Here is a bunch of new pictures... I'm currently sitting in a coffeeshop waiting for a Skype call and Leonard is out surfing - his new favorite thing!
Hope you'll enjoy our new batch of pictures.
Whales in the Hood
At the fuel dock where we picked up our friend, I was elegantly dressed in typical fuel dock attire: shorts and a bikini top. Which is a lie of course only on account that I'm too ashamed to admit it was a bra. A cute bra with pink and white flowers. From afar it looks like a bikini, but close up when the fuel dude is standing but 2 feet away from me I felt naked. And rightfully so.
Anyways, the friend who is a true friend and honest tells me after glancing at my belly "What happened to your 6-pack?" "It's wrapped up in a burrito" I answered in enough shame to let her know I knew but that I didn't like knowing. To which I immediately made a promise to myself to start working out again asap.
This morning I was getting my board ready to stick to that promise because let's face it, what good is a 6-pack when it's wrapped in a burrito? Leo was standing by me ready to help me drop the board in the water.
First we heard them. Like a loud splooshing and a puffing of air sound. Then we looked around us. Three whales swimming rather close by. We're anchored in a bay, not out in the open. And there are three whales nearby. I mentioned this before, but I never ran down to get my camera since I'd rather watch and not miss them than run away to grab proof of their visit.
Ever wonder why Big Bird never got a good picture of Mr Snuffaluffagus?
I took some pictures but realized my camera was too slow and the click always occurred after the splash so I switched to video mode. By then they were further away, and this was the last sighting in the video.
I dropped my paddleboard into the water, assuming they were gone, and went out for a paddle. Then I heard the splooshing sound again. So I did what any sane woman my age would do:
I paddled towards the three large animals big enough to squash a house.
It's daunting. I'm standing on a flimsy foam board watching whales. And I got close. Too close for comfort. It was exciting, intimidating and inspiring. And as tears of profound joy rolled down my cheeks I just stood there and witnessed some of the greatest creatures on earth. And now I want to eat a tuna sandwich... just because.
South
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| Shrimp Boats Everywhere! |
We've passed the halfway point between Turtle bay and Cabo. Turtle Bay is actually the halfway point between San Diego and Cabo. I like working in halfways when it comes to geography and traveling. It seems to make sense and gives me a sense of moving forward. No matter where I'm at, if I see it as halfway between two spots then I'm closer to something or some destination. Or further away, it depends on how you look at things and if you're coming or going.
What I love most of being South of Turtle Bay is that we're not only in Baja California Sur (Baja South) but it's warmer. Much warmer. Like shorts & sport top. If I were the exotic type I'd probably ditch the sport top. But I'm not the exotic type. I'm French Canadian and I grew up wearing wool socks year round. Oh how I wish I had a sock monkey made of an old grey sock with the red trim...
So, back to me and my shorts and sport top. Lee's wearing nothing but shorts, or some kind of lycra italian undies. Very sexy. He's more exotic than I am. If it were a contest I'd declare him the winner in exotic personality profiles. But it's not a contest and we haven't got any winners. Or losers. So I guess it's a win-win so maybe there are winners, but not the kind who bring home a medal. Although we do have each other as trophies.
Being South... There's barely a cloud in the sky, or anywhere else for that matter (ba-boom-boom-tish!) Until the moon rises, the stars do their best to make it nearly impossible to find the big dipper.
I don't know why but I struggle to rest until I spot the big dipper. That big old lard-ass of the skies...
This year's southbound trek sure is the stellar opposite of last year's southerly bash. We. Are. Taking. Our. Time. Yesterday was our very first sailing day stretching beyond 8 hours of navigation. And that's only because we had no other choice! Nowhere to park, ya know? And even then, we almost cruised right on by our anchorage as we both dozed off on autopilot. I saved the day (or night) which is a rare thing. Lee's the fixer. I woke up, looked outside, looked at our radar and the GPS and woke up the fixer "Where are we supposed to anchor?" he blinked a few times "Shit, we went passed it!"
But not by much. We turned and dropped the anchor and slept with vivid and immediately forgotten dreams.
Killer Day!
Topped that one today I tell ya... *shivers* Today was so friggin scary I actually did utter the magic words "Oh God, please let us survive this!" Yup. I prayed. I openly and out loud prayed. Maybe more than once too. Not sure. But I did in fact pray to the baby Jesus and begged him to let me see the full moon tonight.
We sailed our spinnaker sail. For the third time today ever, we sailed it. And for the third time I thought I would die behind it. Or get hurt. Or break something. Like a bone, a neck or maybe our boat.
It started perfectly well. It was in fact sublime. We had a wind, dead behind us, and our sails were useless. Lee said "Let's try the spinnaker!"
"Uh oh." I was still shaking from our 2 previous attempts. And up he comes the staircase dragging that pretty thing of death.
Suddenly (after nearly 3 hours of nose bleeding speeds of 8-10 knots) the wind picked up. It PICKED UP! Mega schmega style! And this beautiful butterfly turned on us and went à-la Hitchcock and yanked the boat to one side dipping in the water then boom yanked it to the other side, tipping so far over I stood STOOD on the SIDE of the bench 0_o and this went on and on and ohmygodIwilldieinthisfrigginboat on.
- Would not care.
- Would not believe me.
- Would be too scared to sleep tonight.
- Would ask to see my I.D. (in case you work for for the DMV or the INS or the FDA or the CIA or the KKK)
Why the heck would I ever think of adding those last 3 hateful letters???
We freaked out. Needless to say. We tried loosening both sides. The sail only parachuted more and created a bigger bubble. We lowered the lanyard holding the death bitch up. Bigger bubble. We loosened the sides again. Big bubble. Words were said. Maybe yelled. Prayers were mumbled. Then spoken more clearly. Bits of flesh were lost on the quickly and harshly tugging lines. Rope burns. They suck.
Finally we tossed the coin: it's us and the boat or that beautiful flapping butterfly. We won. Thank god. And we released first one side then the other. I'm at 530 words and by now the true story has taken over 60 minutes, has brought my heart rate way up and ...I don't know... I realized I had more of a belly than I did last year. Yeah, as I jumped from one side to the next I looked down and saw the bulge. What can I say, I love hot pastrami sandwiches!
Yeah. So long story short (too late) we let go both sides, watched it flop all over the place, then finally let it out the top so much it came down to the water, we motored up to it scooped it up and allowed twentyfivethousand gallons of salt water into our cockpit (hee hee I said cock). Oh yeah, and with all this tipping dreadfully from one side to the other a jug of fuel spilled over. Fun! We not only had the threat of laying the boat on its side but now we faced the thought of explosion!
Killer day I tell ya, killer day! Oh and my belly - have I mentioned my belly and how my legs need a waxing?
A New Slideshow!
We've been gone for... how long now? Yesterday we dropped anchor in Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay) which is half way between San Diego and Cabo San Lucas. Last year the couple of days leading to our arrival at this spot was beyond frightening with horrendous storms and a fuel shortage under head-on winds of 30 knots. Not fun. But this year it's been perfectly perfect!
I wanted to share with you a first batch of pics with this slideshow. Hope you enjoy!
I wanted to share with you a first batch of pics with this slideshow. Hope you enjoy!
Ohmygodthedayhascome!
The day has finally come… We have set sail for a new adventure. The coolest part of true adventures is how you don’t really know for sure where the journey will take you. We have ideas, plans, and have been doing major name droppings *cough-tahiti-cough* but in reality:
WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE’LL END UP!
And that’s the most exciting part. It reminds me of those game shows prompting you to pick door number one, door number two or door number three. The surprise is such a big part of the prize! Actually, the word should technically be spelled out S-U-R-P-R-I-Z-E!
People often ask “Wow, did you win the lottery or something?” and the funny thing is: its the stellar opposite and they think we’re mad when we answer “No, its because we are broke that we need to leave!” “I wish I were broke” is the common answer. Food in California is insanely high ($6 for a pound of ground beef? Are you kidding me???) and then there is the fuel, the eventual nights out with friends at $10 a drink, etc. Mexico offers us absolutely free living expenses (no cost to drop the anchor) and much more reasonably priced fuel and groceries.
Plus the water is invitingly warm… Dippity doo-dah! Too hot and sweaty? Jump in the water. Bored and need something to do? Jump in the water. Need exercise? Jump in the water. Hungry? Jump in the water. Heh heh heh.
But what will you do after?
We really don’t know. Not a clue. Not an inkling of an idea. Scary? Yes, of course. Exciting? You betcha! And the biggest part of the fear factor is that when we’ll come back to live and settle here we’ll be even more broke than we are now. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Most likely we’ll be walking across that bridge because we won’t be able to put fuel in the car.
Life’s too short. I plan on squeezing every last morsel out of it like a hawk pecking away at a bunny rabbit. A cute little fury white bunny rabbit minding its own business eating a carrot as it was planning his next adventure.
And I just compared life to a bloody dead bunny. What is wrong with me?
Crossing the Sea of Cortez
Sorry, it's been a while! I think something in me changed somewhere along the way as we crossed the Sea of Cortez. I went from counting the days until we might return to San Diego to... (get ready for this one) simply enjoying myself, enjoying being on this amazing trip and simply living in the moment.
Could that explain why I've neglecting writing on this travel blog? Maybe...
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