Month: February 2017

All Part of the Adventure

We left Tenacatita and headed a short distance south to Barra de Navidad.  There weren’t predicted to be any significant winds, but after we got out of the bay it was blowing about 30 knots.  That’s a bit more than we like to sail with, but the boat can handle it.  The challenge was getting into the harbor and docking the boat at the marina with that wind.  After a first attempt, we determined that there was no way we were going to be able to turn the boat into the slip down the fairway, so we just pulled up the outside of the dock.  Quite a few people from the marina came over to help grab our docklines, which was much appreciated.

We arrived just in time for a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner at the Grand Isla Navidad Resort.

We enjoyed the marina and resort and made some new friends.  But, my favorite thing was the French Baker who comes around to the boats each morning delivering fresh baguettes and croissants.

We left Barra de Navidad after a couple of days and continued south toward Manzanillo.  We had just left the harbor at Barra and put the sails up.  We were about to shut down the engine when all of the sudden a loud alarm went off.  We know the common alarms, like the bilge alarm, but this was one I hadn’t heard before.  Mike ran down into the cabin and then yelled at me to check the engine temperature.  That was it.  The engine had overheated.

I quickly killed the engine as we started to brainstorm what could have happened to overheat the engine.  We discovered the culprit.  Before we left Barra, Mike had gone below to open the thru-hole that lets the cooling water in for the engine.  Well, the thru-hole was apparently already open, and Mike must have been distracted. He though he was opening the thru-hole and he really closed it.  He said in nine years of owning the boat, he has never made this mistake.

He was pretty upset, convinced that he had destroyed the engine.  I tried to calm him down a bit.  We were a sailboat after all, and we could sail!  Mike was able to get a call off to his diesel mechanic back in LA who didn’t seem as alarmed as Mike was.  The mechanic said he probably just burned up the impeller, but other than that it was probably ok.  Luckily, we carry lots of spare parts on board, including a spare impeller.

Mike got to work changing the impeller while I was behind the wheel. We had a few hours before we were to arrive at Manzanillo.  It took Mike a couple of hours, but he was able to change the impeller and the engine cooled down.  He was still kicking himself over a completely easy mistake to make.  It was my turn to echo the words that Mike has said to me many times when when we have had some sort of difficult situation: “It is all part of the adventure!”

Safe and sound anchored in Manzanillo:

So, this got me thinking about what exactly is an “adventure.”  It is what Mike and I have been calling our journey.  But, I wanted to really think about what that meant.

I recently read a book called Flying South by Barbara Cushman Rowell that my dad gave me for Christmas.  (Great book, by the way.)  The author writes about her experience flying her single engine Cessna from California to Patagonia.  She is frustrated by her life and living in the shadow of her famous husband, who is a photographer and rock climber.  She feels like she is simply tagging along on his adventures and needs one of her own.

So, she becomes a pilot and is then encouraged by one of her husband’s friends to fly her plane in tandem with his down to Patagonia and back. She endures instrument failures, political coups, tropical storms and a horrible rafting accident.  She is pushed beyond what she thinks her limits are, overcomes her fears and talks about how much the journey changed her.

Tragically, she and her husband were killed in a plane crash (she was not the pilot) shortly after she wrote the book.  But, I think it makes her words have even more impact. She says this about flying and her adventure…

“Fear isn’t a reason not to fly.  I know now that fear is my biological warning system that I can tune into to keep from blundering on into disaster.  I see fear of flying as a beam of light through the fog radiating from a lighthouse:  it lets me know that something on the horizon could wreak havoc if ignored.  A veteran bush pilot once said to me, ‘The day you’re not afraid is the day I don’t want to fly with you.’
“I could have found plenty of reasons not of fly my single-engine airplane to Patagonia- but I would have missed the greatest adventure of my life.  Even though I may have slain my fears one by one this time, I know they’ll be back.  And when they return, I’ll fight them off again. Anything truly worth doing in this life comes with risk, and risk is never without fear.”
I thought about that a lot.   So, here is what I think an adventure entails:
(1) It is something unexpected – not something everyone ordinarily does
(2) It presents a challenge, either mentally, physically or both
(3) It involves risk and overcoming fear
(4) It fundamentally changes you.
So, I want to know if you have had a grand adventure.  If so, what was it and how did it change you?  Or, do you have a grand adventure you want to undertake.  What is holding you back?
I think the hardest part of our adventure was casting off the docklines.  It involved preparing the boat, training, obtaining gear and overcoming obstacles of finances, our careers and our relationship.  And, we had to ignore the naysayers who didn’t understand what we were doing.  But, finally letting go and leaving the dock was the most freeing thing we have ever done!
~katie

 

Don’t Tip the Canoe!

After leaving Punta Mita, we headed over to Yelapa just across Banderas Bay.  Yelapa is an absolutely beautiful bay with steep, green hillsides.  The anchorage is also steep-to underwater, so some enterprising locals have set up moorings that you can tie up to.  The “mooring ball” was just an empty water jug, but the mooring was solid and kept us in place.  We got a visit from one of the locals in a panga to charge us a fee of about $15/night for use of the mooring.

There is no way into Yelapa other than by boat, as there are no roads (and no cars) into the town.  There are winding, cobblestone streets throughout the town that are a bit of a maze.  But, we did find a delicious restaurant called Tacos Y Mas the first night we arrived.  We ran into a couple other boats we had met earlier in La Cruz and invited them to join us for some delicious al pastor tacos.

Our plan for the next day was to hike to one of the waterfalls that we were told were outside of town.  Unfortunately, Mike & I both came down with a horrible cold/flu type thing and were laid up in bed for the next two days.  Ugh.  So, we missed out on the waterfall. Oh well.

We needed to keep moving south, so as soon as the weather forecast looked good, we took off on an overnight passage to Tenacatita.  We had pretty consistent winds in the 15-20 kt range all night that gave us a beautiful downwind sail.  On my watch I got the privilege of seeing an amazing moonrise when the moon looked like a giant orange ball of fire rising up over the mountains.  Just awesome!

We arrived in Tenacatita and were a bit surprised to find about 15 boats there, but it is a pretty large anchorage.  We had read that there was an estuary you can enter just off the anchorage that will take you about 2 1/2 miles through the mangroves up to a lagoon.

We decided to check out the estuary by paddle, so we blew up our inflatable canoe and took off toward the estuary entrance.  We could tell that the tide was going out, so it was going to be an upstream paddle on the way in, but we thought it would be better to have the more difficult paddle first and then coast back.

What we didn’t anticipate was that at the mouth of the estuary the bar gets really shallow.  That shallow water accelerated the flow of the current to the point where we were fighting about a 4 kt current.  Despite our frantic paddling, we weren’t able to get through that.  So, we beached the canoe and walked it across the bar to a point where the estuary was deeper and the current not quite as fast.

The upstream paddle was definitely a challenge and a serious workout for the arms, but we were able to manage it ok.  Just a few blisters on the hands…  But, on the return trip, we were able to float back just using the paddles to steer around the bends.

The estuary was beautiful.  The mangroves lined the sides of the estuary and were home to tons of red mangrove crabs and all different types of birds – herons, egrets, etc.  It really was perfect to paddle instead of using the dinghy with the motor.  The silence in the estuary except the sounds of the birds, the wind blowing through the mangroves and the scratching of the crabs through the mangroves really did give us a sense of being part of nature.

We were told that there were some crocodiles in the estuary.  One of the other boats we met in the anchorage told us they saw some baby crocodiles on their trip through.  We were on the lookout, but unfortunately never saw any.  I’m sure they were hiding somewhere in the mangroves.  I figured they wouldn’t bother us, but I certainly didn’t want to take an chances of tipping the canoe and going for a swim!

Tenacatita was awesome, but we needed to keep moving. After a couple of days, we headed south again to Barra de Navidad!  More on that next time…

~katie

Toys Toys Toys

We finally finished all of our projects in La Cruz and stocked up on provisions. We were ready to head south but decided to make a detour to Punta Mita. Mike really wanted a surfboard as we are going to hit lots of surf spots south and in Central America this year. After talking to our friend Merle on Kenta Anae, Mike decided he wanted a stand up paddle surfboard. We have two SUP boards on the boat, but they are inflatable and not exactly what you can surf.

Banderas Bay was probably the last chance we were going to have for quite a while to find a surfboard to buy in Mexico. So, we headed up to Punta Mita, where there is some surf and lots of surf shops. Now, these surfboards can be pretty expensive, so we were really in the market for a used one. We found some surf shops with some used ones for sale that Mike tried out, but none were really what he was looking for.

Then, we found an American couple living in a condo just off the beach that had one for sale! It is a bit less “floaty” than Mike would probably have liked, but it really is perfect for him to surf. It’s just going to take lots of practice. As Mike has quite a few pounds on me, the board has no problem floating me. It is a bit more challenging to paddle than our big inflatables, but a challenge is a good thing! So, we ended up with this awesome board at a totally reasonable cost. It was definitely worth our stop in Punta Mita.

Part of what we wanted to do by setting sail was to push ourselves and be adventurous. It wasn’t just about sailing for us, which is why a good part of our investment in this project was in non-boat related gear. Or, as I sometimes call themtoys.

When I met Mike, he had more “toys” than anyone I had ever met. Two cars, two boats, snowboards, wakeboards, a mountain bike. You get the picture. What else did I expect from a very active 40 yr old bachelor!
In loading up Adagio, we had to trade in some of our old toys for new ones that would work on our adventure. So, here’s what we ended up with on the boat:

Fishing – Mike had lots of fishing gear that he acquired over the years. (He used to take charter fishing boats out of San Diego every year and bring back enough tuna and yellowtail to fill my freezer for a year!) Rods, reels, lines, lures Mike adds some new little things here and there. But, his birthday/Christmas present this year was a new speargun! After our adventures with friends in the Sea of Cortez this last year, Mike REALLY wanted one, and we found a great deal on Ebay for a Riffe speargun when we were back in the States over the holidays.

Snorkeling/Scuba – We have lots of masks, snorkels, fins, etc. for snorkeling, but our real investment was in the scuba gear. You might recall that before we left California we got our scuba certifications. But, we wanted to be able to dive wherever we were, even in a remote place without a dive shop. So, we picked up the BCDs, dive computers, regulators, etc. And, we put four steel Fabor tanks on the boat. Getting tanks filled can also be a challenge in remote places, so we added a gas powered dive compressor to fill our tanks. It really is cool and totally worth the cost, which wasn’t really all that bad.

Bicycles – Mike and I both liked cycling. I had a road bike, and Mike had a mountain bike. We liked the idea of having bikes on board for both exercise and transportation. After some research, we found the Dahon Mariner folding bikes. They fold up pretty compact. The tires are the size of a kid’s bike, but the frame is larger for an adult size person. The seat and handlebars are adjustable. You can go back and read about our adventures on the bikes in San Jose last year.

Canoe – I know this one sounds funny. We had two rigid kayaks that we used for years back in California. But, they take up a lot of room and created a lot of windage strapped to the rails. So, we sold them and started looking for inflatable kayaks that could fold and store easily. Then we found the 14 ft inflatable canoe from Sea Eagle and decided we had to have that instead. It is pretty big, but it is lots of fun and gives us good exercise rowing when we don’t want to throw the dinghy in the water.

SUP/Surfboards – So, that brings us to the stand-up surfboard we just acquired. We also have two inflatable SUP boards from Tower. They are lots of fun and easy to paddle. They are very “floaty” and wide, so not very hard to keep from falling off even in rough waves and surf. But, I’m really excited to paddle our new Starboard surf/paddleboard.
I think that is about it for the toys. Mike has talked about getting a kiteboard, but I think I’ve convinced him he needs to master the surfing before taking on another toy to learn.

It’s all part of what makes this our adventure!

~katie

Day by Day

I’ve been asked by several of you land lubbers what the heck we do out here each day.  If you’ve read the blog and saw some of the videos, you probably have a good idea what we do when we are sailing or are at anchor in a new bay.  But, what have we been doing in the marina here in La Cruz for the past two weeks???

So, I thought I would give you the run down of what we have been doing for the past few days.  There really isn’t any typical day here since there isn’t much routine. But, this will give you some idea…

On Saturday, we were lucky to be invited to crew aboard Kenta Anae, our friends we met earlier this summer in the Sea, as they were about to race the final race in the Vallarta Cup Series put on by the Vallarta Yacht Club.  Now, Mike & I may have done our share of sailing, but we have no race experience whatsoever!  It’s a whole different ballgame!  I mostly tried to stay out of the way and grind on the winch to sheet in the spinnaker whenever Merle gave the order.  That, I could handle.

I was also the race photographer…

We were one of the only cruising/liveaboard boats in the race, so it we weren’t exactly pulling away from most of the raceboats. But, we did beat some boats and overall had a great time.  It was so nice to be out on the water again!  We even saw a whale pretty close to the boat.  One crazy thing did happen though.  Another boat had to pull out of the race in the middle because they discovered a dead body floating in the bay.  Eek!  Apparently a tourist at a nearby resort had gone missing and was presumed drowned.  I’m glad his family got some closure, but I’m also glad we did not make the gruesome discovery!

After a celebratory tequila on Kenta Anae after the race, Mike & I had to get back to Adagio to do some studying.  While we were in the States, we studied for and took the first Ham license exam (Technician level).  But, to really do anything on the radio, you need the second level – General license.  They were offering the exam at the Vallarta Yacht Club on Sunday morning, so we decided to go for it.  Unfortunately, we had procrastinated a bit on the studying, and had to stay up late Saturday night trying to memorize everything.  Unless you know a lot about circuits, oscillators, transceivers, how to solve for power when you have resistance and energy, etc…you have to study for this exam.

Sunday morning came early, and we took a van with a bunch of other folks from the marina over to the yacht club for our test.  Thankfully, we both passed and now have our upgrade Ham license!  After resting up (we stayed up way too late!), we met up with a group of about 15 people to head into Puerto Vallarta for dinner.  Our friends on Kenta Anae wanted to introduce everyone to a great Cuban restaurant that they found in Puerto Vallarta Centro.  We had to take two different buses to get there, and somehow we managed to all pile onto the same buses despite the large size of our group.  The restaurant was great with live music and a dance floor.  Unfortunately, Mike was starting not to feel so well, so we cut the evening short.  But, we heard the band played until 3 am!

On Monday, Mike was down with a bug, so I took the opportunity to do some computer work and video editing.  I promise there will be a new video up soon!

Tuesday was “I hate birds!” day.  We realized that for the last couple of nights, one of the large frigate birds had decided that the top of the mast was an excellent place to hang out for the night.  Our boat was literally covered in bird shit.  The decks, the canvas, the dinghy, the lines on the mast pulpit, the scuba tanks…everything.  And, on top of that, the bird broke off the wind indicator on the mast.  Ugh!  So, I got to work on my hands and knees scrubbing bird shit for hours in the sun.  Mike was finally feeling himself by the afternoon and decided to climb to the top of the mast to replace the broken piece of the wind indicator (thank goodness we had a spare) and to put up some bird deterrent.  He put up a bunch of bright colored zip ties sticking straight up that we hoped would keep the birds off.

Unfortunately, about 4 am that night, Mike & I both woke up to a noise. We both looked at each other and said “bird!”  Sure enough, that damn bird was back and didn’t care about the zip ties.  And what a mess he had made.  Lucky for me, Mike was willing to get the hose and scrub brush out and let me stay in bed.

By Wednesday we were really getting serious about narrowing our to-do list so that we could finally depart the marina. Mike took off to run a bunch of errands and get some last minute parts as well as make a couple of returns to the marine shop in Puerto Vallarta.  I stayed behind to work on polishing the stainless steel.  I didn’t get the whole boat done, but there are only so many hours I can stand working in the sun and heat before I call it quits for the day.

So, that brings us to today. Mike needed to do some maintenance on the outboards, so I got tasked with finding the AutoZone to get us more refrigerant.  I found the AutoZone, which was right next to the WalMart.  I took the opportunity to pick up some last minute things at WalMart and was surprised to find lemons!  Limes are easily available in Mexico, but this is the first time I’ve seen lemons since leaving California.  This was also my first time negotiating the Puerto Vallarta bus system by myself, so I’m pretty proud of myself.

After my shopping excursion, I walked over to the fish market to pick up some shrimp for dinner.  And, I decided to do a little work in the galley.  My cilantro looked like it was on its last day, so I made it into some great cilantro pesto with some almonds, garlic, olive oil and salt.  It should keep that way for some time.  I also started a new batch of sprouts.  I’m trying some different seeds this time, so I hope they turn out pretty yummy.

We made a plan to leave here on Saturday, weather permitting.  We’re still debating whether to head to Punta de Mita or to Yelapa.  I know Mike wants to try his hand at surfing, so I think we may end up at Punta de Mita for a couple of days.

We’ll keep you all posted of our whereabouts!

~katie