his way out he impaled a large portion, over 60 percent, of his body on this cactus mattress. Of course this slowed us down as we had to stop and remove some of the more offensive spines from his feet, back and arms. We continued on eventually, with the flashlights on, and walked up on the beach side campfire that our friends had thoughtfully made and flopped on the ground not even considering how screwed we were for the ensuing night. Gradually it came to us, the boat is out there, a ways, and we are in here with no boat, the food is out there, the sleeping bags and extra gear is out there, everything is out there . . . Ever tried to find wood on a beach in Baja Mexico? It’s a full time job.

The variety of cactus that brought Mike low.

I haven’t spent a night out so unprepared since I started going out of doors. We were given about a pound and a half of meatloaf and gravy, yeah I know random, when we got the flashlights, which I had walked back and so we wolfed that down, buried some coals under about 12 inches of sand, watched a good sized snake, 3-4 feet, slither by, killed a scorpion and laid down as close to the fire as we dared and got what sleep we could. Needless to say I got a lot more than Mike as I wasn’t lying on my own private pin cushion. Mike got a bunch of wood throughout the night though . . .

Spine removal, note the proper tools, excellent hygiene and abundant help.

I would say we woke up the next day but more appropriatly the sun dawned on mike and I shivering on lukewarm sand and thoroughly smoked. We walked back to Little Boat, lost the path several times even during the day and she started on the third pull. ??! Of course. Answer: it takes all night for an Evenrude 9.9 horse outboard to clear flooded sparkplugs. Check.
And then insult to injury as Lennis was back at the beach with Little Boat a plate sized stingray got him right through the strap of his sandal and laid him out for the day. Mike and I spent the day on the boat, doing nothing.

Lennis's foot and the stingray aftermath.

Tomorrow we will set off for the south, really.

Ventana Island and vicinity

Here are some pictures from Ventana Island in LA Bay where we spent two days exploring and recreating.


Ventana Island, looking North.

Ventana Island, looking to the West.

The Gypsy Queen, Ventana, Isla Fletcha directly behind.

Islas (from Left to Right) Coronado (Smith Island, Background),Bota, San Aremar, and Calaveras.

Moonrise over Ventana Island.

Sunset over the Mainland from Ventana Island.

L.A Bay

The Gypsy Queen and Little Boat, ready to go.


Well the time has finally arrived and we are ready to set sail. After walking into San Felipe too many times the wind finally died and we are on our way. Heading south from San Felipe our destination was Bahia de Los Angeles, LA Bay, a beautiful bay with about 15 islands scattered across it ranging from tiny specs that almost disappear at high tide to huge mountains rising out of the sea a couple thousand feet and tens of miles long

La Isla Alcatraz

The total trip from San Felipe to LA Bay is about 150 miles about 50 miles out of our cruising range using just the outboard so a stop for fuel was mandatory. As we ended up leaving port in the late morning we decided to run all night to Bahia Willard, about 100 miles down, arriving, hopefully in the morning where we could refuel and make the rest of the trip that day.

early morning sailing

Accordingly we divided into two shifts, Lennis and Andrea and Mike and I, for four hours each. Around 1200 am Mike and I found ourselves alone, piloting a sailboat, at night, in the ocean for the first time for both of us. After some discussion Mike and I decided that we were both very uncomfortable with both the responsibility and the lack of technical expertise currently resting on our meager, non-sailor shoulders. The 2 foot seas hitting us diagonally from the port stern did nothing to help with this as the boat lurched from crest to trough and from side to side sometimes doing 7 knots, as it was surfing down the face of the wave, and sometimes doing 3 knots, as we climbed out of the troughs. Needless to say it was a gripping four hours with mike and I trading off on the tiller after our hands got tired from squeezing the handle.

climbing out of the hold, not a cool place for claustrophobic individuals

Somewhere around 3 am the wind tapered off and the seas got calmer and with the almost full moon lighting up the ocean all around us we had a very enjoyable last hour of our shift. We pulled into Bahia Willard for some gas, and as a small sideline, met Doug and Debbie, who live on the beach there and after answering all their questions about where we were from and where we were going lent us their 70s chevy truck to go get gas at the station a couple miles away. As a side bar, the cruising community down here is amazing, everyone we have met has bent over backward to help us out, give us things or just talk to us.

Sunrise on the sea of cortez

So after fueling up we headed south hoping to make LA Bay by noon the next day. After anchoring at Alcatraz Island for the night we pulled into LA Bay around 10 am the next day and began to plan which islands to visit and what to do.

Corona, where the sea and the sun meet.

we decided to head out to Isla Ventana to stay for a couple of days to explore and snorkel and such. Ta-ta.

La Isla Ventana, LA Bay, Baja California Norte.

at the helm.

Oh, mariners we will be . . .

this! this is what I was waiting for. Yes that's a pina colada.

Lennis and the errant wire.

the Boat, which is still nameless. which seems unlucky

the trailer and the boat.

ARRGH matey.

kicking it mexico style.

Hello again and welcome back. To catch those of you up who I haven't seen lately I just left the states, Nov 4, a historic day, for mexico where I am meeting three friends of mine in San Felipe on the Sea of Cortez where we will get aboard a 27 foot sailboat and sail to La Paz, about 700 miles, at which point I will return to the Wa. This is an account of the first several days.
So the life has been half tragedy, half comical so far. Getting the boat into the water was a lot easier than we thought. We literally just backed the trailer into the water and floated off. Unfortunately when the motor was mounted it was angled slightly away from the boat so the propeller wasn't totally in the water. So as we were trying to maneuver out of the little corner of the marina where the ramp was we couldn't get the boat to respond to the motor so the wind, which has been blowing like crazy for the last 3 days began to push us into the rocks that make up the sides of the marina. The Captain, lennis, and I are were the only ones on the boat, both mike and andrea were on shore taking pictures. So lennis and I are shouting at each other trying to get the motor deep enough in the water to get the boat to turn against the wind and getting closer and closer to the rocks. After a minute or less, you know how time goes in situations like that, our keel, which sticks down below the hull about 6-8 feet, clangs into the rocks and the boat starts to list toward shore. Which makes the deck hard to stand on. Anyway we sit there for a little while longer until we figure out that the motor in reverse has a lot more control for some reason so we back the boat off the rocks and over to a dock which involved some shady turning, backward, through some little channels with sand bars on the down wind side. Fortunately we were able to make the turn into the slip, boat anchor area, and tied it down.
So the wind is howling and there is about 1-2 foot wind chop so little waves rocking the boat all over the place. And we have to still put the mast up, which we decided not to try to do until the next day when the wind was less rambunctious. Which to do a little fortune telling, hasn't happened yet and that was yesterday. So we move everything we threw into the boat cockpit back into the stern and spent the whole rest of the day organizing and preparing other things. blowing up the little raft we are going to use, getting water and fuel, dealing with paperwork, which was exceptionally easy compared with my past experiences with Latino paperwork.
So today we get up with the grand ambition of trying to raise the mast. And if you haven't stepped a mast (the official terminology) you just haven't lived. So to give you a basic idea of mast topography there are about a million wires, ropes, pulleys and attachments all over this 35-40 ft aluminum pole the size around of softball and we have to fit it over this tiny little protrusion that sticks out of the deck at the highest part of the boat. I think this part of the story will be better in person as my ability to write action drama lacks a little. Anyway so we have me pulling on a rope attached to the top of the mast from the bow (front) of the boat, an old guy we shanghaied (crusty sailor term for kidnapping some one and making them a slave on a boat) from his boat next door to hold the end of the mast in the little protrusion and mike and lennis lifting from underneath.
Well it didn't work out. We got the mast up to about 20 degrees off horizontal and it started to slide to the side and we couldn't hold it so it dropped back onto the boat. Which wasn't that bad except that a cable off the mast that was criminally engineered to fall out at the most inappropriate moment, and to add to indignity the cable is unique and individual and can't be purchased as a part!??, falls out of the mast and right into the water next to the boat and disappears. I immediately turn to the old guy and ask, "how deep is the water here?" And he replies, "oh about 35 to 40 ft." At which point lennis starts to look around for a pistol so he can shoot himself in the face. Did I mention that this cable is crucial to keeping the mast upright?
So there we all are standing around trying to wrap our minds around the fact that our mast in now useless rendering sailing out of the question and our motor is mounted like crap so we can't motor anywhere and no car to get back to the states so we can scrounge/steal a cable that will work. And out of the blue this other guy from a boat close by cruises over and after hearing the story asks if anyone is scuba certified as he has a bca and scuba tank that he just filled up. As a matter of fact lennis is a scuba guy from way back so he slips into his wetsuit and after about a half an hour later comes up from the bottom of the marina with the cable. I immediately decided that I would forego the lottery ticket I was going to buy today and be very careful as I am sure finding that cable used up all the luck our whole group is going to get for at least the next couple of days. But after a very heartfelt celebration we decided to wait until the seas are calm to step the mast and recruit every able bodied human being we can find to get it done the next time. So we have since moved on to installing the electrical system so we can have lights, refrigeration, music and power for tonight. I think we are going to work on the motor mount as well.
Also the boat is always moving from the waves and now as I am sitting here at the computer on solid tierra I can feel the whole world rocking to the ocean. It is really weird!
n