The Cruising Life of Freshman - Finale

As we were writing about our freshman year, we realized that we packed a lot of adventure into the four months between Banderas Bay and our arrival in San Carlos. We’re going to get you caught up in this post and get ready for our second season of full-time cruising.  

We stayed in Santispac until May 21st when we sailed under Genoa to the more southerly anchorage at Santa Barbara. The cove was quiet and peaceful. We enjoyed a dinghy tour of Playa el Burro and Playa Coyote, snorkeled a sailboat wreck, and hiked to a beautiful point on the NE corner of the Bay where we were treated to stunning views of Bahia Concepcion. On May 23rd, we headed to Punta Chivato which is just north of Bahia Concepcion. We paddled to shore and explored an abandoned hotel, walked along the beach, and visited with a very nice “gringo” who had owned a home for about 40 years. On the 24th, our friends on Fly Aweigh II surprised us in the anchorage so we invited them over for cocktails and pizza. It was a fun night.

We bid farewell to Allan and Alison on Fly Aweigh in the morning of the 25th and set out under full main and Genoa to Isla San Marcos where we anchored on the west side in Sweet Pea Cove. We swam and snorkeled on the north side. The wind switched to southerly on May 28th and we started to see clouds of gypsum approaching from the “quarry”  further south of us so we pulled anchor and sailed to Santa Rosalia where we were lucky enough to get a slip. We spent 2 days exploring the Eiffel Church, provisioning, and enjoying a meal with our friends from Sally. On the 30th, we motored out of Santa Rosalia expecting a beautiful sail to the mainland. However, the wind gods must not have looked favorably on us that day as we motored for FIFTEEN hours and safely dropped the hook in Bahia Algodones. On the way across, we caught another skipjack tuna and decided to keep this one as Katie and Brian from Sally told us that skipjack is good to eat. We filleted the fish and had it for dinner. It was not as good as the yellow fin tuna but definitely not as awful as the Crevalle Jack! 

In Algdones, we swam, endured a bout of food poisoning that we were gifted in Santa Rosalia, and visited the old, abandoned set of the movie “Catch 22”. We watched the movie beforehand so we had some context…my, how things have changed in the 60 or so years since the movie was made! We also enjoyed a a meal at “Soggy Pesos” and, likely, had one of the last meals being served there. The land lease expired and the owners had to vacate the property. After 2 days in Algodones, we had a beautiful sail to Bahia San Pedro. We anchored in the southeast corner of the bay. We enjoyed more daily swims and walks on the beach as we recovered from our food poisoning. 

On June 6th, we headed out of San Pedro under a double-reefed main and a sliver of Genoa into 20-25kt winds. We sailed about 7nm out only to discover that we were actually sailing backwards due to a ~3kt counter current. We decide to “call it” after realizing we were north of San Pedro; so we started the iron Jenny and headed back south towards Algodones. This time we anchored in the south portion of the Bay. We dinghied around the bay, walked on the beach, explored Marina Real by dinghy, and enjoyed some “down time”. On the 10th we enjoyed another beautiful sail to the anchorage in San Carlos where we dropped the hook; our last anchorage this season. 

Brother Eric joined us in SC and hooked us up with a SCUBA trip on Saturday, June 11th. Neither one of us had been diving in several years but it turned out to be like a bike…you just get back on and start pedaling! We had a great time thanks to Eric and Ocean Sports as well as our dive guides, Steve and Heidi. On the 12th, we went for a short, glorious sail with Eric and experienced a bittersweet moment as we dropped the hook for the last time before summer. 

We pulled into the San Carlos Marina on the 13th and feverishly began the process of preparing IG for her summer lay-up on the hard. The level of effort that it took to put her to bed for the summer was INCREDIBLE but we won’t bore you with all the details. Suffice to say that it was a full-time job in oppressive heat. We literally drank gallons of water each day as the sweat poured out of us. We hauled out on June 23rd and on the 25th, Eric drove us back to the States for what turned out to be a whirlwind trip! 

We first spent a week in AZ visiting with Jeff’s family. We flew home to OR on the 2nd of July and were met by our son, Quinn, who graciously drove us to our land home. We formed great memories while we were home visiting with family and dear friends. Michelle went back to work at the hospital for 9 weeks while Jeff busied himself with getting the house ready to rent. This was no easy task as we had 16 years of “stuff” and an entire house full of furniture. Jeff began the process of the 3 “D’s”; discover, decide, disposition. First we had to discover everything that had lain hidden for many years, then decide whether to keep or dispose, and finally dispose by selling, giving to our children, or giving to GoodWill. We distilled our lives down to a 10x20 storage unit and shed many tears as pictures came down and belongings were packed away. Fortunately, our kids took a great deal of furniture but we donated a LOT of very well-maintained items to those less fortunate. We were officially “homeless” on August 31st. A lovely family moved into our home and we set about preparing for our departure from Hood River. 

We donated our beloved windsurfing van to Make-a-Wish Foundation, sold Michelle’s car, and packed the Expedition FULL of things we were taking back to the boat. We camped a few days, spent a couple of days in a hotel, and about 5 days with Kassandra, Ryan, and Bella. We took a road trip by way of Bend to see Quinn’s new place and Eugene to visit with Sadie and Sage and take in a spectacular Broadway performance of “Hamilton”! Onward to Tucson with a gorgeous drive through the Redwoods. We arrived in Tucson on September 19th at about 1am! Michelle flew to FL on the 20th to see her mom and Jeff drove down to San Carlos to check on things. Unfortunately, there was not much progress being made on the boat and we became worried that we would not get back in the water as planned. We resigned ourselves to the possibility of being delayed and did what we could to move things along. We also severed our last real ties to land by selling the Expedition; we became “carless” for the first time since we were in our teens! There is something scary but liberating when you give up so many possessions!  

Our worries proved to be correct and we ended up being delayed almost 4 weeks. As happened in Port Townsend last year, the delays resulted in our missing a window to head north into the Gulf to explore Bahia de Los Angeles. We finally splashed on October 31st and what a sweet relief to have our girl back in the water. As we write this, we are sitting on the dock nearly 2 weeks after splashing and she is almost ready to go. Today the Genoa was hoisted and furled. The main is soon to go on. The boards are strapped to the new stainless steel railings. We are provisioned. We will busily finish preparing the girl and will head out tomorrow evening for our first sail since June. Our plan is to cross the Gulf to Punta Chivato where we hope to get a few days of windsurfing in as a “Norther” is supposed to fill in on Wednesday and Thursday. From there, we will hopscotch our way down the Baja Peninsula and make our way to Banderas Bay. 

Join us as we launch into our second season of cruising!