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. 

The San Diego to San Diego World Circumnavigation is Completed!

We got up at midnight after a two hour nap. Everything was pretty well ready to go before we took our nap, so all we needed to do was warm up the engine before we pulled out. We untied and took off at around 1230.

At first the seas were ugly. Eric was really sick and Christi was green. It is kind of surprising to us how fast we lose our tolerance to the ocean. The longer we sit in port, the more likely we are to be green when we do finally go out again.

The seas slowly but surely calmed down throughout the night, and by dawn it was pretty darn flat outside. It was foggy out. Not so foggy that there was no visibility, but foggy enough that we couldn’t see the mountainous Mexican coastline at all. And we were running pretty close to shore.

We got to the US border at around 0900. We were expecting Continue reading

Last Couple Days Before Going Back to San Diego

There is still no reported case of H1N1 Flu in Baja, but yesterday all the schools were closed in the state.

Yesterday morning Gone Native left again, headed for San Diego. After they left, we went for a ride down south to the end of the main drag. That is yet another place we hadn’t gone before and it kind of surprised us. For the first few blocks it is commercial and looks like the rest of the city. Then there is a military area that is blocked off. Beyond the military area, the road parallels a beautiful beach that is lined with single family houses. In the US, the homes along the waterfront would be zillion dollar mansions. There were a couple nice homes, but most weren’t very nice, maybe so-so at best. A lot of the houses were actually trailers, and several of them were scary looking. There were even a few vacant lots, and one lot in particular looks like there was once a home on it that was destroyed. After several more blocks the road comes to an end and opens out into a public beach. The first picture is looking south and the second is looking north, towards downtown.

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While it was sunny and gorgeous out, it was still cold, so we didn’t walk on the beach. We enjoyed the view and headed back to Kosmos. What is so odd is that Continue reading

H1N1 Flu Impact on Ensenada

We are surprised at the impact of the H1N1 flu. Today is day 5 from when it first hit the news. Yesterday when we were out, we noticed that the streets were desolate. It was almost a ghost town, with very few people or cars about. About 1/3 of those people were wearing surgical masks to cover their noses and mouths. Mind you, there are still no reported or even suspected cases of the flu in Baja California, but the media hysteria has definitely got everyone terrified.

Today things really got more serious. The governor Continue reading