April 16, 2019
A few days of mad dashing to prepare Strikhedonia and another day wandering around Mazatlan with Shalise. The final crew arrival day was spent provisioning leading to a pre-sunrise departure for the Baja. The forecast was for mostly mellow weather with 1.5 meter swells from the southwest every 12 seconds. Winds five to ten knots from the northwest until the…
March 16, 2019
The sail from Chacala up to Matanchen was pretty low key, leading to naps and relaxing with the except of a quick whale visit. But no complaints as it was an easy passage north. This was to be a quick stopover so after getting the anchor set we jumped in the dinghy to head for the crocodile tour and to…
March 7, 2019
This has been a strange winter, weatherwise. The Sea of Cortez has been hit with cold and constant wind all winter. Down in Barra we have been buffered for the most part but it has made finding a weather window to get around Cabo Corrientes (and into Banderas Bay) more challenging than normal. My friend Jeff was flying into Puerto…
February 21, 2019
By friend Bill some how managed to talk his wife into letting him play hookie from school (he is a high school physics teacher) and come down for a visit. It was going to be an action packed trip as I wanted to give him the full Barra area experience. What better way to start than to watch the sunset…
February 8, 2019
Up at midnight and under way with only stars and GPS to guide me. This would be a solo 100nm passage down to Perula in Chamela bay. The passage was pretty easy with some wind early on and some continuous waves slap on the bridgedeck for the first half of the passage. I was running the radar to look for…
December 31, 2018
It was a good year (queue the broken record), getting further south into Mexico brought some wonderful new experiences, including having fireworks shot at us (St. Patrick’s day festival) and doing some inland travel (Durango). The beauty and kindness of the Mexican people continues to amaze. This year set a few records; most miles in a year and most crew…
December 6, 2018
There was a 36-48 hour window to sneak across the sea before the next blow. Seeing as the coming wind was forecast to last nine days we needed this window to work. Originally the plan was to stay one night in Playa Bonanza and then scoot down to Bahia Muertos, but with the wind in the low twenties the Ceralvo…
December 4, 2018
We knew the waves and wind would make for a fun passage from Isla San Francisco to Playa Bonanza, so there wasn’t much of surprise as we got out of the wind shadow and into the full force of the boisterous conditions. I’d call it 6-8 foot tightly packed seas but hey at least they were somewhat following. We were…
November 29, 2018
After a morning playing in the kayak and in the water, it was time to get to work but first Julia had an important task, her final exam. She had been doing a great job handling Strikhedonia so for her final exam it was up to her to get us from Ballandra to Puerto Escondido. I would be her first…
November 25, 2018
Looking at the forecast, the day after Thanksgiving was the only possible day to sail south so off sailing we went. From the anchorage the sea looked calm, not the 13-15 knots forecast. But once out of the protection of the bay we found it truly was blowing. We had a sporty sail south to Isla Coronado moving along at…
November 20, 2018
After breakfast it was time to move to the north side of Carmen to a fan favorite, Vee cove. Also on the agenda was fishing. The lack of wind meant more motoring but once on the east side of the island there was enough wind to try sailing. “Try” is in operative word – as we soon gave up and…
November 18, 2018
The winds toyed with us, what started as a day motoring turned into motorsailing then the winds reach just high enough for us to shut off the engine. Slipping through the water a 3.5 knots we didn’t have a care in the world. For five minutes. The winds promptly dropped and along with it our speed – 3 knots, 2.5…