Here we are, anchored in the perfectly flat Barre lagoon. After a week or so of rolling each night, this is just perfect.

The Barre lagoon

It is ideal for getting our to do list done to get Asunto ready for her first ocean crossing. We also took time to visit Melaque, watch the local parade in celebration of the upcoming Saint Patricks Day.

Taking the bus to Melaque

Lovely Beaches of Melaque

We have also now spent WAY too much money on the French Baker. Time to go!

We woke up unrested after a noisy, roll, squally night at anchor in La Cruz. We made it 75% out of the bay until the wind died but it only took us 5 minutes of sailing before we blew up another spinnaker block, this time in only 8 knots, so nothing to do with the wind. We heard a loud twang, like maybe the block is binding on something, then wham, the sail is in the ocean. The halyard had a lot of chaff on it too. Kolby will have to go up later and take a look and install the new block we bough this winter. After motoring for a few hours in the swell (with the main up to help with the rolling) the wind filled in and we were off.

Kolby at the helm

From 3-5pm we had some pretty intense squalls roll through, you could see them building over the ocean the slam into shore, some with lightening. The first one came and whacked us from behind, going from 10-16-34 knots in about 30 seconds. It was a bit hairy to get the sail in. Then we were sipping along withe a handkerchief main. Kolby was able to avoid the rest of them by speeding up or slowing down. It felt like that game where the frog is trying to cross the road without getting hit by a car.

A rainbow admist the squalls

Then the sunset and the rain came pouring down, just soaking everything. Total torrential, we even put the side curtains up. I forgot how pleasant the rain can be. The air is still cool  we are wearing long sleeves, I would never have imagines this just two days ago when I was melting! It is just lovely. Originally we were planning to go from La Cruz to Tenacacita but the wind was strong all night so we sailed right on to Barre, 130 nm to the south. This used to be an astronomical distance to us, now we think of it as one overnight. What a difference!

Dolphins on the bow in the morning

Best part of the morning shift

The overnight trip to Isla Isabele was sadly dull. We had a great breeze that carried us until around 8 pm then we had to motor until we anchored at 8am the next morning.

Approaching Isabele

Anchoring felt super dodgy. The bay was fairly open to the swell and we were watching it smash against the rocks sending up 10 feet of white water. And we were supposed to anchor near that? It was impossible not to imagine Asunto getting smashed against the shore. But imagination is not reality, so we set the hook clear of obstacles and settled in for two nights.

Nothing like watching waves hurl themselves against rock directly astern

On the second day we went for a bit of a walk- but I was super hot and the smell of bird shit was making me nauseous. Not to mention that Kyber was going crazy on the leash trying to chase the lizards- well as crazy as Kyber gets. They must have reminded him of squirrels. But the cool part were the frigate birds. They circled the island in the hundreds and nested in the trees at eye level. The males were displaying their full red red plumage while some momma sat on eggs. Other nests were older and the babes looked ready to fly pretty soon. It was completely amazing, and Fynn was in awe.

A male showing his colors

The bay and the birds

We left that afternoon for another overnight sail to La Cruz. This time we sailed a good chunk of it before motoring into the anchorage. Just to make it more interesting we arrived around 4 am, and to add another layer we no longer have charts for this area so we had to rely on radar and the GPS positions of a just rocks listed in our guidebooks. Funny how necessary we find GPS and radar and charts when sailors have been going without for centuries. Although they probably would just have waited for daylight before heading in to anchor.

We planned to stay just two nights – marina’s are usually our thing. But after one day is was clear we would need to stay longer, this was just too much fun and way to easy! It helped that El Cid had a special on – 7 nights for the price of 5, and the our friends from Yare were also staying the week. Suddenly we were transplanted into a vacation. We had free run of the beautiful resort and fantastic pools. Fynn spent 6 hours in the pool the first day and developed blisters on her toes that didn’t heal until well after we left.  We swam -a lot – visited Mazatland and generally just relaxed. It was quite lovely really and well worth the $35 USD per night. We even paid to have some one wash, polish and wax our hull, top decks and cockpit. I just wasn’t up to the work in the heat and you could beat the price of $250 USD including materials. By the end of the week we were well rested, Asunto was sparkling and we had painted new markers on our anchor chain. We were ready to go!

The crossing to Mazatlan from La Paz was brutal. We motored for 20 hours in flat seas and the predicted wind just never came.

Lazy dayz

Well in fact we did find out later that a good 20 knots of wind was out there, just 12 hours behind us. Damn. We had picked up a hitchhiker in La Paz – Semi from Barcelona, who was riding his bike from Alaska to Panama. He didn’t say a whole lot but probably found the crossing a bit dull too.

Semi – our cool hitchiker

We anchored in the harbour in Mazatlan the first night and quickly realized that wasn’t going to work for us. There was nowhere to take Kyber to shore, except the breakwater, the water was too murky and gross for swimming and the sewage treatment plant was stinking up the water. We did however feel like we had been transported to a different country. Gone were the desert hills and cacti that we had come to know and in there place were palm trees and humidity. The smells were different too – the smell of big cities mixed with wood burning fires.  We ended up heading to the Marinas, 8 miles north and planted ourselves at the Marina/Resort El Cid.

Like a bird… on a wire

Oh my…

It feels a bit strange to follow a post about swimming with giant whale sharks with touching grey whales but we had a pretty amazing three days. The best part is before the whale sharks we were swimming with sea lions again at Los Ilotas, so really this that been a pretty amazing couple of days.

We had to drive Kolby’s parents to Loreto for their flight home. It is a 4 hour drive from La Paz to Loreto, and their flight left at 2:50. If we left La Paz at 5 am we would have just enough time to stop by the small fishing town of Puerto Adolfo Mateos Lopez to visit the Grey Whales. From January to March these giants come into the protected estuaries on the Pacific side of the Baja to birth and nurse their babies. There are three places on the coast where they are, and from what I read Puerto Adolfo was the quietest of the three.

The entire experience was fantastic, we arrived early, about 10 am and pulled into the parking lot which was mostly empty. We walked up to the first booth and booked a panga for the hour for $1000 pesos (it didn’t matter how many people were going on the panga). We saw the first whales within five minutes. A mama and her baby, cruising along. Sometimes the bay would come up beside its mama, sometime it would come up on her back and roll off. We didn’t think it could get much better until we met Olivia. Olivia is a mama whale who loves to visit boat for pats and rubs, and baby would come up for the rubs too.

Touching a whale in the wild because she was actively seeking the attention was breath taking. She was so big that the boat would rise and fall with her breath. We were all mesmerized.

By the time we were back in the car the place was filling up. Most of the tourists were Mexican, evident by the music blaring on the speakers. The whale watching industry has brought some jobs and cash to this sleepy little fish town, and they were embracing it. We saw amazing whale murals on the school walls as be left town and continued the journey to Loreto.