So, rumor has it, if we can cruise 24/7 for more than one full year, we'll be among those people who end up cruising for a really long time. I don't know about that…there's a lot to be said for a land-based existence…but we started short-time cruising in the PacNW and BC in 1998; then…
Weather permitting, by the time you read this we'll have slipped the mooring lines after 5 weeks at Marina Costa Baja in La Paz, to head north to the islands in the Sea of Cortez. If all goes according to plan (yeah, right), we'll be out there for at least 4 weeks before our next port-with-Internet…
As some dear readers may recall, our cruising expenses for November 2008 looked pretty sweet, thanks to having anchored out the whole month. For some contrast, here's what the following month looked like when we spent the first half of December 2008 anchored out in the islands of the lower Sea of Cortez, then put in…
It was 0200 on a dark and clear night in the Sea of Cortez – also known as the Gulf of California. We were motoring along at 1600 rpm in a 1985 40 foot O’Day sailboat making about 3 knots, the oil pressure was wavering between 7 and 15 pounds, (the engine was rated for…
Act I, Scene I. Somewhere in the Sea of Cortez. Morning on The Fox at anchor. Belowdecks, in the salon. "Darling, there appears to be a spot of water in the Dry Bilge." "Taste it, My Sweet – is it fresh, or salty?" "It tastes of salt, Love. Whence comes it, thinks you?" "I shall…
So, there we were, another happy hour in the cockpit of The Fox. Jake and Vicky, recently having sailed their Malö 41 Maloose in to La Paz from Los Angeles, were with us. We had a grand time munching on scallop ceviche, crackers, totopos (tortilla chips) and salsa verde. Also, wine was involved. Red wine. We had no big…
As a general principle, the longer you spend at anchor and away from marinas and fancy restaurants, the cheaper cruising gets. Let's look at our expenses from November 2008 as an example. All expenses have been converted to US dollars where they weren't already US dollars. Our out of pocket expenses were: One day at Marina El Cid, Mazatlan:…
The cruising publications are correct when they describe the great travel to be had amongst the islands in the Sea of Cortez within a very small radius of La Paz. Like, within a 35-mile radius are four islands plus the Baja peninsula. For those of you from the PacNW, think "San Juan and Gulf Islands, but…
At least one popular sailing publication encourages boaters in Mexico to spend as little time as possible in the Sea of Cortez in November, or bypass it altogether, and instead steers them to mainland destinations like Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatanejo and Manzanillo. It's hard to tell whether or not these areas were popular with cruisers before the sailing publications…
We had about one week to really get everything done in Mazatlan after hurricane season officially ended there – on Nov 1 the rates doubled from $.27 to $.50 a foot. For October 2008, we spent about $200 running an 8000 BTU Home Depot AC unit 20 out of 24 hours. It's real hot in…