Mother's Day - 100 miles to Ensenada

Sunday, May 10th, 2009. This is Mother’s Day. Breakfast in bed was very cool - on a sailboat, especially coconut cream pie with a big fat heart on top. And some great drawings from my boys. Matero drew this cool spiral with our sailboat driving into it. We sailed in there to be safe and happy, he said. Matero loves spirals – they pour out of him in his drawings and it always surprises me because I work with spirals but don’t talk about them. Then they just show up in his art. And Shandro drew a beautiful cupid heart with an arrow through it, and he also gave me a word search that he made up himself. Very clever for a 6 year old! Excellent! We are still at sea, somewhere south of San Quintin. Merle has been sailing since this morning at 7am, because I did the night watch until we passed Sacramento reef. The sea was glassy when I went to bed around 8am, and there was no wind. It was beautiful. But when I woke up to this lovely breakfast (aka lunch) in bed, Kenta Anae was healed over a little, and Merle had her up to about 7 knots using the wind and Perkins. I see the log book actually says, ‘Ahhhh, Perkins!!’ and later, ‘Overcast, seas flat, no wind, PERFECT!’ Merle says we have only about 100 miles to go, so we will anchor in Colnett tonight, and do two short legs over the next two days. Yesterday, while we floated on the calm water, still, Shandro put on his swim goggles and Merle held him over the side to check the prop for bull kelp and any other yuckyness. He did a great job – and was so brave!! A baby sea lion showed up just after that and played at the stern for about an hour while we cheered.

Turtle Bay - 289 Miles to Ensenada

Friday, May 8th, 2009. Thank goodness for the log book (where we keep hourly details of our journey) or I wouldn’t know what day it is! Apparently we have already traveled 397 miles – Turtle Bay is half way!! Now we have only 289 miles to go. That’s amazing already! And thank goodness Merle did the night watch last night, because now we are anchored in Turtle Bay, and it’s only noon!! We came through some fog in the last 3 days, we had lunch with whales off the starboard rail (literally 20 feet from the boat) yesterday, and Merle steered us through some wind and swell last night just off Asconcion. (Usually I do the night watch, but Merle did it last night.) Our only goal here is to buy fuel for the next leg. In one of our guidebooks, it says that fueling here is precarious business, as you have to pull up to the dock stern first, throw out a bow anchor, and hope that it is set well enough and holds you away from the dock far enough that the swell doesn’t cause your stern to smash against the dock during the refueling process. Yikes!! You can imagine Merle’s sheer delight when Annabel Fuel came by to sell us fuel from his portable fuel troller while we are at anchor out in the bay. Now, Kenta Anae is being refueled right here, without moving anywhere near a dock. Merle is absolutely beaming with joy, that getting fuel here should be so easy!!

And I am grateful for another night’s rest. It’s not that sailing is really tiring. In fact, especially at night, it is incredibly beautiful when it is as calm as it has been. It’s just something about the watches. For 2 people to share the watches, it means a few shifts. We have chosen 2 six-hour shifts each, so Merle drives from 4am to 10am or so, and theoretically I take over and drive till 4pm, and then he watches till 10pm and I do the graveyard shift. But in reality, we share the driving between 10am and 10pm, as I cook during my theoretical shift, but drive for part of his so he can sleep a bit. Anyway, with a 3rd person, the watch responsibilities are far less taxing, and we each get more sleep, making such a system more sustainable. So I am very grateful for anchoring here, just so we can each have a really restful sleep.

Bahia Santa Maria - 514 Miles to Ensenada

Tuesday, May 5th. We motored over flat calm seas and out of the fog today, arriving safe and sound in Bahia Santa Maria. We’ve gone 172 miles already! Now we all get to sleep all night!! No-one has to be on watch for the next few hours! We celebrated success for the first leg of our journey tonight with a big fat cheers. And the kids got a little treat for the 24th parallel crossing, which they loved. Sleep is going to taste so delicious, I can’t write anymore, even tho it is only 4 in the afternoon!! Goodnight!

Monday, May 4th - 686 Miles to Ensenada

Monday, May 4th, 2009. Well, we left this morning. We have 686 miles to go, like the crow flies. There was no wind coming around the point today, so we carried on. We just passed our first parallel – 23 degrees latitude. We celebrated with presents for everybody. (We have to cross 9 latitude lines, so I got treats for each crossing. Hopefully it will keep the kids interested in our progress, and help Shandro learn to map our latitude and longitude on a little chart I made for him.)

We are heading north, whatever may come to pass. I didn’t want to write this before we left so no one would worry about us, but the sail to Ensenada sounds difficult for the crew, and hard on the boat. Some people say it can age the boat terribly with the wear and tear it will take beating up the coast. Way offshore, the winds are unpredictable this time of year, with possible gales and spring storms. But staying close to shore is a dangerous business too, as the rocks and shelves can creep up pretty fast on a lee shore (wind coming onto the shore from the sea) if something happens to disable the boat in any way; the wind pushes boats ashore and the consequences of that are never good. And it’s always a lee shore except at night if you’re lucky. Either way, the waves (both wind waves and swell) are coming from the north-west at this time of year, so we could be smashing into them the whole way, and that is what is so hard on the boat – hull, rigging, mast, and any parts that will be rubbed or shaken with the vibration of the boat. And the people often fair far worse than the boat – poor decisions made lacking sleep or sanity with disasterous outcomes. I have been interviewing people to see what it is like. Some say ‘don’t do it, we’ve heard it’s bad’ or ‘I’ve done it and I’ll never do it again’ or ‘Do it in late June or early July but definitely not now.’ One person said ‘ya you can do it, just take your time’, but he has never sailed it either. We were at a concert the other night and Pat Henry (famous author of a book about her circumnavigation) said that she has never done the Baha Bash, but friends of hers had a terrible time about halfway up, at Cedros Island. And many people know someone who has wrecked a boat there – sunk or otherwise disabled. Lots of fear stories. Merle says we should only talk to people with over 100,000 nautical miles under their belts. Seems like they are few and far between. The baha is pretty remote, often with only anchorages - no food, no groceries, no fuel, no water, few people. And the 'bash' is rough sailing into the weather and into the swell, and hopefully not into the rocks. Most people dread it. Some people buy boats in California and Mexico just so they don't have to do the bash north. Some people sell their boats down here so they don't have to sail them north. We are somewhere between brave and crazy to sail north!

We did talk to Ishi of course, and they have done this trip 9 times, offshore each time. That’s what got us hooked on the offshore route. And then we both decided to go up the coast after our False start at Cabo Falso (aptly named) Saturday. I guess we will see what will come of it. Merle mentioned his thoughts about that wind, which turned out to be my thoughts too: maybe that high wind was just for us? Maybe we needed to be told in no uncertain terms to go inshore rather than the offshore clipper route? Anyway, we both changed our minds as a result of that day, and hopefully it is for the best. It could be stressful, although we have been manifesting for a safe and joyful journey. I don’t know if it can be joyful, but if anything is possible, we might as well ask for joy! Hope the manifesting works…

Happy (early?) Mother's Day

Sunday, May 3rd. Is today Mother's Day? Or am I a week early? We are still in Cabo San Lucas anchored here. I don’t know when we are leaving - maybe tomorrow. But of course I said that yesterday! The water here is clear and beautiful and the days are hot. The beaches are packed with people during the day, and at night the music from the bars floats out over the water. Last night, there was a lady singing some jazz, and she had an amazing voice. It’s like having front row seats! There are tons of things to do here if you need – seadoo rentals, parasailing, kayaking, swimming, banana rides (a blow-up banana thing that’s pulled by a boat), horseback riding, submarine rides, glass bottomed boats, snorkeling, ferry rides and floating bars, and of course the town stuff. It’s all tourists and business is booming.

Matero makes us laugh. We were talking about our favorite parts of dinner a few days ago, and we had sun dried tomatoes on our pizza that he loved. He said that he loved the ‘sun tanned tomatoes.’ We don’t know if he said it by accident or on purpose, but it made us all laugh. And Merle has this ring on his phone that is a song. It goes ‘wasted away again in Margaritaville’ but Matero sings ‘racing a whale again to Margarita’s grill’. He’s a pretty funny kid. I love being a mom.

And Shandro is so grateful about lots of things, and loves and feels so much. He is a tender and fragile soul - he understands so much by intuition and feelings in the air. He loves to make things for us that we like. What amazing children I have. Being a mom is like giving yourself a gift.

God said not today!

Saturday, May 2nd. Wow – What an interesting morning! We got up just before 4am and did the last few things before pulling the anchor and heading out in the dark at 4:30. Once we got beyond the bay, the wind picked up. I mean it really picked up. We were running with only a reefed main, and of that only one small corner of it was catching wind, and the wind was so strong we were steering almost directly into it and going over 7 knots. The waves were between 4 and 6 feet so not very big, but there were whitecaps and cresting waves because of the wind. The wind was stronger than either Merle or I had ever experienced. It blew water at us like horizontal rain, and over our boat like a little submarine. Thank goodness Kenta Anae sheds water so well! Both Merle and I were drenched after only about ½ hour of sailing, and we were in full weather gear, thank goodness! The wind was 35 knots gusting to ? So using good judgment, we turned back. On the way back into the bay, the wind was chasing us, and we were averaging 8.5 knots and up to 8.9 knots with only part of the reefed main catching the wind. That’s fast. Unbelievable with only such a small bit of cloth catching the wind! I was pretty excited but Merle becalmed me by saying that I can steer a spinnaker so I can do this. It’s really different, but at the time it made me feel in control and able to deal with the weather, which was exactly what I needed. It took us 3.5 hours to do the round trip, arriving back at anchor after 8am, totally frapped but excited at the same time. I don’t know if I could do that for 6 hours. Especially by myself, while Merle slept. It was pretty intense – I was very completely present and living in the moment! I am sure God’s angels were looking after us out there.

And boy did we enjoy breakfast in a calm anchorage!! It was so peaceful, and I was so grateful to be there instead of in the windy tempest from which we came!

When we looked at the weather information for the area we had just sailed, it said 5 to 8 knots of wind, seas 2 to 3 feet. We couldn’t believe what we were reading. And more than one weather source said the same things! We did not find a single weather source that depicted what we experienced. Perhaps it was just typical cape weather. But how 5 knots becomes a raging 35 is beyond me!

I am about to check the weather again to see what I can see. We may try again tomorrow morning, or we may wait until Monday. Looks like high winds till Thursday on the north end of the Baja, so waiting one more day would be fine on this end, since we will probably have to wait somewhere. Might as well be an amazing beach where the kids can play.

One thing the small tour today did for us was to remind us that resting is important. We both came back full of adrenalin but exhausted. And since we don’t have an extra crew member, we may go the shore route so we can anchor and rest every few days, instead of the offshore route where we have to be on call all the time. (If the wind is normal 10 to 15 knots, offshore would be easy as sailing in that wind is easy, even restful. But if we had to sail through a gale, resting becomes paramount.) There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but resting seemed pretty important this morning. The shore route means motoring likely rather than sailing, as the direction is upwind all the way. Anyway, we will still check in daily on the Amigo net so that someone is keeping track of us.

If you don’t hear from me again, it means we departed Sunday morning. If you do, we didn’t! Gotta love those plans written in the sand at low tide … But thank goodness we have the patience and guts to tell our determined egos to stand aside while we go with the flow of the weather. It is good for us, to remember to listen. This is one of the lessons we are here to remember! Thanks, God, for the lessons and being able to tell about them after the lesson part is over!

Love you all!!

Allison and the crew

Ensenada bound!!

Well, we are provisioned up, fuelled up, oil is changed, cabin is stowed, canvas is off and kids are asleep. All we have to do is start the engine (or not, depending on the wind), and pull up the anchor to depart. We are leaving tomorrow morning - Saturday, May 2nd - around 4am on our journey. That should get us around Cabo Falso while the wind is still relatively calm there. We shall put up the sails on a starboard tack (wind coming over the starboard side) and sail out and away from the land. We will check in with our location, weather, vitals on the amigo net (upper side band, at 8122 kHz or 8116 kHz, at 14:00 zulu time which is 8:00am Cabo San Lucas time) every day we are at sea. This journey could be as short as 10 days or as long as 3 weeks. It will depend on the wind and on how far out we go. Three hundred miles out will make a shorter trip than 600 miles if the wind is in our favor. Our shifts will be 6 hour shifts and we will see how that goes. We have enough fuel to motor for about 72 hours or so, if we have to. We did not take on crew so it is our tight little family, Kenta Anae and God on this voyage.


Free Range Chicken and Sea Lise departed this morning so they are ahead of us by a few hours.

Bless you all and keep you safe until we get there. If you think of us between now and the middle of May, just send us a pinch of love. That will see us through! We are praying for good weather and great fishing!

We love you.

Love Merle, Allison, Shandro and Matero on sv Kenta Anae