Close to nature and at her whim
This was a windy season! Maybe we were always in the wrong spot at the wrong time this spring or that low pressure field over the Pacific was holding out for too long continuously sending winds over the Baja California to the Sea of Cortez, …
A boat yard is home for a while for all boaters. Unless the maintenance of your boat is completely done and managed by others, you’ll spend some time in a boat yard. We are do-it-yourselfers and perfectionists, so that we spend a lot of time …
On overnight passages we keep watch in shifts. After dinner one of us says goodnight. The other keeps us safe and stays up with a multitude of entertainment be it listening to the waves splashing off the bow and curling along the boat, trimming sails, …
They say, when sailing, you will get to know your limits. I have last night! Feels like shit, when you hit it, and everything around you comes crashing down. That is what rock bottom is. On rocky bottom no anchor holds, so you put down …
You think you can sail off into the sunset. Some can, some can’t. Most are too happy with life on land. They might complain a lot about it, might dream of freedom and sailing, but in the end on land is where they belong. On …
Since this night I can attest to, that the most important crew on board is the bilge pump. We are motoring, because there is absolutely no wind, unfortunately, because a little while back a seam in our engines muffler box gave out and seawater is …
SV Coastal Drifter’s Debbie calls it ‘having a free day’. When we are at remote anchorages and even if we go ashore there are no people, no villages, no restaurants and we leave the wallet on the boat. There aren’t any tiendas, supermarkets or vendors …
Most think that this is an unachievable dream. Not so. It is attainable and will cost as much as you have. Cruisers spend money the same way on water, as they did on land. Some cash out their life on land early, some later. Some …
Getting the boat and outfitting is easy. After leaving comes the hard part. Complaining about life when you live on land is normal. Complaining as a cruiser is just not done. We are out there living the dream, complaining would be heresy. How about the …
The other day in Bahía de Los Ángeles, we were sitting around with a bunch of cruisers under Guillermo’s palapa when a landlubber from Texas joined our group. He was a young Armenian immigrant to the US close to getting his Green Card and on …
Every region has it own kind of bugs. I don’t mind bugs so much, if they don’t sting, but actually, I would to keep all bugs our of and off the boat. One obvious solution are bug screens. Bug screens are not created equal and …
Living is minimized on board, we have less clothes, toys, books. But we need equal amount of food. It’s just that on land, we can produce as much trash as we like. On a boat, we keep our trash until we reach land. Some people …
We are addicted to it. Me, Radu, our society, we all love electricity. The majority of sustainable energy effort goes towards replacing energy from fossil fuels with electrical energy. Rarely have I seen a community without it. In Bahía Magdalena rattled and huffed a ginormous …
We had heard of them, people anchoring way too close, and now we’ve met one. Actually, this is the second one, but so obnoxious. that it warrants a rant. We come to this empty bay, nice and wide, large anchoring shelf of 27′. We anchor …
Imagine living in 250 sq feet/ meters with your husband and a dog. Imagine your closet contains 10 T-shirts, 7 shirts, 5 shorts, 5 pairs of shoes, a jewelry box the size of a large shampoo bottle. Most of your clothes are sailing and fleece …
Once we turned the corner at Cabo San Lucas away from the mighty Pacific, which hadn’t been very gentle with us, and were 5 miles into the Sea of Cortez, it got hot. Way hot and humid. Samba started panting and we started sweating. It suddenly …
Radu is learning how to filet a fish, a Pargo rojo (Pacific Red Snapper). We met Antonio, the sheriff of this small village, when he secured our dinghy on the beach the tide had broken loose and was about to float away. They started talking …
Long passages can be like endurance training. When the day is divided into either on or off watch, this feels like work. We are as far away from away from work as one can be, yet we still get used to 30 hours of either …
People have been telling us in San Diego that we would have great winds and following seas down the coast of Baja California. I was hoping we would too, but we had been so unlucky the last month with winds right on the nose or …
We were all ready to go to our next stops down the Baja, the boat was ship shape on deck and below, when Radu turned on the engine and noticed that the oil level was very low. Not sure if this was because the engine …
Today I had the last watch before arriving in Turtle Bay. We were tired when we left our last anchorage at Bahia del Rosario. We had wanted to hide out from 6/7 foot waves there and ended up anchoring in a spot, which shook Radu …
Radu woke me up 15 minutes prior to arrival. It was 7 am. After our first 21 hour passage from Ensenada to St. Quintin and going overnight, it was hard to get up. Once in the cockpit, I was awed by a different world. Round …
We left San Diego, finally, at 6 am and crossing over into Mexican waters probably around one hour and a half later. We will check into the country with all formality in Ensenada tomorrow. The last days leading up to the departure were filled with …
May 15th, 2016. Today we cast off from Shelter Island Marina/San Diego at 0600 hours. Our destination …Ensenada Mexico. It’s been a year and a half of hard work, learning, good days and bad. We were fortunate to meet good people to help us along …
