Lionheart - Long Beach to Cabo San Lucas
We have completed the first week of our voyage staying in familiar waters
as Nikolas regains his sea legs and the Captain checks out all
the
systems. So far we have stayed in Avalon at Catalina Island for
3 nights,
Dana Point for 1 night to visit our friends, the Gilchrists, and
1 night in
Mission Bay at anchor. Then we travelled just a few miles south
to clear
Point Loma and enter San Diego Bay on October 26. This is a big
bay
with the beautiful city of San Diego and Coronado Island as
special
features. Three nights at anchor in Glorietta Bay, including
dinner with
our friends the Nolls at a wonderful restaurant overlooking the
city skyline.
On the 29th we moved to the Marriott Marina to do the laundry
and pick
up our friend Merv Humes who will travel with us as far as Cabo
San
Lucas. So far we have had several mechanical and technical
challenges,
one of the failures was with the water maker which required the
order and
receipt of a part. The Nolls received and delivered the part and
we are as
good as new. The dingy starter is balky and we continue to work
on our
technical ability with the new laptop and our ham radio
transmissions.
Tomorrow, October 30, 2005, we will leave this harbor and head
into
Mexico. Our first stop is Marina Coral just north of Ensenada
which you
can locate on the map below.To continue our log to Cabo San
Lucas,
scroll down past the map......
Sacremento on October 29, and we left the following morning as planned.
Our first stop was Ensenada on Sunday, the 30th. Could not "check in" to
Mexico on Sunday, could not get on the internet at the marina, so we
settled for margaritas at sunset at the lovely marina hotel. Before that,
however, we got fuel @ $1.72, a gal which is a real deal these days. The
gas dock workers were hugely impressed with the size of Nikolas, who
presented his best side (all sides in fact) for inspection. The dock guys
called the marina folks down to have a look at "el gato muy gordo".
Moving down the coast, we stopped every evening until
the passage from
Magdelana Bay (Mag Bay to boaters) to Cabo San Lucas (Cabo
to
everyone). The coastline is much like Catalina Island, a
dry desert
environment with beaches. At Isla San Martin there is a
small fishing
village without electricity. Local lobster fishermen
came out to Lionheart
as soon as we anchored and offered us longostino (small
local lobsters)
for "trade." So we gave them a bag of clothes (ropas)
from our young
grandsons in return for 12 lobsters. Boy did we feast!
Later the fishermen
came back and said they did not have little kids and
they needed bigger
ropas....so we gave them 5 adult t-shirts and they were
happy. At Bahia
San Carlos we anchored about 400 yds offshore....in
other words 400 yds
from BIG breaking waves. It took some getting used to,
but we slept well
again that night. Each day we saw whales, dolphins and
lots of birds. The
guys fished. They caught benito, dorado, and yellowfin
tuna. We
kept the dorado and tuna for eating. The Captain was
able to cut it all into
fillets (he is a surgeon, you know) and we ate some and
froze some.
In Turtle Bay we caught up with the Baja HaHa folks.
This a group of
about 120 sailboats heading for Cabo on a 10-day race. I
managed to
badly sprain (or break) my right foot just walking
around, so I have
hobbled since Nov. 3. The 4th and 5th are a bit of a
blur for me but
Richard and Merve handled everything and I was able to
enjoy Mag Bay
and help out on the overnight run down to Cabo last
night.
Cabo is entirely different than the last time I visited
20 years ago. It's a big
town now, completely overrun by tourists. We "checked
in" to Mexico after
arriving at Marina Cabo San Lucas about 7:00 AM today,
Nov. 9. We are
docked up with a large number of very fancy fishing
boats from the US.
They spend the winter here, with their owners coming
down periodically to
fish. The marina is right downtown. There are shops,
stores, banks, and
everything you could possible need closeby.
Merve is leaving for home (Sacramento) tomorrow. We
thank his
lovely wife, Nancy, for the loan of this fine crew
member. We leave
tomorrow to explore the Sea of Cortez for a few days
before
returning to Cabo where several of our family will join
us for a
wedding and Thanksgiving, which I will report in my next
update.
Our Sea of Cortez travels will take us to La Paz and
back to Cabo
San Lucas before the family arrives....
The Van Gemerts, Bob, Laurie, Alyessa, and Jerry arrived
on Wed, Nov.
16, to find us reinstalled in Marina Cabo San Lucas. On
Friday evening
we gathered on Lionheart and had a formal, if not
official, wedding
ceremony for Bob and Laurie. (They had done it
officially at the
courthouse before leaving Colorado). Then brother Jerry
treated us all to
a wedding feast at Palmilla. It was the best meal I have
every had. The
service and the entire restaurant area was exquisite.
What a treat! We
also took a little side trip to Todos Santos which is a
little town about 75
km north of Cabo. It is an artistists town and it is
where the real "Hotel
California" is located. We never checked in, but we did
have lunch.
The Maynes arrived on the 19th, adding Rich, Lesley,
Charles Thomas
and Riley to the condo at Marina Sol which is owned by
our dock buddy in
LB, Tom Gleason. The Van Gemerts left Wed before
Thanksgiving. We
and the Maynes had a turkey dinner by the beautiful
Marina Sol pool. It
was a different but wonderful Thanksgiving. They left on
Friday the 25th
and we left on Saturday. No more visits are planned
until the Feslers join
us in Panama. The story will continue in the next
segment.
