Provisioning for the Puddle Jump

Vicki has been hard at work planning, purchasing, and stowing the food we will need for our passage to the Marquesas, which is now less than 3 weeks away. This means a big shift in our diet. While we've been in La Paz, we've enjoyed plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, including a fair amount of locally grown organic foods. There are plenty of shopping choices nearby, and we can pick up whatever we want whenever we want it. Plus, there is a tremendous selection of affordable prepared food. There is little incentive to prepare lunch when we can get a tasty fish taco for a little over one dollar.
The passage will impose a number of limitations on us. We won't be able to shop for at least 3 and possibly 4 weeks. We have a very limited amount of freezer space. We may not have enough power to run our refrigeration enough to keep things frozen anyway. We have a limited supply of propane for cooking. Conditions at sea may be too rough for complicated meal preparation. We have a limited amount of stowage; not only do we have to find room for food, but we have to carry all plastic trash onboard until we get to the next landfall.
Based on these limitations, we find that we are loading up on a lot more canned food than we are used to eating. Of course, we have a lot of dried foods too. We'll also stock up on fresh provisions at the last minute, but we have to account for the possibility that much of the fresh produce will not survive for more than a week or two.
Many books have been written on the subject of provisioning, and every cruising boat approaches this challenge in a different way. We hope our plan will provide adequate and reasonably tasty meals for the duration of the passage.
Big thanks to Vicki who has worked so hard on this, even though she will not be along for the ride.

Allá en el rancho grande

Today our friends Memo and Hefziba took us to visit the family's ranch, down near San Juan de los Planes. It was an easy and pleasant drive over the hill, with Isla Cerralvo off to port. And then we left the pavement...

The desert vegetation here is really something. Some of the cardon cactuses must have been 60 feet high and 3 feet in diameter. Eventually we came to the edge of the plain and started winding up into the hills, until we came upon this vista.

At this point we were already on the ranch, which is 1000 acres in size. But we had to cross this canyon to reach the ranch headquarters, up high on the opposite ridge. You might be able to see a splash of green from the trees planted around the ranch house.

Finally we arrived, and Doctor Ruiz, Memo's father, proudly showed us around. He has been planting trees here for the past 18 years that he has owned this ranch.

There were date palms, papayas, mangos, guavas, avocados, zapotes, peaches, a variety of citrus trees, and a few trees I had never seen before. Here is Vicki, breathing in the fragrance from the orange tree blossoms.

Water arrives here through a black plastic hose, 2.5 kilometers long, from a spring high on the nearby mountain. Memito, between his two grandfathers, enjoyed tossing lemons into the cistern.

After squaring away some business with the ranch hand, Memo set to work preparing lunch for all of us.

He is an excellent cook, and the marinated asada tacos were some of the best we have ever tasted. Here we are feeling sleepy after tacos and beer.

There are only about 100 head of cattle here. I asked Doctor Ruiz how many hectares it takes to support one cow. The answer: 35 (over 80 acres). These cows are happily chowing on sorghum hay that was brought up from the irrigated farms back at San Juan de los Planes.

This was another great side trip, and we are grateful to our Paceño friends for showing us their beautiful ranch!

Carnaval and a sideshow

Puddle Jump preparations are well in hand, so we've had time to get out and play a bit. For much of the past week, La Paz has been celebrating Carnaval. It's no Rio or New Orleans, but for a town of this size, we thought it was a very well run festival. The malecon was closed to vehicles, and a mile-long strip of food booths and stages was set up. Being the aging gringos that we are, we tended to go out early and come home early. We never even saw any of the headline musical acts. The highlight for us was the parade, which ran for the last 3 days of Carnaval, going in different directions each day. There were some great floats, good bands, and beautiful people.

On Fat Tuesday, we took a local Mexican family out for a ride on the boat. None of these folks had ever been on a sailboat before, so we were anxious that they have a good time. Things started out well enough - we spotted a pod of dolphins within minutes of leaving the marina. This was the first time we had ever seen dolphins in the bay. I had the family's 4-year-old son help me steer the boat, and he really enjoyed it.

After a downwind run past town, we furled the sail, headed over to the Mogote, and dropped the anchor for lunch.

After lunch, we were motoring back across the bar separating the mogote from the main channel when we suddenly ran aground! I tried to reassure our guests that "there's nothing to worry about, we do this all the time", while Vicki got on the VHF and asked for help from anyone in the area.
In the usual cruiser fashion, we soon had a flotilla of dinghies speeding to our rescue. Led by Rob and Kim on Keetya I, a group of three dinghies pulled on our spinnaker halyard, to heel us over and hopefully raise the keel out of the mud. Another dinghy pushed against the side of our bow to get us pointed down-current. The tide was ebbing and we didn't want to waste any time! Luckily we came free after a few agonizing minutes. As far as I know, there were no incriminating pictures taken! Our guests were a bit more wary but apparently not too badly shaken by the experience. I dove to inspect the keel the next day and all I found were a few spots where the paint had been worn off by the mud. All's well that ends well, thanks to our fellow cruisers.

One more month until the Puddle Jump

We have spent most of this winter tied up to a slip in La Paz, unlike the past two seasons where we freely roamed the coast of Mexico. Partly this was to accommodate some of the land-based excursions we've already described, but the main reason was to prepare the boat for a 3000 mile passage to French Polynesia.

Last year we went to the Marquesas as crew on another boat, as a way to help us decide whether we really wanted to commit ourselves and our boat to such a long trip. Chances are good that once Southern Cross leaves the coast of North America, she will never return. We will return, of course, but to get the boat back requires too much upwind sailing for our liking, or a ride aboard a Dockwise freighter, which is way out of our budget.

Anyway, we have decided to go ahead with this plan, although many mornings we wake up and ask ourselves "just why the heck are we leaving Mexico?" It has been a wonderful experience living and sailing here, and we know we will be back, with or without a boat.

Vicki has worked hard to prepare for this trip, but she decided long ago that she doesn't need to repeat the passage itself. She will be happy to drive our truck north, then take an airplane to meet me and the boat at Nuku Hiva. I have asked a longtime friend and experienced crewman to join me, and Joseph has invited one of his good friends to become the third member of our company. Justin, a researcher at the University of Idaho, will use this experience to kick off a project called "Adventure Learning at Latitude." Using a BGAN satellite terminal, we'll upload details of our passage, photos, and our observations of the marine environment to a website for elementary and secondary students back home. I'll post a link to the website once it has launched.

Vicki and I have worked hard this winter installing new lifelines, steering cables, shade cloths, and other needed touches, and researching all the information we will need for this next phase of our voyage. All that remains are the usual routine maintenance procedures we would be doing anyway, provisioning the boat with as much food as we can pack into her, and sailing down to Los Cabos to pick up our crew.

We're still a few weeks away from this last step, mostly because I'm tied in to the academic calendar. We anticipate leaving La Paz about March 13, and shoving off from San Jose del Cabo on March 21, right after I've finished grading papers.

Whalewatching in Laguna San Ignacio

Yet another land-based excursion! We had been dreaming of visiting the gray whales ever since we kayaked with them in Scammon's Lagoon 30 years ago (at that point kayaking was still allowed there). Our friends Steve and Laurie had the same dream, so we decided to go together. Steve and Laurie flew in to Loreto, and we drove up from La Paz to pick them up for the drive north to San Ignacio. On the way, we stopped for a terrific view of one of the coves in Bahia Concepción.

We arrived at Pachico's Ecotours camp about 4 hours after leaving Loreto. The last 20 miles or so were unpaved, but not particularly rough. The shore of the lagoon is rather stark and desolate. The camp's facilities are being upgraded by Pachico's son Jesus and his wife. They are building an "Earthship" main lodge out of discarded tires and other recycled materials.

After we got there, Jesus gave us an orientation to the area and our activities. He was raised here, but has worked far and wide guiding scuba divers, kayakers, and other outdoor adventurers. We really enjoyed getting to know him.

We had time that first evening to hike along the shore to a pile of old whalebones.

The next morning, we got to go out with Jesus's father Pachico, one of the original guides to discover how friendly these whales could be. We felt very lucky to have chosen Pachico and Jesus as our guides. They added a lot to our experience, and helped us understand what we were seeing.

As you can see, we were pretty anxious to see the whales.

Thar she blows!

There were amorous couples (and threesomes) that we didn't dare approach too closely, very pregnant looking females, and a few newborn calves, closely accompanying their mothers.

At the end of the first day, we came back for another night at the camp. The bungalows are small but weathertight, and with a terrific view of the lagoon. The solar showers were not quite ready for prime time, but Jesus and his staff heated water for us on the stove.

We spent a second day, meeting and greeting dozens of whales. Two came close enough for us all to touch. It is hard to convey the emotional impact of being this close to these magnificent animals in their native environment. We recommend this experience to everyone!

Diving in the Revillagigedo Archipelago

We just returned from an 8-day dive trip to Socorro, and are still on a high from the experience! We booked passage on Nautilus Explorer rather than take our own boat.


It was a lot of money to go this route, but we definitely count it as one of our all-time most wonderful experiences. I get very emotional just thinking about the close and prolonged encounters that we had with the mantas, dolphins, sharks, and other sea life. We do not have a decent underwater camera so I can't post any underwater pics, but we do have a nice DVD compilation of all the other divers' photos, and I have one nice manta "fly-by" video that another diver generously shared with me. Unfortunately Blogger doesn't seem to want me to upload it.

We spent the first day diving at the Canyon on the S end of San Benedicto. This is a view of the cinder cone on San Benedicto.

The next day we checked in with the Mexican navy at the south end of Socorro Island. Visits are controlled by permit, and the Mexican navy helps keep poachers from decimating the rich and abundant sea life here.

After our check in, we went on to dive at Cabo Pierce on the E side of Socorro. The next day we dove at Pta Tosca on the W side of Socorro, and then spent 2 days at Roca Partida, which was the highlight of our trip. This rock is 75 miles from the nearest other island, and drops off to 250' on all sides. Here we saw a great variety of sharks and other pelagics, including schools of wahoo and yellowfin tuna.

Our last day was back at San Benedicto at the Boiler, where we had another really good encounter with dolphins, and saw mantas on every dive. After our 3rd dive of the day, we took the zodiacs in for a closer look at San Benedicto's rugged western coastline.


Diving conditions were challenging, as we had expected: strong surge, irregular and sometimes very strong currents. Unfortunately the viz was less than we had hoped for, typically only 30 feet at San Benedicto and Socorro, and 50-75 feet at Roca Partida. Water temp varied from 74-78F.

Fortunately we had an excellent crew on board. Of the 3 divemasters, I was most impressed with Sten, a Swedish Viking who knew these islands well and showed us many interesting things underwater.

Despite the somewhat challenging conditions, this area stands out as the best diving I have ever had, due to the wildlife and their behavior. The divemasters told us they know of nowhere else in the world where the mantas are so curious about divers. Many times a group of mantas would spend the entire dive around us, whether there were 2 people in the water or 20, and would closely approach each diver. Being eyeball to eyeball with these magnificent animals is as close as I have come to a spiritual experience.

Our encounters with dolphins at Roca Partida were also memorable. Like the mantas, they seemed more curious about divers than at any other location where I have encountered them previously. One of the divemasters told us of holding a dolphin in his arms and rubbing its belly on a previous trip; our encounters were not quite that close!

We saw quite a few shark species on this trip: great hammerheads, scalloped hammerheads, Galapagos, silky, silver tip, white tip, and possibly some others. The visual highlight was the "puppy piles" of small white-tips in caves at Roca Partida and the Boiler. They were literally stacked like cordwood, and appeared to be asleep. We could drift up to within inches without disturbing them!

Other sea life was abundant and unafraid of divers, as well. I don't even want to tell other boaters about some of what I saw, as it might make them hungry! And that is the only sad part of this experience -- seeing how rich and abundant the sea can be, without the relentless pressure of commercial and sport fishers. Most dive sites will now seem empty and desolate in comparison. I'm glad the Mexican navy is there, and I fervently hope they can protect what is left of the Socorros' abundance and diversity.

Sailing in the New Year

The weather has recently warmed up to more like what we remember from last season. It is so nice that we just couldn't stay at the dock, even with a ton of boat chores and school work hanging over us. So we slipped the lines and had a great sail up to Caleta Lobos, only about 5 miles outside the La Paz entrance channel. Amazingly, there are only 2 other boats here, despite the proximity to the big city, and the beautiful, tranquil surroundings. Even though the water has dropped to a chilly (at least by Mexican standards) 68F, I went in for a "polar bear swim." It was so good that Vicki and I are both going in again today. Happy New Year!