Baja California Summary/Highlights/Lowlights

On July 6, 2022, Kosmos set off on a Sea of Cortez adventure! We stopped in Ensenada to check into Mexico. From there, we did an 828 nautical mile (nm), 5-day non-stop passage to the La Paz area. We spent almost 8-months in the Sea of Cortez. We broke up the trip back to Ensenada into three legs, each 2 days.

Fiesta de Dia de Los Muertos on October 28, 2022

People usually ask us the same questions in the same order, so we’ll answer them in order:

Q: What was the scariest thing that happened? A: We were in a hurricane (though it was downgraded to a tropical storm as it was literally over us).

Continue reading

The Last Leg Home — Our 8-Month Baja Adventure is Officially Over

(*Sorry for the delay in posting. Life got busy once we got back to San Diego)

On Sunday, March 5, we awoke at 0300 to do the last minute things to get Kosmos ready to go to sea. We untied at 0400. It was about 60-nautical miles from Marina Coral to the mouth of the San Diego Bay. Here was the sunrise

The day was mostly overcast and grey. Had we not done the previous difficult passages to Bahia Tortuga and Ensenada, we would have said that the conditions were rough, but compared to those two, sea conditions weren’t all that bad. We were hobby horsing a lot, but the swells weren’t giant nor the intervals rapid enough to make it a miserable ride. We were all functioning normally (for the most part). Here is a “sail” boat passing us… in 5 knots of head winds.

Continue reading

Keith’s Perspective of Ensenada, the Last Leg Home and Being Home/Le point de vue de Keith sur Ensenada, la dernière étape du retour et le fait d’être chez soi

I had a good time in Ensenada. Well… except for when I got two teeth pulled. It hurt a lot. Lot lot. We ate out a a few times. One place was a French restaurant, and another place had pastries. We went to a museum about the earth. It was boring.. UHUM interesting. 

J’ai passé du bon temps à Ensenada. Ba… sauf quand j’ai eu deux dents arrachées. Ça a fait très mal. Très très très mal. On a mangé dans des restaurants plusieurs fois. Un des restaurants était français et un autre restaurant avait des pâtisseries. Nous sommes allés à un musée sur la Terre, c’était ennuyeux…euh intéressant. 

Continue reading

Ensenada, Days 3 and 4 — The New Science Museum and Back to the New Malecon

Friday, March 3 was a chore day for us. Here was the sunset.

On Saturday, March 4, we went to breakfast at our second favorite restaurant, Los Veleros. It is cheerfully decorated with bright, colorful paintings of sailboats. It was also packed. One of the reasons Los Veleros was so popular for breakfast was because they dropped off a tray of pastries at the table (the pastries weren’t included in the meal price, but you only paid for them if you ate them), and a quesadilla appetizer was included with the meals. We went there specifically to get the flaming fruit desserts, but we had forgotten that they don’t offer them at breakfast time.

After eating, we walked next door to the new science museum. It was a large building, and there was scaffolding up and construction workers outside working on the building, so it clearly was not completely done yet. Admission was about $3.50 USD.

Continue reading

Ensenada, Day 2 — The New Malecon

On Thursday (March 2), we went to our favorite restaurant in Ensenada, El Rey Sol, for lunch.

El Rey Sol opened in 1947 and is the oldest French restaurant in all of Mexico. “The Sun King” was a title given to French Monarch Louis XIV. The founder, Virginia Geffroy, was born in Santa Rosalia and educated in France, including cooking school. We’re guessing that she was likely the daughter of a French mining executive. After returning from Mexico, some relatives in Ensenada invited her to open a restaurant in their motel. The restaurant grew from 10-tables to being an internationally venue with seating for 240-people.

Continue reading