Fish and Treasure Island

A.M....just after breakfast.  100 yards out, a flurry of splashing.  Gulls and pelicans swoop in.  A huge school of rooster fish are boiling (feeding).

One friend throws out a line.  Another friend drops his kayak overboard and paddles out with his pole and returns in minutes with a large rooster fish and a tale about the other "even bigger one" that stole his lure and got away.  We watch the thrashing and feeding and squawking birds.

Then the herd of fish head our way.  We can see their green plumed backs pushing up the water.  A school of minnows race under our hull; a wave of rooster fish follow. Henry is going nuts!  We cast a line out baited with yesterday's catch.  The bait falls off.  Henry hooks one anyway and the rooster fish breaks the line.

When the day starts like that, where does home school go from there?  They did sit down to listen to a couple of chapters of Treasure Island.

Seashells

Today we departed San Juanico and headed around its rocky point to a nearby cove, La Ramada. We spent the day there but found it to be a little rolly so we hailed some friends (two "kid boats") who had headed north the day before and learned they were heading to a beachfront anchorage 8 nautical miles north of where we were. We decided to join them.

After a quick 3-hour motor sail we dropped anchor and Chandler immediately joined a friend for some beach-combing, which this anchorage is known for. She returned to the boat an hour later with some of the most beautiful shells we’d ever seen.

The next morning we all headed ashore before breakfast to gather more shells. As we walked the beach we had to wonder about the many creatures that once lived within the curved walls of each seashell. We all found something unique. Henry and his friend, Casey, returned with their loot and decided to make a business of selling the shells. They priced each group of shells and decided to sell them to their families, since those were the only “customers” around. The making of true entrepreneurs!

After our shell-finding expedition we headed back to HanaCrew for breakfast. Casey’s dad joined us, Chandler headed to another boat to breakfast with her friend, Zada, and Doug cooked up one of his delicious Denver egg meals.

Henry and Casey rode around in the dinghy for a while before taking the surfboard to the beach to “catch” the waves, Chandler continued playing with Zada and her vast toy horse collection at Zada’s boat, and Doug and I luxuriated in the quiet time by reading while taking in the desert surroundings. Later on Casey’s mom, Sophie, came by our boat to show us her beach-combing finds. Take a look at the spectacular Paper Nautilus and seahorse skeleton!

Coronado & San Juanico

Something I’m getting used to as a cruiser is figuring out how to plan which days we want to be “at anchor” versus which days we want to be sailing. Wind certainly has something to do with those decisions. As we launched on this sailing venture friends kindly gifted us with the Sea of Cortez Cruiser’s Guide. It holds a wealth of information, giving us everything we need to know about every bay, harbor, and town along the way. It includes depths, rocks, and shoals to watch for, anchoring tips, historical facts, and more.

As we sit in one beautiful bay it’s sometimes hard to motivate and leave, especially when the next anchorage is more than a few hours of sailing away. When we left Coronado for San Juanico however, we knew we would want to stay for a few days since Coronado gave us a rolling anchorage for almost 24 hours and San Juanico would be protected from the northern winds that knocked us around so much.

We pulled into San Juanico (shown in photo), dropped anchor, and found ourselves surrounded by stunningly beautiful rock cliffs. It felt like we were on dry ground compared to our last night at Coronado.

The next day we met cruiser friends on the beach and hiked up one of the cliffs to find the famed Apache Tears…black shiny rocks. They are said to be the tears of the Apache Indians who cried for their fallen family members after the US Calvary fought and defeated the Apaches in Arizona in the 1870’s. With the history lesson/allegory shared, Chandler and Henry hurried up the dusty hill to unearth the stones, stuffing them into pockets and exclaiming every few moments. “Look at this one, Mom!”

Along the way we found the “Cruiser shrine”. This is where cruisers leave mementos of their boats, themselves, and their journey’s. We wanted to leave one too and decided on using a blue flip-flop Ann was wearing as she hiked the hillside to find the Apache Tears. Chandler wrote one of her Sea poems on it, we all signed our names and added our boat name to it and then planned to place it alongside the other interesting pieces of cruiser memorabilia but never got back to the tree to place it there this trip. We’ll have to do that on the way back to Loreto in July when we stop in this favorite anchorage again.

Coronado surprise

We pulled into Isla Coronado on May 21st and enjoyed a calm afternoon and evening at our familiar offshore beach. Coronado is about 10 miles off the coast of Loreto so we have been here many times via panga rides but this time we are in our own boat, on our own time, instead of simply for a day trip. The second day here, as we were playing on the beach, we saw a motor boat pull into the cove and realized it was our friends, The Gordon's, from Loreto. What a treat! They were in Coronado for an overnight and would we like to go fishing with them the next day? Henry's resounding "YES" sealed the deal. Two fun-filled beach-kid days followed.

The Gordon's took us fishing: trigger fish, red snapper, dog fish, cabrilla,    A small pod of dolphins play under our hull; visit sea-lion rock, back at the beach the kids collect clams, open and eat a few raw.   

Back on the boat, fresh water showers, read a chapter of “Treasure Island” while everyone stretched out in the cockpit. 

We planned to depart Coronado for San Juanico on Monday, May 24th but at 1 AM that morning we were awakened by high winds and seas and ended up staying up for the better part of that night...kids too. By 7 AM we were still pretty tired from a restless sleep so Doug made French Toast and we all climbed back under the covers for another few hours of rest.

Later that day we headed out to make the passage to San Juanico but had to turn back due to the 20 knot winds that were heading us on the nose. We hunkered down and made the best of the situation by playing games, reading, and entertaining each other in hopes of distracting ourselves from the rolly seas knocking us around.

The winds calmed down later that night and we got a good night sleep in preparation for our passage to San Juanico the next day.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Trash is something cruisers have to deal with daily. On HanaCrew we do the best we can to discard trash without hurting the environment. Our food waste goes overboard and feeds the fish but other trash, like paper and plastic needs to be disposed of in other ways. Since we carry this trash for days, if not weeks, to ports and throw it away on the dock we need to compact it when we are on long passages so we don't live among trash bags for days on end. To do that we’ve had to get creative. Empty plastic soda bottles and waxed juice cartons get stuffed with paper and remnant trash and voila, an on-board trash compactor is born! Everybody gets into the act. At first it was used as a disciplinary measure for the kids. Disobedient? Stuff 5 pieces of trash into a receptacle. But Henry actually thought it was cool to use a screw driver to stuff the trash into a plastic Fresca bottle. So, now it’s simply part of everyone’s day, whether we are good or not-so-good.

Water is something else we’ve had to figure out since we don’t have endless storage tanks onboard. We have two-60 gallon tanks for fresh water onboard HanaCrew. We filter the water going into the tanks and again as it comes through the galley faucet but even with conscious conservation, it runs dry after a while. As a result we have taken to making fresh water from the body of salt water that surrounds us. HanaCrew’s water maker has supplemented our cooking, bathing, and drinking water so well we can now see how it will be possible to go on longer passages without having to stop and refill the water tanks every two weeks. To help conserve water we wash our dishes and ourselves in salt water off the back of the boat where there is a very convenient step to stand or sit on while washing. Once clean, we rinse with fresh water. Pretty efficient!

Poetry Day

We've taken to writing in our journals again.  Three years ago we started this wonderful practice after dinner almost each night. It was our first year in MX and it captured so many memories, that I wonder why we haven't kept up the practice.  Yesterday the kids and Doug decided their journal entries would be poetry. 

Doug's poem...

Poetry on the Hook

My pillow is a dolphin.
He mounds on my side and rolls over and under in tireless ease.

He presses down submerged in foaming blond curls then rides high on my cheek bone or dips under my chin.
He is light and cool from staying in the shadows of an  underground room, and when my sweaty rose cheeks plunge overboard and sink in it's depths I feel fun run through my back and limbs like it did when I was just outside in the grass and rolling over my playmates with a football before Mom called us up to nap.

Henry's poems

The Sea

I love the sea.
The sea is so pretty.
The sea has my friends
like the dolphins,
like the seagulls,
like the manta rays and the whales.


I Have to Go Back to the Seashore

I have to go back to the seashore
so I can see my friends
the starfish and the dolphin
and all the others
with my friends.

(Idea for poem came from Doug's recitation of Sea Fever by James Masefield)

Chandler's poetry

The Sea
I must go out to the Sea again,
to the wavy blue old sea.
To see the dolphins jump and dance,
and see the whales spray.

(idea for poem came from Doug's recitation of John Masefield's poem, Sea Fever)

The Sand
The ocean's sand is under my feet,
and sloshing through my toes.
The waves and shore are like
some partners dancing to and fro.

Seashell
If I were a seashell,
I'd be like a home,
and all the crabs would come
and use me and tenderly sleep and walk around
and then they would go
and I would be in a different place
and have another guest.

Is this what a typical day will be like?

Sunrise:  Tall, Cardon cactus wait on the shore like early morning bathers.  There is a constant “pop” of manta rays jumping and flopping on the sea to shake parasites.  

Morning includes reading: Chandler -  a bio on Catherine the Great; Henry and Dad read about dinosaurs and fish; Mom catches up on US and world news in some back issues of the weekly Christian Science Monitor.  

Set sail around noon with following seas and wind (10-15 knots) and arrive at Coronado Island 20 miles away in about 5 hours – time to read, fix things, and nap.  Chandler is glad there aren’t arranged marriages like in Catherine’s day.  Ann laughs as she shares an article about Korean coffee shops that serve lattes while your feet soak in a tank of fish that nibble away the rough skin.  Henry decides on the Allosaurus over the Megasaurus if they were to meet in a dark alley.  Dad ponders how much energy it takes to sail a boat in order to get that extra reading and family time.  

We arrive and plunge into the sea.  Ann serves a meaty stew and s'mores for dessert.   Two more chapters at sunset of L.M. Montgomery’s, Anne of Windy Poplars, to Ann’s superb narrator’s voice.  The gulls and an occasional sea lion bark close out the day.  

Day One...the real thing

Although we have lived aboard HanaCrew for almost three months we feel like our launch from Loreto is the real deal.  Now we are cruising!

The exciting part is that we know we will be out for at least four weeks.  Yesterday we packed up the final items and moved onto to the boat. Today we drove home again to get the things that are always forgotten and then remembered as you drive a block away from your home. Fortunately, out mooring in Puerto Escondido is only 15 minutes from home.

The anchorage is 7 miles away, "Marquer", a quiet cove off Carmen Island.  The sea is calm.  The kids lean out at the bow and in half an hour spot: pink squid as we come into the breeze and set the sails; a sea lion floating on its back - he barked at us as we changed course; a pod of dolphins churning up the surface 100 yards away as they feasted; and jumping manta rays entertained us all the way to anchor.  

Chandler and Henry jumped in.  It was their first time swimming naked.   Why does that make kids giggle so much?  Ann put on one of our favorite meals that she had kept frozen since buying it at Costco months ago.  She read from the Anne of Green Gables series as the sun set and we did dishes off the stern.  The lights came on from the town of Loreto, across the sea.  We sat on the bow and found planets, heard crickets, and fish jumping, and laughed at Chandler's rendition of Henry playing dinosaurs in the V-berth while singing, "Yeah Man, I'm riding a slow dinosaur.  The lizard's coming up behind me..."  

A slight roll to the anchorage.  All good. Day one.

Back to Loreto

Before heading to Mazatlan in March we drove our car to La Paz to catch the ferry. Having parked the car in La Paz for two months we now needed to get it back to Loreto. Friends, Robert and Kelli from Loreto, helped us out by having Robert and his daughter Allison sail north to Loreto with Doug, Chandler, and Henry while Kelli drove back to Loreto with Ann. What took Kelli and Ann 4 hours to drive took the sailors 5 days to sail and 4 different anchorages between La Paz and Puerto Escondido, home port for HanaCrew.

Chandler and Henry reported seeing manta rays, feeling the softest white sand beaches "ever", and watching the dolphins swim under the boat.

Back to Baja!

We left Mazatlan on April 14, sailed across the Sea of Cortez where it meets the Pacific Ocean, and arrived two days later in Los Muertos on the southern end of the Baja Peninsular. It was a good crossing, although not much wind. We were grateful all the work Doug put into the engine before we left proved effective since we motored most of the way.

Los Muertos is a bay where planned development has begun but has slowed due to the world economy so for now it is a quiet cove where one palapa restaurant sits on a sandy beach that stretches down to a magnificent enclave of beautifully designed and built villas, or so we thought.

After dropping anchor and rowing to shore we were happy to be on ground that wasn't moving for the first time in 40 hours.
We ran down the sand dunes and walked in the waters' edge to the property at the far end of the beach. After meeting an American couple on the beach who encouraged us to "check out the train collection in the hotel" further down the beach, we had no reason not to go further.

The property was originally built as a private residence but is now open to the public for use as a hotel when the owner isn't there. Once at the hotel, named GranSueno (Big Dream) we found no one except a few staff members eagerly welcoming us into the dining/game room where the model trains are displayed. We felt a bit out of place seeing we had not bathed in two days, had no money with us at the time, and looked about as scruffy as, well, sailors look.

We explained we had no money with us and therefore couldn't even buy lunch but the staff said we could look around, and even swim in the pools if we wanted to. Wanted to? YES!!! The kids raced upstairs to the train set and found an amazing tunnel system underneath it that any 9-year old kid would love to play in. The tunnels had mini-kitchens, living rooms, etc., throughout. Even Doug and I got into the act...it was just too much fun to miss.

A week later we returned to GranSueno by car, a 45 minute drive from La Paz where we were staying in a marina, and brought our friends Kelli and Robert along with their daughter, Allison.

 Again there were less then 10 other people enjoying the resort that day so we felt as though it was our private villa. This time we had money and enjoyed a delicious lunch after the kids went swimming and before they had a wonderful horseback riding lesson.

I Galileo

As we sailed from Mazatlan to Baja, known as the southern crossing, where the mouth of the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific, Doug and I shared the helm on two-hour "watches" through the night. This was to be a 48-hour sail so we had plenty of night sailing this trip. In the middle of night two Doug suggested I use the stars off the starboard side of the dodger as guides to keep me on course rather than sitting upright directly behind the wheel and using the compass. I gave it a try since it made for a more comfortable sitting position to lean to the side for the next two dark, quiet hours. There was no moon which meant the stars were beautiful and easy to observe.

As I looked upward and out toward those sparkling gems I couldn't help but wonder how Galileo felt as he explored his universe, looking for answers to his wildest theories. I later went to Wikipedia for a quick refresher on Galileo and found that "telescope" comes from tele meaning "far" and skopein meaning "to look or see". Good info for use in home-schooling. I was also reminded that Galileo was ousted by the church for declaring that the sun was the center of the universe. Interesting how thought evolves!

A unique egg hunt

After a few weeks at the dock in Mazatlan acclimating to boat life and working on various projects we decided it was time to get out of the slip and venture to an island 85 nautical miles south of Mazatlan where frigate birds and blue-footed boobies live in the wild. The trip to Isla Isabela took approximately 24 hours of wind and motor sailing. At sunset Henry, with help from Dad, caught what we think was a Skipjack. Doug filleted and cooked it and dinner was served!

Once we dropped anchor we jumped off the back of the boat, swam in the clear water, and enjoyed the beauty of the majestic rock formations that sit just off the island.













On Easter morning we rode our dingy to the island cove where fishing shacks line the waters edge. As we approached land I realized my sense of adventure in my post-children years has been somewhat altered by Disney and Planet Earth. The "high-adventure" traveling Doug and I did when newly married had faded and our recent years of visits to Disneyland and the like had encroached upon my sense of what a "real" natural experience should be. The reality of this island and its raw, natural state struck me. It stunk, "naturally" from bird droppings. Gosh, Disneyland doesn't smell like this, I thought. On shore I got another dose of reality when we looked for a place to sit and eat lunch. No umbrella covered picnic tables here! Squat on a rock that has encrusted bird poop on it (I was amazed to see that we all did this rather than stand!?!) and eat amidst the various fish skeletons, insects, and once again, "natural" aromas. None of this was really a problem, simply an observation and somewhat comical to me.

Once we started our hike to see the wildlife, all things Disney faded away and we became so engrossed with the birds and our exploration of the island that the experience was as exciting and genuine as anyone could hope for.

The fishermen who fish from this island look as though they stay for days, if not weeks, performing their trade. I suppose they have boats come out to collect their catch and take it to the mainland. The shacks they live in are barely inhabitable by our standards but they seem to be quite content with their corrugated tin sided abodes. The fishermen we saw went about their business without really noticing we had arrived.
"Just more tourists", is probably what they were thinking.
We were told to have Spam and fruit cocktail on board to trade for the catch of the day but no one ever approached us to make that deal. We typically engage in conversation with locals wherever we go but these fishermen didn't take the bait when we looked at them with that, "Hola, como esta?" look, so on we hiked.


We did meet and talk with a Mexican family who had just finished hiking the island so their directions were helpful to us since the trail markings were good, not great. The frigate birds seem to have possession of the lower part of the island while the boobies have the top. Some of the male frigates were trying to attract the females by puffing up their red necks. See below.The real treat of the day came when we walked past a mama blue-footed booby. She squawked at us at first but when she saw that we were friendly she simmered down and eventually showed us the eggs she was protecting.

These birds are stunning to look at. Their feet are either bright blue, greenish-yellow, or off-white but the blue are the most vivid. We had been told, but were still amazed, to see how docile all the birds on the island were considering they live in the wild. Fortunately nothing has ever challenged them enough to change their trusting ways. They allow strangers to get within 2 feet of them without feeling at all intimidated.

When does the fun begin?

Our re-entry into the boating world has had a few wake-up calls. Just like all cruisers, we have had some projects to work on before we can actually head out to the deep blue Sea. Doug has earnestly approached these different projects with vim and vigor and some frustration along the way.

His system of getting things done sometimes makes me think my daily efforts are somewhat fruitless. Although I know I do my fair share of work around the boat and Doug never makes me feel like I do anything less, his process of getting things done always looks so much more organized and systematized. I consider myself a very organized person, but in the long run as I witness the many things on Doug's to-do list and see the way he works through them or carries them to the next days list of to-do's, I wonder how I ever get anything done without an ongoing list. My system does indeed include writing a list however a moment after the list is completed someone or something distracts me from it, I turn away from the list, dive into whatever needs my attention and from there I move on to more not-on-the-list items. By the end of the day I have accomplished huge amounts of work, none of which were on my list. Hmmmm?????

This, however, I have come to see, is one of the great things about marriage. Ultimately one person has stronger skills in areas the other person lacks yet at the same time the other person has skills in areas that the first person lacks. It really does balance out well in the end and when I learn something about organization or humility from Doug, and he learns something about home schooling or some interesting idea from a book I am reading, I can see how effective our marriage is for one another and hopefully for our kids too, who are observing all this!

Well, I digressed there for a bit and my real story here is to
share the efforts Doug has put into making Windfall, aka,
HanaCrew, ours. He has learned all areas of the Perkins engine, the water system including dual filters, etc., and most of all he has made the head (bathroom) "ours." As all cruisers will tell you, everyone on the dock is willing to help in any case EXCEPT when it comes to the head. Well, Doug tore out the head one day and it was true...no one stopped to ask if he needed any help. He made it through the day, cleaned every part of that necessary element of a boaters life, including the holding tank, and reinstalled it all back in place by days end, even in time to join other cruisers for dinner and some fun conversation at the marina restaurant. He truly is my hero!

Dock parties

Dock parties serve as the neighborhood gathering within the "live-aboard" community. We attended a few during our Mazatlan days. Three things you always know about dock parties are...they are always pot-luck, we always meet tons of people who live fascinating lives, and we always find someone who has some sort of expertise that can help us with some aspect of the boat. For all those reasons we go to dock parties whenever we are invited!


It's quite the scene with lots of dinghies tied up at the dock, food set out on dock boxes, people standing around balancing plates and cups, pets running around, musicians playing their instruments, and food galore! One thing we had to learn (again) was, aside from bringing our dish to share, we needed to bring our own plates, silverware, napkins, and a dirty dish bag to carry things home in. It's all good!


One dock party was on St. Patrick's Day and it was at 9 AM...not the typical time a boater holds a party but with two young children and all of us being earlier-than-late risers, we ventured off to be part of the breakfast. Green was of course the statement for the meal. Green pancakes, syrup, and even green orange juice!?!

The Name Game

When you buy a boat you have two options relative to naming the vessel; you can keep the preexisting name or you can change it. In our case we decided to change the name, not because we didn't like the name it came with (Windfall) but because of some family history of our own.

When Doug and I lived aboard a Cal 40 in the late '90's it's name was Hana. Doug noted that "Ohana" means close family in Hawaiian and "Hana" means flower in Japanese. We liked that. We dreamed of the day when our children would be old enough (and strong enough) to help sail the boat. Now that that's the case we thought "HanaCrew" was especially fitting. And so it is that HanaCrew will be painted on the boat as soon as the US Coast Guard sends us the official documents stating the name change.

Game night

One of our favorite things to do as a family is play games. Just before we started living on the boat friends introduced us to the crossword game, Bananagrams, and we haven't stopped playing it since. It's the ideal "boat game" since it comes in a small cotton bag and includes small tiles with letters on them, just like Scrabble. Therefore it takes up very little, precious, storage space. Typically, after we all play, the kids end up playing with the tiles alone. Here's what happened one day...

El Cid and the underwater caves

Close to the marina where we are staying in Mazatlan is a large American-esque resort. Chandler and Henry have gone twice since we've been here. The pool has waterfalls, cliffs to jump from and caves to explore. Kid paradise! Chandler and her friend, Carolyne, loved jumping off the cliffs and Henry found a palm tree to climb.

A ferry to Mazatlan

On February 28, 2010 we (and 16 bags of luggage) boarded a huge ferry in La Paz, on the lower eastern coast of Baja, MX and on March 1st, approximately 12 hours later, we were in Mazatlan which sits on the west coast of mainland MX. The reason? To buy a sailboat. Friends were selling their 35' Cal Cruiser and we thought it was time to take the kids out to sea on an adventure.