Season Four on SOLASTRA

Gran Sueno at Bahia de Los Muertos The day before we left to begin our crossing to Mazatlan, it rained the entire day. We started out on a walk that gray morning, but quickly turned around after a sudden down pour. We were soaking wet by the time we got back to the boat. We stayed inside the boat for the rest of the day. I wasn’t upset that it was raining, I was just disappointed that we had left our last day in La Paz to do a little more exploring instead of working on the boat which we did the entire time. But, Mother Nature had other plans.   We had a surprise visitor late in the afternoon which brightened up our gloomy day! Our friend, Jim Chisholm, who we first met when we started our cruise from San Francisco Bay to Mexico in  2015. We actually met Jim in San Diego at the Police Dock on a rainy day much like our last day in La Paz. The circumstances around our meeting had to do with a “floater” aka dead body he had found floating inside the marina that h...

La Paz In Mexico, Mañana doesn’t mean tomorrow, it just means... not now! On January 4th, Rick and I pulled up the anchor in Isla Ballena and motored towards La Paz. On our way our shaft was making some loud knocking noises and really shaking the boat. We noticed it more so the day before when we were sailing in the big winds and waves. Each wave we came down, you could hear a very loud vibration. Rick figured it had something to do with the shaft. So, we decided to stop at Bercovich Boat Yard, right at the mouth of the La Paz channel, at the advice of our friend Lazr. Lazr said that he would introduce us to Abel (the owner who was a close friend of his) and  tell him we were family so that he could get us in right away.  Mission accomplished. We anchored in front of the boat yard and dinghy’d in, met Abel, told him the problem and he said we could haul out that same afternoon. Well…it was a nice thought. There were problems with the boat trailer that would be h...

Red sky in the morning..... First thing the next morning on January 2nd,  Lazr came over in his dinghy and asked if we wanted to head to La Paz with him. I looked at him with startled wide eyes and over to Rick with a lump in my throat. I wanted to go but not in the crazy conditions we’d been hearing about. Lazr took a look out of the anchorage and into the Sea and said, “Looks calm to me!” So I figured that if he thinks it looks good since he’s been cruising in the Sea of Cortez for the last 15 years, he knows what’s what. As we were prepping the boat to go, I was feeling anxious and fighting back tears. Rick kept assuring me that everything would be fine…the boat can handle whatever comes up and he promised to keep me safe and feeling comfortable. Against my gut instinct and better judgement, I agreed to go. Throwing caution to the wind, as they say. Pulled up the anchor at 8:11 a.m. and sailed out with the jib and the mainsail up in 10 knots of wind.  Things were...

Near Agua Verde After our last day at Agua Verde which consisted of moving our book reading from below deck to out in the cockpit where the sun had finally decided to come out and the winds had settled down a bit, we pulled up our anchor on Monday morning and headed towards Isla San Francisco. This was a good weather window for sailing to someplace else to tuck in for the next set of Northerlies that were coming on Wednesday and Thursday. Big ones! The wind/weather forecast was for 25- 30 knot winds gusting to 50 knots and the waves would be 10’at 6 seconds apart. So we definitely were NOT going to sail on those days! We are still trying to get to La Paz eventually we just have to dodge the weather periodically. So as we lifted the anchor and sailed out of Agua Verde, we enjoyed some light winds, put up both sails, and also turned on the motor. The winds weren’t quite strong enough to go it alone.  But it was very pleasant out and we had no problems! Nine hours la...