Enticing Ensenada





Military was very evident in Ensenada.

Baja Naval



You're crazy if you don't go there! That's what people told us. Ensenada is THE place to check into Mexico. All the entry services  (immigration, bank and port captain) are all in one location. Not only that, Baja Naval is a first class marina (offering wifi, free US calls and hot showers) with friendly English-speaking staff. All for $38.00. The wonderfull fellow who helped us, provided all the forms we would need and even made copies for us.

We left San Diego at 2am this morning, carefully manuvering between all the other anchored boats. Forty minutes later we were hoisting sails, although the wind was very light. Greg managed to sail for several hours but eventually gave up and started the engine. By around 7am the wind came up again and the engine was put down. By 9 the wind was nonexistant. We motored the rest of the way to Ensenada, arriving just before 2pm, 12 hours after having left SD.

We were so proud of ourselves - getting to port in time to check in. As we tied up the boat the marina attendant showed up and informed us that CIS (customs) closed at 2 o'clock. D@##! What happened to siesta time and staying open till 7?


Ensenada Malecon

 

Malecon "We're all in the same boat"


Our first sunrise over Baja was beautiful. A school of dolphin swam ahead of us chasing their breakfast followed by a flock of hopeful birds. A dozen brown pelicans passed by our starboard side. Around midmorining dolphins were swimming along with us on both sides of the boat.

After settling with the marina office we took a little walk into town (no quarantine - no NO ONE OFF THE BOAT here). We found an alley full of souvenir stalls and carts followed by a row of aggressively friendly tacorias and a large fish market. WOW! So much fish - so little refrigeration. By 3:30 most their ice had melted. I had to wonder what they do with all that fish after closing.
 


Mercado de pescado

 Tueday we went to CIS (central check in). After an hour and 30 min we were much poorer and ready to go. They were able to speak pretty good English and very helpful. We walked around town, only window shopping since Greg won't let me buy anything, until we found a supermerchado. Lots of fresh food and Mexican wine for less than $7 per  bottle; I can't wait to try it. Since we are leaving immediately to catch good wind I didn't buy any fresh fish.
 

Our first Baja Dog



Had lunch at a little taco place and 4 tacos, a coke and a beer was $8 US - what a change from San Diego.











 

PINK? Pidgeon






  

Pink stripe on head makes me think its paint.

Thanksgiving in San Diego with our New Friends



San Diego Bay

  

It's Sunday November 28 and we are preparing to depart in the wee hours for Ensenada, Mexico (finally!)

We have had another wonderful visit to a new area and gathered a new crop of friends. We no sooner anchored in the "La Playa" anchorage between the San Diego and Southwestern Yacht Clubs when our new friends Capt. Scott and Donna on Celestial sailed up to us and said hello before setting their anchor. Victor on WindWalker, whom we had met at SWYC, anchored just ahead of us.





Our LaPlaya Anchorage

                                                                                                                                                                               I I decided to invite my new friends for Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, Scott and Donna, couldn't make it but Victor joined us and brought Don from Princess and his friend Mary Jo. Mary Jo just happens to work at the San Diego West Marine stores so we had lots to talk about.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

   



Mary Jo (left), Joy giving kisses to Amber at West Marine

We visited Mary Jo the next day at WM and met Joy, her wonderful golden retriver.
Joy has the run of the store and is full of love and kisses. We had to visit the WM "super store" where Greg bought a hand line to catch tuna and dorado while we sail.

Last night we had dinner on Celestial with Scott and Donna and another couple, Jim and Linda of Everet, WA . Jim and Linda are also headed to Mexico and have a gorgeous 52' Super Maramu Amel. We visited with them this morning and discovered that we have mutual friends - Chuck and Jan from Wind Watcher. Chuck and Jan had just emailed us to let us know that they were just leaving SD after having sailed down with friends. What a coincidence!

Scott, Donna, Greg and myself joined our SWYC host Frank and his wife for a trip to Cabrillo National Monument on Saturday afternoon. What a surprise. I expected a lighthouse and a statue. Its actually a very large compound with the lighthouse, a statue, large bookstore, interpretive center and theater. The trails are surrounded with native plants which are labeled. The assistant lighthouse keeper's quarters hold additional interpritive materials and a large Fresnel (pronounced "Fraynel") lens that used to be in the lighthouse.

                                                                                                                                                                                                               The approach to the Cabrillo NM is right through the Point Loma Naval Base and Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Loma,_San_Diego,_California.  I was saddened to see so many white crosses and now they are adding walls to contain cremated remains. 

What is this thing?

There were some other very interesting things along the way. We saw the salt water tank where Navy dolphins are trained and a very strange structure.  We had seen this thing from our anchorage and had tried to guess what it was. Greg had thought it was a support for a large tent; I thought it might be a sculpture. We were both wrong. Frank, who is a retired military man, informed us that it is a "pinging" device. The navy builds scale models of  ships and places them under this three-legged device to determine how they react to radar. The goal being to reduce their radar signature.

 

Model ships for "pinging"







San Diego Bay from Pt Loma










San Diego Hospitality

We finally made it to San Diego and in a few days will be in Mexico. We arrived last Sunday and anchored in 10 feet of water in the " La Playa" anchorage just off the Southwestern Yacht Club. It's only available on weekends and holidays (to prevent derelicts and nasty liveaboards).  While there we met up again with our new friends Scott and Donna. They told us about a wonderful man named Frank that is a SYC member who enjoys assisting visitors like LaDonna and Rob did in Sausilito.  He was kind enough to help me get my glasses replaced, reprovision and drive us around sightseeing. The lush canyons and historic homes are gorgeous.  It was delightful and very much appreciated.

The next day we docked at the SYC for three reciprocal days (thank you Semiahmoo YC). Their new 8 million dollar club house is wonderful. Their old 30 yr old club house was very nice and everything recently upgraded but the Port Authority forced them to raze it and rebuild. Another yacht club scrambled to get historic status for their club to protect it and the PA forced them to build more around it. No one understands the logic - if there is any.

Several people have told us that we must absolutely check into Mexico at Ensenada because all the facilities that you have to visit are all in one place. Greg wants to get in and get out as fast as possible while I would like to look around a little. We will wait and see what develops.

It's Greg's turn on the blog:

 It took us two tries to get past Point Conception and get in to the Channel Islands.  Wind coming down the coast has been fluky.  Too much or none to speak of. If you try to sail in a SW wind you end up doing the “Baja Bash” going southward, so you quickly learn to stay at anchor and have another beer waiting for the NW wind to come back.  Just listen for the next small-craft advisory warning and you know its time to go sailing.  Example: we left Catalina Isle in the afternoon and sailed all night in a nearly full moon with 7-12 knots of wind waiting for the “gusts to 25 or higher”.  The anemometer says the max was 27.9 but it either lasted for about 14 seconds or we were asleep when it occurred. It took 18 hours to go 86 miles, but I did make about 80 gallons of water by running the water maker at both ends of the trip (about 2.5 hours). 

For those interested in our water maker:  Since I have to use it regularly, we’ve used it almost exclusively with a few exceptions when we were in marina areas of SF and Sacramento.  The water was so bad in Sacto that we made water out of the river on the way down.  Once we got south of the Bay Area the filters are lasting for hundreds of gallons.  In high salt (open ocean) the production runs about 32-35 gph at 2500 engine rpm with a pressure of 800-850 psi.  This speed is too fast (6.5-7 kn) for most motor sailing, but is good if there’s no wind and entering ports/anchorages.  I can make useful water down to about 2000 RPM but the max pressure available is only about 600-700 psi and the TDS runs up about 130.  Funny thing is that I find the water with TDS at 130 tastes better.  Production is only 15-20 gph.  But if you have to motor all day that isn’t much of a limitation. 

If I was doing it again, I’d opt for a larger engine pulley and run the pump faster at slower speeds.  Higher pump speeds would probably let me use a larger orifice.  Another change that I’d make is to add a manual bypass valve between the restricting orifice and the regulator.  This would have to be a high pressure (1000 psi) SS ball valve which would need suitable hi-pressure plumbing as well.  The valve would let you manually unload the system and allow a higher flow from the supply pump for bleeding and flushing.  Today I have to turn the high pressure pump back on to flush the system out after the valves have been switched back to a fresh water supply.  The supply pump can do it but it takes almost 30 minutes to circulate 5 gallons thru the system. 

Everything else has been working fairly well although I had something chafe the spinnaker halyard cover just behind shackle so I had to shorten it a couple feet and have done some repairs/re-enforcement on the main sail – Apparently Catalina’s sail makers never expected someone to run around with a reef in for hundreds of miles in 20-30 knot winds with the sail flattened as much as possible.  The forward ends of the batten pockets needed to re-enforced too.  Its all Don’s fault – even with the headsail down to 90% it pulls so much that I really have to “kill” the main in order to slow down.  We ran about 70 miles w/just the headsail up at 90% at 7-9 knots.  Wind was 35 and swell was 8-10 feet with wind waves from a different direction, so not very comfortable, if I want to get down to 5-6 knots I must run only a reefed main, maybe with just a scrap of headsail. 

Sunny Channel Islands and Catalina

We’ve made it to Catalina Island. We entered Isthmus Cove looking for a spot to anchor and gave up once we realized that essentially every available inch had been laid with mooring buoys. The winter rate convinced us to pay up and spend a week. This would allow our mail to catch up with us and Greg to catch up on some projects like reinforcing the batten casing in our 19-year-old main sail.

The anchorage is the calmest we have been in for weeks. The days vary from sunny and warm to foggy and chilly.

We have had some exciting sailing with 35 knot winds putting us on our ear. Cinnamon was close to being scared out of his fur. But as you can see he recovered. After 2 & 1/2 years he is finally getting used to the cockpit and actually ventured up on the cabin top.

Monterey was a wonderful place to visit. It’s charming and easy for cyclists. We visited the Monterey

Aquarium (my third time). It has changed dramatically from tanks of marine organisms to sections devoted to Cannery Row history, lots of information and exhibits on global climate change and fish stock depletion. It is very much oriented to children now since they are the ones who will make the most difference. The jelly fish displays are my favorite. They helped us id the hundreds of stinging nettle jellies that had been around our boat.

  

I had so looked forward to visiting the Channel Islands which are often called the "North American Galapagos" because they are home to over 150 endemic or unique species. Island foxes are the smallest North American canidsChannel Islands. The average weight for an adult male is 5-6 pounds, about the size of a house cat. Park and sanctuary waters are home to the largest aggregation of blue whales in the world. Approximately 10% of the global blue whale population gathers in the channel during the summer.

Unfortunately our visit didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. The islands have very steep shores and very limited access. The ones that were supposed to have docks didn’t. They might have pulled them for the winter. We tried to go ashore at Santa Cruz Island. We had planned a nice hike and a picnic. It was our very first time to go ashore thru surf and it didn’t go well at all. We capsized and dragged our soggy butts on shore having lost our prescription glasses, sunglasses, and stainless steel canteen. Our digital camera couldn’t be saved but Greg did recover the pictures. I did acquire a new broken toe having kicked an underwater rock. Greg worked on saving the outboard motor while I spread our wet hiking boots and socks out to drain. After a very short hike to an interesting 1898 homestead we ate our soggy, sandy lunch and discussed how to get back to our boat. We waded out beyond the breakers and rowed. It was far easier than the attempt to get to shore.



Channel Islands



Although we were disappointed with the lack of hiking opportunities we have been able to observe an incredible variety of birds and wildlife. We had the best wildlife viewing while visiting our friend Geoff Tobin in San Luis Obispo. There were sea otters, sea lions, porpoise and brown pelicans in abundance.

  

Steller Sea Lions under Fisherman's Wharf



We anchored off of Anacapa Island one night. This was probably the most interesting of all the Channel Islands from our perspective. The sheer cliffs were covered in cormorants, gulls and pelicans. At the end of the island there were five huge rocks and an arch which were covered in birds.

Next to our anchorage were several caves right at sea level. We watched the waves surge in and then 30 seconds later we would hear a big “whomp” followed by a BIG spray flying out of the cave. We were surrounded by fishing boats with lights glaring; we found out later that they were fishing for squid.

Arch Rock, Anacapa Island Brown Pelican Roost

 

 

We have heard from some of our old and new friends that are planning to meet up with us again in the Sea of Cortez. Greg and I are both ready for the warm water, sunny days and friendly faces.

Cinnamon (aka Cinbad) wants to improve his birdwatching.