La Paz is a small city on the east coast of the Baja California peninsula, 100 miles or so into the Sea of Cortez. Sampaguita is here because it has a cruising community, and therefore boating infrastructure. This means we can provision, repair, water, receive packages, and actually purchase some boating supplies. (Though ordering might be better, if you have the time.) That said, this community seems to be dominated by white North Americans and Europeans. This is not to say there aren’t any Mexicans with yachts. I do believe I have seen some. But that’s not the bread and butter.
If you get off the Malecón, or waterfront for you gringos, it’s seems to be regular Mexico. This is not the west coast of Baja rural Mexico, which I prefer, but not touristy. I love walking around and just getting the feel. I don’t feel threatened and I like not being on camera all the time like I feel in the US. I have grown to detest that about America. It’s not that I want to do bad things. It’s just there are so many rules and regulations, you are constantly navigating them. Tiresome. And the “1-800 Turn Your Neighbor In” schtick always has you looking over your shoulder. I haven’t noticed any police activity off the Malecón either. Many intersections are 4-way stops, but I have many times seen people cruise straight on through. This is not the “no cop, no stop” thing. This is a “no cars or pedestrians, no worries” sort of vibe. As a pedestrian, I look out for myself. I have a good grasp of the laws of kinetic energy and keep situationally aware. Another thing I noticed as I put the miles on my sandals is there are many of those covers for the holes in the sidewalks missing. You know the ones where they access water, or gas, or electric? Not a couple, but many. I love that. Why, you say? That would never happen in America. Someone would be walking down the sidewalk in a typical American un-situationally aware sort of way, fall in, break a leg or ankle, and definitely sue someone. Obviously, that doesn’t happen here. The rest of the world is appalled at how sue-happy Americans are. There are a lot of missed kindnesses and opportunities in America because people are afraid of being sued. It’s part of our fear culture. Lame. Unless you’re a lawyer, then you too are taking it to the bank. English descendant countries are so bent on order, it is oppressive and tiresome. OK, Mexican cartels on the rise are a bummer. Apparently, they are branching out from narcotics into commodities. But I have felt freer in the last two months than I have in a long time. Much of the world laughs at Americans when we say we are free. Even if I eventually get a shakedown somehow before I leave Mexico, I have some give in the “bank.” There are some frustrations, but America is the land of people making people frustrated. In Mexico, frustration comes from things being broken. I tried to buy a National Park permit online because I have been to a lot of places where I am supposed to have one. A nice website, but when it comes down to the important function of selling someone a permit? Broken. I asked other cruisers about it and everyone had the same experience. But no enforcement, so no worries. The Mexican Navy is your biggest concern, but in the few times I have seen them, they seem to mind their own business. They are most keen on making sure your paperwork is in order by my understanding. But I can prove to them that I tried to set up an account and buy a permit. You can’t get blood from a stone. I finally had to give up. And it just didn’t feel like it was going to be a problem. Try that in America. I felt the biggest risk would be having to point out the dysfunctionality of their government.
Even Amazon is broken. I mistakenly thought Amazon was Amazon. Not true. Each country is an independent Amazon. Sort of. The thing with Amazon Mexico is there is no, zilch, nada customer support. So if you order something, you better want it. You can go to your order page and cancel the orders and they will disappear from that page and you’ll be told you have no orders. But you are still getting them and paying for them. Unless they decide to cancel them themselves. Then maybe they will actually be cancelled. Your order page will be empty, but depending on the point in the fulfillment, you still might be getting it and paying for it. This was a bit stressful as I foolishly had American-like expectations regarding Amazon. Silly me. After realizing I was only ever getting a circular path with my clicks on the website, I called Amazon US. Easy to talk to someone there. But they will inform you they cannot help with Amazon Mexico. It is separate, you will need to talk to them. They will even give you a phone number to call that connects you to a message in Español that hangs up when it finishes. Dead end. The US customer service guy I spoke to was Indian. He pointed out he had an Amazon US and an Amazon India account. He said, for example, in the US we have a 30-day return policy while India had no such thing.
From the beginning. I placed my first order, sort of a test order. My bank texted me to confirm it was real. I said yes. I also got validation charges and refunds from Amazon Mex and Google. OK, feels legit. The order is on the order page. I see it being processed just as expected. OK, I decided to make two bigger orders I needed. It looks like it will be shipped from the US (not connected? really?) and I want to get it within a certain number of days. (Amazon still guarantees times and import fees are also guaranteed as part of the costs. This system seems solid with less possibility of things being caught in customs and essentially one vendor for everything.) Well, these bigger orders tripped the security feature. The next morning, I had messages from Amazon in Español (but translatable) that they had cancelled my orders. I would need to reset my password with two-part verification and then remake my orders. OK, I can appreciate that, sort of. I reset my password, which, even though they are different, also reset my Amazon US password. (not connected? really?) I go to my order page and the test order is gone too. But then the charge went through on my credit card. WTF. These are being delivered to addresses in Mexico, which was likely part of the security issue. But the order is gone, so I can’t track it either. I pensively remake one of the new orders, but then decide I have lost confidence in Amazon Mexico, so I cancel it. I will order directly from Renogy. The next day, I see there is a new charge from them on my cc. The amount doesn’t jive either. WTF. This is when I started calling Amazon US with no positive result. Finally, I say to myself, lets remove that credit card from my account as it seems it is the only way to stop this craziness. I go into my payment page and find my credit cards. I click on the transaction tab and up comes all my orders! Not just the recent ones but even my past US transactions. (not connected? really?) Messed up. But the orders are there. The tracking numbers are there. The orders they cancelled were not there. Good. The strange amount was because they split up the order. (Just like they do in the US.) Though they aren’t connected, most of my items are being fulfilled by Amazon from the US. Really? So I decided to let it ride. If everything fails, I will order from Renogy and end up paying for them twice, but the expedition hinges on these solar panels. No panels, no expedition. It costs what it costs. The disruption of the expedition will cost much more. I can’t sell the boat here. I can’t leave it in La Paz. Bashing it back up the coast isn’t practical. It’s not that kind of boat. Taking it to dry storage at Punta Penasco at the head of the Sea of Cortez is an option, but not a good one. I decided I had to chill out and wait and see. Well, the test order arrived way early and was fine. Part of the next order is on the way. After a few days of struggle and suckiness, I think I have figured it out. It’s easier to buy the different things I need from one vendor, as long as it works. I know where my orders can be found and tracked. I know to only order if I am certain I want it, and I have no expectations of customer service. Sounds like Mexico.
The Sea of Cortez is abundant with marine life. When I was sailing at night, the water sparkled. There were random 2-foot diameter spots that would glow for a second or two and then disappear. I watched stingrays doing flips in the air. Schools of fish feed on the surface in a loud boiling type manner. One of the pangas that goes by the anchorage every morning and night does whale shark tours. Pretty cool. On the other hand, I will likely only spend a little bit of time in February exploring the closer islands. It’s not very small boat friendly in that the wind can blow quite seriously. At this time of the year, you get a northerly or a westerly. You need to choose your anchorages wisely. It’s a baby steps sort of sea because if the wind is raging, say from the north, you don’t want to be on there with an opposing current in a Flicka 20. Wrap around waves into anchorages can be a problem too. It’s like the strait of Juan de Fuca, but ten times bigger.
The Anchorage:
There are easily a hundred boats in the anchorage at any one time. They come and go to points on the mainland and the islands in the Sea of Cortez. It’s a staging ground because of its cruising resources. In general, the anchor depths are good at around 20 feet, but it’s kind of a crappy, uncomfortable anchorage. The current is strong here, so when the North wind of the Sea of Cortez bears down, it is choppy and lumpy. Plus, the local pangas zoom through at full speed kicking up a serious wake. There are no speed limits and it’s their country, so why would they care about the yatista gringos. I don’t blame them, they aren’t taking their pangas to Seattle.
Pitch or roll? Pitch, just make sure there is plenty of scope and spring to the anchor rode. Roll tends to throw things around more and the dishes in the sink make a lot of noise.
Group or no group? There is comradery in the group. (But don’t overestimate the fraternity. It’s each yatista for themself. Play by the rules and you’ll be OK. But don’t expect anything.) Someone might gift you fish. (A couple nights ago my anchor neighbor brought me fish. His daughter accidently turned off the freezer and the fish started to thaw. It had to go, so I got a fillet of Mahi and a huge chuck of tuna. Having no fridge, I had fish tacos that night and for brekky.) Your dinghy or paddleboard might need a tow. (This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’ve seen it plenty.) Maybe someone lets you piggy back on their Starlink. (A super thanks to Mundial, and no thanks to that boat in Los Frailles that threw me to the wolves for my trip to De Los Muertos.)
An aside: In America we are coerced by fear to lock our internet, but I think the provider companies have the most to gain by that. I’m a firm believer in free internet access for all, everywhere. It doesn’t have to be secure to look up weather, or directions, and for people (and students) to have universal, equal, and free access to the internet.
Back to anchoring. In support of no group, here in Mexico, in case they are not using a holding tank, I like to keep my distance from the families of 4, 5, or 6. (In the US, the rules and the enforcement are clear, and pump out stations are abundant and free. In Mexico, not so much on any of that. I doubt there is much worry about it. Even in BC, Canada there are only a few No Discharge Zones.)
The Hurricane: La Paz was hit by a hurricane in October. It wreaked havoc. I have counted no fewer than 20 boats sunk or washed ashore and that’s just through casual observance. Sailboats and large motor yachts. At the channel entrance there is a 20-30 meter super yacht with its bow pointing out of the water. I think it was towed out there so it wasn’t an obstruction in the harbor. It doesn’t appear much is being done about these boats. I see no activity regarding them and it’s been a couple months. I wonder if people have walked away? I wouldn’t blame them, really. What a headache and expense. It might be worth never going back to Mexico again. Let it be stripped. (Whether looted or sanctioned.) Maybe a local could have a used marine merchandise store? Would the compulsory liability coverage cover breaking out the chainsaw on the hull? It sounds like a work opportunity for the right individuals in an underdeveloped and underregulated country. (Or if not underregulated, definitely underenforced, or a willingness to look the other way.) Maybe the cartels could get in on that?
Boring 2023 Stats:
Travel Days – 94
Nights at Anchor – 111
Nights on a dock or mooring that wasn’t Port Townsend – 13
Nautical Miles – 3784
A classic AC/DC song on a local classic rock station with all classic English language songs, but all announcements and advertisements in Español. (Reminds me of WOUR, 96.9, The Rock of Central New York- sort of.)(A special thanks to Cris of Chile for teaching me how to make ñ on my phone. This way I can say Happy New Year instead of Happy New Ass.) Sampaguita has arrived in La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico. When she and I mentioned we were in search of peace, this was not quite what we meant. Since we’re full of classic rock quotes, “You don’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you might find, you get what you need.”
It is a very busy, full, and challenging anchorage. Not to mention the many sunk and washed ashore boats from October’s hurricane. There is a strong current in this channel, and when the wind and chop pick up, boats do something called “The La Paz Waltz.” You best make sure you are not too close to your neighbor or some important gear is going to get broken as boats swing out of unison.
Sampaguita is here for a while as we try to sort through some technical details and prepare for the next leg of our journey.
Provisioning for one. A small city, I have been sussing out the grocery options. There are several choices, but I am finding a need to rethink my eating options and strategies. Fresh food is ample and easy, but preserved, long range, non-refrigerated food options are totally different. Mainly, the variety of canned foods I am accustomed too from the States aren’t a thing here. And everything is loaded with sugar. The whole sugar-free market might be more of an American thing, I have come to learn. Even though products are labeled with “exceso de azúcar”, there are few-to-no options.
Drinking water is proving easy so far. Marina De La Paz, of which Sampaguita is anchored right in front of, is cruiser friendly with a dinghy dock. 50 pesos (a little over $3 US) per day gets you access to land, drinking water, and garbage disposal. (La busura.) I have a 20 liter jug I fill up each time I go ashore. After 2 months of water conservation, I can be a little less discretionary. This, and other amenities, makes Marina De La Paz the center of cruiser activity. It is an excellent resource. It’s driven by the ex-pat snowbird and retired boating community. That’s still out of my peer group, but I appreciate it for what it is offering. As an aside, I have met many young (30-something) cruisers in my journey. I think this is awesome and by my understanding, a demographic shift. Canadians and Americans. Not necessarily affluent, but I think they are hip to the world not being the same one their parents’ was and responding appropriately. We are seeing this shift in all areas and fields in the younger generations. The world is changing so fast and so much, there is an increasing disconnect between generations. None of us are driving our parents’ Oldsmobiles. Do you even remember Oldsmobile?
Sampaguita has a “new” used dinghy. This is for redundancy. The kayak’s bottom bladder relief valve was giving out, and while not fully deflating, was softening, making the ride a little wetter and carrying capacity less. (And making me nervous.) Still under warranty, I have a new valve on the way from Idaho. The variable here is international carrier service efficiency, and well, dependability. Fingers crossed. The dinghy came from an Austrian couple (a Danish brand) I met in Bahia Santa Maria, and reconnected with on my arrival in La Paz. The goods are it is drier and can carry more cargo. The bads are it still can’t be carried on deck. It will be more awkward and difficult to inflate and deflate and get aboard. There still is no motor, so oars it is. So before you congratulate me, it’s six of one, half dozen of another. People tend to think because something is more traditional, it is better. That’s just called conditioning.
Another big chore in the works is getting new solar panels and spare solar system parts to increase the efficacy and reliability of that system. This story is complicated and too early to report on. This is a big deal and the learning curve in logistics is proving challenging. Oh, and I need to visit a dentist too. I’m not sure if there is an issue or not and I won’t get into the details of my aging mouth, but whether you still have teeth or not, you can relate. This is where a considerate donation from you, the readers, would be helpful. Please consider the many things you are gated to pay for, both necessary and unnecessary. I’m not putting up a gate, but if you are reading this, you took time and went out of your way to be here. I appreciate that. If I provide heart, pluck, information, inspiration, or a unique perspective, the feedback would be helpful to keep the journey and this blog moving forward. None of what I am doing is easy, cheap, or leisurely. A donation will help to keep me inspired to continue reporting. It would be way cooler if I didn’t have to point out the tip jar, but no one seems to notice otherwise. The next round is on you.
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Thank you to R.N. and L.B. for their thoughtful contributions.
Whether that be Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, or something else I’m not educated to know about. For Sampaguita and I, it’s Happy Holiday. So that is what we wish. Here in Mexico, it is definitely Merry Christmas.
Funny meeting. My anchor neighbors here in Bahia De Los Muertos are on a boat named Opale. I met them first when on Breskell transiting the Northwest Passage in 2019. A small world. I did not recognize them or the boat in particular, but when we met here at the restaurant I guessed they were French by their boat and accent. It is fairly easy to spot a French built boat (and the accent.) (I have experience in both these matters.) Aluminum, cutter-rigged, centerboard type. The boat, that is. It was through this that we sorted out our past meeting.
I had a chance to upload some videos at the local restaurant. Happy Holidays.
In 2023, Sampaguita has rounded Vancouver Island with the farthest North being above the Scott Islands and has now rounded Cabo San Lucas at the tip of the Mexican Baja Peninsula. She is presently sitting at anchor in Bahia De Los Muertos (The Bay of the Dead) in the Sea of Cortez. We will likely be here through the holidays, waiting out a weather window to get to La Paz. The Sea of Cortez is notorious for choppy seas with wind against current. Northwest sailors are familiar with that. Think the Strait of Juan de Fuca or Georgia. More on that later.
After Bahia Santa Maria, we visited Magdalena Bay for two days. It was very similar to Santa Maria, but bigger. More desert, off-grid fish camps, and mangroves. Bigger meant wind shifts that made for pitchy anchorages due to increased fetch. Uninspired and seeing a weather window for the three day sail to Cabo San Lucas, we hit it.
Two days of decent sailing followed by a tedious day of motoring got us to Cabo San Lucas. (All motoring is tedious. If I wanted to motor, I would use a car. It’s faster, cheaper, and more efficient.)
That place is totally lame. Las Vegas with water sports. Novices on jet skis woohoo-ing there way around. There’s more to it than that, but not worth the mention. If you like Cabo San Lucas, why would you read this blog? (I think the same of cruise ship lovers.) After arriving late and getting some rest, the next day I thought I would head into town and take a look-ee-loo, get some gasoline, and score some fresh food from the Wal-Mart. I inflated the kayak and headed in. It was lumpy and the marina was chaos with constant traffic. But I’m no novice and know what I am doing. As I approached the dinghy dock, the IGY Marina dock supervisor (Look that up, they have all the high end yacht destinations in the world. Not my people at all.) called me over to tell me that kayaks were not allowed in the marina. Mind you, I am already as far into the marina as possible by now. (I get it, 100 novices on paddle boards and kayaks on their woohoo vacation would stop marina commerce and endanger the idiots.) But this guy wouldn’t make an exception, that this was my dinghy. I could not tie up to the dinghy dock. If he let me, he would get into trouble. Not that I needed an escort to get out. I never ever saw any policia or harbor patrol in or outside the marina. I just couldn’t tie up. (If you’re big on law and order, this probably isn’t the blog for you either.) So IGY Marinas and Cabo San Lucas are dead to me. Period. I was still able to get fuel at the marina Chevron and throw my garbage away. Just no look-ee-loo or fresh food. And left with a sense of disrespect against my minimalist ways. So I paddled out of there, immediately deflated and stored the kayak, raised and sailed off the anchor, straight through all of their water sports, and said “Adios.” Sampaguita proceeded to have a great three hours of sailing at hull speed under full sail on a beam reach, on our way to Bahia Los Frailes.
I arrived in Bahia Los Frailes after an overnight and a day of motoring. (TEDIOUS.) It is just up inside the Sea of Cortez. I liked this place. I saw sting rays doing flips in the air and fish feeding frenzies. The anchorage was well protected with a little bit of wrap-around swell from the Sea. There was an off-grid fish camp here too. I spent a day resting up from five previous days of sailing and explored the sand dunes a bit. I probably should have headed up to Bahia De Los Muertos on this day, but it would have been 50 miles of motoring over a windless Sea, and I just was uninspired by that thought.
To avoid a day of motoring, I took the rest day in Los Frailes with a wind forecast of about 10 knots from the North on the next day. We are in a totally different weather pattern now(all North, all the time), and we are going the wrong direction. There was no cell reception in Los Frailes, so my forecast was a couple of days old. I asked another cruiser about the weather. (With the obvious Dishy McFlatFace, Starlink users are easy to spot. Cruisers have any weather forecast available on the internet now available to them if they have the power to run the “extra refrigerator.”) He was unwilling to turn on his Starlink for me, but gave me the Hurricane Weather Service he still had on his laptop. This jived with my old forecast. I went to bed early that night and woke up about midnight as seems to be a habit. Awake, with moonlight, and local knowledge of the exit, I decided to raise sail and anchor, and get under way. It would be a beat to Bahia De Los Muertos which could turn the 50 mile journey into as much as 100 miles, so I figured the sooner I left, the better. There was light wind and it was pleasant. With more of a west-ish bend I was making a good direction through the morning. Later, checking my phone, I found cell reception and data service. I checked PredictWind. Uh-oh. The forecast had strengthened and expanded. 15 knots from the North and right up to the edge of land. Committed and, really, without much choice, (if I didn’t give it a go, I might be in Los Frailes for a week or longer) and a mission to get to La Paz (my solar panels and main source of energy replacement are not up to the rigors of Sampaguita style expeditions and are failing) to take care of several important expedition preparations and life maintenance chores. Rather than turn tail and run back to Los Frailes, I continued on. The wind built and sail changes started, but things were still fine. Then the ebb turned to flood. The building wind against current for the next six hours resulted in some steep and big waves. Sampaguita was charging at hull speed on a close haul and it was a very wet and raucous experience. Unlike Sampaguita and I have ever done before. There was so much water coming over the deck, the boat was rolling in the waves, the rails were going under, and the rigging was slackening. I needed to keep as much sail on as possible to stay powered up to take on the hills, adjusting the rigging as water washed over me and the bulwarks. The plus side was that since I was going into the wind, water going into the cabin without the boards in wasn’t an issue. Sampaguita did really well, always making continuous headway. At one point I was adjusting the bowsprit stays, trying to get the split rings back on the turnbuckles. Every time I tried the water would hit my hands and knock the ring out of it. (it couldn’t wash away because it was on the turnbuckle, just not through the stud hole.) More and more water kept coming as I was entirely focused on success. Finally a wave completely washed over me and that was enough. It would have to wait. I finally looked up to realize I was in a washing machine of steep, six to seven foot waves, the biggest of the day. I tacked back closer to shore and this helped. After six hours of building seas, the tide switched to ebb and the going was easier again. After 23 hours of beating into the wind, and 77 nautical miles, I arrived in Bahia De Los Muertos around midnight. The entrance was easy, the moon was out, and I got in fine, dropping the anchor in 20 feet of water. Shedding my salty clothes, I climbed into the berth for some needed rest. I was asked recently how a Flicka 20 would do beating into a wind and sea on the ocean. The answer is she will do well, provided you have enough wind and are not shy about keeping as much sail on as possible. Which is to say, more than you would on an inland sea. Make sure your gear is up to snuff. Nothing appeared to get broken and the layer of salt has been refreshed anew. Should I have motored the day before? Eh, six of one, half dozen of the other. All’s well that ends well.
Remember, I’m no expert. I’m just a fool in a 20-foot boat and a microphone.
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My paypal address is wheelersf@hotmail.com
Perros: There are so many dogs in these rural Baja towns. No leashes, no chains, probably no spaying and neutering. Yet few (no) obvious strays. Some dogs have their territory and property and they keep to it without restraint while others stretch out a bit more. Completely opposite to America. Maybe there are vets, maybe money gets spent on vet services, but I doubt much. Though every tienda has dog food. These are not the commercial bags like in America. Small quantities in unlabeled plastic bags that a dog would eat in a few days. Depending on its size. I doubt there is overfeeding. These are mutts to the core. I’m careful as I walk by them, keep a watchful eye, but a calm, unfearful, and unchallenging demeanor (all animals, humans included, feel and react to that) and haven’t had any issues. Sometimes you’ll get a growler, like I did yesterday, but you wait and see and act like an animal to an animal. And we sorted it out. Its cohort was just a yapper that wouldn’t shut up, but non-threatening. And eventually its owner came around, yelling at it to quiet down(presumably.) My guess is if you have a biter and meany it quickly gets destroyed, and everyone moves on. There can be no leeway for such behavior in animal husbandry of this sort. You watch where you step and everything goes along just fine.
Chickens: I’m convinced that each town has cock fighting. Not that I’ve seen it, though I would very much like to. Some of you might not like that, but let me give you some background. Bear with me, even if repulsed, you might find this interesting. In my youth, I gained a bit of chicken experience. I was a member of 4-H and grew up on a small farm in central New York. Every year the Kiwanis Club would give any 4-Her who wanted them 25 baby chicks in the spring. The deal was you had to raise them, show some in the county fair, and in the fall, either donate a dozen eggs or a butchered and dressed bird back to the club, who presumably passed those on to the needy. This whole program was a boon to any rural family. We would alternate every year between an egg-laying breed and a meat-oriented breed. Egg-layers are good for a couple years so you need to refresh that resource. Egg-layers are delicious eating too while they are young (all the chicken you eat is young, as older birds are tough), but they are smaller breeds, so don’t produce as much to feed a family of five. The meat-oriented birds can grow quickly to be quite large, but hardly lay any eggs. They are not worth the feed, time, or real estate once beyond the tender age, which is only a few months. At that time (I’m not sure about now), it wasn’t possible to sex baby chicks, so you would generally expect to get about half female and half male. So, in your egg-layer year you would get about 13 fresh hens that would produce about two eggs each, every three days for a couple of years. Do the math, that is an abundance of eggs. Eggs every day for breakfast, baking, (and pancakes) still meant plenty. So, we traded them with one neighbor for fresh milk(unpasteurized) and butter, and another neighbor for haircuts. (Anyone who knows me, knows I am averse to paying for haircuts. Now you know why.) In a meat-oriented year, the hens were big and the roosters bigger and the freezers (we had three) were filled. (The gruesome details of butchering is a bit off topic.) We would only save a few to fill out the categories for showing in the fair. Now back to the cock fighting. I learned early on, you could only save one rooster per year. Egg or meat, you butchered all but the one you thought would be the best show bird. If you didn’t, you would have cock fighting. Period. I think about the first year, I kept two. Bad move. How this works is as they come of age, they begin to fight for command of the brood. One of them dominates and the other lives an isolated life of cowering at a safe distance. Even as a single digit aged youngster, I recognized this, and I felt bad for it. I never made that mistake again. Chicken lives aren’t that long, so the rotation works out. So, is cock fighting inhumane? In my small farm experience, one got to live and the others got eaten. Is that a humane way to settle things? Alternatively, you could cage them for separation. Is that humane? What’s the point? We had a chicken house where the brood would roost for the evening with boxes the hens would lay eggs in, but all had free range during the day. The second rooster wasn’t allowed in house at night by the dominator. It wasn’t enough to just establish dominance, it was a constant life of terror. Is that humane? In these rural western Baja towns, you can hear the roosters crowing. So, I followed my ear. It turns out the crowing seems to come from the same lot. If you can sneak a peek into that lot, which oddly, sometimes you can’t, you will see multiple roosters in cages, of course, otherwise, I just explained, they will fight. The most reasonable explanation for this to me is for cock fighting as an event. There will be hens around too, roaming free, sometimes with baby chicks, so I guess you could argue they are used for breeding and a variation of the genetic pool. If you have worthy credentials on Mexican culture, chickens, and genetics we might have a reasonable debate on such matters. If you are just a bleeding-heart, I’m not biting. I wouldn’t expect this to be cock fighting, as depicted in movies, to the death with artificial spurs added for destruction. I would expect something more along the lines of two roosters presented, wagers made, they are put together, they fight for dominance until one finally submits and runs away. Winners collect and the next animals are presented. If a rooster no longer remains competitive, I suspect its cage becomes a new one’s home. Otherwise, these would be just pets. Maybe, but this is difficult for me to buy. This is all pure speculation, of course, but it is on my list of investigative topics. If it is in Mexican culture to have chicken fights, bring it on. It is American conditioning to oppose this as entertainment, but I have no interest in imposing American conditioning on non-Americans. (Or Americans for that matter.) If you watch a nature channel and they show males of various species fighting for dominance, are you not observing the same thing for entertainment? I’ve shoveled my share of chicken crap, collected hundreds (thousands?) of eggs, fed and watered them daily, deloused and presented birds to judges, and have even been endeared to them, but with maybe the exception of that single proud rooster each year (and that had definite limits), I never considered them pets. And no sick chicken was taken to the vet. I recognize I might be considered cold. At this point in life, it is what it is.
I was recently asked if there were any farms in western Baja or is it all fishing and tourism. No, there are no farms here. It is all desert. I have not seen an active stream or river. I’ve been here for over a month with one day of light rain. I got doused in the surf and my clothes were dry in 20 minutes. When the wind blows, so does the dirt. Fishing (which is really to say, lobstering) is definitely a thing, but mostly on a small scale. Mostly pangas. Every now and then you see a bigger trawler. (I walked into the fish camps here in the mangroves of Bahia Santa Maria. Marcos with cincuenta anos of lobstering aqui, explained he went out every day at 0600, pulled, emptied, and redeployed his traps. The catch was brought back and kept in cages. Every few days, the big boat from his Co-op would come into the bay and collect their catch.) The pangas buzz in and out of the “harbor” every day. Generally, about 20-25 feet in length with typically one driver and one crew. These are open fiberglass boats that all look the same. They are driven by gasoline outboard engines of varying vintage, but sound and run the way they should. You will see around the camps and Co-ops the older stripped out engines for parts. Yamaha is a common brand and is a good engine. In Bahia Santa Maria, it was mostly 75 HP Yamahas. They are pretty consistent, which makes sense. You would want to be able to swap parts out, so if everyone uses the same, this is to alls’ advantage. I have yet to see any vendors, so wherever and whoever the vendor is, they are likely the determiners of the engine brands and sizes. It was similar in Greenland. Everyone had the same engine brand and it was 250 HP, regardless of the boat’s size. This made for some comical matchings. In small town America this happens too. If there is one store, the vendors choice is your choice if you’ve got to have it right away. But in America, you can travel outside of town to a different vendor, or order it online and receive it the next day. Rural Baja, (and Greenland) not so much.
Every town seems to have at least one Co-op that controls the fishing. It’s quite possible/probable, they own the boats, the engines, and the fishing gear, so they also would be in on the determination of equipment. In Asuncion I spoke to Ricky who was the sole boat repairman for his Co-op. It appeared he was maintaining the whole fleet, which leads me to believe the Co-op owns the boats. They apparently gave him health insurance for his family, but it took 6 months to get his last paycheck. Working outside under a tarp, the scent of polyester resin was apparent. He had a Tyvek suit on sometimes, but he said it was difficult/impossible to get them to supply latex/nitrile gloves. He finally got them to get him some acetone so he could wash his hands. This, after he mistakenly got too much catalyst on his hands and the pain he experienced that eve. (In PT I would see old timers washing with acetone, but the younger generation cringes at it. To do that, I have to deem the chemical I mistakenly got on my hands worse for me than the acetone I’m using to get it off. I use gloves, but those 3M and Sikaflex type sealants are very difficult to apply without making a mess and getting it everywhere. If you are super diligent, you easily burn through many pairs of gloves for one sealant job. Far beyond the rural Mexican economy. When the pandemic hit and gloves became in short supply, you could hear the chatter about glove re-use and conservation.) These pangas live a hard life. In Asuncion, I watched a pair of fishermen come in and beach their boat. The “beach” was a mixture of rock and sand. They then got their pickup truck and dragged the boat up above the tide line. This was comedy, even for them. The ramp was dirt and uphill. The truck’s tires were a bit worn and getting more so at every attempt. They had a 1-inch line attached to the stem of the boat and hooked to a trailer hitch on the truck. They couldn’t just pull the panga up steadily. They had to back the truck down to the panga and gun it, jerking the boat up about 3 feet at a time, spinning the tires until forward motion ceased. Repeat about five or six times. I’m not suggesting this was the norm, but apparently this was their best option in this circumstance. Some pangas stay at moorings. In San Juanico, they were kept on la playa and each one was stored on a trailer. So, techniques depend on the facilities and the landings.
As for tourism, yes, and as I have mentioned, varies from town to town. In general, the cruisers don’t seem like huge tourism assets. Fuel and grocery are our main need as we tend to be self-sufficient. This is why in America; we are often not welcome. Gypsy boaters move on. If you are not a loose capital boater paying for a slip every night and eating at the restaurants, we don’t want you around. Less so in the Pacific Northwest, (but I recognized that attitude increasing in Port Townsend) but made very clear in Southern California. Consume, consume, consume. Conservation is for losers. A metaphor for the vibe I got is “You are not making my house bigger, I do not gain money from you, go away.” Anchor time limits, unwelcoming harbor patrols, and limiting shore access (thus, some places even limiting your ability to shop at the stores) are their present techniques. Back to Baja. Tourists on holiday must contribute some. But these are the outdoorsy types who, again, know how to get by with less. Maybe they drive a camper (land yacht) and stay at a campground. Baja is not where you take the family for a Disney-style vacation. It is not where a typical American would take their once a year, two-week vacation for an easy and luxurious time. I would say the expats help a bit, building their homes and the materials and labor associated with that. For example, my observation was that the local hardware store in an expat heavy town was far better than in an expat light one.
As for groceries on the west coast of Baja, it’s slim pickings. I’d buy more if there was more worth buying. There is some limited produce if it looks good. Nothing lasts too long in the heat. At la tienda y el barco. Some things in some places are kept in coolers. Meat is usually available in some places. Do it yourself bagging from the lift-up freezer is not uncommon. Though sometimes there is a meat counter. Tecate is available everywhere. Restock is once a week, so knowing which day that is helps. Lots of junk food. No sugarless/diet drinks whatsoever. Lots of Coca Cola products for you investors out there. Seafood must be a staple. Based on the stores, clearly the diet is simple. And it almost seems like the staples must not be coming from la tienda. Incidentals only? I can’t speak on the restaurants as I have not been to any. Geared toward tourists, my understanding is they are too pricey for most of the Mexican population. The “Enjoy life, eat out more often.” motto is not a good way to conserve limited funds regardless of where you live. If you are doing well enough that the expense of regularly eating out is still cost-effective time management, you probably don’t read Resourceful Sailor articles.
And remember, these are just speculations and observations of a student. I claim little-to-no expertise. I’m just a fool in a 20-foot boat with a microphone.
Life hangs from a fine thread. So fine, it’s a wonder we don’t die more often. Cats have it right. I joke, but I am very serious. As much of a driver as is my own mortality, the mortality of those around me drives me too. This sense of mortality causes some of us to reach for the stars and others of us to play it safe. There is one sure thing, no matter which you choose, there are no guarantees. Life is not fair. The universe doesn’t care about us. It says “Whatever. Next.” When I told people who ask what my hopes and plans were (not the cruisers I meet, but the landlubbers I left behind) it was often easy to hear the contempt or envy in their voice. The contempt group will say something like “It must be nice.” I reminded them, “It must be nice to have your spouse, your kids, your house, I hope you like your career, and your nice car.” You can hear it in their tone and see it in their eyes, their thinking, “Trust Funder?, Inheritance?, Rich parents?” They are blinded by their bias to think it could be sacrifice on a level completely unimaginable to them. Who would live like a homeless person when they don’t have to? Someone who despises the grind of everyday American life and who isn’t very good at it either. Someone who tries to save as many pennies as possible so they can have an adventure that makes them feel alive, because they know there has to be more to life than the unrewarding grind, because that’s not turning out to be worth it. The envy group, I like better. You can see the spark in their eyes. The “He’s doing it, maybe I still have a chance.” gleam. The “Good for you.” crowd who whether through circumstances, conditioning, railroading, or simply a conscious choice, have a life unconducive to my preferred lifestyle. They recognize what they have and where they are and maybe they’ll get around to an adventure too, but life passes by so fast, and there is always something getting in the way. Some people eventually achieve escape velocity, some have the rocket built but it fails to launch, others just sit in the armchair reading how to build rockets. (And then there is the Emperor. Keep a careful and cautious eye on him.) When I hear news from the home front about someone’s tragedy, I can’t say “Wow, if there is anything you need, just ask.” I’m not in a position to help. My best response is to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for all of us.” The contempt crowd hates you and the envy crowd loves you.
Bahia to Bahia
I sit aboard Sampaguita in Bahia Santa Maria awaiting the wind to pass. Tomorrow looks pretty good and I hope to inflate the kayak and do some exploring. The wind in the bay comes on a bit stronger than the forecast. I think this is due to Mount San Lazaro squeezing it as it comes in from the Northwest. A neighbor said the afternoon wind yesterday was 20-25 knots, but was only forecast to be about 15. Today, I would expect the same, maybe a touch more. I can’t go out in the kayak in that wind. I will get blown to the south with the hope a neighbor would be watching and come rescue me in their power dinghy. Just this late morning Noel was on her paddle board with the two dogs trying to get from shore, up and across the wind to Mundial. I was helplessly watching. She wasn’t going to make it and it was hardly 10 knots yet. I couldn’t help because I don’t have a power dinghy. Luckily the neighbors saw it too and went out to aid. That happened to the Committed Sardine folks in Bahia Asuncion too. Beautiful days to explore, but a fresh wind kicks up and changes the game. (This happens to novice paddle board renters the world over.)
Cruisers and the people I meet ask where I am going. I sheepishly say Chile, because I know what they mean. But I quickly follow up with, in today’s case, “I’m just trying to get to Man of War Cove in Bahia Magdelena.” So much can happen between now and then and Chile seems so far away and even more difficult to comprehend. So, it’s Bahia to Bahia, Bay to Bay, Day to Day. I’m just passing time in Mexico until it’s the season to sail to Marquesas. Then, likewise, to Chile. There seems like so much opportunity for plans to be foiled and changed and every day is so foreign and new. (Pun intended.) Who really knows? On the other hand, it might go off like clockwork, and that’s even more difficult to imagine. In a small boat fashion, I am moving slower than most. Both in transit and in moving on. The fast movers are all ages too. I can only speculate why because it would be impolite to ask. I guess most will have some life to return to. When I left Port Townsend I sold, gave away, or threw away everything that didn’t potentially belong on the boat. And I’m still trying to lighten an overloaded Sampaguita. My sister, moral supporter, and land-based contact received four flat-rate boxes of “important documents” of questionable importance. There is no house, career, kids, and no espousa to get back to. With my still good enough, but obviously deteriorating with age, health, and a health care system designed to leverage me into behaviors of questionable suitability, it might be said, this is the end game. How, where, when, why does it end? Who knows? That story is yet to be written. It changes your world perspective, as my two readers have likely noticed. And don’t get my rumination wrong. It’s how I’m wired and I thrive on it. I am having the most wild and interesting experiences with the time and mind space to articulate what I have thought for a long time. Instead of being trapped on a Flicka 20 in Port Townsend because I couldn’t compete in a cut-throat, ludicrously priced, and demoralizing housing market, seemingly geared toward affluent, retired emigrants, I’ve turned that Flicka 20 into a conduit of extreme adventure. I’ve met some of these emigrants. They are nice people even if they don’t acknowledge their impacts. They feel they have earned it. As an aside, mining this aged population is the future of Port Townsend, if that’s your thing, and if you are really paying attention, you’ll recognize the future is now. (Sorry, Whitney Houston. In case you thought I lost my sense of humor.) If I could have comfortably bought a house, I would not be here. I’ve been around the block enough to know that what seems like misfortune, might turn into the best fortune. It’s difficult to say for now. That story is yet to be written.
I’m gleaning a little more info here and there as to what the local mafia means. Bahia Tortuga was still the grittiest town we were in. Cedros was poorer, but by nature of being on an island in a poor country, this was to be expected. Cruisers were generally quick to move on from Tortuga, so it can be felt if not easily put a finger on. If the mafia is a crime syndicate, whether drug related or not, and they are putting the squeeze on people and businesses, it increases the grit. (My present neighbor, who recently arrived from Tortuga, said Enrique, the fuel baron I mentioned in a past post, was nowhere to be found. The accuracy of this rumor can’t be confirmed.) A lack of law enforcement raises the syndicates boldness and capabilities. If it’s a fishing town and they’re squeezing the Co-ops, then that cascades to everyone. I’ve heard rumors of vigilante groups hired for protection, military presences, people operating businesses incognito, and raids on lobster pots from neighboring lobstermen. There is less incentive to work, or at least legitimately, if 30% of not very much is being skimmed off. (Sound familiar?) I’m curious if the towns with more ex-pats and seemingly more prosperous, might have less mafia influence. The syndicates might realize it’s bad for business to cross that line. America doesn’t care about Mexican-on-Mexican violence. But if you involve Americans, they risk increased outside pressure for justice and it could disrupt the status quo. Do you remember the incident last March with the murders/kidnapping of the Americans who went to Matamoros from Brownsville for a medical procedure? That ended with the bosses turning the lackies in. Pressure relieved. Back to business as usual. I correlate that to Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas. Joe plays a hothead and he kills a made man from another family without permission for insulting him. To keep the peace, Joe had to be extinguished too. Just business. Am I afraid? Not so much. I don’t have much to lose and I went to sea alone in a 20-foot boat. Signing up for that was a signing off on fear. America is a very fear driven society and it was destroying me anyway. The future looked uninteresting enough to me, the thought of longevity also became uninteresting. You say “At least America has law and order.” Even though everyone has a camera in their pocket, the marina has a camera pointed at your house, your employer has cameras, anyone can fly a drone over your house (my house was a boat, so no real estate to keep people at a distance) we’re still led to believe crime and violence is on the rise. The compounding pressures of regulation in our society, constant (and what I would say, exclusive, though often with a smile) use of fear in marketing to keep people consuming, and from the government to keep people in line, are making Americans both mentally and physically unhealthy. People are breaking and using anti-social means of expressing their breakage on what seems like an increasing rate with no reasonable expectation of getting away with it. (Sometimes violently and sometimes just oddly interesting.) While I am essentially working harder as a single-handed sailor, especially physically, all of my chronic aches and pains have disappeared since I left in August. My daily constitution is more consistently regular than it has been in a long time. I’m basically eating the same foods. My cleanliness is sub-par. The two best explanations I can think of are less exposure to other germ-laden people and an elimination of the frantic and stressful life of living on land in America. The American lifestyle may not be as good and healthy as the propagandists would influence you to believe. Maybe I have cancer growing inside of me, but signing off on the fear of death has been very liberating too. So, I’m not afraid of the mafia. (And lose the opportunity to meet all the cool people?) I’ll use caution, because that’s the game. But live in fear? No thanks. America versus Mexico might be the classic “six of one, half dozen of the other.” Yes, I know the difference between being unafraid and feeling invincible. I am not afraid of vincibility.
In America, this would be shunned as a homeless camp. Derelict, dirtbag liveaboards. NIMBY. People can be pretty disgusting to each other. With humans, push will forever get pushback. It’s a feedback loop. The struggle continues as we can see the world over.
I reflect on my generation’s childhood fictitious heroes, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leah, Obi Wan Kenobi. Rebels, insurrectionists, freedom fighters, and terrorists. It’s interesting how perspectives influence how one views all these labels.
There are a lot of Alphas there. Or Adams if that is your background. After spending the last night at anchor in Bahia San Juanico with the smell of a beach fire coming from directly upwind, I awoke about 0400 with the boat bouncing. The southern wind had begun somewhere to the south and there were waves rolling in from that direction. Not big, but close enough and short enough to bounce the boat. No worries, I was heading out anyway. I had morning coffee, stowed the kayak, raised the mainsail, and pulled up the anchor. I had chosen Tuesday and Wednesday to be my travel days based on the forecast. Sunday was too soon, Monday was very light, and Thursday looked like it was piping up again. With Monday being light, I reasoned any weekend seas would get a chance to settle down. Tuesday was also looking light, but Sampaguita will sail in light airs, especially with a settled sea. Wednesday would pick up a bit more, ramping up on Thursday. It was about 100 miles, so I planned on two days with two overnights. I wouldn’t sail fast, but my overnights should be pleasant. Meeting that southerly which was presenting me with the bouncy morning, I close hauled out of the bay under full main and drifter, for about fifteen miles offshore. The wind slowly clocked around to the northwest, giving a beam, then broad reach through the afternoon and evening. That continued through the night with about 5-10 knots of wind. This worked out great. I covered about half my distance. About 0400 it faded and I had about 5 hours of being becalmed in the cooking sun. I even dropped the main all together to beat it up less. (But to roll more.) I watched a morning feeding frenzy around the boat. Well, I guess I didn’t see the feeding. What I saw was the smaller bait fish surfacing in an effort to escape whatever was doing the feeding. Were the predator tuna? Marlin? Sharks? I later learned it to be Yellowtail (Maybe Dorado? I don’t know my species very well.) In the lush waters of Baja, bait fish surfacing is a good sign there are predators worthy of eating driving them up. If you see a mass of pelicans dive-bombing, this too is probably a sign of that same activity occurring. Get out your speargun or fishing rods and head on over. I learned this from Grant of Mundial. He got two Yellowtails with one shot. I know this because he and Noel invited me over for fish tacos one evening. Deeee-licious. Tecate and tacos.
The northwest wind finally filled in but was fairly light. Still, with no sea, Sampaguita will cruise along at 3-4 knots. As the evening took hold it increased a bit. I traded out the drifter for the 100% jib, making my direction with an alternating orejas de burro and a starboard broad reach. By dark I reefed the main down to the third reef and dropped the headsail. This was not because the wind was too strong, but I wanted to slow the boat down. If this wind held, I would arrive at Bahia Santa Maria in the middle of the night, which I didn’t want. About 2230, I hove-to, deciding to get some sleep with a slow one knot southerly drift. At first, I did this under three reefs, but after an hour or so, I realized I wasn’t doing it right. With so little mainsail, the boat wasn’t weathercocking and I was really just lying ahull. This was not riding the waves in the most comfortable manner. So, I shook out a reef and relieved the over-pinching I was also doing and this made for a much more comfortable ride as Sampaguita turned more into the sea and rode up and over the waves. It was fortuitous that I had to do this, because I also noticed the windvane, (I rotate its servo pendulum rudder out of the water and tie it off when hove-to) had an important screw that was loosening in the jostling. This is the main screw that holds it to the mount. Failure at this screw would have been catastrophic for the vane. At 0430 I awoke for the final time to the boat lying ahull again, which is to say the wind had weakened. I decided with sun-up a couple hours away, I would begin my approach. I got the boat headed in the right direction, did my bucket and chuck-it routine, made coffee, and watched the sunrise. After sunrise, I pulled up the jib, poled it out orejas de burro style, and made myself a breakfast of pancakes, with cinnamon and banana, and of course, butter and proper maple syrup. With that Thursday increasing NW wind, I made my final approach on a port broad reach, keeping dry and doing five knots. Heaving-to sooner than later was a good choice. Approaching land at night only to have to heave-to anyway doesn’t feel good. In theory there was some buoy off the entrance, according to Navionics, (I think weather, not navigation. This is Mexico, neither hardly exist.) which is to say there may be a buoy there, maybe not. If there is, it may be on mark, or maybe not. It was supposed to be flashing yellow, but maybe not. At night, whether asleep or not, if it exists, is off mark, and not flashing, it would be like a can-opener if Sampaguita struck it. Once around Punta Hughes and into Bahia Santa Maria we turned into the wind to make the anchorage. This consisted of two long tacks close hauled with the 100% jib and two reefs in the main, doing five knots and about 18 degrees of heel. The water was much flatter than outside, but the wind was still smart. These two long tacks were followed by two short ones as we entered the anchorage, sailed between two other boats (there were four boats already here) and headed up behind Mundial in hopes of being close enough to them to get their Starlink signal. The last tack involved throwing in the third reef for a slower more controlled approach, and I like to put the mainsail away with three reefs, because if I have to leave in a hurry, it’s probably because the wind is blowing. I also got the anchor ready for a quick drop. Get the lines in order, the anchor gloves on, head up into the wind, spring the main sheet, release the jib halyard, scoot up to the bow, haul down the jib, pull the last pin holding the anchor, and feed out the chain and rode from the locker. Almost textbook, except the main didn’t completely de-power the way I needed, so the boat made some way while the anchor went down. I find this is the glitch most likely to occur. Once the anchor bites, it pulls the bow into the wind and this does the final trick of luffing the main. With less wind, it is easy to take the moment to luff the main, but in 15 knots of wind, things need to happen much faster. All’s cool that ends cool.
More on San Juanico…..
The charts say Bahia San Juanito, but the town goes by San Juanico. So, it’s a little vague to me. I’ve switched to the local San Juanico name because that’s the way I am. The landscape is quite beautiful. It’s typical Baja puntas y la playas and cliffs and rolling dry desert. But there are high mesas to the East and Northeast which give that epic western movie feel. They also divert the desert winds away, unlike in Bahia Asuncion and Bahia Tortuga where a desert NE wind can blast its way through the anchorage. The anchorage is comfortable with lots of room and 20-foot depths in sand. The prevailing NW wind funnels through, but the fetch isn’t bad, so again, comfortable. In fact, directly to the NW there are old and trashed windmills, likely placed there for that funneling. There is only one that noisily spins anymore. Their lives are long past. The thing with windmills that America is about to relearn is they have moving parts. Moving parts wear out and need constant maintenance. Put them in a desert and marine environment and you add dirt, sand, salt, and water to the equation which increases the maintenance. And there is such a thing as too much wind for them. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against wind energy. (Duh, I’m a sailor.) I’m just saying wind energy is nothing new and there was a reason it was replaced by other means.
The town of San Juanico is similar to other small Baja towns I have visited, but with one big difference. There are a lot of white people here. This puts it low on my list of cool. I know, you’re saying, ”Josh, you are white.” (It’s true, I was born that way.) Here’s the thing. I didn’t come to Mexico to hang out with white Americans. Surfing is big here with the 7 puntas. People visit to surf and stay for a lifetime. That’s not my community so I don’t have that connection. They often live in far better casas (and often a different neighborhood) than the rural Mexicans. This creates two different communities, just like it does in the States. I’d been putting myself out there to meet the Mexican locals for a few days and it just wasn’t happening. In towns with few-to-no white people, I was a curiosity and the local Mexicans engaged with me. Here I am just another white guy and largely ignored. My Espanol is slowly broadening, but still not good enough to confidently and deeply engage, which is my limitation to own. I walked by this one humble building several times. The front door was always open with people coming and going, and there were always Mexicans sitting around together, as I could see through the folds in the makeshift, yellow-tarped patio. They were all ages. I so much wanted to be invited in but when I saw people outside, no one even said hola or buenas tardes. With white people also comes higher prices, because that’s how an economy works. I can’t say there is a white price and a brown price for things, but I can’t say there isn’t either. Since I am transient, getting to know where to buy things and where not to doesn’t quite get figured out. The real estate brokerage signs are also a first in this town. It is not like San Juanico isn’t remote. It very much is. But demand has obviously brought in the professionals with white people brokerage names (and photos) and higher prices to make it worth it. And they are everywhere. (For contrast, someone mentioned they bought a house in San Hipolito a few years back for $500.) This is not to say the local Mexicans aren’t benefitting from an influx of white money. Gosh, I sure hope they are.
I did meet Hector and Mike on Saturday. I was walking down the hill, lamenting to myself about how the San Juanico town experience was boring as I approached the beach bar. My interest in going to bars here is as nil as it had become in the US. There was a guy sitting in his truck filled with fronds and a surf board smoking a cigarette. I made eye contact and we exchanged holas. Eye contact continued, so I walked over and further engaged. Hector spoke Ingles so we switched over to that. About my age, he was a vibrant and dynamic personality very willing to communicate. He was on his second forty-ounce of Pacifico and quite loose. (Drinking while driving is still a thing in certain parts of the world due to lack of enforcement, sparse enough populations, and roads you can’t drive very fast on anyway.) A native of Sanora, Mexico, but obviously a world traveler, he was a lot of fun to talk to. He first came to San Juanico 30 years ago and talked of some of the differences between then and now. During our conversation, a sailor, but now local resident, named Mike arrived to go to the bar. A small town and a common affinity for cerveza, they new each other and he joined in the conversation. He pegged my boat as a Flicka from a quarter mile away, so that broke the ice too. Mike grew up in San Luis Obispo, CA, but was a full time Mexican resident with a boat on the hard in Guaymas.(?) We chatted for a while and then made our way to the bar where Hector had a third forty, Mike had his share, and I had lemonade. I sometimes know when not to get caught up in a party that might be too much for me. (Plus, the white economy is a bit harder on the budget.) (I’ve elaborated on an old cliche: “Live a little……work a lot.”) (On second thought, maybe it should be “Live a lot…..Work a little?”) I guess since America is so money-minded, if you aren’t spending it, you must not be living. Another difference between Mexican/Latino and American culture. They know how to enjoy themselves without involving much money. This is not just apparent to me now. I remember while living in NYC and SF, the parks were full of Latinos and their families’ enjoying picnics and gatherings during the weekends. These parties were family events and would last all day. Everyone brought coolers, there was cooking, and game playing. This was their social event that didn’t cost much more than a regular day of life. In contrast to white people where the norm was to meet at a bar or go to some pay event which actual led to a division of classes. Some people you just couldn’t afford to hang out with. In rural Mexico/Latino culture (unless they are trying to emulate white culture for some ridiculous reason), they seem to not care about money as much. It matters less if you are a fisherman, clean toilets, are a store clerk, or whatever. It’s just what you do for money and doesn’t define you or exclude you. Though I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. I am an expert on American culture, but still in study on Mexican culture. And I’m just a fool in a 20-foot boat anyway.
I also had a satisfying chat with a guy named Juan, who I think might be homeless. It is polite and friendly to say hola, buenas dias, tardes, or noches(depending on the time of the day) to people in general and definitely before you want to ask for something. It’s also a way to engage people and see if they are interested in conversing further. So I said, “hola, buenas tardes” to the guy on the street to be polite and he responded in kind. I continued walking, but he followed up, so I returned to him. I think he was hinting that I might give him the long sleeve shirt I was wearing (It is super-hot, but I wear it to keep the sun off my skin). This was centered around how it was mucho caliente para deciembre. Pero mucho frio a noche. I wasn’t sure how to tell him it was to keep the sun off my skin, and I wasn’t going to give him the shirt off my back. I think he realized this quickly and the conversation moved to el barco, Cabo San Lucas, and las chicas de el mundo. We talked for a couple minutes and it wasn’t weird and I think he appreciated that I didn’t ignore him. I was happy because I left feeling like I was getting a better grasp of the language. Win, win.
Boat Hack: Great water conservation tools are the spray bottle and those refillable plastic hand held condiment dispensers. Like at diners. I use the spray bottle for washing vegetables, damping and rinsing my toothbrush, and washing my hands, to name a few. Just a spritz is all you need. The condiment dispensers are used most for rinsing soap from dishes, but really anything where a spritz is not quite enough. I might just be ahead of my time as reservoirs are draining low. As an aside, I went and got my first five-gallon jug refill at the local purificado vendor in San Juanico. 20 pesos for 5 gallons. That’s about a dollar. I didn’t really need it yet, but since I had decanted the jug into one-gallon containers the day before, I figured I’d see what it was all about. It was a chore to carry the full jug back to the kayak and I wasn’t sure yet how well it would travel through the surf, but it made it through dry. And concerning fresh water at sea, “Better looking at it than looking for it.”
Soul Hack: In case you think I’m not critical of my own ridiculousness enough, I was laughing at myself recently regarding Starlink. The Emperor has made me cringe so much in the last few years, in preparing for this voyage, Starlink and the fact nearly all cruisers were using it was totally off my RADAR. I was blinded by my bias. The power consumption and the hardware/subscription costs still meant I would have almost definitely decided it was one of those must haves I wouldn’t have. (I thought my Google Fi phone would have better reception.) But it never even made that list. Duh. To add to this, Mundial left on Sunday, so I lost that Starlink access then. But I had seen on my phone’s wifi list an access signal simply called “Starlink” that had no lock on it. But the signal was so weak, I couldn’t get a usable connection. This was on the boat. When I landed the kayak, I also got it on the beach, but it was a little stronger, but still, not usable. But when I climbed the stairs to the street, it completely disappeared. So, I returned and walked up and down the beach to see if I could find a strong enough signal. I finally discovered there was literally about a ten-foot square spot on the beach where I could get a usable signal. In the cooking sun, I was able to download the Predictwind graphics and study them. Just don’t move. How’s that for ridiculous? I could have gone to the bar, but I was very averse to that. The only reason I would go and purchase anything would be simply to use the internet, not because I wanted to consume anything. I discovered later in the day, in my strolling past the telecommunication building I had walked by many times already, a plaque on the side of the building explaining they had complimentary wifi and how to connect to it. (In Espanol, of course.) So, I tried it and sure enough, it worked great. And I could sit in the shade! Two triumphs and I didn’t have to revert to buying something I didn’t want just to check the weather. A simple life. It took some time and investigation skills. It turns out I had both. How’s that for ridiculous? I guess I like it. All’s cool that ends cool.
Wildlife: I’ve officially decided I hate pelicans. Just another version of rats with wings.
Sampaguita and I sailed off the anchor from Bahia Asuncion on late Tuesday morning. We got a slightly later start than intended, but the morning wind was light and we got caught up in cleaning the sand and stones from the kayak. The Aire kayak is a whitewater kayak, which is to say it has a rugged PVC exterior shell with inflatable bladders inside. One for the bottom and one on each side. The bottom bladder is open to the sea via self-bailing holes. It came to my attention that sand was getting in around, under, and over the bladder, I suspect mostly from the high turbidity surf. Sand as an abrasive can’t be good for the bladders. So, I spent some time rinsing that away after deflation with buckets of salt water on Sampaguita’s deck. Of course, dried salt is also an abrasive, but I deemed it better than sand and pebbles. Sampaguita and I live a life of sand, salt, sun, and salt water. Four things that destroy most all manmade things. Some faster than others. I have had to explain that the electronic devices I use for communication, this blog, and the inReach, are all susceptible to sudden failure due to these elements. I can make no guarantees on electronic device functionality. So far everything is working and I have not had any major inundations of sea water, but, for example, my hands are always salty. And there just isn’t the easy availability of fresh water for much cleaning.
We set sail, but mostly meandered for an hour or so, with weak and variable wind. But then a south wind filled in and we close hauled with the drifter, slowly increasing speed. Over the next few hours, it clocked around to the northwest, building as the afternoon progressed. By mid-afternoon we were hauling along enough to change out the drifter for the 80% jib. I skipped the 100% because I realized it would soon be beyond that, and sailing orejas de burro (wing and wing to the yanks), the main was doing most of the work. Our goal was San Hipolito, about 20 nautical miles south of Asuncion. I wasn’t sure what kind of town it would be, but I was psyched to at least be able to have a day sail and anchor for the evening. So often I have to plan on an overnight. As usual, all Puntas (points) need to be given a wide berth due to rocks, both charted and uncharted. The important thing was I was going to make it before night fall as I made the wide turn to port. The 80% was definitely good to have on as I close hauled into la bahia. I actually reefed down to the second, then the third in the main. The third was probably unnecessary, but in classic Sampaguita style, I would be anchoring under sail and being a bit under powered made this more controlled. There were several warnings about lobster pots on entry, and sure enough I picked one up with the rudder. I saw it and stood well clear, but not clear enough. In the States, crabbers usually use a special line threaded with lead to keep it from floating. This is for everyone’s sake. With so many more pots, so many more crabbers, commercial, native, and recreational, and so many more boaters, it helps keep the lines out of props. The pot owners benefit because they lose less pots that get caught, cut, or dragged by boaters. This is not so in Mexico. For one, there are no recreational pots. The lobstermen are part of the co-op and those are the only folks fishing. Second, there are no recreational boaters except cruisers like myself coming through. Third, the lobstermen themselves are looking out for the pots. So, they just use cheap polypropylene line that floats. It’s very common for there to be 30 feet of line floating on the surface ahead of the buoys marking the pot. This is what got me. The first thing I noticed was that Sampaguita’s performance had suddenly diminished. Then I look back and realized I was dragging a buoy about 30 feet back. Going too fast to reach down with a boat hook to push it out of the small gap between the keel and the rudder, or pull it up and cut it, (I’ll do whatever is faster and easiest) I dropped the jib preparing to heave to, so as not fight the rush of water by the hull. But as soon as I slowed down with the dowsing of the jib, it unhooked on its own. So up the jib went again and I sailed into the anchorage. There were no other cruisers here and it was pretty obvious why. This was a one panga town. No cell tower, no gas station, and about 20-30 buildings on shore. No worries though, I was going to have a great night sleep and likely move on in the morn. There was a low swell that made its way into the anchorage that was putting quite a bit of surf on the beach, but for us about a quarter mile off shore, it was a nice “rock-a-bye baby” feel.
The production of unstowing, inflating, then deflating and restowing the kayak to go ashore prevented my doing so, so I was up with the sun preparing to move on. Weather would be chasing me from this area in a couple days anyway and I was hoping to get ahead of it. We sailed off anchor and made our way south. The wind was predicted to be a bit smarter on this day, but not having internet, I was going by my memory of what I had studied a couple days before. How much and how long was a little vague. It did that ‘build through the day thing’ and I was still uncertain of my destination. Would I try to duck into Abreojos for the evening? Would I just continue on to Bahia Santa Maria? Would I try to go to San Juanico in between? As the evening approached, I ruled out Abreojos. You have to stay at least six miles off shore and make an extra wide swing around the point due to known and unknown obstructions reaching out from land. This meant dark might come before I got in, plus with the building wind and corresponding sea, it would be a long sloppy wet approach, first on a reach, and then on a beat. All with the angst of trying to make it before dark. So, I decided to run with this breeze. It was on that line between a little more than I liked and too much for Sampaguita. I thought “maybe this will settle down as the evening goes on and I will at least cover some miles.” Well, it never settled down, but I did cover some miles. We catapulted through the moonlit evening at 4-5 knots under a triple-reefed main alone, all night long. Which is to say 12 hours. I periodically needed to adjust the windvane as the wind clocked a little and varied strength over the evening. The wave trains did not. The wave heights were at 4 feet, which is to say, there were some 2 footers and some 8 footers in there. I was mostly down below with the bottom two companionway boards in to keep out any boarding water and spray that insisted on trying. You would sometimes hear the toppling crest just outside the hull and the coinciding bump it gave Sampaguita if she yawed a little sideways to it. I wasn’t worried about the boat, but couldn’t help but wish it would taper off a bit. We made some serious miles though. About 0400 I hove-to because, after a snooze I realized I was close to overshooting San Juanico. The necessary and most comfortable angle of sailing had me angling a little off shore. Over the night, this amounted to being about 25 miles off. By the time I hove-to, I realized I would have to make a course about 85 degrees east, which was essentially back tracking a touch to make the landfall. I should have hove-to a couple hours earlier, on a port tack giving me an easterly drift, and ultimately a better angle of approach to San Juanico. About 0630, as light was coming on. I decided to see if I could still make it. If I found it to uncomfortable or hard, I would head to Bahia Santa Maria instead, still 100 or so miles off. It was still blowing good. Not as hard as it had at its most, but I would also be reaching, which meant my apparent wind would be stronger. I would be cutting across the waves, so it would be sloppy wet. I had the 80% jib, the triple-reefed main, and my yellow Gordon’s Fisherman costume on. We trimmed into that reach, aiming Sampaguita at about the hrading I thought we needed. I was using a regular compass for this initial heading because the electronics needed to be kept below and the companionway covered for protection from the spray. It felt doable and was glad I hove-to no later than I had. I wouldn’t have wanted to cut it much further. Storm sails are the next and last steps down as far as canvas and it wasn’t that kind of weather either. I popped down below, checking my headings with the handheld GPS and Navionics on the phone. They concurred with my initial assessment, so I grabbed a Lar-a-Bar and headed back to the cockpit to continue on. The Gordon’s costume was simply to keep the saltwater off my body. I had shorts and t-shirt on underneath and sandals on my feet. When the splashes came aboard, and they were often and large, I first cringed in preparation of receiving them. But very quickly realized the water is warmer than the air and was kind of like a hot shower. Not what I’m used to in the Pacific Northwest. I stuffed a rag around the anchor chain hawser to mitigate any water getting in there and then it was mostly supervising. I had to knee up on the transom with two wrenches to reach over the stern and adjust a couple screws that had strangely tightened on the windvane. I would periodically have to adjust the vane angle as the wind varied in direction and strength. A lesson on wind. Wind changes direction with speed. This is due to friction with the earth’s surface. So wind gusts come from a slightly different angle than the normal wind. You trim the sails to the normal wind, but that means the gusts both change the direction they hit the sails and the extra strength changes the balance of those sails. The boat reacts to this. The windvane is reacting to wind direction, but is also sensitive to the sail balance. The windvane was never overpowered, but it had to be tinkered with regularly to keep everything working together. Plus, the boat is yawing over the waves which changes its (and the sails) angle to the wind. None of this is rocket science, but it does keep you attentive and engaged. I would sometimes need to reach over and hand adjust the tiller to keep things working well. There is enough play in the windvanes control chain to do this without disengaging the vane. We were hauling transom at hull speed, dashing our way to San Juanico. I made the 25 miles in about 4.5 hours, which is to say we were going at about hull speed. The wind did let up a bit on our final approach but only slowed us down a knot or so. We sailed into the anchorage and anchored under sail, and who do you know is there? The catamaran 10X with Dave and Heidi on board and Mundial, with Grant and Noel.
10X is a boat I started picking up on my AIS receiver in northern California. I never actually met them until San Diego, but of all the boats, that is the one I keeping finding in anchorages and encountering the most. When you think, “they must be long gone ahead of me” they come rolling in from behind. Dave is a super intense marketer or something like that. 10X is part of his motto. Heidi is a retired PI from Las Vegas. Just to set their vibe. Grant and Noel, are heroes. Not just because they have been exceptionally kind to me, but because their kindness is authentic. They are from Morro Bay. When I first met them in Bahia Tortuga they came up to me in their dinghy and said they had seen me in Morro Bay. (I guess I stand out.) On that very first meeting they said if I could get their Starlink signal on my boat, I was welcome to use it. They immediately followed up with its name and their password. I have had other cruisers offer the same Starlink access, but they never offered its name or password. Do you get the difference? And here is another thing. Upon getting anchored in San Juanico, Grant immediately got in his dinghy and brought me over a smoked tuna fish sandwich with avocado and chips on the side. For a single-handed sailor who’s been at sea for over 28 hours with no division of labor in his life, this was an incredible treat. And they knew it. It was superb. They have that “it” thing, I don’t mind saying. Their box is collecting favors.
Experience: The next day, after morning chores of working on the running list of boat bits to look after, I inflated the kayak and went ashore. Each town is different. First, I don’t yet see a baseball field. Second, on first impression, where as Asuncion has a flavor of ex-pats, San Juanico seems to be overrun by them. It is a big surf town. La playa is huge and apparently unobstructed. Well protected from the prevailing northwesterlies, when a southerly comes in, its “surfs up.” I am led to believe the ex-pats are drawn to this. Also, when I was sailing in, it was obvious to see that many houses ashore, were not rural Mexican’s homes. I’ve seen enough of Baja to realize this. I also noticed several properties for sale. Not the classic rural Mexico sign painted on the building with a dollar sign and a phone number. Real brokerage signs. When I went to la tienda, there was an American woman in there complaining about some credit card fees she was incurring. I pegged her as American due to her outwardly rude and entitled nature. Canadians are still a bit more polite. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it, but was going to have her grievance. As an aside, you can get a credit card without foreign transaction fees, but if the processor on the vendor side charges fees, you nor your credit card can do anything about that. This is occurring more and more. The financial institutions are a profitable business to be in, if that’s your thing.
Observations: I came across a semi and trailer parked in an empty lot. It was surrounded by second-hand household goods that were apparently for sale, though I didn’t browse to find out. I can’t imagine any other reason. While it wasn’t a moving truck per se, the contents sure looked like someone’s move. All kinds of clandestine thoughts went through my head, but naturally, I have no idea what was up.
In my exploration, I seemed to stumble on the local gas station too. This is not the Pemex station of a bigger town, which looks like a typical petrol station found in America and other western countries. This was a fairly dilapidated small wooden shed, with, at first glance, the only evidence being a gasoline hose and nozzle hung on the side by the door. Someone had pulled up and I watched a caballero walk over from the next door shaded area to serve them. As I walked by, the pungent smell of gasoline was in the air and I could see in the door. The fuel was being pumped from a big blue 55-gallon plastic barrel(s) inside the shed. It was like some dystopian “Road Warrior” scene. I loved it. I haven’t painted a good picture here to capture the moment. It was definitely photo worthy, but I thought it too rude. “Look at the stupid gringo marvel at our dangerous ‘shed-bomb’ and amuse themselves with the best we have.” The Resourceful Sailor, anti-regulation part of me totally approves. The little kid in me who had a short phase of playing with gasoline, knows how dangerous it is. Rural Mexico, salute. Way to get by.
I think there might be an ex-pat opportunity to import America’s unwanted and obsolete fleet of gasoline cars as they are phased out for electric ones. (The jury is still out as to whether we are just trading one demon for another.) Rural Mexico could use them for parts and secondaries. Especially on Isla Cedros, a common scene was the stripped-out car that was flipped on its roof. This is not the stolen stripped car of urban America. This is how they get parts to fix the local cars. I gather they are flipped over to access the undercarriage. The roads are mostly dirt and rutty, which means the undercarriage of a vehicle takes a serious beating, and naturally, repairs are common. Having a spare car seems common too if you can afford it, because if your primary car needs repairing, it can take some time to find the parts and get the work done. Mexicans “manana” theme doesn’t always mean tomorrow. Tomorrow is always tomorrow. Their work ethic is different than we are accustomed to in America and it just takes longer to source the labor, time, and materials to do a job. We shan’t call it lazy, it’s just their priorities and values are elsewhere. America has an uptight, “gotta have it now, the show must go on regardless, what is it you do for a living, do you know who I am?” mentality. It makes for a strong economy, but an unpeaceful place to live. Mexico certainly has a weak economy, but people seem more calm, peaceful, polite, and family oriented. A job is just something you have to do and maybe not to be taken too seriously. While I have the data and experience to comment on America, admittedly, I don’t have the same on Mexico. I’m still trying to figure it all out.
I had two fishermen come up to the boat since I have arrived in San Juanico. One wanted to sell me shrimp, which was a first. The other was a lobsterman. This wasn’t a first for the voyage, but the first time I asked “a como?” (How much?) The lobster was offered at 200 pesos for one, which is $11-12 dollars US. I’m not sure if that is good by Mexican standards or not. I did not purchase one anyway. Even more notable to me was they both seemed genuinely marveled by, and joked about, Sampaguita’s diminutive size. Many pangas, while open boats, are actually longer than Sampaguita. I’m glad we could provide some entertainment.
I’ve moved on from Bahia Asuncion to the next locale of Bahia San Juanito, but had this reporting which I wanted to convey. Hopefully the internet universe will allow me to follow up on that journey soon. We’ll see. TBD. Until then…….
Bahia Asuncion is so much different than Bahia Tortuga. I haven’t figured out yet exactly why, except the ex-pat influence may be more prominent. It appears significantly more prosperous and better kept than BT, but also significantly sleepier. BA is smaller and the fishery is smaller too. While Saturday night in BT was a loud party, BA’s Sabado night was quiet and subdued. There weren’t the people hanging out on porches and being outwardly friendly like BT. Everything seemed more family friendly and oriented. Maybe BT is more of a transient fishing town with transient hombres keeping themselves entertained the way they do? I can draw no certain conclusions at this time.
Boat Hack: Coffee snobs out there will shudder, but in preparation for cruising, I switched to instant coffee. Being the more pragmatic type, allow me to elaborate. A rinky-dink boat has limited carrying capacity. My last top off put me at 60 gallons of fresh water in preparation for Mexico, where drinking water doesn’t come from the hose, and there isn’t any dock to pull up to anyway. (Some cruisers have watermakers that consume gobs of energy. Sampaguita doesn’t have that kind of energy replacement capabilities.) Conservation is key and being solo, I fortunately make all the decisions regarding water usage. Back in my liveaboard slip, I used a stainless-steel French press and enjoyed proper and delicious cups of coffee. The problem was, it was a liter in size and even when I said to myself, ”Josh, only make a half carafe” it would slowly eek back up to a full one. I love a morning ritual as much as the next person, and if we’re honest, I love the morning high. Don’t kid yourself, caffeine is a drug and you all are getting high when you consume it. (How often do we hear something like, “My day just doesn’t start until I have my Starbucks Latte (or insert your favorite barista) in the morning.” – Duh. Drug dealer.) When you bottle your pee, because your small boat doesn’t have an installed head, it’s easy to measure what comes out as what goes in. (Again, don’t kid yourself. If you have an installed head, you either store your pee in a huge plastic jug hidden behind a bulkhead called a holding tank to later be pumped out, or you flush it out below the waterline where what you can’t see can be denied. That’s all about culture and conditioning that our biological waste is something to be hidden away and ashamed of. I’ve shed many of those c & c’s and it is extremely liberating.) I took note that that liter of coffee was processed and released easily within two hours. Then, the grounds need to be cleaned out, which takes more water, not to mention is a very messy affair. (Maybe you can get away with salt water on this last part.) If you are aiming for a rationing of 2 liters of water per day, well, you’ve already used half of it on a diuretic and you might have hardly left the bunk yet. Enter instant coffee. First, no clean up and no mess. Second, it isn’t good enough to drink more than one cup. Third, powdered milk is sufficient to cut it with. (Remember, Sampaguita has no refrigeration, and Josh needs to cut the coffee’s acid back with a dairy base. Science.) Recognizing the quality limitations of instant coffee, I asked a barista friend, Kimi D., if any boutique roasters stepped up and made a more palatable product. Not that we have found yet. By nature of being a boutique roaster, they are coffee snobs, and likely can’t be bothered. Missed opportunity for a niche market, I say. As a budget cruiser, I’m also not willing to spend a lot on such a product, so another win is instant coffee is cheap. I’ve tried some different brands as I go. Café Bustelo is so far my favorite.
Dinghy Decisions: As outlined in a previous essay on this blog, Sampaguita’s tender is an inflatable whitewater kayak. Most cruisers with bigger boats and more crew use a rigid bottom inflatable with some sort of power source. They carry more people and gear, go faster, and because their mothership is bigger, can be stored fully inflated on the deck of the boat. I acknowledge these attributes as much as I acknowledge Sampaguita’s inability to accommodate them. They come with a cost, though. I estimate those set ups easily can push $10000 to have. (So don’t for a moment think anchoring is free.) Sampaguita’s Aire kayak is a high end, durable, and heavily warranteed product, and at the time I purchased it nine years ago, it cost about $1500. Most of those (but not all) RIBs have motors that well outsize Sampaguita’s auxiliary 6hp Tohatsu. Of the small segment of cruisers I have encountered here in Baja, one has a bent prop from hitting a rock while landing in San Quinton. This is stupid easy to have happen. They will need to get a new prop when they get to La Paz, well, because there aren’t any available along the remote Baja coast. Another has a Torqueedo electric outboard. Something happened while exploring and now the motor is throwing E45 error codes. (Sophisticated equipment usually requires a sophisticated fix. At least with most gas-powered outboards, the problem comes down to fuel or spark. And a bent prop creates a lot of vibration and is hard on the drive shaft, but it will still go.) Landing whatever tender you have on these Baja landings is risky business. Rocks looming just below the surface are ready to foil everyone. And since you are cruising and just passing through, the first landings come with little local knowledge. They also change with the tide and swell state. I was making a landing in the kayak in Bahia Asuncion at the designated place. The tide was low-ish and the approach seemed fine. As I got nearer, I realized there were some rocks uncovering in the troughs of the swell. Uh-oh. They weren’t going to kill me, but the PVC kayak scraping over them would be no bueno, or causing me to broach would be very salty wet. (The expression, “He’s an old salt” is extremely true. Everything gets salty. And with no rain, it only accumulates.) I got lucky though, and the next following swell lifted me up and carried me cleanly over them. As I gained the local knowledge, there is about a 30-foot-wide safe zone in the landing. It’s easy to see once you are on shore. Outboard driven dinghies beware. Of course, everyone has the struggle of getting off la playa against the incoming surf. It is easier with the kayak than with a heavy motor driven inflatable, however, I am lower, less sheltered, and more exposed, so getting salty wet is just as easy.
Dinghy Decisions 2: On Sunday, there was a southern breeze and I had spent the day in town. The south facing la playa had a bit of extra surf running and I got to practice my launch. I had picked up a BBQ chicken dinner from a couple who had been cooking them all day on the street. The chickens were splayed out flat on the grill and I had been considering it all day. It was more food than I needed and more pesos than I felt comfortable spending, but I finally pulled the trigger. It was reminiscent of Brook’s chicken (from Oneonta, NY) and I wasn’t going to have anything like that on the boat. Sunday is Sunday in Mexico and do as the Mexicans do. I could fit the container in my salty backpack and dry bag, but I still had to get it to the boat. There were some folks on the beach and they were going to get a gringo yatista show of triumph or disaster. Like any focused entertainer, I had to forget about them. I took my time on the launch and studied the swells coming in. I eased the kayak to the dynamic waterline, got everything ready, watching and judging where they began to break. No waves are the same and they come in trains. Still, it is difficult to tell further out as they hardly exist on the bay. When you decide to go, you must not hesitate. Committed is committed. You either make it or get soaked. Maybe both. There is no turning back. I suddenly went. I dragged the kayak the last few feet as the one wave was breaking and flooding the beach. My feet were getting wet regardless. I got in as that wave ebbed, giving me just enough water to float and drag me out. The kayak did start to turn sideways as it does, but grabbing the paddle, I straightened it out before I was left high and dry. Then it was paddle with all I had. I could see the next wave building and it was looking to be a terribly messy affair, but going for it was the only hope it wouldn’t be. I rode up and over that hill just before it was about to break, feeling like a miniature version of Tom Hanks launching his raft with the honey bucket sail in Cast Away. But I wasn’t through yet. The next wave was coming and starting to build. If it was bigger, it would break sooner, and really, who knew? But a bit further out I made it over in a less dramatic fashion and I was clear. I pumped my fist over my head in celebration in case the lookee-loos cared, but never looked back myself. And my 300-peso chicken dinner was preserved for my indulgence.
Experience: Beisbol may be more of a Mexican pastime than it is in American one anymore. Saturday, as I was strolling around looking for an experience, I made my way to the baseball field. I’ve learned to identify it by the light poles rising above all else. There was some cheering going on, so I headed to the grandstand. The game being played was all youngsters. In my age it is hard to say anymore, but to associate the best I can, I would say more pee-wee league, early little league age. I assume they do it different anyway, so I don’t need/want to Americanize it. This was serious business though. They were doing their best to be Major Leaguers. And compared to SB, the field was in much better shape, the uniforms were more complete, they had proper and skilled coaches, and the crowd was family-oriented. These kids, mostly niños, but a couple niñas, were all in. There were some other kids who had Academia de Beisbol shirts on, so I take it this was a serious and organized affair for the community. I watched a few innings, totally impressed, and the only gringo there. I was thoroughly entertained and cheered the way a stupid gringo might. On Sunday, I thought to myself, “I bet the adults play today like they did in San Bartolome.” Sure enough. Making my way to the field (smelling the BBQ chicken along the way) I entered the grandstand. A totally different vibe than SB. Better uniforms and way better play. These guys were good. Real pitching, real crack of the bats, better field play, and much fewer errors. The seriousness and the youngster feeder program I saw the day before was really making a difference. (I learned later from Shari that they had a semi-pro team too. I believe it.) Fewer spectators, but there was what seemed like a fundraising concession table. I had some sort of huge flat cracker with shredded cucumber and carrots and other goodies on it for twenty-five pesos. I watched for several innings and did my clapping thing at all worthy plays and hits. Still, nobody acknowledged me or interacted with me except the concessionaire, and maybe los niños behind me who might have been making fun of me. It’s OK. It’s what niños do before they become caballeros. I did not stay to the end as it was getting late and I like to return to the boat before dark. A good call with the previously mentioned surf running. Who’d of thought I would be on some sort of baseball tour?
Plugs: Because they deserve it. Shari Bondy, a Canadian ex-pat, has treated me better than she has needed to. I thank her for that. I think our connection is we are part of the small boat, simple sailor fraternity. She has a Hotel (La Bufadora) and Campground in a most excellent location and seems to cater to Baja tourists. I gather she’s been here for 35 years, raised a family here, and so is well ingrained and invested in the community. She also does Grey Whale research and tours in the calving season (January -April) and is a good destination for gringos who want to check out Baja, but might find some of the other communities like Tortuga Bay a bit too gritty and rough-around-the-edges to call a holiday. Another is for Lery Espinoza. If you use Navionics, you will see his name and contact info. He operates a water taxi and general services for visiting yatistas. He is the first Mexican sailboat owner since Ensenada I’ve seen, so seems to be empathetic to cruisers and apparently has a good story about its acquisition. I only met him briefly and did not need his services, but the slight interaction has given me the gut feeling he is an asset to the cruising community. A lobsterman by trade, the service seems a side hustle. He stopped by to meet the guy with the little boat. He had just been diving on a neighboring anchored boat (whom I haven’t met and who apparently lost their prop AND their shaft! Muy mal!) to put a plug in the hole. He speaks decent English, was younger than I’d imagined (apparently went to high school with Shari’s daughter,) and reportedly has humble service fees.
Wildlife: The last couple nights the seals/sea lions (I’m not sure which) have spent quite a bit of time around my boat. Again, like the pelicans, I was curious why. Here is my guess. I am anchored in about 20-25 feet of water. On a bright sunny day, you can see the bottom with Sampaguita’s shadow clearly visible over the sand. Sometimes I will see swarms of small fish here. The last couple of nights have been nearly a full moon. I wonder if the moon too is causing a boat shadow and fish are trying to hide in it. The bay is big so there is no need for the seals/sea lions to congregate around Sampaguita, unless they have something to benefit from. I don’t know if other boats are having similar experiences. The sea life is very plentiful in the Baja waters. A couple other boats have gifted me fish fillets they caught. Apparently, they are having no trouble. In fact, they are catching fish that are too big and losing gear as a result, and don’t have the room to store it. Some are divers and spear fishers. They too, are coming up diamonds. One brought homemade sushi roles to the potluck. The pelicans too are sometimes dive-bombing in a frightful mass. In the Pacific Northwest, I don’t remember having these sorts of observations and experiences. I do not know if it is because they were not there to observe or whether my American existence had me so distracted that I wasn’t in tune enough to see them. Here, the locals are fishing more on a small scale, subsistence level in small pangas. Sport fishing exists, but it too is small scale. In American waters, commercial and sport fishing are both much larger scale. Maybe this is the difference?
Monica and ‘Lectronic Latitude rock! It’s fun to be the far away Port of Bahia Asuncion in Baja California, Mexico and see your column still exists. Thank you so much.
I’m not sure what my sailmakers at Northwest Sails, Sean and Holly, will think of this, but it wasn’t one they made for me anyway. But it sure is a necessary one. Something had to be done.
Here is the link:
https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/2023/11/27/#resourceful-sailor-performs-sail-surgery
sailingwithjosh
Sailing With Josh 