Killer Day!

Up until last year when we sailed South my most frightening day ever was crossing to the famous Cedros Island midway down the peninsula of Baja California in Mexico. That day was dreadful.
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.

We hooked that bitch up, pulled it up and shazam - it was awesome! Beyond awesome. It parachuted open dead center in front of our boat and we hit speed digits we'd never (ever) seen. We even wen't beyond 10 knots. Which is insane, trust me.

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.

I took a picture of where one of my shoes landed. It wasn't on me per say, but it needed to leap from one counter to the other, to land 4 feet away tucked between the stove and the cabinet. Ok? I can go on. I so could totally go on with the weird and insane stuff that happened. But I won't. Because you either:

1. Would not care.
2. Would not believe me.
3. Would be too scared to sleep tonight.
4. 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!

Ohmygodthedayhascome!

Do I sound like the hap-hap-happy puppy that jumps all over you and licks your face once you’ve entered the room after having left it for 5 minutes? Yup! That would be ME!

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...

What Do You Do?

Full Moon Over La Paz

People often ask: "What do you guys do over there?"  The majority of our time is not spent sailing, or actually boating around if you want.

I'd say the majority of our time is spent either just sitting, reading, listening to the music or Howard Stern on Sirius, and our evenings are spent watching our favorite shows (right now that would be Shameless, Walking Dead and Californication).

Vedi, Vini, Vici

A souvenir of their visit: a mickey of tequila
with our picture on it. How fitting!

They came. (yay)
They saw. (us and we them)
They conquered. (the bars: ouch!)

Stop and Smell the Roses...

What a show-off! This young whale was putting on quite a display!

Since the beginning of our journey, we'd barely seen any whales at all. Which is atypical of this area... Normally they're spotted daily. When chatting with other travelers we discover we aren't alone in this world of no-whale spotting.

And then...