Author Archives : Chris French

Packing on the exercise before our crossing


Today’s scheduled hike for 8:00am was postponed due to cooler weather and the desire for a mellow start to the day. After breakfast I took on the preparations for our crossing, topping off the diesel tanks – which was made difficult due to the wind, checking the engines, and reviewing the latest weather forecast. Before heading to shore I started…

Read More »

Busting out of La Paz before the next northerly


Pretty good winds (15-25 knots) were forecast for Sunday and Monday with a possible crossing window Tuesday. Wanting to get a good spot to hop off to the Mainland the plan was to head for Punta Bonanza where Jean and I crossed from last year. We wanted as early a start as possible since the winds would be on our…

Read More »

22 hours in La Paz


In the black of night up came the anchor and we were headed for La Paz for a bunch of work and most important to pick up Jean. It was the mellowest day I can remember with the exception of some tide working against us part of the trip. Reaching La Paz we followed the long entrance to Marina Cortez.…

Read More »

Time for a quick visit to Isla San Francisco


Wow Nelly, up and moving by 6:30am we made our way down into the mouth of Bahia de La Paz. Winds started calm by within an hour were building as was the wind wave chop. We put up with it for awhile before the loud bangs got on my nerves and we fell off 10 degrees to attempt a better…

Read More »

Waiting out more weather in Puerto Escondido


Well it was an interesting day. A strong late season storm was coming our way with winds forecast to be 40+ knots and heavy rain. The sole reason we took a mooring ball in Puerto Escondido was this event. In the morning we had some light rain but not much wind and around 11:30am there was a break in the…

Read More »

Colorado anchorage a bust to back to PE it is…


We woke to wind, shocker. But still comfortable excluding the constant howl. Breakfast and then the anchor was raised for the short motor down to Punta Colorada with a planned either day stop or anchorage for the night. We had the jib out to help and also gave the starboard engine a blowout (full power to blow out carbon that…

Read More »

Let’s try this one from another direction


Pretty much a carbon copy in regards to weather. I had aspirations to attempt a hike to get as close to where my hike from Ballandra ended as possible. So after breakfast we headed to shore with our hiking shoes and water bottles. As we were putting on our shoes a dinghy from the only other boat in the anchorage…

Read More »

Goodbye Teresa and Jack


Sadly it was departure day for Teresa and Jack. The question was could we drop them off in Loreto or would we divert to Puerto Escondido? Jack didn’t see any whitecaps but Vicki and I were skeptical since it had been blowing since 2:00am and the daylight was just creeping up. But we headed for Loreto, the first fifteen minutes…

Read More »

Let’s do this hike!


Our second day in Ballandra started a bit slow. With no major plans we took it easy until 10:30 when we it was time for a hike. I wanted to retrace the trail that Julia and I took in our attempt to get to the Salinas salt ponds about a year ago. So I booked it while Vicki, Jack, and…

Read More »

A sail down to Ballandra


Up with the sun we wanted to rush down to Ballandra in hopes of getting a good anchor spot before the winds started blowing from the north. We had the main and jib up for the entire trip but unfortunately not quite enough wind to shutdown the engine. Oh well. The most excitement came as we approached the anchorage. A…

Read More »