Tag Archives: shawnigan

Back on the run, heading south of Mexico for fun!

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Well, more like back on the slow sail (not a fast run). My 13 weeks for refilling the kitty turned into 19 and now we’re topped off. We’re hoping $20,000 will take us south from Mexico, into Central America and Westward. The idea is to cross the Pacific in March from Panama, spend our 3 month visa time in French Polynesia, make our way toward Fiji and then head down to New Zealand. Hopefully we’ll arrive in New Zealand November 2018 with just enough $ to find a place for S/V Shawnigan and our Family Afloat and to find myself a job in the NICU.

So now that you know “Plan A”, stay tuned as we make our way south from La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta). Ellamae and I returned to the boat and family on Friday. Saturday and Sunday we spent at the beach surfing and playing with friends. Today is a Boat-School day and Costco provisioning run. We hope to leave on Wednesday for Tenacatita, possibly stop in Barra de Navidad for Nina’s 15th Birthday, then Santiago. This will be our first time south of Barra (except for when Christian was a kid sailing with his father). We are looking forward to new anchorages and new towns to explore!

Isla San Marcos and Santa Rosalia

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As always, still delayed on the posts and still trying to catch up.

June 14 – 22nd, 2017

The last leg of our journey north in the Sea of Cortez as a family unit all together. I had to get to Santa Rosalia by the 21st of June in order to fly Ellamae over to spend time with her papa, Jason and to get myself to the states to start my 13 week Travel Nursing assignment in San Francisco. Time crunched are never fun when you are cruising. It never ceases to fail that you find something spectacular right when you have to leave. This proved to be the case with Isla San Marcos.

We left Punta Chivato under sail. All three of us, S/V Kenta Anae, S/V Easy, and S/V Shawnigan, sailed off the hook. What a beautiful sight.

The sail north was peaceful. We actually were experiencing a little northerly winds, which is less common this time of year. Regardless, the sail was comfortable and we made it to our first anchorage on San Marcos 27.236156, -112.105651 with only one cool event to post: Taj spotted a Hammerhead shark about 100 meters off our boat. Taj has proven to be quite the shark spotter.  We weren’t close enough to get an exact identity of the type, but we were excited to see our first hammerhead since we started cruising.

We spent the night there and the whole next day to swim and explore. The water was starting to get warmer and was a lot clearer!  We did some spear fishing and lounged around.  We had 7 days to kill and we finally felt like we could settle in a bit more and relax. While we were anchored there, a catamaran showed up with kids aboard! S/V Father’s Grace had two girls between Nina’s and Ellamae’s ages. Isla San Marcos just got even better!

Below: SV Easy And SV Kenta Anae. SV Kenta Anae boys with Taj.

The wind was forecasted to switch back out of the south again, so all four of us picked up anchor and motored north a mile around the point to Los Arcos (The Arches) on San Marcos 27.249928, -112.099544 . From left to right: Kenta Anae, Shawnigan, Easy, and Father’s Grace. ⛵️📷

We all found our sandy spots to drop the hook in. Thankfully the visibility was good enough to distinguish sand from rocky outcrops. The water was still chilly, but warmer than what we were experiencing the previous week.  The visibility was also so much better. It fluctuated with the tide change, but overall it was at least 20 feet at all times. Los Arcos is by far one of the funnest places we’ve spent as a family cruising. Granted, we finished up the year of boat-schooling, so we had more free time, but I still think we would have enjoyed the area just as much. Everyday we snorkeled, spear-fished, and jumped off the arches. There were under water caves to swim through and partially submerged caves to crawl and swim through that lead from one side to the complete opposite side of the mound. 30-35 foot arches to jump off into 12 feet of water.And beach BBQ & bonfires to be had. This was adventure paradise and we were there with nobody else but the four of our boatholds (my #boatlife word for household) !We were hooked on this place and did not want to leave.   S/V Kenta Anae was running out of water, but with our Sprectra Ventura 150 we had enough water to share. That bought us the first “extra” day there. We probably could have stayed another day past already staying another day, but alas, our last food provision was back  in Mulege and we were starting to run low on fresh produce. We needed to get to Santa Rosalia  to stock up and so that I could prep for heading back to the JOB.SV Father’s Grace heading into Santa Rosalia with Ellamae aboard.

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Santa Rosalia doesn’t offer a safe anchorage, so we went to the Fonatur 27.337100, -112.263242  to tie the boat up for a few days.   From the moment the boat hit the dock, the energy level went up.  We were back in civilization and the temperature went up exponentially. “Who turned on the heater?!” The kids wanted to see the city, eat ice cream, eat out, swim in the pool and hopefully meet new kids. The kids even had time to dye the hair of SV Father’s Grace’s dog!📷

I was under a time crunch to pack for The States. I also wanted to clean the boat and have it organized to make Christian’s single dad and captain experience a little more fluid. Christian was in charge of provisioning this time around since he was continuing on with Nina and Taj aboard to head up to Bahia de los Angeles and then up to Puerto Penasco.

With all of the hubbub and the heat, we still managed to enjoy Santa Rosalia.

The Aguila bus station , to catch the bus to Tijuana, is right next to the marina Fonatur. The cost was about $80 for me and $60 for Ellamae. We left on the evening of June 22nd for an overnight bus ride. I wouldn’t be seeing S/V Shawnigan or the rest of the family for at least a month and it would be longer for Ellamae.<<<<
the next day toward Bahia de Los Angles. Mike, on S/V Easy, buddy boating alongside…

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More pics from this time period:a little home-ec On our last day of boatschool before our summer break, we baked and had recitals. Then a lot more jumping!!! and swimming ….

Mr Horned Grebe below:Me, Josie, chasing the grebe.

Los Mangles, La Ramada and San Juanico (June 7th-10th)

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Moving fast: We didn’t stay long at Isla Coronado.  In part, because of the cold water and already spending time there last year, but also because I was on a time schedule to get to Santa Rosalia to put myself on a bus. On June 22nd I had to go the U.S to work a travel nursing assignment and to fly Ellamae to her biological father for the summer. We wanted to get to some areas we hadn’t seen yet before the two of us left the boat life. Sound confusing? It takes a bit of extra planning, but we always seem to make it work.

June 7th: We waiting for the wind to fill in around noon again and we sailed from Isla Coronado to Los Mangles 26.279549, -111.389591. Los Mangles seemed to be a hard name to remember so we nick named it “Muggles” after Harry Potter.  Another flat night on the hook.

The next morning we went to explore ashore. There was an abandoned hotel there that we roamed around, then we went for a hike along the road and arroyo up the hillside to get some exercise and a view.  Along the arroyo we found an abundance of “snails door” shells. It was hard to keep everyone from collecting huge amounts.

That same afternoon on the 8th, we pulled up anchor and set sail northbound. We had a lovely downwind sail to La Ramada, 26.381940, -111.430564 .

Originally we were going to anchor in San Juanico, the bay just to the south of the point, but it appeared to be too exposed to the more predominant southwesterly winds. La Ramada offers better protection from the prevailing winds, but only fits about 5 boats comfortably. There were 2  already anchored in the cove when we arrived, but plenty of room for Easy and Shawnigan. As per routine, we set the anchor and hopped in the water to dive on it to check that it grabbed. We have never found a time when it didn’t grab, thank you Mantus Anchors, but it’s a good habit to get into.

Unfortunately the water was still chilly and green with visibility of 8 feet again.  Once we got below 8 feet, it opened up a bit, but it also got colder. We pulled out our thicker 5/4 wetsuits and more weights to try our luck at spearfishing. We got skunked.

The next day we ventured to a local farm that we heard about from one of the other boats that was already anchored there. With directions like “take the right fork on the road and stay right, eventually you will see it just off the road”, we found it and we are glad we did! The farm had fresh organic goat cheese, beets, onions and eggs! The landscape of the farm itself was worth hiking to see.

If you are planning to go to the farm at La Ramada/San Juanico you can take a peek at the location here: 26.3691834,-111.4442969

Jose

On our way back from stocking up at the farm, we stopped by the “cruisers shrine” on the San Juanico side. S/v Trovita was there, anchored all pretty by herself.S/V Trovita tucked in a sweet spot protected from the wind and swell.

We ate fresh raw goat cheese and looked through most of the other Cruiser’s additions to the shrine. We forgot to bring markers or any memento to leave there this time around.

The next morning, Taj wanted to kayak to shore and fish. He saw a family out there fishing and made his way over to them. We quickly realized that it was Jose and his family. Taj came home a few hours later with 2 good sized trigger fish. He said that he caught them, but we’re pretty sure Jose gave them to him to give to us.

Later on that evening, S/V Trovita contacted us on the VHF radio stating that S/V Kenta Anae was looking for us. Sure enough, they showed up just before sunset! You may recall us mentioning Kenta Anae from previous posts. They are cruising friends who we met and spent a fair amount of time with in the la Cruz/Puerto Vallarta area. We were happy to see them and happy to have boat kids around!!Merle, Matero and Taj heading out fishing. S/V Easy (left) and S/B Kenta Anae (right) at La Ramada anchorage.

After Taj’s fishing trip with Merle, the three of us (Easy, Kenta Anae, and Shawnigan) departed for Punta San Antonio.

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