Sunday, December 13, 2009

Bahia de Los Muertos

 A three day stop on the way to Mazatlan to Bahia de los Muertos. It's peaceful, serene, and it even has a small, private resort with a swimming pool and great food.

Back in the cactus again. We feel very small next to these 500 year old giants.

Getting into the mood with Christmas decorations and lots of Christmas music.

The surroundings of the small 14 room resort are so beautiful, it seems surreal. We can dinghy in or walk around from on the sandy beach for a margarita or lunch.

The train bar and game room. Entertainment and food.

Aaaahhhhhh................

December 08, 2009

Back to the Boat

Biagio came back to Gem in November.  While we were gone, hurricane Jimena visited Guaymas dumping over 40 inches of rain within a 24 hr. time period.  Our sun screens from the outside windows where they well tied down but missing.  The overall sun covers were all taken off by the marina staff expecting to save them from being shredded.  Other than that, nothing was damaged.

Biagio sailed from Guaymas on the land side back down to LaPaz on the Baja California peninsula side. I flew in to Cabo with 4 suitcases mostly full of things for the boat...sail tape, motors, parts, sunbrella fabric, fishing lures, and an Xbox.     

  Did you know it takes an Xbox to sail???!!??? That's what Biagio told me. It took up a whole smaller suitcase.    I was fortunate to get picked up in a REAL CAR at the airport. Liz and Michael drove down with their car from Seattle so Michael and Biagio drove the 3 1/2 hr. one way trip to pick me up. So nice....  

As far as being back on the boat, it was like I had never been on the boat before...only seen a lot of photos of it. It was VERY surreal. And I didn't have any sea legs at all. (Six months off the boat.) I felt like every time I would get in or out of the dinghy I was likely to fall in. Couldn't remember how to drive the dinghy or start it at all, I'm still looking for switches to turn things on and off, etc. So strange..... But I'm getting used to it and staying dry.  

Photos of Christmas time in Seattle before leaving for LaPaz.

 

 

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Back In the Saddle Again

After bottom painting and lots of work, Gem slides back into the water in Guaymas (Western land side of Mexico). Then it's a 1 1/2 day motor/sail to LaPaz (Southern Baja California) with fishing stops in between to meet up with friends before heading south and destinations unknown.

June, July, August, Sepember, October...uh oh...

....it's getting cold here
in the Northwest.
Enough of this house fixing and promoting condos. Time to head south.

New Faces

Proud Grandpa with Kai in Victoria. Parents Jesse and Tia are surely not far away.

Location - Clarification

Just wanted to let everyone know why we ended up in Guaymas. (Location is about a 10 hr. bus ride north of Mazatlan if you know where that is.)

These were the ingredients for the outcome:

1. The cruising area of the Baja Penninsula is so beautiful in the Sea of Cortez side and it takes about 3 months to see it all. (Feb-June)

2. The boat needed bottom paint and Mexico is a good place to do that.

3. The boat needs to be out of the water for about a month in the desert while the blisters dry out.

4. The boat needs work which Biagio will do once the summer isn't so hot...probably in mid October when the temps go down from 140 degrees!

5. Once the water gets to about 80 degrees, hurricane season starts. Therefore the boat needs to stay at the lattitude of about Guaymas or further north to avoid damage.

For all these reason, Guaymas is as far as the boat went. It was all perfect.

Mexico Has Changed in the Last 8 Years

These are some of the changes we noticed in Mexico since the last 8 years we've been here...Newer cars in general for everyone if they have cars, Tricked out bicycles, i.e. extra spending money...Local police on Segways...(gosh, we don't even have Segways for the police in North America last I was there)... and prices that are more expensive than in the past. Good for the Mexicans. They are living better. Worse for our value in the marinas and on the economy. One thing you can always count on is change.

UPDATE: We heard from an economist in Mexico City that the rest of Mexico is probably not doing as well as these cities that we have visited. A guide book of ours hinted at the same conclusion.

Barranca del Cobre or Copper Canyon

This is my third time visiting here. Needless to say, I like it here.

The Copper Canyon is really magnificent. It’s four times larger than the Grand Canyon and one and a half times deeper. The views are spectacular from the train ‘El Chepe’ and there’s hiking throughout the canyon with waterfalls, missions, and museums. The native Tarahumara Indians live throughout the area apart from the Mexican people in their own villages and have an interesting culture of their own.

Our route to get to the canyon from the sailboat included buses from Guaymas to El Fuerte which was a total of 7 hrs riding. The attraction here was that El Fuerte is a quaint riverside colonial town founded in 1563 with 11,000 people. It was built to ward off attacks by native American Indians who the Spanish constantly harassed. Later it was a trading post for silver and gold seekers. El Fuerte (The Fort) - We had a lesson in politics from this entrepreneurial woman who gave us a tour of her house. The revolution of 1910 saw re-appropriation of lands and property. As a result, this used to be one house which is now divided into three houses. This woman bought this section of the original house but had no money to repair the decaying roof and upper floors. She has a tourist shop in the front, lives behind that and raises pigs behind the house.

The next day we rode the train to Creel at 8,000 feet. This was also farthest stop north. Here we learned more about the local Tarahumara Indians, rode bikes and enjoyed the local scenery. Notice the typical Tarahum cave home and and adobe home in the same photo below.

From Creel, we returned a couple of hours south by bus and stayed at a hotel/ranch. Renting horses we ventured into the canyon for a day's ride. It was spectacular.

Horses go much slower than people think. Our 15 year old guide easily beat us to the next look out point via foot power and taking short cuts.

Benjamina Button

On this trip I've gained a nose ring and braces. I feel like Benjamina ..Button. What year is this?

Healthy Mexican Food

(Note: Day 3 on the hard in Guaymas. The hull is halfway done. Biagio is busy with the drummel working away at the ‘spots’, and I'm...well here at the pool. Most of the partners have left for home while the guys do some work on the boat before leaving. I'm still here supplying encouragement, water and food.)

Biagio and I both weigh more than we did when we started this journey. We’re trying to lose a little weight and also look for healthy food when we eat out. The steamed fish and vegetables that comes in foil packets are very healthy. Not very popular but healthy and tasty. Corn tortillas are fairly healthy. They aren’t fried and are made solely from corn flour. We also throw in the occasional hamburger because the Sonora beef is so tasty.

Photos: One block away from the marina, temptation and tasty calories.

Last night after Biagio worked hard on the hull all day, and my many trips gathering things in town, we treated ourselves to a little informal corner restaurant about a block up the street. It’s so popular that people are lined up outside the entrance late at night on the weekends. We concluded that it must be delicious and we needed to try it.

“What’s the most popular thing on the menu?”, we asked the waitress in Spanish. With a big smile on her face, she told us hands down it was ‘papas locas’. “Very good, two orders of crazy potatoes.” We ordered it with horchata. The horchata was delicious, just like a cool bowl of liquid rice pudding running down your through with lots of cinnamon.The crazy potatoes came in a large foil packet that stood up. Inside was small pieces of chopped up beef, potatoes, corn and lots of cheese, butter and cream. Uh oh, we shouldn’t have ordered this. It’s probably very tasty. It was. Cheese, cream and butter. Lots of it. We tried to let it drip through our forks but it was hopeless. So we resigned ourselves to enjoying all those fattening calories and leaving as much cream in the bottom as possible. I can see why it’s so popular. Very tasty. But oh, all those calories!