The Ensenada to Bahia Falsa Passage From Keith’s Perspective/Le passage de Ensenada à Bahia Falsa du point de vue de Keith.

On the passage, I got kind of seasick part of the first day. On the second day, I got more adjusted to the ocean. Day three, I got better sea legs. Days four and five were about the same as day 3. I played lots of video games and read lots of books. I mostly ate soup and microwave burritos. My watches were from 10:00 am to noon and 2:00 – 4:00 pm.

Pendant la traversé, j’ai été un peu malade une partie du premier jour. Le deuxième jour, je me suis habitué à l’océan. Le troisième jour, j’ai finalement commencé à avoir le pied marin. Le troisième et le quatrième jour étaient presque pareil que le jour 3. J’ai joué à beaucoup de jeux vidéo et lu beaucoup de livres. J’ai principalement mangé de la soupe et des burritos réchauffés au micro onde. Les tours de garde étaient de 10h à 12h et de 2h à 4h.

We Have Arrived in Bahia Falsa (Near La Paz)

We are pleased to report that we have completed a 828 nautical mile passage from Ensenada, Mexico to Bahia Falsa, which is a few miles away from La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. 

The five-day passage down was uneventful. We were in the Pacific for the first four days. Wind speed was 7 – 22 knots, from the north. Waves ranged from 3 – 8 feet from the north, with 0 – 4 feet wind chop. It would have been an uncomfortable ride had we been going north (against the wind and waves), but since we had “fair winds and following seas,” the ride was fine. Conditions slowly and steadily worsened from Friday to Sunday, then from Monday on they slowly and steadily improved. 

The tip of Cabo is infamous for being rough waters. Even that stretch wasn’t bad. Conditions were a little bit confused as we rounded the corner of Cabo, but it was still better than it had been in the Pacific. Once we’d passed Cabo and got into the protected waters of the Sea of Cortez, the wind and waves died, making our last day at sea pleasant (though it is uncomfortably hot outside). 

We’ll post again within the next couple of days. Meanwhile, if you have questions, feel free to post them and we’ll try to answer them in the next blog post. 

Passage from Oakland to San Diego

When we initially arrived in the Bay Area, we stayed in South Beach Harbor marina, next to the AT&T ballpark in the heart of San Francisco.

As much as we loved being in the city, we didn’t enjoy the slip we were in at the marina. There was no Internet, it was a long walk to shore and it was so rolly we felt like we were at sea, particularly in the afternoons when the wind picked up. Christi would find any and every excuse to get off the boat, so she didn’t get much work done on the books.

After a month, we moved across the bay to Jack London Square in Oakland.

We enjoyed our time in Oakland. Not only was the marina good, we were in a great location. We had easy access to the Continue reading

More About Part 2 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation


Part 2 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation: Unusual Boat, Unusual People covering Australia to Oman is now on sale! Read the first few pages on Lulu’s “preview” feature and read an excerpt from Chapter 1 here (starts on page 18)!

Jeff Merrill wrote an extensive book review for the Nordhavn.com site.

Many people have asked us why they should buy our book if they can read our blog for free. Just like Part 1, the book is very different from the blog. Here are a few of the differences between the two:

  • Prologue: Picks up where the Prologue of Part 1 left off. It focuses primarily on the research we did as we planned for our journey and addresses the majority of the questions we were most frequently asked.
  • Several new stories from the journey – And there are some really good ones!
  • Many details have been added that were best left undisclosed while we were still on the journey (sometimes we didn’t want our parents worrying about us; sometimes we didn’t want to incriminate ourselves!)
  • In Retrospect sections with great insights — so you can see the situation through the eyes of a newbie as we learn, while simultaneously seeing the same situation through the eyes of experience.
  • Streamlined stories – some complained our posts were too long and detailed, the book is a condensed version they will enjoy more.
  • Formatting is first person, through Christi’s eyes – Some complained they didn’t like the third person format, so they will enjoy the book more.
  • Actual dates on each post. On the blog, the dates are not real time, which is a significant piece of information for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps.
  • All profits will go to our cruising fund. The more books we sell, the sooner you can start reading about our next journey! So, buy one and get all your friends to buy one, too!

People have also asked us why we broke the series up into four books instead of only three. We had very different experiences in each of the four world regions, so it was best for each region to have its own volume.

  • In the South Pacific, Part 1, we spent most of our time in sparsely populated areas communing with nature. And we did a lot of rough sea time, learning about boating the hard way.
  •  In Asia, Part 2, we were mostly in densely populated areas building cultural bridges. Our sea experiences were also different from the Pacific, with both our best and worst passages occurring in this region.