Author Archives: Eric

Exploring Los Cabos and Its Food

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Continued from yesterday”¦ The grocery store was in another new and posh, though much smaller, mall. Most of the people in the mall were gringos (white people). The grocery store is like a Super-Target, with a humungous selection of food, house wares, clothes, etc. We did a quick stock up, then Patrick took us to see the brand new marina that they have just built in San Jose del Cabo. We didn’t even know the marina existed. It is very nice, but the marina prices are ungodly in this area. The reason we decided to anchor out was because a slip in the Cabo San Lucas marina would have cost us $250 per night. And this new marina is not much less expensive. Here is a shot of it.

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We met the dock master. It just so happens that he wrote a book on how to do the Baja Bash, so we bought a copy from him. Knowing we have a book full of pointers is making us feel a little less nervous about the last leg.

Next on the “to do” list was to go to the airport to pick up Trevor, who is going to be crewing for us to Ensenada. It turned out Continue reading →

Welcome to Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico

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This morning the alarm went off at 0630. We both wanted to sleep more, exhausted from the passage. But we had made plans to go to breakfast with a new friend and we needed to get up. The person we were meeting is named Patrick, and he is a blog reader that lives in Los Cabos. He had contacted us a few months ago and offered to show us around town when we were in the Los Cabos area. We have chatted with him quite a bit since then via email, and we were looking forward to meeting him in person.

We got ready and called a water taxi at 0730, figuring he’d get us to shore by 0800. The taxi showed up at 0800 and dropped us off at the water taxi stand, which was a good mile from where we had asked to be dropped off. Here is a shot of Kosmos and Cabo San Lucas from the water taxi.

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We called Patrick and told him we were at the wrong place. He told us to stay put and he would find us. We checked out our surroundings while we waited. We were on a boardwalk that wraps around the man made harbor within the natural bay. As far as we could tell, the buildings along the boardwalk appeared to be Continue reading →

Passage to Cabo San Lucas

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Day 2

In the wee hours of the morning we got to the Sea of Cortes, the body of water that separates Baja from mainland Mexico. We expected the seas to pick up, but they didn’t at first. All was status quo with the ride until about sunrise. Then the wind and waves slowly but surely picked up all day long. The pick up was so gradual that it was truly a nice ride for the better part of the day. The sun was bright and visibility was good. The wind was on our nose and so were the waves, but the waves small and the swells were gentle and lazy and were far enough apart that it was still reasonably comfortable.

Of course, by dark it had picked up enough that we were hobby horsing a lot, but it still wasn’t too bad of a ride overall. By 2200, though, it had picked up enough that it finally made it to the “no fun” category. The moon didn’t rise until midnight and it was dark out with poor visibility.

We have continued to make excellent time, so in the early afternoon we again upped the RPM’s by another 50 RPM. According to our calculations, we were on course to arrive just after sunset, and we needed just a little more speed to get us there while it was still light. We are crossing our fingers we continue with such good speeds.

Day 3

The wind and seas continued to Continue reading →

Stability, Kayaking and Departing for Cabo

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Christi was up before dawn yesterday. Don’t be too impressed”¦ the sun doesn’t rise until 0800 here. The pre-dawn silence was suddenly shattered by two people talking. One, who sounded like an adolescent boy with a changing voice, said “I like that boat Kosmos”. The other, a deeper adult male voice, said “Yours is much safer than that one. See the poles there? Those are stabilizers. That boat is so unstable that if you don’t put the poles down, then the boat could flip over.” Christi opened the back door to Continue reading →

Hanging Out in Bahia Navidad

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After we had found out the price of the marina, we had resolved to only spend one night and then move to the anchorage in the morning. But after talking to the cruising couple later in the afternoon, we had started to reconsider moving. The anchorage is naturally flat calm, but can get rocky from all the speed boats zipping around. The bottom is soft mud with poor holding, which means you have to put out a lot of chain. Bringing in a lot of very muddy chain didn’t sound good. That would make our anchor locker a gross mess. And, the water is shallow, so sometimes mud laden waves splash onto the sides of the boat, sometimes getting over the walls and on the decks, and getting mud everywhere. And mosquitoes can be a problem, though with the wind so strong probably won’t be. When we had gone to bed that night, we still hadn’t decided for sure whether we were moving or not.

That night was a restless one for Christi. She woke up often to blow her nose. In the morning, she felt absolutely miserable, too weak and tired to do much of anything. Christi waking up sick sort of made the decision about moving for us. We were staying. Life in a marina is Continue reading →