Tag Archives: kid adventure

3 weeks of sailing heaven!

A 3 week intermission from refilling the kitty was all it took to feel like I was back in sailing heaven again. I decided to extend my travel nurse contract in San Francisco for one more month under the stipulation that I get 3 weeks off to go back to my family and sail with them down the Sea of Cortez. It was just what we all needed; to be back together in warm weather, warm clear water and good family sailing time.

Free diving mamma.

Nina’s triumphant pose as she completes a 40 foot deep fin-less dive.

I met up with the family in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico. I got there by driving 11 hours in a rental car to Phoenix and then taking an 11 hour Tufesa Bus ride across the border from Phoenix to San Carlos all in a matter of 30 hours. Upon arriving to Mexico, my spirit was lifted. I was so excited to spend this time with my family after 3.5 months of working in San Francisco and only seeing them a handful of days during that time. It was time to get some family lovin’.

Free-Diving Daddy

Ellamae’s touch down at 20 feet.

After a few days in San Carlos, we were stocked up and ready to head out. The weather window looked great for heading across the Sea of Cortez, so we opted to leave while we could get good wind. On Sunday, Oct 15th, after our morning in the anchorage and grocery re-load, we sailed off the hook and out of the anchorage. We quickly realized that sailing under jib alone was going to work just fine. We set our course on a nice downwind reach toward Isla Carmen, just off of Loreto on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez. See our short post of pictures and videos here. 2 hours into our sail we hooked 2 Dorado (Mahi Mahi),one male and one female!

Male Dorado, 2 hours south of San Carlos, Mexico.

The rest of the sail was relatively peaceful, with winds up to 30 kts and a furled jib. The wind maintained strength overnight and had us make landfall by 8 am the next morning. We dropped the anchor under sail at Perico anchorage on the east side of the area known as Bahia Salinas on Isla Carmen. With a few hours of rest after not sleeping so well over the night, we found energy in just having the excitement of being out on a deserted island with no one else around. We had the anchorage to ourselves and we were all together as one family unit!

A little home-school art.

After a few days at Perico, we decided to head a few miles north to an anchorage called Painted Cliffs. Again, we had the anchorage to ourselves. Christian and I started to get in a morning routine of waking up at 4:30 am, drinking our bulletproof coffee and conversed under the stars and into the sunrise. I would then go for a 40-50 minute swim and Christian would go for a 5-10 mile stand-up paddle board excursion. The kids would wake up, start school and by lunch time we were all ready for a free-diving / fishing break. Painted Cliffs had this amazing ledge to dive on. The visibility was about 55 feet and the water was 84 F, even at 65 feet deep! After spearing a decent size grouper, we played around with going deep. Nina made it to 59 feet! I was surprised at how much easier it was for me to make it down to the bottom (65 feet) and stay down there for a little bit. I thought for sure that it would take me a while to re-acclimate to diving since I had been on land for so long. I guess there’s muscle memory for that sport too. Having the water temp so warm and the visibility so clear, made a huge difference as well.

Isla Carmen

Nina’s fantastic effort at SUP handstand.

The weather forecast wasn’t looking so good for wind taking us anywhere, so we decided to head for the more southern anchorage on Isla Carmen known as Punta Colorado. The view from there was stunning.

Punta Colorado, Isla Carmen. East of Loreto, Baja California, Mexico.

The next day, after our morning routine, we were able to sail off the hook and head toward Isla Monserrate. Another sail onto the hook, and a swim in the water. Unfortunately, one hour after we fell asleep, we woke to our swim step clanking around. Christian went on deck to take a look and noticed the wind had switched onshore and was blowing 15 kts and quickly picking up speed to 20. It was pitch black and we had to get out of there fast. If you’re reading this and wondering what the heck I’m talking about… it’s not safe to be anchored on a lee-shore. Meaning, that you don’t want to be anchored where the wind is blowing toward shore, due to the chance of dragging anchor and having your boat end up crashed on the reef or on shore. There were submerged rocks and reefs on the chart that we had to make sure we stayed clear of. Instead of sailing off the hook this time, we could not take any chances at being blown toward shore or the reef, we used our engine to help motor us into the wind while Christian brought up the anchor. With our RPM well above 2,300, we were able to make a clear path just out enough past the rocks to unfurl the jib and turned the engine off. We made a quick 7 mile reach to Agua Verde, a familiar anchorage to come in to at O-Dark-30. All of this while the kids slept peacefully. We woke up to the familiar, lovely bay of Agua Verde having the northwestern anchorage to ourselves and our kids asking how we got there.

Agua Verde always holds a special place in our memories. There is just something about it we can’t quite describe. We’ve blogged about it before (here and here again), so I won’t go into it too much more. About mid-day another boat came into anchor by the name of Katie Gat. Here are a few photos from the one full day that we spent there:

S/V Shawnigan and S/V Katie Gat in Agua Verde, Baja California.

Hydration station: Christian packs his Camelback everywhere, so we don’t risk getting dehydrated in the hot desert Baja environment.

The local tienda (market) in Agua Verde.

This is how we pack out our groceries in Agua Verde.

Eating bags of frozen “agua de piña” we bought in Agua Verde for 10 pesos per bag. (That’s about $0.50 for a huge bag of frozen real fruit juice.)

From Agua Verde we had a nice sail off the hook, a down wind sail out of the bay, and the wind so nicely cocked around to keep us on a down wind run heading south to San Everisto. We ended up staying one and a half days there, swimming, schooling, and stand-up paddle boarding. We were hoping to do a little more fresh produce shopping, but the tienda that was normally open was closed. We were guessing that we were a little early in the season for regular hours.

Taj loves his magnet toys.

Pizza making aboard S/V Shawnigan #tinymess

Taj is mommy’s helper in the kitchen. We made gluten free bagels out of Pamela’s gluten free baking mix.

Next stop, Isla San Jose. Another lovely, mostly beam reach, sail eastward across the channel to the old salt mine area on Isla San Jose. Again, we sailed onto the hook with the anchorage to ourselves. Shortly after dropping the anchor, we paddle boarded to shore for a walk along the shallow salt ponds and along the beach to the lighthouses and back. The walk ended up being 3 hours long!

Terra the xterraboard with S/V Shawnigan anchored out of of Isla San Jose salt mine with the Sierra Gigante mountain range in the background.

Photo by: Nina Lauducci

salt flood walkers… we do not advise this 🙂

Photo by: Nina Lauducci

Photo by: Nina Lauducci Isla San Jose old Salt Mine Rusted Truck

Photo by: Nina Lauducci

Above two groups of photos taken by Nina for her photography elective.

Holding hands and sportin’ the gear on our salt mine walkabout. Photo by: Nina Lauducci

The next morning we sailed just south and dropped the hook for a short stop at the mangroves. We were apprehensive to stay longer with rumors of the no-see-ums being really bad. Our stop including a dingy tour of the mangrove. What a blast! We all jumped in and got a tow behind the dinghy.

Isla San Jose Mangrove Dingy Tow

Dinghy Tow

Nina and Ellamae @ Isla San Jose Mangrove

Taj steering the dinghy for a family mangrove tour at Isla San Jose.

Once done with our tour of the mangrove, we sailed around the east side of Isla San Francisco (a first for us) and passed it on by (another first). Alas, our time was starting to become limited, I had to get to La Paz to fly out by October 31st and the weather was predicting a drop off of wind. As many of you know, we like to sail as much as possible and avoid using the engine, so we used to wind that we had that day, waved to Isla San Francisco and went straight to Ensenada Grande on Isla Partida.

As predicted, the wind was null the next day, so we were excited to take the opportunity to go dive with the Sea Lions at Los Islotes! When we woke, we were double excited, because our friend and fellow kid boat Waponi Woo showed up in the middle of the night and anchored next to us! We had basically been alone for almost 2 whole weeks, except for the one boat in Agua Verde. We were jazzed to see friends and even more jazzed to see a kid boat!

Waponi Woo at Ensenada Grande

As soon as everyone was awake, we motored our boats over to Los Islotes. We anchored in 58 feet of water where the Shaun and Heater guide shows to anchor. Waponi Woo anchored just west of us. There was hardly a breath of wind and the water visibility was about 55 feet! We had the most amazing time swimming with the sea lions.

: Ryan from Waponi Woo

Christian down at 25 feet.

Damselfish

After an amazing morning with the Sea Lions we ventured back to Ensenada Grande for the night. Then next day we sailed to Caleta Lobos for one last relaxing anchorage to ourselves before heading into La Paz. We had 13 full days of no cell or wifi service. It was GREAT!!!

Christian checking in on the Amigo Net.

The kids were happy to arrive to La Paz for a little kid boat action with S/V Secret Water.

After a few days there, it was time to fly out for Ellamae and I. Ellamae was flying out to spend time with her Papa and I needed to go back to work in San Francisco for the month of November. We took the Volaris flight from La Paz to Tijuana, then hopped across the border into San Diego. From there we parted ways at the airport. Next time we will all be together will be in the Puerto Vallarta area on December 1st. Christian is single-handing it, with some help from Nina, until that time. Super dad!

Looking down on Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida. One the very left you can just barely see Los Islotes (where we swam with the sea lions).

Navionics working on the plane.

San Antonio, Mulege, Punta Chivato

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Still catching up on posts from June, 2017, when we were still making our way north, in the Sea of Cortez.

⛵️⛵️⛵️Now, three boats deep, Easy, Kenta Anae and Shawnigan left from La Ramada around lunch time and sailed the not quite 10 miles to San Antonio. We were excited to go check out this a huge obsidian vein there. 26.521937, -111.450718 .

The south end of the point was too exposed to the prevailing wind, so we went around to the north side and set anchor at San Antonio (proper) 26.533917, -111.477790. We all met ashore, soon after anchoring, to get a hike in before evening set. Another perfect geology lesson for boat-school life. Getting to the road was an adventure. We bushwhacked our way until we finally found the road/trail. Not so fun with all of the prickly brush and cactus to avoid. Before climbing the peak, we first hit up the obsidian vein. Black, grainy and shiny at the same time, the vein looked like a petrified waterfall and surrounding us, looked like petrified water droplets that had misted to the ground at our feet.Taj, Matero, Shandro, Nina and Ellamae.

After a few minutes of exploring the obsidian vein, we made the trek up the steep hill to the top point. Taj hiked the whole way! I think he wanted to impress the Kenta Anae boys, or maybe he was just distracted. The view was fantastic, as always in the Sea of Cortez. We took time to soak it all in.(I could resist groping this tree’s butt) 😬

The way back to the boat was more straightforward. We just followed the road that led to the beach, then walked the beach up to our dinghies. As we sat, before heading back to the boat, S/V Dad’s Dream (from Isla Corondo) showed up and anchored out beyond us.

Not long after we got back to the boat and had dinner, the southerly swell started to wrap around and make its way into the anchorage. We had our flopper stopper out, as did Easy, but there was no comfort being found at this spot. We called Easy, Kenta Anae and Dad’s Dream and announced that we were pulling up anchor and heading up around the corner to San Nicolas, 26.868896, -111.848712. The stay there was just for an overnight before heading up and around to Bahia Conception. All four us us made the move to San Nicolas just after sunset, but before dark. The anchorage was much more comfortable than San Antonio and we were that much closer to our next stop, 26.870196, -111.846589 , about 30 miles away for another brief overnight sleep. The three of us sailed up together. Dad’s Dream stayed behind. The sail up and around was beautiful and uneventful. Kenta Anae kicked our butts (they are fast! There, I said it out loud, Merle!).

The next morning we motored an hour over to Mulege 26.906125, -111.954573 to go to shore and re-provision. We anchored in about 15 feet of water on a “roadside” anchorage. Our time was limited, as we knew that the regular wind would be picking up around noon. We found a few tiendas (small grocery store) to stock up at, a park to play in, and an ice cream shop to treat the kids with. Ice Cream is ok at 10 in the morning when you’ve walked 2 miles to get to town, it’s hot, and the last time you had it was in La Paz, right?!

We made it back to the boats just before noon and sure enough, the wind was starting to pick up. We were able to sail off the hook and head due north toward Punta Chivato 27.066717, -111.962607 . Once anchored in front of the lovely Punta Chivato, I had time to swim and the kids, relax, before heading into shore to explore. As Kenta Anae was anchoring they saw a whale shark, but we were not able to see it. I was hoping when I was swimming that I would see it, but all I saw was barely my fingertips 2.5 feet in front of me. The visibility was terrible and the water was not that warm. Warmer than Isla Coronado and La Ramada, but still pretty chilly.

On shore, we all took a stroll down the main road toward and abandoned building we saw on the beach. We were intending to go explore “shell beach” (literally and beach completely covered in shells), but we got distracted by the vacant dilapidated building. We found out that it was once a hotel, but somehow lost ownership and has been destroyed by storms. The kids spent an hour just wandering around it, making up scary stories about it. FUN! I wish I took more pictures of it, and the ones that I did were lost when I tried to back them up to “the cloud”. So, I apologize for the lack of photos for this section.View from the building!

After exploring that area, we ran into a part-time resident that suggested a restaurant named Doña Julia’s. We weren’t expecting to eat out, but she told us that the price ends up being $2.50 a head. Not sure whether to believe her or not and if it was true, was that a good sign or not, but we thought we’d give it a go. It was a GREAT choice. Basically we ate in this families enclosed porch. Julia gave us two options for food, fresh fish of the day or enchiladas. We made our choices and she brought it all out, family style, along with refried beans and salad. We asked what the fish was and she said it was “strong fish” or “Toro”. Guessing that was not the Toro which is Tuna and some kind of Jack instead , which we normally don’t like, we were amazed at how well it tasted. And sure enough, it was $2.50 a person!

One more reason to LOVE Mexico!Plate full of enchiladas!

Next up: Isla San Marcos (one of our favorites! ) and Santa Rosalia. Stay tuned.

Don’t let having kids stop you from living an adventurous lifestyle.

2 Replies

Happy Easter! Hopefully one full of adventure!

One thing I will never regret is having kids. We are a sailing family of 5 living on a 40 foot monohull. Both my husband, Christian and I come from adventurous lifestyles which do not include having children for many people. From the very beginning, we decided to not let having kids get in the way of living an adventurous lifetime together. Sure, there was an adjustment period, some things are harder and more limited, but with the desire, patience, the right safety tools, good gear, and amazing friends, we are able to still live life to its fullest… well, almost.
First and foremost all you need is the desire to continue living a life full of adventure. I realize this make look different for everyone. For some it may include skydiving, base jumping, climbing the 10 highest peaks in the world. For others, adventure might be a few camping trips a year. For us adventure is surfing, swimming, yoga, biking, hiking, camping, road trips, and SAILING THE WORLD! The biggest change with having kids is the thought process that “life is not about just you anymore”. So, for those skydivers and base jumpers, the fact that you have a little one that depends on you may alter your adventurous activities a little more than the weekend camper type adventurer. Keep on having fun, be open to finding a new balance.
Having a child teaches patience and a level of selflessness. No longer can you do things on a whim, for the majority of the time. Selfishness turns to selflessness. That doesn’t mean you need to let that stop you from doing what you want. You just have to work on planning better and creating the opportunity to allow for what you want to do to happen. For example; add an extra 30 minutes to all of your departure times. It’s amazing how much time packing a few extra diapers, extra clothes, food, etc., will take. It goes without fail that your child(ren) will have to go to the bathroom right as your walking out the door to go somewhere. Your previously 5 hour road trip will now be 6 – 7 hours with the added necessary breaks. Just expect it and make the best out of it. Our road trips are more fun when we relax and take our time. Make it a point to slow down and enjoy it. Adventure doesn’t mean rushed.I took Ellamae rock climbing in Joshua Tree when she was 2. I timed some climbs during nap time, had her join me for a climb and friends helped watch.
Make sure you have the right safety tools suited for yourself, partner, and children for the adventure your on. Maybe even have spares available for taking you child’s friend along. Safety for the child usually comes as second nature, but not always. For us, a major concern is keeping the kids from falling in the water while sailing. We ALWAYS have them in harnesses and tethered if they go out on deck when we are sailing offshore. Don’t forget about yourself! Remember my comment earlier about “it’s no longer just about you anymore!”? Well, it’s true, so you may wanna up the ante on safety. Going rock climbing? Wear a helmet. Sure you might look silly, but better silly and climbing than having your kid grow up seeing you in a long term facility with a brain injury, or worse, growing up without you. I know that’s extreme, but it gets the point across. Obviously the same goes for riding bikes, skiing, etc. Use your best judgement here. When sailing offshore, both Christian and I wear our life harnesses as well. Especially when we are on watch at night. We wouldn’t want to lose anyone at sea. My biggest fear is waking up and not seeing Christian on deck or watching one of our 3 children fall overboard in rough seas and knowing that it would be next to impossible to find them, so we prevent that from happening in the first place. Safety looks a little different for everyone. Living life has risks that are par for the course. If you lock yourself and family up in a bubble you may stay safe from most of life’s perils, but you probably won’t be living the adventure you sought for. Don’t let fear stop you.Harnessed in and having fun!

Now the fun part, proper gear! Usually adventure seekers LOVE gear (gear geek alert)! Having kids just means more fun gear research, seeking, and gathering. Yay! There are so many options for adventure gear which incorporates having the little tikes along with you. I will list a few items for some of our specific adventures. On the top of the list for gear is the need for a good baby carrier. The more portable and comfortable you and your children are, the more likely you will keep on keeping on with your adventures. We used the Beco Baby (ergo like) the most, but there are many other options. Our friend makes her own, know as Obimama, that are handmade and quality. Here is a link to a good guide to baby carriers site. I posted a picture at the bottom of the blog as well. Side note on baby wearing: the more you wear your baby the better balance and self awareness they gain, increasing the child’s chances of also becoming a skilled adventurer. Our friend Natasha carries her 6 month old who’s sleeping to the surf beach in a carrier that converts to a reclining bed hung over the shoulder! Sling and beco baby = versatility and easy to pack in a bag.

As your children get older they do more on their own, maybe slowly, but let them do it. Remember, patience will allow the adventures to continue. Some other gear we suggest: Brompton folding bike, Xtracycle cargo bike, Burley Bike trailer, also the Charriot and other joggers. The list can go on for a long time. Have fun researching ways to keep your active life going! I won’t ruin the fun of seeking your gear out. Personally we go budget style if possible. Up-cycled gear (hand-me-downs) are a favorite for us.
Last but certainly not least, having a good support system around to help. Sometimes all you need is a few hours to go for a surf or swim or do yoga. “Back in the old days” we use to live in the same town we grew up in and family was around and readily available to help. This still happens now and again, but not nearly as it use to, so finding child care for a few hours or the day can be a challenge and can get really expensive. We suggest finding like minded friends with kids, or possibly no kids, that are willing to help support your adventurous lifestyle. We’ve met great friends on the beach to do a child watch surf swap. You watch my child while I surf, I’ll watch yours while you surf. Same for climbing. You might not be on a long multi-pitch climb, but taking turns on some smaller sport climbing routes works. All day peak bagging trips can be done as well.
Remember that your mental health is just as important for your child as it is for you. Take the time for yourself and partner so that you are happy and your children will benefit as well. There are so many ways to think outside the box and continue on living a life of adventure while raising children too. Be adventurous, be unstoppable and have kids!Mom and daughter yoga with another boat mom and daughter in the Marina La Cruz lounge.