We are just about ready to pull anchor this morning.   We will be making a mini-passage to Pyramid Cove just about 3 miles from our current location.   Pyramid is a very popular one boat anchorage that we have not visited, ever.   Although we don’t have high expectations everyone that goes there just loves it.   It is vacant and we will fill that hole today.

The Dude has placed an update on his page which might be of interest to you that like reading his drivel but other than that it has been a fairly calm couple of days down here.    Lisa has updated just about everyone on her Facebook and has actively pinned numerous dodads to her Pintrest page so she is a happy camper and probably ready to get back to some snorkeling, kayaking and perhaps even a bit of diving if all goes right.   Her birthday is coming up so we have some fun things planned for that big day that we will share later.

The Deckwatch is calling for “anchors up” so enjoy your day at work.

We have been anchored at Coronado Island for almost 5 days now.  We haven’t completed much of anything except to deepen our tans and to add to our chances of Basal and Melanoma Cell cancer later in life.   All is good though, we are doing what we do best and that is just about nothing.

Lisa continues to tell all the local boaters what they are doing wrong when fishing for Dorado, Sparky is trying to stay awake long enough to go on yet another walk and Bill thinks he has graduated to “Rock Star” status with his Ukelele, only one of the three has a grip on reality!

Check out the new video clip if you like. 

Carlito (Bills rocker name) is punching out some tasty tunes and sweet lyrics.   If the video is not your style the Dude has written up another chapter on living on the Baja.   See it in the Dudes View.

OK first off we are not really frustrated.   We use Ham radio all the time and are still amazed that when you can’t get cell phone service and there are no towns for over 100 miles we can still connect to people via our radio.   Along with the personal connections we can send email to our friends and occasionally update our blog here.   On other occasions you get to see that we are thinking of you but the whole message does not come through, oh well perhaps someday they will come up with something that works over the airwaves like magic and everyone will have a small hand held device to connect with others in a simple fashion.  Fat chance.

So we have updated the below blog.  It is a bit out of date but as with most of our writings, never out of style.

The girl on board has been happily slaying fish on a daily basis.   We have so much Mahi Mahi, or Dorado in the freezer that we are actually using the fish as cold sinks to keep the temperature even in the box.  Lisa couldn’t be happier and Bill wants a new fillet knife.

We are currently on the hook at Isla Coronado enjoying the water while we have parts on order to repair our auto pilot and water maker.    Some of the parts are here in Mexico already and waiting for pickup while others are still on order and waiting shipment from the states.  All in due time.

Enjoy the update below, we will get some other postings up in the next couple of days.

It is almost midnight; we are waiting for email to download as midnight means great reception on the ham radio.  We are floating on a pond that is over 700 miles long and averages 100 miles or a bit more in width.   The moon is shinning and the shimmer on the water is exactly as you would expect if somebody was singing the old classic song “by the light of the silvery moon”.   Dramatic, yes, real yes, romantic, yes but Lisa is asleep, the dog is resting on his Tommy Bahama chair and Bill is listening to “Wait, Wait don’t Tell me” on NPR radio.

 

It is not hard to believe that on a night like this native Indians, Inuit’s, or Incas could have wanted to paddle their Chalupas or canoes across the sea to the new coast of Mexico.  It is also not hard to believe that the bus drivers of the time, call them Seamen if you like would worry about Sea Monsters.   The noises on the “Silvery Sea” are really out of control.  Many we can identify:  Mantas are playing with the bait fish.  Periodically they will jump and with a distinctive “plunk” you know they have belly flopped on the water.   The bait fish erupt into a sound that simulates popcorn on steroids, or somebody who is really nervous popping those air bubble packaging things.   The other noises just kind of work themselves into the background.   You will hear grunting, heavy breathing, bubbles, the sound of waves hitting shallow undercuts on the coast line.  Occasionally the sound of something very large hitting the water will break the silence of the night with a sound close to far off thunder.   Assuming you thought the world was flat, it is not hard to project that all these sounds were “other worldly” or at least evil.  If you pick up a pint of beer and a Tommy Bahama lounge chair it really can be fun if you get past the 8 inch moths that are flittering about in the waning light of that “slivery moon”.

 

100 years ago this must have been a very magical and scary place.  Today it is just magical.   Occasionally you might find a night like this in an American National Park, but we find these occasions fairly regular in Baja.   It is really like no other place we have been to in the world.   We haven’t traveled the complete world yet, but from Turkey to Japan, Germany to Korea and most of the countries in between we have to say that Baja is incredible.  The weather changes here more than any place we know.   Two days ago you would not want to be on the ocean.  Today you could paddle your pool toys across the entire sea.  We absolutely love it.

 

Bill gets so emotional about the places that we have seen that lately he is one of the Baja’s biggest promoters.   We were sure we would keep some places secret, but when you really like some place as much as we do it is hard to keep your mouth shut.   Having just been to Santa Rosalia and being so close to the town of San Marcos we have tried hard to get all our friends to visit this unique town.    We did not visit it this time around but have written about how we enjoyed our visits in a number of previous logs.  As we get nearer to our temporary home base of Carmen Island we will no doubt start talking about our favorite anchorages in that area as well.

 

As you can tell we are having a good time night and day.    The fishing is good (Lisa caught a Dorado today), the diving is excellent although it has been a number of days since we have put fins on and the weather has been cool by summer Baja standard with the last couple of night dipping into the low 80’s, heck even the water temps have dropped to a chilly 81 degrees in the last day or two.

 

Our next stops will be Punta Chivato and then on to San Juanico were we hope to stop for a week or so to check out the “natural food store” in that neighborhood and to allow Lisa

to fill up on her supply of kayaking around the estuary.  Should be a good time.

 

 

 

The Chicks page has been updated and we have filled up on all the necessary items to keep us at sea for a couple of weeks.   We have been playing a different game without our water-maker and it complicates our lives just a bit.   Not quite like having to figure out which TV program to watch and which to record, but close.   We now look at each destination in terms of days worth of water left.   Today we are leaving Santa Rosalia with approximately 30 days of rationed watered or 20 days of lavish 2 gallon showers and fresh water washed dishes.  More than likely we will chose the later as more purified water is available just a days sail away.

Such is the life of sailors.  We always have our rum if the water runs low, but sure hate using it to rinse our hair.    Lisa is currently working a couple of sewing projects and Bill is pacing the deck waiting to leave.   We like Santa Rosilia but the anchorage is still and hot and the water is not very tempting to dive into.

Have a great commute today, we will think about you when we arrive on San Marcos Island later today….hope you don’t mind if we clink our ice filled glasses in your direction.

Well the fourth of July celebration is over.   Geary the weather guy put on another good picnic, but like he says, “It’s hard to screw up a picnic” which is why he doesn’t throw parties.   We had over 30 boats attend this year and when you consider each boat had 2 people on it and some had as many as 5, the shade tents and beer vendors were busy all day long.

The celebration started about noon and went well past 10 on the beach.   The highlight for most was the “insane” and “unsafe” fireworks display.   It started with just a few bottle rockets but when Dan on the Union Polaris 36 added over a dozen 2” rockets to the mix things heated up pretty good.   Most of the rockets shot into the sky and bursted into a star spangled banner, but Francis Scott Keys never wrote about the low altitude ground burst that we witness with people scattering for cover while whooping with joy and giggles.   It helped that most of the folks senses where dulled just a bit by the consumption of alcohol throughout the day otherwise the place might have broken into a pandemonium of screams.   We are quite certain nobody was hurt all day.

The final act of the day was given by the fleets own fire-eater and showman, Pitt, aboard KarmaSeas.    He put on a dazzling display of human torch pyrotechnics and we all hope he recovers well from the slight ingestion of kerosene.   He’s a professional and earns his living this way so we are sure he too will be recovered by noon today.

This morning you could tell there was a bite of extra partying that went on after hours.    We woke about 0730 but didn’t see a soul till nearly 0900 AM.    On any given day folks would be running about the beach or in dinghy’s long before we even cracked and eyelid.   With the waking we have the normal events that follow a good gathering of boats.   A couple of Batteries were dead, people waking up on boats that didn’t really belong in, chains clattering as some people made a fast exit to beat the throng of boats that would soon follow or to avoid the embarrassment of the previous nights antics, and of course the gatherings and recounting of the previous days events in the cockpits of many boats.   By noon we expect that most boats will be well on their way to departing and the season for moving up north will have begun.

We are staying put for a day to enjoy our last time in the Bay of Conception for the foreseeable future.   We will not be following the many boats that move up to the northern sea, but will instead turn south toward Carmen Island again.   Lot’s of mixed feelings for the crew of Beyond Reason, but we think we know what we like and so will say goodbye to many of our friends and seek out new ones in the Loreto area.

It has been a hot and sweaty couple of weeks here in the “Bay of Celibacy” but it is time to move on and find the next fun time which must be just around the corner.

Enjoy your commute.

We finally made it to town and if you haven’t visited in a while we have put a couple of updates on the site.   The biggest update is just below this post and describes one of the more exciting days we have had in a long while.   Since we were at it we also updated the Dudes View, Chicks Version and put a series of photo’s there that show us under spinnaker and mule which is a first for us.

To complete the updates we thought we would come through with a promise we had made a couple of weeks ago.   It is the posting of the below video.  

We were coming out of Ballandra Cove in the dinghy doing perhaps 20 mph when a pod of dolphins decided to join us for some fun.   Just click the button and the video will come up for you.   You could probably do it before the boss returns.

We like to make light of almost every trying situation we are involved in. The following happened today and although we might have taken a light stance on the reporting, there was certainly a chance for several people to have lost their lives if the situation had evolved differently.

 

Sunday is our NASCAR day, we conduct the Sunrisa (smile) Ham net on Sunday and usually add a bit of light hearted NASCAR information since we figure that most sailors are NASCAR fans.   For Bill, Sunday is not only NASCAR day but also the day that Lisa absolutely makes breakfast.  Breakfast on Sunday is usually French toast.   Today was one of those early days when Bill and Lisa awoke just about the time the sun was rising.   Lisa took care of coffee (Bill is the Sunday net controller and that means it is his day to receive the special care that all Net Controllers require), then started on the new eggs to prepare them for the French toast.

 

We just purchased eggs two days ago (36 eggs to be exact); as Lisa was breaking into the second egg she gave a little squeal or rather a gasp as the egg was actually rotten.   Being the trooper she was she checked the third egg and decided that either the eggs or she needed to leave the boat as the second egg was not only rotten, but actually black inside.  In all our years in the U.S.A. neither of us can recall a day that we had ever got a rotten egg from the grocer.   In Mexico it happens.

 

Bill finished his net with just coffee then donned his best flip-flops to cross the desert floor of El Burro cove for the ½ mile trek to the tienda (grocery store) for some new eggs.   With a count of 1 and 2, we tossed all the old eggs over the side and off Bill went.   Along the way Bill put a 2” thorn through his flip-flops and almost permanently secured the rubber sandal to his foot.   Thinking of Sylvester Stallone in First Blood he valiantly knelt on the dessert floor and with a little yip, pulled about 1.5” of thorn from his foot and proceeded to get eggs (yes, good looking and determined to satisfy).

 

With the egg issue settled we continued through our day of boat maintenance and soaking up the sun.   At one point Lisa decided to take a dip in the 89 degree water and was attacked by salt water cat fish (look it up).   Really it is more like being attacked by a pack of old men without their dentures, but she screamed (the second time today) and swam in Mark Spitz style to the ladder and decided the swimming for the day was complete.

 

As the day wore on we settled into a nice game of Scrabble (got you here, huh!) with a couple of nice beverages when we heard a call on the VHF radio for help.   About the same time we noticed smoke coming from over the hill, something was on fire.  Not willing to miss out on action, Lisa and Bill boarded the dinghy with a bucket (always the Cub Scout) and sped off for the other side of the bay.   What we saw when we got there was not what was expected; a houses was fully involved with fire.

 

Lisa dropped Bill off at the beach, or actually, Bill under notice from Lisa not to go, dropped himself off at the beach and left Lisa to take the dinghy to a safe distance.

 

The houses on Coyote Beach (where the fire was) are all closely positioned to each other.  If you can imagine how quickly fire can spread from houses made of wood with tender, or rather mostly palm frond roofs, you will know how dangerously quick the fire spread from one house to another.   When we arrived there was one house involved.  By the time Bill had dipped his bucket into the sea and began tossing water to put out the flames with about 10 others volunteers, the fire had spread to 2 homes.   Within 15 minutes it moved to 3.

 

It took a bit of time to get everyone pulling in the same direction but eventually everyone began concentrating on a single upwind home.   It was not on fire at the time and a group of 10 or 15 guys began tossing water on the roof and fence to keep the fire from spreading to that home.  During this time there were perhaps 3 propane (the main home fuel in Mexico) tanks that ignited.   Luckily they did not explode, but the high pressure propane was a constant threat to everyone as they tried to save the one home.

 

About 45 minutes into the fire, the group moved to save another home that was down wind.  This one involved a bit more flame, a fully involved 300 gallon propane tank that was spitting flames and two vehicles.   If you have seen films of gas tanks exploding, we would not say that doesn’t happen but a Jeep in the yard became involved and although the tank caught flame, it did not explode in a ball of fire.   Lisa became involved in the bucket brigade and Bill continued to work the flames closer to the fire.   Several of the locals were very involved in helping to keep the propane tanks cool, palm trees from catching fire and falling and other similar heroic events.  The fire department was still almost an hour away.

 

At one point we thought we were going to lose a 4^th home but with the help of everyone we were able to keep the house from catching fire.  When the fire department finally arrived most of the fire had burnt itself out.   What was still burning Bill and several others were trying to extinguish.

 

The results of the fire were blamed on faulty wiring from the owner of one of the homes that burnt to the ground.   Several cats where singed pretty badly, two vehicles were lost along with a couple of mobile home style trailers butted up to the homes.   No body was injured even though many dashed around tanks of propane (you really can’t believe the number of propane tanks at each home) which were either in the flames or burning already, around homes that were fully engulfed in flames or stood atop roof tops throwing 5 gallon buckets of water at the flames of other homes only 6 feet from them.

 

We went home spent and tired.   Bill is still complaining about the throne that went through his foot earlier and Lisa is complaining about a hurt toe from a couple of days ago.  The exhaustion from fighting fires was chalked up to a normal day of adventure.

 

How exciting was your day.

 

 

We finally gave in.   Most of our friends use their cell phones to download internet to their boats.  We have resisted for a long time and even though we threw in the towel yesterday we only have a limited time before it expires (tomorrow).   Most likely it is a good thing since Bill has spent the entire morning and half of this afternoon uploading a quick post and 3 pictures.   It is no wonder people can spend all day on their machines.  Using a cell phone as an interim modem for the computer is like stepping back to the days of steam powered computers.

On the good front, we are still making daily runs to the Natural Food Store.   Bill is sure his ingestion of some of the richer fare is causing gout in his foot, but Lisa attributes that to a wasp sting he got the other night after going to bed.  How do you get a wasp sting in bed? Only Bill knows.

The Dudes site has been updated and when we really get some internet we have a great clip of some 20 or so dolphins that paraded around our dinghy while we were doing almost 20 MPH in it!   The water was so clear you can actually see a remora on one of the dolphins and several did large leaps just in front of us as well.   Something to look forward to as you whittle away your pencils trying to look busy at work.  We also have the big Fourth of July Party coming up in El Burro cove that is sure to be fun (we are starting to sound like a news letter here I know).

Anyway everything is marvelous, the water and weather are great in the Bay of Conception.  With or without the small boat problems we are having fun and making people smile. Oh, the picture above is Bill giving our friend Diane from the boat Harmony instructions on how to clean whole lobster from the local market.

 

It looks like it will be another week or two before we find internet again. We found ourselves in a bit of a quandary yesterday. We had been invited to the far side of Carmen Island for a tad of scuba diving. After checking all our gear we got moving and within an hour discovered that the sea was running with at least four foot swells against us and toward the shore that we would be anchoring in. Lisa made the decision to abort the dive and head to another anchorage about 25 miles down wind and away from Loreto.

San Juanico was our destination and she figured it would be nice to take her kayak out for a spin amongst the little rocks and such in the small bay, good thought at least. As we sailed up the Baja coast line the wind grew to 20 knots and the waves continued to build a bit. It was actually a nice sail but when we arrived at San Juanico we discovered that it was completely filled with swell and we had to move around the point to La Ramada cove.

Having never been to La Ramada before, we hoped that they left the light on for us. Turns out the light is left on at Motel 6, not the Ramada. With seven boats already in the anchorage there was no room for us in the cove, so instead we opted to anchor at the opening to the cove in a large swell. We were happy to get out of the most of the wind and waves and were told the wind and seas would die after about 7 pm which they did.

Today was spent killing fish, kayaking and generally enjoying the anchorage. We are looking at a pretty heavy wind forecast coming up on Tuesday so are looking to either scoot back to Loreto tomorrow or continue our trip north to the Bahia Conception for the big 4th of July party. We know we will not stay here for the projected blow, so time will tell what we do next.

Summer is here and the weather is warm, mostly dry and very unpredictable, kind of like your work schedule. Enjoy your commute.