(Photo: David and Dirk - cabin
boys extraordinaire.) The first leg of the rally was the longest and at times
trying. All the boats were advised to try to reach our first stop, Turtle
Bay by Wednesday because adverse conditions were likely to be arriving on
Thursday. Actually, we encountered some not so pleasant conditions,
sustained 18 knot winds on the nose for most of the day Wednesday. The
guys, as expected, were well up the the challenge, but Val and I were both
having trouble going below for any length of time for the first couple of days.
We arrived in Turtle Bay at about sunset on Wednesday and were happy to drop
anchor. We also had a change of crew scheduled for Turtle Bay...Bruce was
to return to San Diego and our good buddy Dirk Rush from Dana Point hopped
aboard. Leg two, down to Bahia Santa Maria wasn't much better as far
and the seas were concerned. The predicted 2-4 foot gentle swells on the
stern were more like 6-8 feet and very close together, making for another rough
ride. Many boats in the fleet sustained damage during the first two legs
including blown out spinnakers, a broken spreader, a bent prop shaft, and
autopilot and steering failures. (Photo: Erik, sans ponytail, with his 44" bull dorado.) Leg three started out like a dream; the sun was shining, it
was nice and warm and the seas were flat. Val & I spent some time up on
the foredeck getting some long awaited rays and everyone was in fine spirits.
After a dinner of some spicy chili the wind increased and the swells did too.
I'm kinda fuzzy on the details of the last night at sea because I spent the
entire night wedged sideways into my bunk trying to pretend I was somewhere
else. I was not very happy and beginning to rethink my ability to cross
the Pacific. I knew that the seas conditions we were in weren't nearly as
bad as they could be, and I think that's what worried me most. How am I
going to react when it gets really tough? I'm hoping that more time at sea
will help be build confidence. More shocked than anyone, Seayanika took second place in our
division in the HaHa. We're convinced it was because few boats in our division
turned in their timesheets. Oh well, we'll take it anyway we can get it.
Once in Cabo San Lucas our crew peeled off one by one, leaving Erik and I alone
to continue on. On Saturday
morning we left for Ensenada de los Muertos. The trip was uneventful,
thankfully, and the anchorage was beautiful. We shared the anchorage with
Patagonia, Kanaloa, Relax, and our good friends Tom & Nancy on Liberty and Bob
and Joanne on Wanderer III. We all met up at the "yacht club" for some
cocktails before retiring back to our boats for dinner. Then, out of
nowhere, seas and wind came racing into the anchorage knocking all the boats
around and causing havoc. Most of the men ended up spending the night in
their cockpit for an all night anchor watch. The next morning almost all the boats left the anchorage
heading for Puerto Balandra. The skies were mostly overcast, with
occasional sprinkles of rain or with the sun peeking between the clouds.
Arriving near Puerto Balandra we were sorry to note that the anchorage was not
calm with the westerly winds, so we continued on to La Paz, arriving about 3:00
pm. (To be continued...)
Nov. 2004
Baja HaHa
On October 25th, at 10:00 a.m., Erik and I, along with our
crew of my sister Valeri, David Berting of Honolulu, and Bruce Hayes of San
Diego, threw off the docklines on our way to Mexico.
Channel
10 of San Diego was in attendance to document the tearful event. The start
of the HaHa was spectacular with most of the 150 participating boats flying
their colorful spinnakers. Helicopters were buzzing around above taking
photos. The only fly in the ointment was that it was raining slightly and
the sky was overcast.
But
the fleet limped into Bahia Santa Maria during Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
We arrived at about 10:00 p.m. on Sunday in the first third of boats, but we had
motored most of the way. We did however, catch a lot of fish during leg
two, most of them skip jack which we released, but we did keep a 48" dorado and
a 44" bull dorado. Also, it was in Bahia Santa Maria that I cut off Erik's
ponytail, something I had been threatening to do for awhile. He actually
looks like respectable now!Nov. 2004
Baja Continued
On Wednesday, Nov. 10th we left Cabo on our way to Los
Frailes, about 45 miles. We could only raise the mainsail with two reefs
because we had ripped three grommets during the HaHa, so motorsailing was the
best we could do. (Our tachometer was our other casualty.) The day
again started out perfectly, but once we passed San Jose del Cabo we hit a
northerly, with short choppy seas on the nose, which slowed our progress
significantly. We arrived in Los Frailes to a calm, beautiful anchorage
and dropped the hook. Many HaHa boats were in the anchorage with us
including Tincho and Gloria on Patagonia and Doug and Kumi on Kanaloa.
Since Erik had developed a head cold, I snorkled alone along the rocks and saw
sargent-majors, gars, a couple of parrot fish, and several other types of reef
fish. The visibility was pretty good. We stayed a couple of days
enjoying the beach but on Friday afternoon had to leave post-haste because the
wind shifted and our anchors started to drag. Several of the boats rounded
the corner to the north side of Frailes. Dec.2004
To Mainland
After waiting for our weather window, we left La Paz on Thursday, Dec. 2nd en route to Mazatlan. The crew we arranged, Jim Kennedy from Ireland, showed up just as we were casting off the dock lines. Whew! Our friends on Liberty and Wanderer III had left about a half hour before us and we were going to make a stop with them at Ensenada de Los Muertos. It was a bit rolly for awhile, and we weren't able to sail, but the trip wasn't too bad. We arrived in Los Muertos just at sundown, dropped the hook, and took the dinghy to the "yacht club" for dinner. This was our last time to see both Liberty and Wanderer III, because they were off to the Puerto Vallarta area. The next morning (Friday) at 6:30 am we departed for Mazatlan accompanied by our buddies on Patagonia and Kanaloa. After about an hour we saw what we were going to encounter for the entire way across - 8-10 foot seas with an occasional 12 footer, winds from the north between 22-30 knots with gusts well over 45 knots. To put it lightly, it was a wild ride. Seayanika, heavy as she is, was averaging over 8 knots with a single reef in the main and our 110% jib. We actually hit 10 knots of boat speed several times while surfing the waves. Some of these monster waves were coming from dead astern and were higher than our radar arch. Needless to say, the guys thought it was great fun, the women were mostly sick and I spent the entire night on the companionway floor trying to sleep through the turmoil. We arrived in Mazatlan on Saturday morning at about 10:00 am and arranged a slip at Marina Mazatlan. It's a great marina and we're comfortable here, but we're going to move over to Marina El Cid on December 19th for our guests. The El Cid Marina has more amenities, several pools and jacuzzis, and is a little closer to town. The weather is perfect, the drinks are cold and life is good! Jan.2005
Maz - PV
We spend a near perfect month and a half in Mazatlan with visits from friends and family. First our friend Gwen and her daughter Cori arrived for a week during Christmas. While they were in town we took the short ride out to Deer Island for a day of volleyball, sun and fun. Our Canadian friends, Jack and Valeri also joined us for the trip. We did the same trip again about a month later after my daughter Lanika arrived, and this time Jack and Val brought a sumptuous picnic lunch for everyone. Volleyball was again the diversion of preferrence, this time, the guys (Erik, Jack & Brent) against the girls (Nika and myself). I'm not sure how, buy the guys won - it had to have been a fluke!!! Another really fun thing we did in Mazatlan was to participate in the first Copa de Mazatlan Regatta. Sounds like a boat race, right? Well, it was, of a sort. The boats entered could only be wind powered, 18" maximum length, 9" maximum beam, and could not contain any foam of any sort. Erik took the challenge seriously and spent four days building a beautiful little balsa and fiberglass sailboat. He even went so far as to talk me into sewing a multi-colored spinaker and sailbags!!! We didn't win the regatta, but we did take the award for the 'prettiest'. Some of the other entries (about 20 of them) were so ingenious and so hysterical that the entire event was a huge success. Our great friends John & Rita showed up on Jan. 19th and after a few days of eating and drinking in town we decided to have our last hurrah on Stone Island and another volleyball game ensued. Aha! This time the girls soundly beat the guys. Sadly, Lanika was leaving the next day and Erik and I, John & Rita did an overnight passage to Isla Isabela. The island is beautiful and reminds me of a mini-Galapagos, with thousands of birds and abundant marine life. We saw so many whales breaching and diving..it was truly amazing. Our next stop was Chacala and the trip was warm, the seas were flat, but unfortunately there was no wind so we motorsailed. John & Rita had to get back to Mazatlan for their flight home, so I accompanied them to Tepic for an overnight stay. We're now in La Cruz, in Banderas Bay (near Puerto Vallarta) after a windy and lumpy sail down the coast. We've caught up with many cruiser friends here like, Snow Goose, Iron Rose and Windcastle and it will be hard to keep on schedule with so many fun people around. But, we must continue on down the coast to catch up with our buddies on Liberty and Wanderer III, so once the wind calms down around Cabo Corrientes, we'll be heading farther south. Here's some photos:
The photo on the left proves that Erik did accomplish some work in Mazatlan. Here you see him adding the long awaited teak on the swim step. On the right is a photo of Erik and German, a good buddy and ex-volleyball partner.
Here we have some photos from the regatta. On the left is "Seayanikita", Erik's mini-masterpiece. On the right is the regatta starting line and some of Seayanikita's competition. Check out the monkey baloon. It was attached to a vodka-ballasted bottle with a six foot string and it nearly won the race.
Feb.2005
PV-ZIH
After we left La Cruz we stopped in P.V. for fuel then went on to Yelapa. Yelapa is a very interesting village, mainly because it is only reached by boat. Built on the sides of the hills surrounding a deep bay, small walking paths meander through the town. Yelapa also has a couple of waterfalls that make a nice hike through the mountains. Since Erik and I were only going to stay for one night, we opted to take a panga into town for a walk and dinner. Unfortunately, once we were ready to return to Seayanika there we no pangas to be found, so we had to swim back. But it was fun! From Yelapa we had a very pleasant trip around Cabo Corrientes and stopped in at Ipala for the night. The next day we made the 52 mile passage to Chamela. We stayed in Chamela a few days hanging at the beach palapas and snorkeling at the beautiful islands in the center of the bay. Our next stop was to be the Careyes coast where huge multi-million dollar houses and expensive hotels are built up the hillsides. After several failed attempts to find the safe entrance to the bay according to our Charlie's Charts, we decided to continue on to Tenacatita Bay less than 20 miles down the coast. Tenacatita, a huge bay, is a cruiser's paradise. Within the bay there are several areas to anchor in, beach palapas, the small town of La Manzanilla across the bay, and a great passage through the mangroves which rivals anything Disneyland could fabricate. Erik and I, along with friends Roy and Marlene on Jellybean took our dinghies for the hour and a half ride through the mangroves to it's conclusion at the beachside palapas. We didn't see any aligators, but were convinced they saw us. It was a fabulous ride. (See some photos on the Photo Page.) There were about 30 other cruiser's at Tenacatita and there was always something going on; beach volleyball, pot lucks, dinghy raft-ups, etc. We wished we could stay longer, but we needed to keep going to catch up with Liberty and Wanderer III, who were waiting for us at our next stop, Barra de Navidad. Barra is another fun place for cruisers. We opted to anchor in the lagoon particularly because the marina, although really nice, was going to cost us $66.00 a night. A little steep for our current budget. The lagoon is very calm, but very shallow in some places and must be negotiated very carefully. One of our fellow Ha-Ha-er's (name withheld to prevent embarrasement) had the misfortune of going aground on a falling tide and was stuck heeled over for six hours. Here in Barra we finally caught up with our friends and dinghied into town to find a comfortable place to watch the SuperBowl. We didn't see too much of the game as we were having more fun bar-hopping and checking out the town. We spent about 4-5 days in Barra, said goodbye for the last time to many of our Ha-Ha friends, and continued south with Liberty. Our next stop was just north of Manzanillo in a small cove just off Santiago Bay called La Audiencia. This cove is dominated by a huge 21-story hotel called Gran Costa Real which was a pretty easy landmark to find. We spent a few days here, visited by other cruiser friends on Mija and Outbound, and even caught up with our realtors and good buddies, Bill & Karen Hirschman, who had come in on a cruise ship for the day.
On the left is the 'mega-hotel' in La Audencia. On the right are friends (from left) Tom, Erik in background, Bill, Karen and Nancy.
Continuing down the coast we attempted to overnight in Cabeza Negra, but after three hours decided it was too rough for our liking, and instead made an overnight passage to Caleta de Campos. Caleta was great for boogie boarding and getting more practice with dinghy landing in the surf. Gotta time them waves!! We had anchored Seayanika maybe a little too close to the surf zone and on our second day there, paid the price. A rogue 8-foot swell lifted and twisted Seayanika sufficiently to cleanly snap one of our 5/8" double-braid bridle lines with a loud pop. Okay, it was time to move away from the beach a bit! After several days in Caleta we left early one morning for the all day passage to Isla Grande near Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo. Isla Grande, also known as Isla Ixtapa, is an interesting little place. There are about 15 palapa restaurants on three small beaches, all serving the same overpriced fish, shellfish and beer. They open at around 8 a.m., close at 5 p.m. and by 7 p.m. the island is shut down and everyone is gone. The lack of menu variety is mostly due to the fact that there is no electricity on the island and everything is brought in and returned daily. In spite of these shortcomings, Isla Grande is a fine place to stay for a few days or a week because the water is beautiful and the snorkeling and diving is good. Plus we've happened upon 'Nico' a friendly waiter from the palapa 'Antonio's', who provides great service and sells beer at 3 for $25 pesos (about $2.30). We're leaving for Zihuat tomorrow.
Mar 2005
Zihuat
Ah, there is a reason that Z-Town is one of my favorites in Mexico. It's big enough to provide a wide variety of restaurants and services for all, and small enough that people greet you by name and everyone is easy to find. Just the right mix of tourism and old Mexico. The first time I visited Zihuatanejo was in 1976 when I spent a month alone camping on the beach at La Ropa with a daily visit from a curious burro or two. Things have changed and there is a large hotel where I used to camp, but the charm is not gone. Erik and I first anchored in the Municipal bay, and although too dirty to make water, it's just a short dinghy ride away to an easy surf landing where 'Ney' awaits to guard the dinghies for a small tip. Ney's service provides a total sense of security that your dinghy will be more than safe. We spent about a week in Municipal taking care of business and then moved over to the anchorage in front of Playa La Ropa where the water is cleaner. There are 14 boats that are leaving for the South Pacific from Zihuatanejo and a great guy, Paul on Carmelita, has taken on the hefty responsibility or organizing the 'Puddle Jumpers' into a cohesive group. Information is being shared, communications while underway are being set up and everyone is getting to know one another. This is a great assurance that during our crossing and beyond, we'll be surrounded by friends. Erik is currently alone on Seayanika as I have flown up to California to pick up boat parts, take care of some property business, and look for crew for the crossing. We'll be going it alone even if we don't find crew but the crossing will be much more relaxing with other bodies aboard. Now the trick is finding a calm, laid back person who can take time off to stare at the deep blue for a month or two. Just about everyone wants to go, but most can't. I'll be returning to Zihuatanejo on March 14 along with friends Brad & Yolanda, with a couple hundred pounds of gear. On the 21st our friends will depart, and around the 24th, weather permitting, we should be pulling anchor and heading west. I won't be able to do website updates again until we get to the Marquesas, but I'm sure I'll have lots to report when I do.
Pictured above is another great sunset in Manana Land, looking west from Zihuatanejo's Municipal anchorage.March 22
Final Prep
Ok, still here in Zihuatanejo waiting for our weather window and our crew. We were planning on leaving in two days but our crew won´t arrive until Friday. We also still have to install the new prop and make the final adjustments to our SSB which is not transmitting well. So our departure should be this Sunday, weather, Port Captain and Immigration permitting. If you visited the main page of Seayanika´s website you will see that I´ve added a link to Pangolin Yotreps. By clicking on the link you will be able to see our progress across the Pacific. I will attempt to update it daily. However, if updates are missing, do NOT assume we have fallen off the face of the earth. It may just mean we aren´t able to connect with our email server. I´m nervous, excited, frantic, busy and at times cranky, but I´m happy to be finally heading to the South Pacific. Wish us luck!
PACIFIC CROSSING UPDATES ARE ON THE NEXT PAGE "South Pacific".
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