A Whale’s Tale

Hello Everyone,

Gosh it’s hot! We’ve been hauling 6 gallon jugs of water two at a time from the grocery store down a dirt road to the beach in a rickety little kiddie cart. From there we load it onto the dinghy and motor a quarter mile to the boat. Back and forth, six trips in all. Naturally we managed to put this brutal job off until the hottest part of the day. Not only that, we also managed to hit low tide. That ment dragging the heavy cart over an extra expanse of sand. Ain’t no sand tires on kiddie carts! Next time we’ll be alot smarter. This is the first time we’ve encountered difficulty gathering water. Bahia de Los Angeles is an amazing place. The little town is backed by a steep 5000 foot high mountain and looks out onto a ten mile wide bay chock full of colorful islands. It’s surreal to be in Mojave desert country one moment and the blue ocean the next.

So much to tell. We’ve seen so many whales and baby birds. La Raza Island was abuzz with royal terns and sea gulls, their fluffy chicks nesting among the rocks. Amber has only two more full days with us, so we’re going to explore some of these intriguing islands. More news when we return. Like how we found her a ride from this remote little town back to the states within 15 minutes of first stepping ashore!

With love,
Gina

Greetings from a Baja Mama! I can’t believe it’s been a month since I sent an update on our adventures. Randy wrote about rounding Cabo San Lucas and arriving in La Paz. Sounds easy, huh? He neglected to mention we were sleep-deprived emotional wrecks! We’d been standing alternating three-hour watches night and day in the fog and cold for five days straight. Doc said the Geneva Convention lists sleep deprivation as a form of torture. The personality unravels. Quickly. Timo recalled a time he sailed alone night and day for several days in a row. He found himself yelling at an imaginary crew because they weren’t standing their fair share of watches! We managed to keep the lid on most of the tension until we rounded Cabo San Lucas, and then oh my, we were a miserable crew. Especially Doc, a chain smoker who’d run out of cigarettes a few days before. No mutinies or bloodshed. Suffice it to say we got Doc a hotel room as soon as we docked in La Paz to give us all a break from one another.

Being with Robin and Kim was really soothing after the rough trip down the Pacific coast. Even the night we underestimated the strength of the Coromuel winds (a Santa Ana-like wind that blows near La Paz) and had to pull up anchor and make our way into a more sheltered bay, was a great experience with them. We all knew the dangers of picking our way into an unfamiliar anchorage at night and each of us found a niche to help us get there safely. I took the helm while Randy plotted a GPS course that would get us into the bay. Robin went below to the radar and called out headings that kept us from hitting a pile of rocks and an island at the mouth of the bay. Kim went from port to starboard with a search light, getting a visual fix on the obstructions the radar was picking up. We were a great team and slept well that night.

Traveling from La Paz to Santa Rosalia has been the most enjoyable part of the journey thus far. The scenery is spectacular. Along this stretch the eastern spine of the Baja peninsula is comprised of volcanic mountains, the Sierra de la Giganta range. They resemble the Grand Canyon or Zion, transplanted to the sea. One night we anchored in a crater between two islands. Here in Santa Rosalia, we are less than ten miles south of three volcanoes. There are hot springs along the coast too. We weren’t able to hike to any of them because we had to get above of the 27th degree of latitude by June 1st (north of the hurricane belt and a stringent requirement of our insurance company.) We crossed the 27th parallel on May 30th and danced a jig in the cockpit. We made it! That day was also memorable for me because a whale surfaced about 50 feet from Balena. A dream come true.

Being so close to wildlife is a continual delight. Lots of splashing going on all the time. The pelicans are like kamikaze pilots. They skim over the water and dive bomb with a crash when they spot a fish. Manta rays fly out of the water in groups, looking like popping kernels of popcorn. I think they belly flop back to dislodge parasites. The dolphins here also slap their tails on the water a lot. Wonder if it’s parasites, exuberance, fish herding or a form of communication? The only critters we haven’t enjoyed are the bees. At Danzante Island we left the hatches open at night and woke up with a dozen bees buzzing in the galley. They must have been attracted to the dirty dishes and water in the sink. We bought “mosquitera” (mosquito netting) as soon as we got to Santa Rosalia to make into hatch covers.

At the hardware store where we bought the mosquitera, we met a geologist who told us how the French came to mine in Baja. A visiting Frenchman heard a shepard talk about “boleos” (balls) of blue rock lying in the canyons around Santa Rosalia. He investigated and found the boleos were made of chrysocolla, a rich copper mineral. This led to the creation of El Boleo Mining Company in 1885. The French company built a harbor so square riggers and steam ships could bring in the supplies they needed. Nothing could be transported over the rugged inland terrain. Ships carried lumber from California and coals from Newcastle. Their holds were laden with ingots of copper on the return journey. Almost all the houses here are made of wood, unusual in Baja. The mine closed in the 1950s, but the French influence is still evident. There’s a French bakery in town that makes delicious breads. An all-metal church designed by Gustave Eiffel (creator of the Eiffel Tower) was transported here and is still a center of community activities. We like its cool interior and clean lines. The harbor is little changed from the mining days and might become busy again. A Canadian company is investigating the possibility of reworking the old mine tailings for copper and related minerals today.

We’re gradually getting adjusted to our new life. It feels strange to live without the daily pressure of preparing ourselves and our boat to “get to the Sea of Cortez.” We’ve arrived. Now what? One thing we’re seriously investigating is the best time to take a siesta. And how many siestas to take per day. I favor one long siesta during the hottest part of the day. Randy prefers two siestas per day. He keeps experimenting with the optimal times to take his siestas. This morning I felt he went a bit overboard. He woke up at nine am, looked around, announced it was time for his first siesta and went back to sleep!

With love and laughter,
Gina

We love the marina at Santa Rosalia. The cruisers and employees are great and many things about it are nice but surreal. For example it must have the same architect as San Quentin prison on the San Francisco Bay:
http://www.corr.ca.gov/Visitors/fac_prison_SQ.html
A high fence surrounds the whole place (I guess to keep us in), lots of bars on all the windows, at least 2 guards on 24 hour duty. We only have cold showers, are not allowed to have soap in the bathroom and running water is sporadic on the dock.
We enjoy it and are having a good time, go figure.

Hi everyone, Gina here. Randy wrote the above paragraph tongue-in-cheek. This really is a very friendly place! It’s one of several new government marinas being built around the Sea of Cortez. Everything hasn’t quite come together yet so the cruiser’s help fill in the gaps. For instance there’s a fancy swimming pool on the second level (also without warm water but the days are so hot nobody cares) and we realized it wasn’t being chlorinated. Randy brought out his chlorine test kit, another cruiser provided chlorine and together they maintained the pool. This cooperative attitude was originally fostered by the marina manager, Carlos. He invited us all to a cruiser/employee pot luck last weekend.

Well, we just wanted to write a short letter to see if we could post it to Pete’s website without too much trouble. So with a little luck and lots of love to you all, here goes!