A Comedy of Errors: Los Muertos to Banderas Bay

Cruising for us is about adventure, seeing new places, and learning new things about the world, each other and ourselves. We’ve learned that sometimes things go well and other times not so well. Fortunately none of our “mistakes” have resulted in catastrophe for the boat or for us, although our relationship has definitely been tested at times! As part of our “sustainable” philosophy, we use renewable energy in the form of solar panels and have taken up making bread and yogurt as well as growing our own herbs. We’re also learning to be better sailors but sometimes it takes a couple of times to learn the lesson!

We pulled out of Los Muertos just after sunrise on December 18^th and pointed our girl towards Los Frailes on the east cape of Baja. Winds were light and variable so we motored for the first half before the wind finally filled in to 5-8kt. We hoisted the spinnaker and sailed for about 45 minutes before deciding to douse it; the winds were so light and every swell that rolled through dumped the wind right out. As Jeff went forward to pull the sock down, he realized that the takedown line had gotten wrapped around the starboard shroud and radar reflector! WAIT! WHAT? Didn’t this just happen to us in Timbabiche? EGADS. OK. So, we didn’t overreact, but we acted very quickly and worked together to problem-solve. Michelle elected to be the hoisted rather than the hoister so she climbed in to the bosun’s chair. This was Michelle’s first time in the bosun’s chair. Ever. Way to embrace the fear and getting tossed about on the rolling sea! We were able to get the takedown line unwrapped very quickly and doused the spinnaker. Finally, the wind filled in nicely to around 10kt and back up went the spinnaker. There was a time that the spinnaker was very frightening to us but it has become a favorite sail! Just as we approached Cabo Los Frailes, the wind picked up to about 17kt and we doused it as we entered the anchorage. We were back in Frailes exactly one year to the day, albeit under quite different conditions from a year ago! While in Frailes, we windsurfed a couple of days but otherwise stayed on the boat. We were treated to our first sightings of Humpies in the Sea!

Approaching Cabo Los Frailes under spinnaker

Cabo Los Frailes...one of our most favorite anchorages in the Sea

We stayed in Frailes 2 days and in the morning of December 21^st, we set sail for the mainland. The seas were a little sloppy but the wind was superb. We surfed down the swell and sailed an incredible 163nm on our first day. The second day was not quite as fast but we arrived in Matanchen Bay just before sunrise, a mere 42 hours after leaving Frailes. We sailed the entire way…now that’s a good index!

Under sail from Frailes to Matanchen

On Christmas Eve, we taxied into San Blas and did some provisioning. We came away with some really nice produce as well as fresh chicken and pork. The little devil bugs, jejenes (no see-ums), were out in full force on the evening of the 24^th so we prepared our girl and ourselves for a sail to Chacala on Christmas Day.

3 little birds sit on our doorstep in Matanchen Bay

We anchored in Chacala about 13:00 on Christmas Day. As you may recall from last year’s experience, stern anchors are used here. The anchorage was not terribly crowded and we anchored like champs! We settled in and made the rounds of calls with family. Chacala is a cute little resort town and we love hearing all the children laughing on the beach. On the 26^th, we strolled through the town and had lunch on the beach. Unfortunately, someone stole a piece of line from our dinghy while we were ashore so that was a bummer. That was the first time we’ve had something stolen from us the entire time we’ve been in Mexico. Oh, well, maybe they needed it more than us?

Chacala...every town in Mexico that we've visited has one of these colorful signs!

On December 27^th, we made our way to Punta de Mita on the northwest point of Banderas Bay. For the last 2 months, we’ve been bopping between Punta de Mita and La Cruz with a short soiree in Paradise Village. The highlights of the last 2 months included surfing, visiting with Michelle’s mom, brother, and sister-in-law when they came to Paradise Village for a week in mid-January, attending cruising seminars, and getting ready for our upcoming Pacific crossing.

Such sweet family time!

We made a trip to Houston at the end of January to apply for French Polynesia long-stay visas (LSV). The LSV will allow us to stay in French Polynesia for 1 year and is renewable. If our LSV is not approved, we will be required to leave French Polynesia within 90 days of our arrival. We are excited, anxious, and resolute about this impending voyage, our biggest passage ever. We are finishing the last of our projects, made the first of our provisioning runs, watching weather, downloading things with which to fill the time on the crossing, and generally preparing our bodies and minds for this enormous undertaking.

So what’s next? Jeff’s brother, Eric, arrives on March 11^th and will spend 5 days with us. We hope to get a dive or 2 in and looking forward to spending some quality time together. If our LSVs arrive, we plan to check out of Mexico on March 16^th and will look for the first good weather window to start our crossing. The crossing will take about 21 days and we will make landfall on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas. Please note that even though we have Star Link, we are not counting on the fact that it will work during our crossing. Therefore, we will not be loading any blog posts or pictures to this blog. We will be uploading brief snippets of our adventure in real time on our PredictWind tracking page (https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SV_InfiniteGrace/). There is also a link at the top of our home page.

We hope that you will travel along with us as the grand adventure continues!