14. Arriving/Staying in San Carlos

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

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 is 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

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.

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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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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

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.