I love this country. I love the chaotic efficiency that I’ve observed in everything from a marina checkins to hopping off a bus (they don’t quite stop to let you off). Speaking of busses, I love that they are all different. Today I saw one with a spoiler (after market on this model of Mercedes bus, I’m fairly certain) and a Hot Wheels® decal. Tonight’s bus was blaring tradtional mexican music alternating with hip hop. ...
The Crew of Convivia has so much to be thankful for. Amongst those: Our health Enough wealth that we can afford to be together all the time Enough love, patience, wisdom that we would want to be together all the time The realization of a lifelong dream This wonderful floating home The support and love of our families and friends A wonderful, diverse, and supportive cruising community (both near and far) Thanksgiving in a climate that demands we wear swimwear to dinner Reflecting on the overwhelming bounty of our life is a daily, or at least weekly occurrence lately, but on this day I observe our good fortune in the context of 36 previous days of Thanksgiving. I have never, on this day, felt anything less than a heart full of gratitude. If a heart full is the yardstick by which such things are measured though, I must surely have grown another heart this year. ...
Okay here is another installment of …in Photos. I may have to add some to this gallery, so feel free to check back in a few days.
For the last year or so Victoria and I have been harboring a secret desire. We hoped to combine our love of coffee and our new nomadic lifestyle and create from the union a more perfect coffee. Over the last week that dream has slowly become a reality, but it has been a long and trouble fraught journey. The project really took form when I discovered that there was a guy, in Georgia, making a small (4 lb) coffee roasting drum out of 304 stainless steel that was designed to fit into a backyard bbq. I started fantasizing about custom ordering one for my little SeaBQ, but got a little overwhelmed by the details. ...
A few days ago I wrote the following on my Facebook wall: I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out why people get “stuck” in La Paz for decades. They come here to get a few small boat projects done. Then they decide to stop into Club Crucero for morning coffee. 10 years later they get their first errand done. Not that I’m complaining, I’ve just never EVER seen a social scene so vibrant… EVER. ...
Okay, it’s been a long time since I had enough bandwidth to upload photos. Now I have this Telcel data plan and I’m going to put it through it’s paces. So here it is folks, all of the pictures from San Diego through Puerto Los Cabos… after the break Sorry for all of the duplicate subject matter. I got a little lazy towards the end.
..is poorly named. We arrived here last night in a near gale. The wind and waves were all coming from the one direction in which this precious little harbor is unprotected. We set to making the most basic dinner (tater tots and bowls o’ soup) in gut churning swell, Vick and I alternating in and out of the galley as the other got too nauseous to continue. By the time dinner was ready I had put together our exit strategy. We would nap for a few hours and then run before the weather all the way up to La Paz. We hoped to arrive at the Canal San Lorenzo in time for the flood tide to carry us through. We ate dinner and hastily got the kids into their berths for bed. We ship shaped and got ready to nap and just as I was dozing off, the swell abated and wind died. As my eyelids finally collapsed under the weight of the day’s exertions I said “We’ll stay tonight.” ...
this post was written on our passage to Cabo San Lucas Night watches are a fact of life for passage makers. It is the subject of many forum posts, articles, and dockside conversations. I have loved every night watch that I have stood, be they starry and clear or foggy and tense. On one hairy night I had my spinnaker wrap around my forestay like a giant hourglass. There was one night (coming into Isla San Miguel) where visibility wss reduced to 1/4 mile or less and I had a white knuckle grip on the dodger for 3 hours. But there have also been countless nights where the stars fill the sky so impossibly full that I feel like a child again, looking at a universe full or wonder and possibilities. I have had nocturnal visitations from unidentified marine mammals, seen my wake lit up by bioluminescence, and seen a dozen breathtaking moonsets. ...
A month ago my life was punctuated by weekends, days, hours, minutes, seconds. I vaguely recall leaving my office at 2 minutes to the hour to be on time for a meeting at 10am. I certainly remember wishing for the weekend or for 5:00. Lately I have been unable to site the day of the week. Weekends are entirely irrelevant and if I am a day late to a meeting (yes I still have them) I figure I’m close enough. ...
Our trip so far has been lived under a slight but constant disappointment. We have eagerly been anticipating something that felt southish. This feeling isn’t just about temperature, nor is it about turquoise water. There is a certain something that makes a locale feel southish, and we just hadn’t gotten there yet… until today. Today we arrived in Bahia de Santa Maria. This subtropical harbor is located at latitude 24 46’. It’s 80 in the cabin and the water is 77. When we arrived and checked that statistic we all simultaneously decided to go for a swim. Mine was particularly satisfying after a night in full foul weather gear and a day sweating at winches and halyards. While I was in I decided to dive the keel and was pleased to find that I a) could do it, and b) that my little grounding in Morro bay hadn’t caused any real damage (just a little paint scratch). ...
I forgot to mention the amazing things we have seen so far. On our way across the Mexican border we were greeted by the largest pod of dolphins I have ever heard of. There must have been 100 of them, all leaping and playing around the HaHa boats. It seemed as though they must have organized a rally of their own, as if to prove that the ocean was still theirs. ...
The Baja HaHa is officially underway and so, once again, are we. It felt so good to leave the dock at Cabrillio Isle Marina. The marina was fine and San Diego’s services were welcomed, but I seem to have a deeply ingrained need to sail and every day at the dock was chafing against that directive. Now we are South of the border (30°44.41’N 116°36.75’W) sailing at 7 knots with the wind behind us. The sun is out and it’s finally feeling like “south.” The kids, as always with passages, have settled into their routines and have been mostly joyful. They are looking forward to catching fish and reaching the beach party in Bahia de Tortugas. If conditions maintain we should be there in about 30 hours. ...
Other than Tucker not going to work it seems like our day to day routines are really normal. Tucker wakes up early with the kids and makes me coffee before he gives me my wake up call. We make a breakfast or two and get dressed for the day. We go about our day doing boat projects or walk to a grocery store, or look for a place to do laundry. The kids play, read, do workbooks, make crafty projects, make messes, play games and video games, go for walks, find parks, climb trees, go to the beach, and visit with friends. All of our meals are at home or packed up as picnics. The pace is really perfect. Ruby has time to sew with my help; to concentrate on her cursive handwriting; or to sit in between Olive and I and give us very specific and serious lessons so that we can become competent Angry Birds players. Olive looks for jobs and fixing projects whenever he can. Today he very seriously threaded buttons onto embroidery thread (really a distraction so I could work with Ruby on her project) and made several strands as gifts for all of us. ...