17. San Carlos, Beautiful Country

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

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

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

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.

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

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.