01/01/2016: Adios 2015, Feliz Año Nuevo

What a year 2015 was. We started the year still living at Galilee Harbor, starting up boat school for both girls for the first time, me working full time at UCSF, and Christian plugging away at getting the final boat projects done and taking on full time child duty.

A few months later, March 1st, we left the harbor and lived on the hook around the Bay Area. We had pictured ourselves anchoring at Treasure Island and Aquatic Park more often. But as cruisers know, “plans change”, and we hadn’t even started cruising yet. We basically spent the next 6 months anchored in Sausalito. Most of our friends were there and our kids’ social life was there.

August 20th we left San Francisco Bay on our 40 foot Stevens sailboat. Leaving was a lot harder emotionally than expected, most in relation with the kids. After a few weeks, we settled into the cruising life. As we saw so many neat and beautiful things, met more cruisers and as the kids met more boat kids, the reality of how cool this actually is started to sink in. For me, it wasn’t until a few weeks after my last day at work (September 30th) and my work commute was done, I finally relaxed into cruising mode.

October 25th we found Emma in San Diego wanting to sail to Mexico on a different boat than she had originally planned. We scooped her up in a heartbeat. (So glad we did!)

November 2, with six people aboard, we left the United Sates and sailed to Mexico. This is when we really felt like we were sailing off! Having met a bunch of other people heading to Mexico and continued to meet people sailing down, our life in this new sailing community had started. We spent the whole month of November just sailing down Baja to Cabo San Lucas. Along the way we celebrated both Ellamae’s 8th birthday and Emma’s 22nd birthday. We somehow ended up buddy boated with three other boats. Casey on Chae Mi was intensional, but the two other “crazy Candians” Pete and Andrew just “sailed” in to place. Sadly the two Canadians did not continue with us after Baja. We miss them already!

December 11th marked our arrival to the mainland of Mexico. We sailed in to Banderas Bay (Puerto Vallarta area) just in time for Nina’s 13th birthday on the 12th. On our sail in we were greeted with a lovely squall. Intense downpour, wind on our nose, and lightning and thunder above our heads. An interesting greeting from Mexico to say the least. For the remainder of December we spent our time between Punta de Mita and La Cruz anchorages. We met a ton more kid boats and other cruisers as well. Many that are going to cross the Pacific Ocean this coming season and a few that plan on summering in the Sea of Cortez and crossing next season as we hope to do.

December 28 we left Banderas Bay and headed South. We hope to slowly sail to Barra de Navidad and then slowly make our way back to Banderas Bay by the end of March.

Accomplishments for 2015 in chronological order:

Started boat schooling!

Untied our dock lines!

Kept our anchor from sticking to San Francisco Bay’s anchorages!

Sailed out “The Gate” and turned left!

Stopped working!

Left United States!

Celebrated 3 birthdays within 1 month on our boat!

Spent 3 1/2 months just to get to the mainland of Mexico!

Broke and fixed our autopilot!

Met a lot of really cool people!

Spent less than $170 on mooring/dinghy dock fees since August ($0.00 on docking fees) !

Sailed ~1,500 miles!

40 days without a freshwater shower!

Continued South for more sailing fun!

We are looking forward to what 2016 has to offer and hope we get visitors along the way!

Happy New Year from Chamela, Jalisco, Mexico!