A Whale’s Tale

Hello Everyone,

I may be a wimp, but I feel as though I’ve been through a war. Maneuvering over the deep blue sea without an engine is quite an experience. One day the winds were so light and the currents so strong that we traveled less than a mile toward our destination after sailing for TEN HOURS. Another day we roared into a bay at warp speed, tacking upwind toward an anchorage. Randy cranked the jib from port to starboard so fast his arms blurred. I steered between boats, calling out depths and bottom conditions. Making a split second decision, Randy then sprinted forward to drop the anchor. Hair-raising! The real adrenaline rushes happened when we used the dinghy as a towboat. A dinky little 200 pound inflatable hauling a 20,000 pound boat. Uh-huh. We’d tie the dinghy to Balena’s side and use its 8 horsepower outboard motor to propel her forward. Under calm conditions inside harbors it worked pretty well. Outside in any kind of waves, riding the dinghy was like riding a bucking bronco. At one point Randy stepped DOWN from the dinghy into Balena as it rode the crest of a big wave. Ah, remembering this is exhausting! I don’t have the energy to describe the time three dinghies maneuvered Balena into a tight anchorage under windy conditions. Suffice it to say, we almost went aground three times that day and hired a panga fisherman to tow us out when we left the anchorage. I need a break. To be continued…..

Okay, I’m back. We made it to Santa Rosalia in one piece. Nerves shot and wiser for the experience. Randy took the blown fuel injector pump out and arranged to exchange it for a rebuilt one in Los Angeles. He thinks our experimental use of biodiesel a few years ago ate away at the seals in the fuel pumps. The injector pump went out just two weeks after the lifter pump. He hitched a ride with a family heading to San Diego on October 16th, injector pump in one hand and broken single sideband radio in the other. Twenty hours later he was knocking at Drew’s door in Bakersfield. He’d covered 800 miles by truck, Greyhound, city bus and shoe leather. Give the guy a hug if he shows up on your doorstep. He’d appreciate it!

With hugs from a flea-bitten sailor,
Gina

Hello Everyone,

Unlike the last post, this will be short and sweet. Our bug bites have healed and the wind is supposed to come up tomorrow, so we plan to sail south with the out-going tide in the morning. Our injector fuel pump is leaking diesel into the oil now. This is the pump that’s hard to get to. The one we were so happy wasn’t the problem on Isla Angel de La Guarda. Randy will have a better chance of getting parts to repair it in Santa Rosalia, so that’s where we’re heading. Since we hope to sail all the way (at about two to five knots) it’ll take several days. At least it will be a peaceful trip. Without the engine noise, we hear the whales breathing all around us. They make a musical sound, like a pipe organ, when they inhale. The blue whales make GIANT plumes when they exhale.

With lots of love,
The Happy-Go-Lucky, Flea-Bitten Crew of Balena

Hello Everyone,

We’re back in BLA after experiencing both heaven and hell at Isla Angel de La Guarda. I can describe the heavenly part in great detail since I kept track of what happened on September 11, 2007. Mom has always wondered what a typical day aboard Balena is like, so here goes:

Pretty Bird and I awake at 6:30 to a beautiful sunrise. We’re anchored in a remote bay at the northernmost tip of Isla Angel de La Guarda. I listen to a morning symphony courtesy of the seals and sea gulls as I sip warm water and lime juice in the cockpit. I can see our anchor buried in the sand twenty feet below us in the crystal clear water. Two seals swim up to our kayak and glide beneath it upside down, fascinated by the strange yellow creature. At 7:00 I turn on the single sideband radio and switch to the amigo net channel to hear the weather report. Randy wakes up and comments that this is the land the wind forgot. It’s already hot. I make us a breakfast of rice and eggs and eat it sitting in the kayak with my feet dangling in the water. Randy calls me over to look at a mockingbird sized bird peering in the hatch. We watch him for half an hour as he hops all over the boat. Pretty Bird is conspicuously quiet, hiding on his corner shelf. I wash dishes, spread a silver tarp over the cabin to keep the sun off and put netting over the hatches to keep our curious visitor from flying in. Randy goes back to sleep, tuckered out from our 40 mile journey up the coast yesterday. (It took us 10 hours because the tidal currents were so strong in the channel between the island and the Baja peninsula that our speed went down to 2 knots during ebb tide!)

At 9:30 I pull on leotards (to keep from getting stung), mask and fins and slip into the water. Ah, I love to swim in the warm water! It’s like being in a giant aquarium, eye to eye with the fish. Bright little neon blue fish dart here and there. I can see stingrays hiding on the sandy bottom too. Hmmm, some are pretty big. I decide to head for a bouldered section of shoreline. The rays prefer the sandy places. As I explore the tide pools, I startle several bright orange crabs. There are pelican bones and shells scattered on the cobble beach. As usual, I hunt for something I can use as a mortar and pestle to grind up vitamin and mineral tablets. I’ve experimented with different kinds of volcanic rocks without success. I see a thick white shell with an oblong rock nestled in its bowl. Perfect! I thank Mother Nature for such a pretty gift (it grinds up the tablets just right too.) I tuck the shell and rock into my sleeve and gather three pieces of trash (the only trash on the beach) to bring back to the boat. I find a cavern scooped out of the cliff backing the beach and sit down to sing and tone. The sounds that come out of me are surprising. Almost American Indian-like with a whistling sound that feels as though it’s echoing through time. I have fun when I’m by myself!

I get back to the boat two hours later to find the refrigerator in the middle of the floor and Randy stuffed into the 3×2x2 foot space where it used to be. He’s figuring out how to install two computer fans behind the refrigerator to blow away hot exhaust air. It’s been running almost constantly lately and the solar panels can’t keep up with the drain on the house batteries. I watch as he wires the little fans to the refrigerator. He also beefs up the refrigerator mounts by sawing new supports from scrape wood. As we take a break to eat lunch (chicken sandwiches and a green olive/cabbage salad), a tiny yellow-green bird flies through the hatch and takes a nap on the navigation table! When he flies away, we continue working in our usual way: Randy providing the brains and brawn and I assisting as gofer and clean up crew. We quit at 4:30 to go snorkeling, job half done. We’ll finish manana!

It feels heavenly to float so effortlessly in the water after the strain of working in such tight quarters. The tidal range here is 15 feet, which has all kinds of strange effects. At one point we swoop over an underwater ledge with the outgoing tide. It’s like riding an underwater waterfall. Two curious angelfish follow us for a long time. After two hours, we get hungry and head back to the boat.

We rinse off the salt water with our nifty bug sprayer. It gives us a great shower while using less than two quarts of water apiece. Randy sets to work chopping granny smith apples, onions, tomatoes, tomatillos and cilantro for his delicious salsa salad. I gather together some dirty clothes, a big bowl and laundry detergent and head for the dinghy. After scrubbing the clothes in the bowl, I lean over the side of the dinghy to rinse them in the ocean. An open air laundromat with a stunning view of the sunset. Only problem is that I use too much laundry detergent and need to rinse and wring over and over again. By the time I get to the final fresh water rinse and clothespin the laundry to the lifelines, my hands are tired! We eat a dinner of tortillas, beans and salsa salad in the cockpit, then lay down to watch the stars come out. I fall asleep, but Pretty Bird wakes me up at 8:30. He likes to have his head scratched and doesn’t want me to forget his ¨snuggle time.¨ I do one last sudoku puzzle while Pretty Bird nibbles on my pencil. Randy turns on Coast to Coast radio and we listen until we fall asleep. So ends another day in paradise.

With love
Gina

p.s. The next day we woke up with 100s of bug bites – Randy.

Hello Everyone,

Just a quickie post to let you know we’re on the move again. We’ve enjoyed ourselves in the Bahia de Los Angeles area. The 15 foot whale shark paid us several friendly visits. One night we had a romantic time watching “Moonstruck” on the computer in the cockpit with a skyful of stars overhead. It’s time to explore new territory, however. We plan to sail up the Canal de Las Ballenas to Isla Angel de La Guarda. That seems a good place to be during the solar eclipse of September 11th. Did you know that the sun radiates 4,000,000 tons of itself into space every second? What a giving star! I think this will be a special eclipse. A powerful time when sun, moon and earth are lined up to create an energetic doorway to the stars. See you on the other side!

With love and laughter,
Gina and the guys

Hello Everyone,

Here we are again on the eve of our departure from BLA, dripping sweat onto the keyboards of our favorite internet cafe. There is an up side to the hotter temperatures, the water has warmed up too. It’s absolutely perfect for snorkling. Randy and I spend alot of time swimming with the fishes. We watch in awe as hundreds of quicksilver fish change the shape of their school in the blink of an eye. It’s like moving art, exquisitely beautiful when the sun flashes along their silvery sides. Some fish are as curious about us as we are about them. We dance around one another in a kind of underwater ballet, getting closer and closer. I love to glide peacefully over the water in the kayak too. One day I brought the camera with me and as I silently approached a sting ray resting in the shallow water, I tried to click a picture of him before he skittered away in a cloud of sand. I got three good pictures. Unfortunately all the pictures are on our computer, which crashed a week ago. As soon as Randy gets it working again, WE WILL POST PICTURES.

We had a great time at the Full Moon Party on August 28th. Imagine 20 boatloads of cruisers gathering from all over the Sea of Cortez at the La Mona anchorage to play in the water. A natural water slide was created at midday when the highest tide of the month surged into a normally dry lagoon behind the beach. We donned snorkle and fins and were swept into the lagoon along a meandering channel. Pink and purple shells flashed by beneath us as we dodged green mangrove bushes along the way. I had a ball grabbing the prettiest shells. Sue calls shell collecting “shopping”. This was express shopping, let me tell you! Three hours later the water slide reversed as the ebbing tide began to empty the lagoon. As if this wasn’t enough fun, there was a total lunar eclipse the night before. Six of us moonlovers went ashore at 3am to watch the full moon go dark and the stars come out in all their glory. I wasn’t surprised to learn that one of the couples named their boat “Blew Moon.”

Well, time to ferry water to the boat. With lots of love,
Gina, Randy and Pretty Bird

Hi Everyone,

We’re feeling pretty good today. Hurricane Dean sent us some clouds, which means a pretty sunset tonight and less heat during the day. Normally we’d be sitting in this internet cafe with our tongues hanging out and sweat dripping on the keyboard. (Now it is just hot and our tongues are hanging out – Randy.) We’re also feeling good about our new method of hauling 70 gallons of purified water to the boat. We hired the Garcia brothers to truck ten jugs of water from the grocery store to the dinghy. Two dinghy trips to the boat and the entire job was finished in less than two hours. So much better than our all day marathons in the past! (Keep in mind that Bahia de Los Angeles, also known as BLA, is hotter than Bakersfield.)

We’re in BLA to stock up so we can spend several days at La Mona, a beautiful anchorage we enjoyed on the southern-most shores of the bay. Behind the white sand beach is an intriguing lagoon. For most of the month it is bone dry and used as a nighttime playground for a pack of vocal coyotes. During the full moon however, the high tide fills the lagoon with water, which then rushes out as the tide begins to ebb. The cruisers discovered that the rushing water creates a gigantic water slide and are gathering from all over to play in the water and share a “Full Moon Pot Luck” on August 28th. This we’ve got to experience! (I expect a continuation of the disagreement between some of the men and some of the women regarding the medicinal properties of beer. We will be sure to have a picture taken of us at the SS Minnow that is “docked” at La Mona.) Last week we painted the dinghy on the picturesque beach and laughed as we cooled off in the turquoise water. We’re living the definition of cruising: “Boat repair in exotic locations.”

We worked on the “Autohelm ST4000+” self-steering device this afternoon. Otherwise know as the Autohell ST4000+ &?%$|@!. For some reason it seems to work better, even though we did not do anything to repair it. I guess it just liked the attention.

Mail us a block of ice,
Gina and Randy

Well, we got our problems sorted out on the top of the mast today, thanks to Gina. She did an excellent job, almost 50 feet in the air working in the heat for 2 hours. She replaced our anchor/tricolor combination light and wind speed indicator. The problems started months ago when we were in a high wind near Bahia Tortugas. Part of the wind speed indicator flew off for no apparent reason. Then our friend said that our tricolor light was rotating, something that is impossible. I hoisted brave Gina up the mast and she found out that the light broke in half clear around the base and in the process, knocked off part of the wind indicator. She lowered the light down and I glued and taped it together and sent it back up. Today we replaced the taped up light and the broken indicator. I hope that is the last of our problems up there, because it is hard work for both of us and no matter how careful we are there is always an element of danger, even with lots of care and triple safety lines. We reviewed our handy work tonight after dark and it was worth it. The new low energy light bulb worked great in the new lamp too.

Gee, Randy’s writing such a great letter (with me as the heroine), I hate to stop him. I just brought him dinner however, so while he takes a break, I’ll add a few words. We’re sitting in the lounge of an old marina in Santa Rosalia, one fan aimed toward me and another aimed at Randy. “Lounge” is a bit of a misnomer. “Dilapidated warehouse with lots of character” describes the place better. The French built it during their early mining days about 100 years ago. A big turtle shell hangs on one wall, racks of dog-eared books and magazines to trade are on another. Three recycled grocery store refrigerators hold cold drinks by the front door and a rusty washing machine and dryer are tucked in the back near the bathrooms. Everything runs on the honor system. Whenever you take a drink, ice, or use the laundry, you mark your purchase on a tally sheet and pay when you leave the marina. Our kind of place. So, back to the mast. To add a little extra thrill to the job today, the wood in the canvas seat I was sitting on split in half when I was about ten feet from the top of the mast. No monkey ever gripped a tree tighter than I gripped that mast! After the initial shock, I assessed the damage and found that the heavy canvas material encasing the wood was holding fine. In-fact, my rear-end was jammed in more comfortably now than before. I also wore a sturdy safety harness and was clipped to another safety line wrapped around the mast, so we decided to continue onward and upward. Randy had the most strenuous part of the job. First he’d winch me up a few feet with the line attached to the canvas/wood seat, tie that line off and go to the other winch, where he’d repeat the operation with the line attached to the safety harness. Back and forth, back and forth. He sweating buckets in the sun, me yelping whenever he cranked the safety harness too tight and the leg straps bit into my skin. The whole marina appreciated the early morning entertainment. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello Everyone,

We’re back in the USA! I’m writing this letter late at night in Drew’s apartment in Bakersfield. Believe it or not, the weather in Bakersfield seems mild compared to the heat in the Sea of Cortez. Are we nuts to travel to Baja in the summer? I keep looking for the hidden, unconscious reasons we’ve made this journey. It’s been three months since we crossed the border and I’m beginning to notice some subtle changes in myself (I won’t speak for Captain Bly.) Traveling far from home tore me from my regular routines and ways of looking at life. I’m far more centered in the present moment now (no pun intended.) The state of the wind and waves has a greater impact on my activities than a pre-concieved mental schedule. I’m more in tune with the flow of “what is” rather than what my mind says “should be.” The heat has been especially effective in focusing my attention on what is. I may have great plans to explore an island or town, but if it’s too hot, my body gets lethargic and all I can do is lay down and sweat.

We left Santa Rosalia the evening of July 19th and 29 hours, three buses, two taxies and one trolley ride later, arrived at the Frazier Park offramp. We were so glad to see Dad at the wheel of the Alberti Express coming down the road to pick us up! His was by far the nicest taxi.

And that was the end of my writing for the night. Infact, the end of my writing for the next three weeks. We so enjoyed being with all of you again! Thank you for treating us so royally during our visit! As we waved goodby August 6th and headed south again, we felt mighty lucky to have such loving families and friends waiting for us north of the border.

With love,
Gina, Randy and Pretty Bird

Hello Family and Friends!

Guess what? We’re coming home in mid-July for a few weeks. We’ll let you know more as our plans take shape. One of our cruising buddies gave us a packet of information on the hurricanes that blew into the northern Sea of Cortez in 2003. It’s rare for them to get up here, but it does happen. August and September are the most likely months, so we want to be with our faithful boat during that time. People who anchored in hurricane holes and stayed with their boats did far better than those who left them in marinas or hauled them out. So, we thought we’d head north while the weather is calm. Don’t be surprised to answer a knock at your door and find one yellow and two tan vagabundos standing there!

Well, it’s getting hotter here. The water has warmed up and become greener. In this part of the Sea of Cortez the waters are rich with nutrients and full of life. We saw our first whale shark last week while talking to Jeff and George (the men who drove Amber back to the states.) Jeff immediately leaned over and slapped the side of his boat to attract the whale shark. No kidding, that 15 foot shark wagged his tail and swam right over! Jeff didn’t quite get to pet him, other cruiser’s said they did. Whale sharks are filter feeders and can grow to over 40 feet long. I’m content to swim among the little fishes. One day a school of striped mullet let me swim with them in a sea cave. We eyed each other with mutual curiosity and I was filled with gratitude to be a part of their realm. Another day I found an undersea garden with red coral, starfish with striped arms, orange crabs and fish of all sizes and shapes. We’ve seen lots of sting rays too. They hide in the sand and can camouflage themselves to match their surroundings. Some have patterns identical to army fatigues. The most interesting camouflage technique I’ve seen is on a type of puffer fish. Their tan backs have white concentric rings that look exactly like the ripples created by dropping a pebble in the water. My favorite sea creatures are the pelicans. One morning at sunrise the sky was full of them flying toward the mountains behind Bahia de Los Angeles. They flew in long lines and vees and rose higher and higher, until they were tiny specks in the sky. Then they rode the thermals for an hour, gradually circling back to the sea. It was inspiring!

Oh, I promised to explain how Amber got a ride back to the states. We had no idea how she’d get home. No buses travel the 40 miles of washboard road from Highway 1 to Bahia de Los Angeles. No airports or trains either. Anticipating difficulty, we arrived a week early to give us time to figure it out. On our very first trip ashore, we landed the dinghy and walked up to a restaurant on the beach. We asked a group of men sitting on the patio if they knew where we could find showers. They asked how long it had been since we’d showered and when we replied with feeling, “A looooog time,” they asked us to step downwind! A lively conversation ensued and when they heard Amber was looking for a ride home, immediately offered to take her. They live in Costa Mesa and knew all about Biola University. George has a grandchild going there now. So Amber got a lift all the way to Costa Mesa with a couple of “old Christian farts” (their self-description.)

Well, with love and best wishes for a Happy Independence Day. See you soon,
The Vagabundos

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