12/20/16

We wanted to go diving with a group while in San Jose de Cabo. We talked to a very friendly agent and before we knew it, we were signed up to go diving!  Only catch, - it was in Cabo San Lucas instead of right here in San Jose del Cabo.

Diving at Cabo San Lucas was crowded in every sense of the word. It was crowded on the bus going there and coming back. The roads were crowded. (My best advice to anyone riding a bus in this town is to engage in a lively conversation with fellow travelers to divert your focus from the near death experience the bus drivers seem to enjoy.) The Bay was crowded. There were three huge cruise ships in the bay, glass bottom boats, snorkelers, pleasure boats of every description, jet skiers, windsurfers, and several dive boats.

Arriving at our first dive sight, Land’s End, I noticed I was a bit freaked out about how many boats were in the water. I had to work on myself to get out of the helmsman mindset and back into the diver’s mindset.  I had prepared well for this dive, getting my ears ready with massage, drops, and decongestant pills.  The dive master gave us lots of specific instructions but main command was to stay together as a group. 

The descent into the water was the moment of truth for my chronic ear congestion. And, great news! My ears adjusted and equalized perfectly!  Twenty-five feet down on the sandy bottom, the dive master handed me my fin. What? My fin came off? He showed me the broken buckle and motioned that I should go back to the boat. Are you kidding? I handed it to Rob. Rob could fix anything. Bad news, even Rob agreed that it was broken and I had to abort the dive. I was more than ticked off. But there were other fins aboard and another dive coming up after the surface interval. So, I tried to get over it. 

Rob came up with the group and reported that they saw several large schools of fish, some beautiful tropical fish, and sea lions on the first dive.

The second dive was good too. There were lots to see and enjoy but I kept thinking of a different type of experience…. away from the crowd.

12/22/16

It was a fabulous sailing day! Good wind and relatively smooth water. Before we began our adventure, I naively thought that all our sailing would be like this. We sailed from San Jose del Cabo to Bahia Los Frailes. We had a couple of whale sightings where we saw the spouting sprays and the tails as the whale dives. The last sighting was of a pod with more than ten spouts and at least three tails!

12/23/16

I saw a ray jump 6 feet up straight out of the calm morning water and back into the bay!

We made arrangements for a dive boat to come to our boat and pick us up to dive the reef.  The small panga that finally showed up was already loaded with 5 divers, a captain and a dive master.  Rob and I were divers number 6 and 7 (there were only six places to sit on this little panga.) The dive master said that it was too windy to go to the reef but no problem, there were two great dives right here in our little bay. The dives were beautiful but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much better it would be to diving with just Rob and me and our own equipment.

12/24/16

We’ve patiently waited for the right time to try out the hookah in earnest.  Today’s conditions would be nearly ideal for a maiden voyage of this type. Now that we are securely anchored in this beautiful, protected little bay with a great dive site nearby the wait is over!

We inflated the hookah raft, launched it and lowered the hookah compressor and motor down off the big boat! Dressed in our diving gear and fins we swam and swam and swam, manually towing the hookah 1/3 of a mile over to the dive site. This worked out better in my imagination than in actuality. The current is invisible from the surface of the water. The swift current and wind teamed up and worked against us as we swam from the boat to the site. It took 40 minutes instead of the 15 minutes I had imagined. Then we uncoiled the 100 foot air hoses, turned on the compressor and we were free to enjoy the wonders beneath the sea. 

There were hundreds of corals; some I’d seen before and some new ones. A majestic soft pink coral offered a perfect backdrop for a black pufferfish spotted with a hundred white dots. We saw beautiful, delicate lavender fan corals everywhere and many parrot fish.

It was a shallow dive only 30 feet at the deepest point and ended after 55 minutes. We put the hoses back into the raft and swam for the big boat.  This time, the wind and current helped us and it took only 20 minutes to return.

A friendly pelican wanted some company on Christmas Eve.  She came close to the boat, looked it over and decided to perch on our railing even though Rob was sitting in the cockpit and had gently called to me that we had a visitor. 

After she stayed for three hours, we named her Penelope.  

She made her intentions to stay the night clear by hiding her head beneath her wing while perched on the rail.

I heard her stir early on Christmas morning.  The mess she left behind will probably deter me from allowing such visitors in the future.

12/25/16

Today we tried a new arrangement for diving with the hookah. We removed the seat from the dinghy and put the mechanical part of the hookah in the center of the dinghy instead of the hookah raft. This left space for us, our dive gear and of course the blessed outboard motor which is mounted on the rear of the dinghy. 

On our way to dive we stopped by two neighboring boats of friends, Ron and Bridget on S/V Shameless and Phil on S/V Lutra, wished them Merry Christmas and invited them to dinner at our boat later in the afternoon.

In just a couple of minutes we were at the dive site. The equipment worked beautifully! Rob and I enjoyed a peaceful, gorgeous dive through the wondrous beauty of corals and tropical fish. Suddenly, from the corner of my peripheral vision, a husky 12-inch fish jetted through the water and positioned himself in the sandy bottom just in front of us near some rocks covered with lacy algae. We slowly approached and marveled at the perfect camouflage of this rock fish.  He was exactly the same mottled browns and had the same lacy green algae floating from his body as the rocks! Now, with his fins flattened against his body it would be almost impossible to believe he was anything other than the rock he pretended to be.

Another memorable fish species that I had never seen before was a bright spring green with white on dark green polka dots. They were about 10 to 12 inches and quite shy. We saw hundreds of parrot fish, some as big as 20 inches, and just let me remind you of with those famous teeth.  They were various coloration including iridescent pastels (mostly pink and baby blue) and burgundy /ivory ones.

Our day was complete with the fun of sharing a holiday feast with friends.

12/26/16

The wind was kicking up and predicted to get worse.  So, we sailed north with the other three sailboats out of Frailes Bay and into the Sea of Cortez. The sea greeted us with some huge splashy waves as soon as we entered it. The hatches and port lights were still open so we were doused again! At least this time I closed the port light above my bed first while witnessing a bucket of sea water entering the starboard side!  The other boats reported being wet and miserable too.

It was a long day of sailing and tacking into the wind. The others turned back to the protection of Frailes but Rob and I pressed on only to find the new Marina just north of La Rebra was full and had no room for us.  So, we went further north to the next anchorage at Ensenada de Los Muertos where we rested and waited for five days for the wind to finally die down.  

We were exhausted and needed the rest after 3 consecutive days of diving and then a very heavy day of sailing! The anchorage is nice but does not have internet service. It does have this great little restaurant.

12/31/16 Ron and Bridgett on Shameless and Phil on Lutra arrived in time to celebrate the passing of the old year and the coming of the new with us at the restaurant.

1/1/17 Shameless tried sailing to La Paz this morning through the 12 mile channel between the Baja and the island but turned back to Muetros. Ron reported the wind and current switched direction and came on strong making it impossible for them to proceed.

1/2/17 We got an early start and left Muetros at dawn this morning.  It was an awesome day of sailing through the channel and anchoring early in a picturesque bay Roca Lobos just outside of La Paz.

1/3/17 We arrived at Marina Palmira where some new friends helped us (by taking our docking lines) into our slip despite the 18 knot wind blowing us in directions we didn’t wish to go. We’ve found the sailing and boating community to be helpful, friendly and lots of fun.

1/4/17 We took the shuttle in to town to start on our several to-do lists for the boat store, diving store, and general re-provisioning to accomplish here in La Paz.  The Mexican merchants are very sweet and helpful.  The further from the Malecon (tourist district) you go, the fewer of them speak some English. Duolingo says I’m 20% fluent in Spanish, but when they talk to me I can only get a word or two out of every sentence. So, carrying a map helps a bunch.

1/6/17 Rob climbed the mast and replaced/installed a new steaming light fixture.

1/7/17 Today we shopped till we dropped.  La Paz is, according to our guidebook, the best place to provision on the Sea of Cortez. The shuttle took us part way to our desired destination.  We walked the rest of the way. Today we were hunting down natural nutritional supplements (hard to find in Mexico) and fabric so I can make some mosquito nets for our hatches.

Returning in the dark, walking through the pool area back to the marina.

1/9/17 We love having our evening meal in the cockpit but it’s not much fun in the dark. So, today we installed some new LED lighting in the cockpit, it’s like having another room added to our living space! 

1/10/17 I decided we need a ladder for climbing back into the dinghy after diving. Rob with his long, strong arms has absolutely no problem hoisting himself up out of the water and back into the dinghy.  But I struggle. The ladders we’ve seen in the stores are too bulky and take up too much room in the crowded dinghy.  So, Rob started looking on the internet for what I thought would be ideal, a ladder made out of Nylon strapping.  I wanted strong, simple, easy to use and store, and not taking up much space. Couldn’t find it. Instead, he found a Youtube video on how to make your own rope ladder. So, today I did it.  I made my own rope ladder!

1/11/17  There are times when Rob wants to use our spinnaker in light winds going the same direction as we are headed. Today, Ron and Bridgett came over from their marina, quite a walk, to look at the spinnaker and give us some tips on using it.  Ron has crewed on racing sailboats for several years and he probably has forgotten more about sailing than I know right now. So, it was fun seeing them and getting his insights on the spinnaker.

1/13/17  Today would have been my son, Jason’s 40^th birthday if he had lived.  He’s been gone since a few days before his 20^th birthday.  The passing of 20 years has helped somewhat with the feeling of incredible loss that all of us who knew and loved him felt and still feel. I want to honor his memory today with one of his favorite sayings: “Mom, let’s make a memory!”

Jason was love personified.  I remember him escorting me to the kitchen table, pulling out a chair for me, slightly bowing at the waist as he motioned for me to sit, re-positioning me and the chair, and then taking a seat next to me as he produced a Betty Crocker catalog along with his outrageously adorable smile. “Let’s just dream for a minute, Mom. Thumb through here and see what your heart desires!”

I was completely stunned.  Moms in the middle of raising four teenagers rarely have the experience of a child actually wondering, let alone elegantly pursuing what their mother might want for an upcoming birthday or Christmas present. He was just fourteen. That was Jason; comical, sweet, thoughtful, fair-minded, accepting, and wonderful.  I love you, Jason.