Memories of Mexico

Oh the shame of it all! We have been home nearly a month, a month I tell you (!), and are finally now getting around to updating our final days in Mexico. We could do what some of our friends have done, i.e. hang out with others and then link to THEIR blog post and photos instead of doing one of our own. (Props to Tivoli for teaching us that nifty move.) Nah! That would be way too clever for the Cinnabarbarians. So, urged by some phone calls from worried friends (“Are you guys home? Are you OK? Why no updates?”) we are pulling ourselves away from all the busy-ness that has forced us to be delinquent and are forging ahead with some pictures and words of our Last Days In Mexico.

We spent our final days in Bahia Concepcion getting to know some of the locals who live in the area. They are VERY interesting as you might expect. 

Jerry used to play piano in honky tonk bars. Here he serenades local windsurfing legend Ramona.

It takes a certain kind of person to choose to live in the desert in a foreign country with no electricity or municipal plumbing. All power is via solar panels and generators and the water is delivered into a communal tank by truck. The water is non-potable so all purified drinking water must be purchased in the nearby town of Mulege.

Two nights before we left Concepcion we went over to Armando’s restaurant and bar on nearby Santispac beach for DJ night. 

I take a break from Rob's birthday to drink a Margarita for my friend Dina's birthday.

Nancy from sv Shindig got the place rocking and Tom and Nancy dazzled the crowd with their dance moves. 

Tom and Nancy rock the house.

Tom was very impressive when he started busting out his Michael Jackson moves. The locals now call him “Michael”.

We were going to have a beach cook-out for Rob’s actual, real birth day (If you recall we celebrated Shindig Rob’s birthday for several days!) , but we managed to convince neighbor Jerry to host us one final time. Rob and Nancy (sv Shindig) dove for clams that day and hauled the fixins for clam pasta up to Jerry’s house. Friends of theirs on the boat Lanikai sailed into Concepcion just in time for the party.

Very fresh clam pasta for Rob's actual birthday.

Host Jerry with Sylvia, Nancy and Leilani from sv Lanikai

May 18 -The next morning, as Cinnabar, Shindig and Lanikai left Bahia Concepcion, we got numerous radio calls from the neighbors with whom we had partied at Armando's, wishing us all a bon voyage and hoping to see us next year. Clearly Tom and Nancy had made an impression.

Shindig and Cinnabar buddy-boated south toward the beautiful bay of San Juanico, but we decided to anchor just north of there at La Ramada, an anchorage we had never been to before. It was HOT when we dropped the anchor and I immediately went in for a snorkel to cool off. Shortly after that, Rob and Nancy launched their dinghy and came over for an impromptu gathering of cold drinks and snacks. 

Trying to look cool, but feeling REALLY hot!

Rob and the "Tequila Lover's Guide" doing a better job of looking cool.

We heard on the radio that the cruisers in nearby San Juanico were going to gather on the beach for happy hour, BYOB, so we decided to dinghy over to our beach and hike over the hill to join them. Rob and Nancy met some of their old friends and Tom and I got to meet some cruisers we had only known by radio contact.

The proper collective noun...a Convocation of Cruisers?

The next day Tom and I left for our next leg of the journey, La Ramada to Bahia Candeleros. (The resort at Candeleros has good wifi access and I wanted to Skype into a Pacific Cup board meeting that night.)

After a pleasant night in Candeleros we left early the next morning with San Evaristo or Isla San Francisco being our destination. Speaking of San Francisco, as we left Candeleros a fog bank settled over us, making us feel like we were back in our own San Francisco!

San Francisco or Baja?

The fog wasn’t cold but it did cool things off and soaked the rigging causing big dirty, wet blobs to fall down on us and all over the deck, which made for a good excuse to give Cinnabar a wipe-down.

That day no matter where we went it seemed the wind was going in the wrong direction. It had been southerly on the nose all day but as we approached the north anchorage of Evaristo, the wind shifted and became a northerly, with wind and chop blowing into the anchorage. Not good! So we headed over to Isla San Francisco because an island SHOULD have a lee side, right? But no matter where we motored looking for a calm spot the wind seemed to blow us into the island. 

We decided to finally drop the hook in the NE anchorage which seemed pretty calm once we got inside, although we could see numerous boats in the more popular western anchorage. 

Isla SF, NE anchorage, SW anchorage in the background.

Who was right? We were hoping that if the Coromuel winds piped up that night (strong SW or W winds - cooling to people on land, annoying and potentially dangerous to sailors) that we would be in the good spot. At any rate, the snorkeling turned out to be phenomenal, the anchor had a great set, and the anchorage was only slightly rolly that night.

The next day, May 21^st, we got an early start with a stupendous sunrise but no wind...

My watch says 6:57 a.m.

...and we motored all the way to La Paz. We got there so early that we motored into the city along the Malecon for a new perspective of the city.

Motoring in La Paz, the Malecon as seen from the water.

Once in La Paz we got busy starting to decommission the boat for her summer storage. I had a ticket to fly home in 9 days so time was of the essence! We had a long spreadsheet of all the things we needed to do to store the boat for the summer, including getting her “hurricane ready” by removing all the sails and canvas on deck so, in case of a big blow, they didn't fly off the boat taking bits of boat with them.

Dropping and folding our jib on deck.

Of course we also made some time to hang with friends!

We reconnected with Leif and Lisa from SV Finisterra, here at Harker Board

One day Tom even helped out with delivering a boat to a freighter anchored off La Paz. Tom and others prepared the boat for shipping... 

Hired divers preparing the lifting straps.

...before it was hoisted aboard the freighter which had been contracted to transport a boatload of sail and powerboats from La Paz up to British Columbia.

SV Indigo gets lifted onto the freighter which is already full of boats.

Our album of last days in Bahia Concepcion and La Paz is HERE. Tom’s version of Bailando con las Estrellas (Dancing with the Stars) is a must-see.

The weather in La Paz was becoming oppressively hot.  I left on May 30^th and Tom followed about a week later after tying up some loose ends in La Paz.

Since arriving home we have been LOVING the temperate climate of the SF Bay Area. We’ve been hanging out at my sister’s place and for one week we had a great house-sitting gig and all we had to do was feed the cute kitties and water the plants. (Thanks Deniz and Lissa!)

Tom has been busy and I have been fully occupied inspecting boats doing my part in helping to get the Pacific Cup fleet ready for the big race across the Pacific Ocean from SF to Oahu. 

Inspecting Scarlet Runner from Melbourne, Australia, just arrived by way of the Caribbean race circuit, Cape Town to Rio (de Janeiro) race and Sydney to Hobart race. Boat not shipped but sailed everywhere for deliveries!!

So I am still immersed in all things boat, just can’t get away from it! Boats are arriving from out of town from as far away as Australia, there is the big push to make sure all boats get inspected for safety gear, and the Pac Cup festivities start raging next week. We had an exciting and busy summer last year and it looks like this summer might be just as crazy.