Passages

The problem with not doing a blog posting for a month is that there is a lot of ground (or in this case sea) to cover. It's been a great month, though, so here we go. . .

Passage to the Mainland

We survived our longest-to-date ocean passage. It took us seven days to sail from an anchorage near La Paz to Bahia Chamela south of Puerto Vallarta on the mainland of Mexico. We’re now fully in the tropics – it’s humid, lush, vibrant, gorgeous, as you can see from this photo of one of our mainland anchorages, Maruata.

We thoroughly enjoyed being on the open sea for a week, out of sight of land for several days. Our daily routine during the passage was to each take a 6-hour shift during the night (7 p.m. - 1 a.m. or 1 a.m. – 7 a.m.).

The rest of the day we’d spend some time together, do a couple of chores, observe the sea critters such as dolphins, marlin, whales, turtles and birds such as boobies and frigates, and each try to grab a few more hours sleep if possible.

We experienced a few challenges in the seven days, such as dodging cruise ships, freighters and sea turtles, and trying to catch wind during the daily lulls.

One of the most trying aspects of sailing, for us anyway, is figuring out what to do when the wind dies. We've talked in previous postings about how we usually prefer to bob along rather than fire up our engine. Bobbing has a fairly positive connotation - it brings to mind trying to bite bright red apples floating in a bucket of water. What could be more fun than that? In all honestly, however, unless the water is placid bobbing on the ocean is almost never fun. The ocean swells start the boat rocking, and when the boat is rocking things on the boat move and bang, sometimes quite violently. This makes it difficult to sleep or rest, and can makes us rather cranky. Thankfully, the wind always comes back - usually within a few hours - and peace returns.

We had a few stormy days on our crossing, which brought some outrageously gorgeous skies, but also some squalls that seemingly blew up out of nowhere. During those bursts of wind and rain our favorite strategy was to take down the sails and hunker in the cabin until the squall passed (it never took more than an hour). Occasionally we’d peek out our heads to make sure there were no other boats around.

The most memorable mishap took place a few days into our crossing. Dan had just laid down for a morning nap, and Lisa heard a loud metallic BAM! She looked around and saw that the spinnaker was no longer flying – it was being dragged alongside of the boat.

“Help! The spinnaker fell down,” she cried. A dazed Dan emerged from the cabin and helped her fish the sail out of the water.

The spinnaker has been a very important sail for Rumiko in both light and moderate wind conditions. In extremely light wind conditions it is the only sail we use (unless we are trying to sail into the wind). In moderate winds (up to 15 knots) we often use the spinnaker because our jib is tiny, and we can go faster flying the spinnaker than we can with our mainsail and jib. So when the spinnaker went down we were dismayed at the thought of losing the use of this very important sail. Fortunately, the sail itself was not damaged. It had fallen down because the halyard (the rope used to hoist the sail up the mast) had worn through. We were able to remove the damaged portion of the halyard, and after going up the mast twice (while bobbing in the middle of the ocean) Lisa was able to rig a temporary external halyard for the spinnaker.

We arrived on the mainland coast exhausted, so our first week was spent sleeping, reading, cleaning ourselves and the boat, cooking some nice meals and snorkeling in two quiet anchorages (south of a small island in Bahia Chamela and in a secluded cove called Paraiso). We were fortunate to be ahead of the main throng of sailboats that head south for the winter, and had those anchorages to ourselves for the most part.

From Paraiso we made our way fairly quickly down to Zihuatanejo because we had a wedding to attend. It took us 19 days to sail from La Paz to Isla Grande just north of Zihuatanejo, where we met up with Isis. During that time we only talked with two people (other than each other) - a couple of Danish women who were kayaking at one of our anchorages. It was a really great experience to be so totally on our own for that length of time, but we were ready to see our friends and get into a more social mode. And social we have been!

Passage to a new life

On December 21, winter solstice, our friends Bryan and Veronica celebrated a passage from one phase to another in their lives. We were fortunate to be able to participate in their wedding celebration with Burke, Kacey and Quinn, and the other dozen or so friends and family members who spent six days at a lovely small resort called Casas Gregorio north of Zihuatanejo. The group really gelled over the six days – eating all meals together, swimming in the ocean and pool, horseback riding, visiting hot springs, and participating in the wedding ceremony. It was a beautiful ceremony on the beach, followed by a very lively reception which included "Quinn the fire dancer" and a few songs played by Lisa and Burke and Ernesto, the owner of the resort. Lisa and Burke had a few fun music nights with Ernesto - an old-time bluegrass picker and topnotch dobro player who has played with the likes of Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff.

Another highlight of the wedding week was participating in the release of hundreds of newborn sea turtles. We had seen quite a few turtles on our sail down the mainland coast – mostly near the shore, but occasionally we’d see one swimming all alone, 5 or 10 miles off shore. Every time we saw one it felt special, as if we were in the presence of an extremely ancient, wise creature. So seeing these vulnerable tiny turtles being swept for the first time into the big sea filled us with an immense amount of joy, but also trepidation, knowing that only a handful of them were likely to survive more than a few hours or days.

Reflecting on the past year

About a year ago we were in La Paz with Burke, Kacey, and Quinn (and Bryan and Veronica, who were also visiting them). Isis was the first sailboat that we had ever stepped on - and it was up on stilts in a boatyard being worked on by Burke and Kacey. Upon Burke's suggestion we went to look at a couple of sailboats "just for fun." Rumiko (at that time Trulah A) was the second boat we looked at. Within a day of stepping on the boat, we had signed a contract to buy her. Two months later we had wrapped up our work and we were driving down the Baja Peninsula to La Paz. Before the end of April we had finished up the major boat repairs, Lisa's mom had christened Rumiko with a bottle of tequila, and we had gotten Rumiko into the water. In May we had a two-hour sailing lesson from a friend, and most of the rest of the year was spent sailing around the Sea of Cortez.

It is now December, and we are anchored out in Bahia de Zihuatanejo, about 700 miles from La Paz. It's been a great year, filled with countless new experiences, new and deepening friendships, times of utter exhaustion and frustration, as well as periods of relaxation and rejuvenation. We're healthy and fulfilled, very much in love, and know that we are extremely blessed to be living this life together.

We're enjoying Zihuatenejo, with its great markets and inexpensive eateries. But we're itching to get back out to some more remote anchorages. So we'll probably spend a few more days in Zihuatanejo hanging out with our friends on Isis and doing a few chores. Then we'll provision and begin working our way north along the coast to Mazatlan and then cross back over to La Paz. As with our time sailing in the Sea of Cortez, our tendency since arriving on the mainland coast has been to anchor in the more remote locations, which means we are not often in places with decent internet connections. So it may be a few more weeks before we post another blog. By then it will be 2010!

Happy New Year to all!