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

Enjoying Ensenada and Its Food

The last four days we have been eating a lot, exploring the town some more, trying to take care of some preliminary life chores that will make settling in at San Diego easier, and socializing. The weather has gone back to normal, which in the early spring means sunny and clear, but cold and windy. It looks like it should be warm outside, but it isn’t. We are running the heat in the morning and have to wear long pants and jackets when we go out. On one hand, it is a nice change of pace from the perpetual summer, but on the other hand, we are not used to cool weather and are having trouble adjusting to it.

Two things that are significant to Ensenada happened Continue reading

Reflections on How We Have Changed Since We Were Last in Ensenada

This morning we went out to breakfast as soon as we got up at another favorite restaurant of ours, El Rey del Sol, in downtown Ensenada. It is also just a few blocks from the marina, but in the opposite direction from Los Veleros. The marina is built next to a river, and we noticed a different kind of dredging machine in the river. Eric wants one.

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We walked by the new construction near the marina and were kind of surprised to see that little is done beyond the frame. This project has been planned for several years now, and grading work had begun while we had Kosmos here. And, come to think of it, the sign was gone. There used to be a big sign saying a museum was going to be built here. We wonder if that means the museum project has been abandoned.

Along the rest of the walk, everything else looked much the same. Several buildings were occupied by different businesses than before, but the buildings still look the same. There are a lot of coffee houses now. Coffee houses must be the new rage.

The restaurant was Continue reading

Welcome Back to Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

It turns out that the change in wind direction last reported was part of one of those convergence zones. Around 0100 this morning, the wind had picked up to 18 21 knots and the seas followed suit. It was still coming from the port forward quarter, but we were bouncing around like crazy and getting a lot of sea spray on the windows. Sigh. Then at around 0300, we passed out of the zone and all went back to being status quo. Actually, today may have even been a touch smoother overall than yesterday. We find the windy patches along this coast to be really weird.

The most odd thing that happened today was a private jet flew by so low that it showed up on radar. It was definitely flying at less than 1,000 feet, and maybe was even as low as 500 feet.

We were all in incredibly high spirits all day. Christi and Eric were on cloud nine, really. The stars have to have aligned for us for this run, because everything about this leg has been so perfect in every way (except Trevor being sick, of course). The amazing weather. Completing the Baja run in about 1/3 to 1/4 of the time we had anticipated it would take since we didn’t have to stop. Seeing the whales. And now we were literally counting the minutes until our circumnavigation was complete. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. We got word from Eric’s company that a project he has worked on for the last 8 years has finally come to fruition. Wow. His project and our circumnavigation are basically done the same day. That is just unbelievable! It is seriously too good to be true! As you can imagine, after we got that news, we were beyond elated. And Trevor was so excited to be sharing the joy with us.

At 18:29 exactly, we officially reached a point we had been to before. We crossed the circumnavigation line, near the island of Todos Santos at 31- 46N and 116-46W.

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It’s real. We did it.

Our chart plotter numbers each and every waypoint we enter into it. After we got to that mark, we made a course change to follow our previous line back into Ensenada harbor. That was waypoint number 892. Once back on the line, the next course change was at waypoint number 6. Number 6! It seems like a lifetime ago in Continue reading