Trekking with Chris

As most of my friends will acknowledge, I am a pretty good hiker. Trekking with Chris, however, has put a whole new meaning to exploratory hikes and sometimes leave me wishing for the well trodden trails of the northwest forests where I used to roam with the Cowichan Outdoor Group.

In the Baja heat we venture into the desert, scramble up scree encrusted hills, hop rock to rock and dodge the prickly bushes and cacti in the steep arroyos where rain water once tumbled down the mountains. The anticipated three hours become six and we return with wearied limbs covered in spidery trails of dried blood. Chris rarely complains despite suffering more than his share of this abuse ( he rarely  pays attention to that old addage “look before you leap” ).

Dos Amigos on San Gabriel beach

Off on an adventure!

Making new friends on Bonanza Beach

Puffers can be cool too!

John with staff

Multitude of life under rocks

John lifted some rocks in the tide pools on the southern end of Bonanza Beach and we were amazed at the number of sea stars, cucumbers, worms and shells hiding in the cool shade and shallow water. Writhing masses of brittle stars reminded us of a brood of vipers. Speaking of vipers, John warned us about the poisonous jabs of the pretty cone shells. Having spent a few years in the Marshall Islands, he has seen his share of exotic shells and seems well informed of their deadly interaction with the naive beach comber.

Brittle Star hiding under the rocks

Shells living in the rock pools of Bonanza Beach

I should have warned our friend John of sv Time Piece before we invited him on a cross-island hike on Isla Espiritu Santo.The first leg of the trek from San Gabriel Bay to Bonanza Beach was an easy hike through a well traveled arroyo but the return leg was a detour directed by Chris.

Along the way, Chris invited John to follow him in his "Thelma and Louise" leap off a large dune. Unfortunately, I did not catch the action on my camera, so Chris repeated this twice for my benefit and had a prickly landing on the third attempt. John used his safety training skills to extract the cactus spines from his foot.

Let's follow the coyote trail

But, first, let's go up this dune and jump off the top!

Woweeeeee!

Oweeeeeee!!!!

Chris ran into this beastie at his third run down the dune :(

“ We can climb over that gray looking ridge and come down into an adjacent arroyo which should bring us back behind the bird colony”. It sounded easy enough but what we did not foresee was that there was another ridge beyond the first and traversing those hills would be hard work in the afternoon heat. In this instance we decided that following Chris was not the best idea, so John and I decided to mutiny and scramble down  instead of following him up the second ridge.

We think he ran up to beat us to the dinghies as he managed to disappear rather quickly from view. While hopping along the rock slides and crawling down crumbling sandstone scree, we amused ourselves by inventing stories of encounters with wild cats and near death escapes that we would later recount to our very own Captain Bligh.

"We just have to go over one more ridge , honest!"

Cardon Cactus in arroyo

Rani's cave

Boats beyond the frigate colony

 Finally our arroyo opened into the salty flats behind the mangrove sanctuary of the nesting frigate colony.

Dinghy transfer 

To his credit, Chris rowed out to Ladybug to fetch us all a can of cold beer when we emerged onto the beach, battered and bruised. And he towed John's dinghy from the beach into shallower water, probably to ease his conscience.

Pictures from the Islands Near La Paz

Rani has promised to post an entry in the next few days. Until then, here are a few pics from recent trips to the islands north of La Paz.

Sally Lightfoot crab at Bonanza Beach.

View south along Bonanza Beach.

Goats rub their horns on certain trees. 

Free Spirit anchored off the mangrove lined lagoon at San Gabriel anchorage.

Ladybug arrives in Lobos anchorage.

Furling the jib slows things down and makes it easier to maneuver under sail in an anchorage.

Ladybug inspects the toys in the 'garage' of a mega-yacht.

Chris and John climbing near the Raza anchorage.

John Spicher and Chris resting after the climb. Rooster and Hen islands in the distance.

To balance the dinghy we now sit back to back on the main thwart.

Navy vessel approaches after dropping off an officer on Time Piece. We have been inspected twice in the last few weeks.

Masked men and guns - The fellow who is waving took down our vessel particulars and one of the masked men came on board with him. He was very interested in our boat and Rani invited him below - machine gun and all.

Chris inspects a large shell midden.

This cave was occupied many years ago and has its own shell midden.

Beautiful patterns of peeling bark.

Rain!

The day we arrived in Mexico in mid November it rained in the night. Since then, we have not seen a drop until today, although we passed near a shower that produced a rain-arch on one passage. It comes as something of a shock when you wake up here to overcast skies and doubly so when these are accompanied by drumming rain and rumbling thunder.

We have rigged a tarp to collect rain water in anticipation of doing this often in the tropics. The results so far are not spectacular - we have collected enough water to brush our teeth, but the water is rich with fragments of blue tarp. I think we will either need to make a custom tarp to collect rain or try to use the boats scuppers to collect run-off. (The deck has high bulwarks, which will trap the run-off from the cabin and sails if we block the scuppers that drain over the side).

Rani tells me she loves the sound of rain - it takes her back to being a little girl in India. She would run outside, dancing and twirling, the drops landing heavily on her head. Sometimes the rain would come so quickly and heavily that the parched earth could not accept it immediately and everything would flood. And then the worms would come out and make it hard to get back to her house as she had to walk on tip-toes to avoid squishing them. My early memories of thunderstorms take me to my parent's bedroom where I must have ended up hiding under the covers and counting the seconds between light and crash.

Being in a sailboat in a thunderstorm with that big metal pole poking up toward the clouds is not an entirely relaxing experience. I take heart that there are 6 other boats in the anchorage some with quite a lot taller masts...

Baja Sailing

One of the things you sometimes hear during coffee hour at the cruiser's club ('club cruceros') in La Paz is that there is never a decent wind for sailing among the islands in the Sea of Cortez. Like the Gulf and San Juan islands in the Pacific North West, the winds here in the winter seem to be either light and variable or strong from the north. The joke about Gulf Island Sailing where every boat you see has their mainsail up and their motor running holds quite well for this area, too.

However, we have an advantage that few of the Gulf Island sailors have and that is that we rarely have a deadline. Nor are the tides here a huge issue until you enter the estuary channel leading up to la Paz, where currents regularly flow at a couple of knots. So with much patience, it is actually possible to sail almost anywhere here. Going south is perhaps the simplest, since with a 20 knot 'Norther' behind you, you can easily do 50 miles in daylight, if you don't mind rolling around in the short sharp seas that build up during these winds.

Around the islands north of La Paz, the winds can be challenging. The Lorenzo Channel that separates La Paz from the islands has its own wind. A vortex can form in the pocket west of this channel where the winds die out and a big choppy swell from two or more directions makes it virtually impossible to sail. With northerly winds it is sometimes possible to sail far to the west to avoid this pocket of trouble, but this adds four or more miles to the passage between the islands and La Paz.

Our trip yesterday was not entirely typical, since we were able to sail through the pocket of calms off the Lorenzo channel. We left Raza anchorage with a light Northwest wind blowing and ran south with the wind behind our starboard quarter, ghosting through the calms in the lee of Rooster and Hen islands. Two boats were under sail about a mile offshore, one hoisting its spinnaker as we sailed out of the bay. About an hour out, the wind died out and then shifted into the southwest. Several sailboats motored past in both directions and the two boats that had been sailing took down their sails and ran south to La Paz under motor. The southwest wind held for a couple of miles, but as we approached the Lorenzo channel and cleared the south end of Espiritu Santo Island, we could see a train of white caps marching down the channel from the opposite direction. I hurried to the mast and put a reef in the main. We then slatted around in the hiatus between the wind systems for half an hour.

When we finally reached the channel wind, it was on our port beam and Ladybug hiked up her skirts, leaned her shoulder into the sea, and took off like a young colt. A large 1970's IOR race boat that had motored past us earlier rolled out her jib (Rani says we shamed them into sailing) and we sailed in company across the channel, leaving them as we turned into the Lobos anchorage. Lobo means 'wolf' or 'sea lion' and it is a common name for rocks and points in the Sea of Cortez. There is a small rock of this name off the anchorage that welcomed us with a musical accompaniment of bellows and grunts.

Lobos anchorage was filled by a multi-million dollar mega-yacht, behind which two masts could just be seen. We beat into the anchorage, sailing under the stern of the big yacht, where the 'garage' was open, displaying a raft of kayaks, jet skis, and other aquatic toys. The transom of the yacht opened out into a ramp, up which the toys could be hauled and loaded before getting under way. Our friends George on 'Susie' and Charlie and Sharon on 'Castaway' were the two sailboats in the anchorage and we sailed upwind of Castaway, jibed, and ran down under main alone, so we could best determine where to anchor. The big yacht occupied so much of the anchorage that we ended up beating back up to a point inside of it, just off a sand shelf and about 300 feet north of Castaway. We dropped the anchor in 14 feet of beautiful emerald water and a few hours later, a full moon rose over the anchorage as the sun dropped behind the hills across La Paz Bay.

Sea Socks and Sail Covers

Just before leaving Nova Scotia to move to BC, I paddled for a week down the coast in a river kayak. This was a wonderful trip, but some of the open water crossings were rough and because the boat has no bulkheads and I cannot 'eskimo roll', I realized that had I capsized, my chances of survival were low. To improve the odds on such trips, I decided to make a sea sock. This is simply a large sock-shaped bag that you sit inside while paddling. It fits around the cockpit combing and prevents water from entering the rest of the boat if you capsize. I bought the materials for this - coated Cordura - over the Web and have been carrying it around ever since - first across Canada to Victoria, and then onto Ladybug and down the coast to Mexico. I never made that sea sock, but yesterday, we finally used the material.

Friends who have spent much time in the tropics have warned us that the intense sun can do a number on your sails even if you keep them covered. Most of our canvas is more than 10 years old and thinner and less opaque than it was when new, so we decided to line our main sail cover with the burgundy sea sock material. We cut the material into 3 pieces and sewed these on the inside of the sail cover using the special sunbrella-specific UV resistant thread that Rani brought down from Vancouver. This thread is thicker and waxier than anything I have used before and did an excellent job without the issue of twisting and jamming that has plagued previous canvas projects. Our little Singer Featherweight handled the job without an issue, despite having to punch through 5 to 6 layers of material in places - testimony to the fact that good thread and a sharp needle are as or more important than your sewing machine's power.

The northerly winds have died down today after 2 or 3 days of rough weather outside our snug harbour. We are running low on water, butter, eggs, and fresh vegetables, so will sail south toward La Paz today.

Tuning the Rig

Our friend, John Spicher on Time Piece commented on our rig being a bit loose - in particular our aft lower shrouds (the wires that run from the first spreaders down and back) were so loose that the mast might be in danger of pumping (oscillating), which could cause a dismasting or failure in the long run. John brought over a tension gauge and measured the tension in all of the wires but the forestay, which is covered up by the roller furling foil. The tension ranged from 13% of breaking strain on the back stay (and by extension, the un-measured forestay) to as little as less than 4% (off the scale of the gauge) on one aft lower shroud.

To tension the shrouds, you twist a threaded turn-buckle a couple of turns at a time, alternating on each side and sighting up the mast each time to make sure things are straight and true. Befre we started, we went around the inside of the boat, tightening the bolts on the chainplates, which transfer the loads from the mast shrouds to the hull, via various bulkheads.

It took about two hours to undo all the wires that prevent the turn-buckles from losing their adjustment, tension all 10 wires, and re-affix the locking wires. Thanks to John we now have a nice evenly tensioned rig with between 11% and 13% of breaking strain on each wire - more tension being on the back and fore stay as well as the primary shrouds (the ones that go all the way to the top of the mast). Hopefully this will get us across the Pacific and back.

Post from our radio

One of the options that Blogger offers is the ability to post an entry via email. We will use this while en route to the Marquesas to provide passage updates including our position. The posts will be brief and text only because we will be sending them via a HAM radio link, which provides speeds similar to late 1980s dial-up modems.

There are dozens of HAM radio operators around the world who provide the gateway from radio sets to the Internet that makes this possible. To connect, we find a HAM station that is fairly near us (we are currently using stations in California and Texas, for example). Each station can respond on a number of frequencies and the one we choose is dependent on how well radio waves propagate at the time of day that you are communicating as well as the distance to the station from your boat. Sometimes it is just not possible to connect at all. We have had luck with daytime transmissions and usually try to connect early in the morning and just before sunset. We also use this service to send and receive short text emails to a special radio email address and to download weather forecasts and raw weather data (GRIB files that show wind speeds and surface pressures).

Ladybug is currently anchored in San Gabriel bay on Espiritu Santo island north of La Paz. We went on a lovely long hike yesterday to Bonanza beach and back via the valley behind a lagoon. Saw one goat and many frigate birds who nest in the lagoon. The baby frigate birds are now mostly adolescent and harder to tell from their parents. We had to move the boat away from the nesting site later that night because the birds decided our boat needed re-painting. The new fridge is working well and drawing only about 12 amp hours per 24 hours in the cool Baja winter airs, so we had cold beers on our return the the hike - woo hoo! (After 3 years cruising here with no fridge this is a real treat.)

Postcard from the frozen north

While Captain Chris has been hiking in the sun, swimming with baby sealions, capsizing little Annie and snorkeling in balmy waters, I have been working in the small northern B.C. community of Hazelton. Here, the air is crisp, the ground is covered in snow and the days are short. The only time I see any daylight is during the  walk to work in the morning, at lunch break and on weekends! However, the views of the snow-capped mountains and frosted trees are stunning, especially when the sun shines ( at least one day this week!).

Bulkley River

Visiting  friends'  log home after snowshoe trek

I brought along my snowshoes and was pleased to finally get some much needed exercise this weekend.  A local friend drove us to the Kispiox Valley where we jumped a barbed wire fence and trekked to the Kispiox River, returning via a farmer's field and a fir tree grove. It was snowing all the while but visibility was pretty good and the temperature hovered around -5 degrees Celsius. It was cold enough to freeze my hands each time I removed my gloves to take a photo! We saw lots of moose tracks in the snow but no moose. During the winter they feed on the willow branches along the river's edge.

 Brigitta enjoying the winter fun

Old Fishing Cabin on the Kispiox River

Walking along the shore of the Kispiox

Horse home

Ancient truck 

Single-handed Cruising

Moonrise over San Jose Island

Cruising as a single-hander is quite different from cruising as a couple. Obviously, you are on your own when it comes to sail handling, navigating, and anchoring. For the first few days, I found myself forgetting to do the things that Rani usually does when getting underway - such as turning on the depth sounder & GPS. I was forced to slow down and really think through any tricky manoeuvres (such as anchoring or departing anchor under sail) because I could not rely on that second person to leap to my rescue when things went wrong. Despite this and probably because I had practised doing most things on my own, I have enjoyed the challenge of single-handing in the islands just north of La Paz and have tried to sail between most destinations, putting only about 4 hours on the motor since leaving the marina 2 weeks ago.

Boat carrier off La Paz

Another difference between single-handing and cruising as a couple is how other cruisers view you. There are quite a few long term, usually male, single-handers in the Sea of Cortez. In some instances they cruise in tandem with each other and I think the reason for this is that most cruising boats with 2 or more people on board view single-handers as loners and outsiders and avoid socializing with them. There is a basis for this attitude in that some of the guys you see out cruising alone look a trifle rough around the edges and live on small, somewhat run-down older boats. Another reason that cruising couples probably avoid single-handers is that those who spend too much time on their own can become starved for company and conversation. This combined with the eccentricities that also develop when you have no one to keep you in check can make connecting with a single-hander a disturbing experience. I base these comments both on my own experience (on both sides of the equation) and recently observing how one group of sailors reacted to the single-handers in an anchorage we were sharing.

Ketch sailing off La Paz

Anyway - enough of that. I have been keeping busy exploring the islands just north of La Paz, including some new hikes, sailing the little dinghy, and snorkeling. I have also varnished the cap rails and begun to install the auto-pilot.

Custom sandals

The new hikes include a cross island trek from Ensenda de la Raza, a hike from a shell midden to an isolated peak above the Raza anchorage, and a ridge walk from Ensenada el Gallo. The first hike skirts a large mangrove swamp, crosses a sandy plane, and then follows a meandering seasonal river course (arroyo) across Isla Espiritu Santo. This is a long hike and took an entire afternoon (about 5 hours). It also required a row into a head wind of about 1 km and when I arrived for the first time, I discovered that I had left my hiking shoes on Ladybug. I had just read a book about earlier adventurers in this area who had made their own footwear from a crocodile they had shot, so I thought I would try something similar. Not having a gun or suitable target handy, I beach-combed until I found some nice padded pieces or rubber and a thick piece of line that yielded suitable ties to make myself a pair of sandals. The improvised footwear lasted for about 500 meters and I was forced to return to the boat for something more practical.

Ex goat

View from Gallo hike

Delicate flowers flourish briefly in harsh conditions

View from Gallo hike toward La Paz

Lagoon at end of Raza hike

The Raza hike ended at a high shelf where I could look down onto a lovely lagoon on the east side of the island. I was too tired at this point to continue (plus I would have been returning in the dark). On this shelf were the remains of a native camp as well as fencing from what was probably a goat pen. There were also 4 or 5 columns of what looked like old concrete, but was probably just aggregate rock that had eroded more slowly that the surrounding rock.

Lovely vines in the arroyo at Raza

Old cardone stands on the extensive midden at Raza

Mysterious 'ruins' at Raza

The hike to the peak above Raza involved some excellent climbing rock where a waterfall must plummet in the rainy season. The water here and the huge shallow bay full of shell fish would explain why there is a massive midden in this bay. The midden extends further than any I have seen in the southern Baja and there are signs of a more recent camp here with terraced stones that may have formed the foundation for a palapa as well as some copper sheet and a steel pa handle.

The Gallo hike climbed quickly to a ridge and then followed the ridge out and down toward the west providing splendid views both north and south across a plane planted with cacti and dotted with small flowers.

Another Gallo view

I took our little Walker Bay dinghy out for a sail in rough weather and managed to capsize off a point when one of the lines holding the sail to the boom parted suddenly. I quickly discovered that our dinghy floats, but only just, when full of water, so was forced to swim for shore pulling the mainly submerged boat and dragging the mast and sail behind me in the water. After about 25 minutes of struggling another cruiser buzzed over in a motorized inflatable and towed me in to shore where I was able to up-end the dinghy and drain out the water. A good lesson to learn here rather than off an atoll in the south pacific and I will be much more hesitant to use the dinghy under sail in heavier winds. I will also put a knot in the out-haul and downhaul as the line that popped, came free from a jam cleat.

S/V Sojourn at the Isoltes

I had the best snorkeling experience of my life at the Islotes - two huge chunks of rock that lie just north of Isla Partida. There are buoys anchored in the deep waters off these rocks to which pangas tie when they take tourists out to dive or snorkel with the sea lions that colonize this area. I went early in the day to stay out of the way of the tourist trade and tied to one of the moorings, diving to inspect it. There was a block of concrete - maybe 300 or 400 lbs - a length of nylon, a submerged float and then another length of chain - certainly not enough to hold Ladybug in anything but calm weather. Fortunately there was very little wind and I swam over toward the colony of sea lions that covered almost every rock near the water. The baby sea lions are curious and one immediately came over to Ladybug and rubbed its nose against the hull. Later when I tried to leave, this sea lion came back to the boat and wedged itself between the propeller and the hull making me very nervous about hurting it when I departed (it moved away when I started the engine, however).

As I swam, the babies twisted and dived and jumped clear of the water around me. Having swum once before with young sea lions, I knew they wanted to play, so I dived with them and tried some admittedly pathetic aquatic acrobatics. The sea lions came so close they brushed their flippers against me and one tentatively nibbled my outstretched hand. You do have to be a bit careful as they have strong and sharp teeth; a friend had her thigh bitten while swimming with them later that day. The underwater scenery here is an incredible backdrop for playing with the sea lions. Colorful corals, an arch through the smaller Islote with rock walls lined with flowering anemones, and dozens of varieties of fish. I am not sure how so many obviously tasty fish co-exist with the sea lions, but there were schools of dozens of surgeon fish as well as huge parrot fish (the largest I have seen), trigger fish, Cortez angle fish, etc. The fish also seemed habituated to people, either because they were used to things shaped sort of like sea lions or because they were used to divers. I will bring Rani here when she returns from Canada and would recommend this experience to anyone sailing in the area. Try to come around 9:30 am on a calm day (you can motor from Enenda Grande in about 45 minutes).

Sojourn captain and crew on Isla San Francisco

Sojourn crew on Isla San Francisco ridge walk

Having said that most cruising boats avoid single-handers, the captain and crew of SV Sojourn welcomed me on board and we shared a number of meals on both vessels. Captain Scott sailed in the Baja Ha Ha this year and he and his crew mostly hail from San Francisco, with one lady coming from the UK. They were enjoying a week in the Sea of Cortez and after taking care of the usual boat projects, Scott plans to head south towards Panama. I had the pleasure of showing them the lovely ridge loop hike on Isla San Francisco (see pictures).

The final pictures are from the Armotajada lagoon at Isla San Jose as well as one of a rainbow over some nearby off-lying rocks. The lagoon was full of Ibis and egrets as well as blue and other herons. A very beautiful spot where I was all alone for 2 days in a strong northerly wind.

Ruins of a stone and brick house. San Jose had a large salt collection operation
until recently and there were many more residents here until the 1980s

Channel in the Amortajada lagoon at high tide

Roosting pelican

White Ibis

Corvadae sails past Isla San Jose in a rare rain shower

I will be in La Paz for a few days and then back to the islands until Rani returns from Canada where she is working for a few weeks as a relief pharmacist in northern BC.

A night sail on the way south to La Paz

This post is for Jamie Orr, who likes to occasionally see something about sailing on a sailing blog...

The wind was light in the anchorage at Agua Verde for much of the day. It was not until about 3 pm that a steady wind began to ruffle the water. We were expecting strong northerlies the next day and decided that rather than do all our sailing in rough downwind conditions, we would leave with a lighter south westerly breeze and sail through the evening. There was a near full moon rising around 8:30 pm that should give us some help in navigating the San Jose channel and finding a suitable anchorage. We were also familiar with the anchorages en route and with our newly functioning radar and some saved GPS waypoints, should be able to find our way in without too much difficulty.

Approximate route

We sailed out the anchor and laid a course for the north west edge of Marcial reef, about 3 miles off shore. We set up our Monitor wind vane to steer us on a broad reach as gusts of westerly wind from the cliffs at Marcial point blew us out of the bay. Dark comes quickly and decisively in mid December and we were soon navigating by way points because a heavy cloud cover and no moon made it impossible to see even the nearby mountains of the Sierra Giganta. Rounding the reef, we turned onto a beam reach and with the vane steering and a reef in the main to cope with gusts out of the mountain valleys, we headed for the entrance to San Jose channel.

Rani navigated on this passage, as she usually does, and used the radar and GPS to keep us on a rhumbline aimed at the middle of the channel. The moon rose behind a cloud-torn sky revealing the faint outlines of islands to seaward, and soon the flashing light on little San Diego island provided comforting confirmation of our electronic bearings. We passed the anchorage at Los Gatos where we could see the anchor light of a sailboat, possibly that of our friends on Southern Cross who had left Agua Verde earlier in the day.

The wind began to increase and we had 2 reefs in the main before we reached the north end of the channel. It was lovely steady sailing with the wind blowing off the land and only a small underlying swell to roll us around. The vane was able to cope with conditions such as these, so long as we made sure to reduce sail and keep the helm balanced during the gusts.

The San Jose channel is usually windier than the surrounding waters due to funneling of the northerly winds prevalent in the winter. However, with the wind in the south west coming over the steep mountains that line the Baja side of the channel, the wind actually became lighter and somewhat fluky in the channel. We decided to favour the outside of the channel and ran over to Isla San Jose to try to find a clear wind. Rani was nervous about getting too close to the sandy spits that project into the channel from the island, but we soon picked up the lighthouse on the more northerly projection and stayed about a quarter to a half mile off shore.

We debated tucking in behind the sand spit, but decided that it would offer no shelter from the westerly swell and instead aimed for San Evaristo on the mainland a few miles further south. The wind died down off Evaristo and we downed sails and motored into the anchorage around 1:30 in the morning. There were 4 boats in the north lobe and 2 in the main anchorage, where we dropped the hook off the beach and after ensuring we were well set collapsed in the V-berth after a lovely 45 mile sail.

San Evaristo anchorage - the next morning - our friends on Corvadae sail out for Isla San Fransisco