Category Archives: Boatschooling

Refill the kitty in 3 months!

After 10 months of sailing around, it was time to refill the cruising kitty. We spent over our $12,000/year budget in unexpected, yet typical, repairs and replacements. Since we were so close to the US and easy access to work, we decided to take the hottest time in Mexico (July, August, September) off of the boat and head to The States to refill our hungry cruising kitty.

If you haven’t read the “about me” part of our blog, then you may need to be informed of my profession. I’m a Registered Nurse, specifically a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse. If you’re saying to yourself “what’s that?”, I take care of premature and very sick babies. I’ve been doing this for over 12 years now and I still haven’t lost my passion for it. In fact, it was actually hard to put in my notice at UCSF 11 months ago so that we could sail away.

In mid May, of this year,when I was able to check my email from La Paz, I found out that my old Unit at UCSF was hiring Travel Nurses for June 28 start date. I checked in with the management team and they said that they would love to have me return for a 13 week assignment! It was too good to be true! June 28 was a little sooner than we wanted, and 13 weeks was a little longer then we wanted, but really, its perfect.

We made it to San Carlos, Mexico, by June 14th with plenty time to put away the boat in Marina Real for a 3 months detour to the US. It took about 3 full days to complete the check list of things to do. This included, but not limited to:

pickling the water maker
fresh water flush through the engine
taking down the sails and stowing them down below
Putting up the sun shades
Cleaning and leaving the heads (toilets) filled with fresh water and vinegar
fresh water washing as much salt waterlogged gear as we could
laundry and getting rid of clothes
eating and cleaning out the perishable food (we did leave cans of tomato sauce, so hopefully we don’t arrive back to the boat with exploded cans of tomato everywhere. Apparently this happens when it gets too hot.)
Placing Bay Leaves in almost all of our bulk food containers. Apparently the Bay Leaf helps keep the Weevils at bay (no pun intended). Thanks Deb on SV Coastal Drifter for that tip.
Packing clothes (REAL shoes, socks, pants AND A BELT, sweaters, and WORK CLOTHES!) , oops I forgot a beanie!
And a couple more odds and ends stuff.

Our pile of stuff to bring back to the US was huge. Mostly because we had to pack for 3 months of on the road adventures. I say “we” but I really mean Christian and the kids. My list of things to bring was small: work clothes, 2 pairs of pants, 2 shorts, and one “nice outfit”, flip flops and my work shoes. Oh and my awesome Brompton folding bike, that we store in our aft shower, for my San Francisco commuting, yay!

Our 10 hour bus ride on the Tufesa bus line ended up being more like 11 hours, but it still wasn’t bad. Reclining seats, AC, 2 bathrooms, 1 check point and 1 border check, and 5 movies later(3 of them, very inappropriate for kids), we made it to Phoenix, AZ for a nominal $80 fee.

After a few days at Christian’s sister’s house in Phoenix, I flew off to start my 3 months of work, leaving behind the family to road trip their way around The States visiting friends and family.

“Was it hard to leave?”, you ask.

EXTREMELY !!! After being so close with each other the last 10 months I’m finding myself really missing their company. But I also know it’s only a short time in the grand sceme of things and totally worth it !

So now I’m here in San Francisco. Christian is on super land nomad dad duty. Boat school is out for summer break and we’ll be doing this up through late September. After all is said and done, we should have overfilled (wishful thinking) our cruising kitty with enough $$$ to get us to New Zealand by our (Northern hemisphere) fall 2017. But you know how cruising works… “We’ll see as we go”!

Yummy grub next to (Cerca de) the bus station in Guaymas. Missing me some good Mexican food !
Christian visits the Grand Canyon while I meet Travel Nurses

Then use my trusty Brompton Folding bike to get to work. Here my “brommie” is sitting pretty on the Bay Area CalTrain.

Mazatlán to La Paz crossing

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We just completed our longest passage yet, a four day sail across to an anchorage just north of La Paz. We motored a half of an hour out of Marina Mazatlán, then hoisted our sails. The motor only turned on again on the Baja coast for an hour in the Cerralvo Channel and then again for another 45 minutes from the channel marker buoys in San Lorenzo Channel to Puerto Balandra.We dropped the hook a few hours after sunset. We were happy to be able to both get a full nights sleep after 3 nights of splitting night watches.

The sail over started slow, picked up for a few, then slow again, the picked up again. Our first two nights we had low, to no wind. Our mileage actually went backwards at times of no wind. We turned around in circles and drifted backward with the current. A little frustrating at times. Most days, the wind would pick up enough in the morning to make forward progress, and later in the day we would pick up speed before the wind dropped off again. We had the most consistent wind the third overnight and through the next day.

On the third day, before the wind picked up, we decided to jump in the water and trail behind the boat. Don’t worry we were all tied on. Christian went first, and Taj had to follow of course. Afterward, I hopped in and then all three kids found their way in. They loved it as was evidenced by screaming, “I feel like a mermaid! I feel like a Dolphin!”. This brought back some life to our stagnant bodies and brains. The girls called it PE underway. Taj definitely needed it. Having a toddler, and a boy to top it off, is challenging at times. When he doesn’t get the energy out, he starts to get a little rambunctious to say the least.

The girls did their school underway and even did it through the weekend in order to have a few days off upon arrival to La Paz. I’m convinced their brains work slower while we are sailing. School seemed to take twice as long underway. It doesn’t help having their little brother climbing all over them, taking pens and pencils away, and hiding books from them. He’s a little bugger I tell ya! Not really, but he keeps us on our toes. I guess that’s fine though, since there isn’t much else to do.

We had our hand line fishing lines out during the day everyday. We only caught one Bonito during the first three days. On our last day, just west of Muertos we caught a shark! As exciting as it was to bring it in, we had no clue what to do when we saw that it was a shark. It was about 5 -6 feet and we definitely weren’t going to keep it. We ended up cutting the line as close to the shark as we dared to get. We’re not sure what kind it was. We are thinking a Silky Shark. If you know, comment below please!

On the night of our fourth day we anchored in Puerto Balandra. What a beautiful sight. Well, actually it was pitch black with only a sliver of moon. We normally avoid night time anchoring, but the entrance is fairly open and well marked. We arrived under glassy conditions. Shortly after dropping our 65# Mantus Anchor, the wind picked up strong. Thank god we have a good anchor. We slept so well that night! It felt great to be on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez.

Life through polarized lenses is even better than rose! Thanks Teeny Tiny Optics for the awesome glasses. The kids were counting jelly fish to occupy time!

Don’t worry this shark was two days later!
I think we might need a new hand reel after this catch!

Mazatlán for 8 days

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Our original plan was to have a quick 3 day visit to Mazatlán. We recently heard of friends getting stuff robbed off their boat in the middle of the night in the anchorage south of old town, so we anchored off of Isla Venados the first night. The next day we brought the boat to Marina Mazatlán. We heard the marina wasn’t too expensive and we rather pay a little money versus having items stolen off our boat. It also would allow us to make day field trips away from the boat without worrying about theft or dragging anchor.

Two days after our luxurious days in a marina, we noticed the leak in our boat was more serious than we expected. Everything was closed for boat repair/haul out, so we had to wait until Tuesday to do an emergency haulout to repair a broken thruhull for our engine intake. We managed to keep the boat floating through the weekend by using a plunger and bung. Yay! In the mean time we made the best of our forced extended stay in Mazatlán.

In hindsight, I’m grateful for the extended stay, even though our cruising kitty isn’t. Mazatlán is rich in history, full of beautiful people, good food, and has easy bus,taxi, and walks. The mall was in walking distance, which the girls loved. Walmart was also in walking distance, making provisioning easier. The bus ride to historic Mazatlán only costs $1 round trip. The taxi cost anywhere between 70-100 pesos ($5-$6) from downtown to the Marina. We did a lot of walking as well, including the “self-guided walking tour” of the historic district.

We recommend stopping in Mazatlán to all boaters. And definitely eat at Dock7 restaurant at Marina Mazatlán. The seafood is so fresh and amazing and the guys running it are super cool. They also play surfs videos, for an added bonus. 🙂