|
I am sure everyone at home thinks we are on a perpetual holiday, basking in the sunshine and enjoying non-stop R & R every day. The fact of the matter actually is that offshore cruising is damned hard work! We had been forewarned about this, so it should come as no surprise to us. However, when you are at home, holding down a full time job and planning and working towards a totally new and hopefully carefree lifestyle, it is difficult to fathom the amount of work involved just to maintain safety and relative comfort at sea. It is just amazing how long it takes just to look after the basics in life, such as food, water, fuel, and shelter of the wide, open ocean where potential danger may strike at any time - without notice. Terrific Mess
Then the dinghy has to be taken off the bow, where it has been securely stowed during the passage and the 150-pound engine mounted (heavy, time consuming, back breaking work), before we can get ashore. Then there is the surf to deal with. It is really tricky to land the dinghy on the beach, as the surf is strong - without fail - along the Pacific Coast. Many a time have people been swamped - dinghy turned upside down - with or without groceries, beer cans, camera equipment, clothes, glasses, etc., etc. An unpleasant challenge, which we have to face regularly. There are no yacht clubs as such south of Acapulco, nor docks where the boat can be tied up, so we have to anchor out and to in in the dinghy whenever we want/need to go ashore. Also, we have had a lot of trouble with our Zodiac inflatable. The heat is loosening the seams, and we have other leaks from hitting it on reefs, scraping it on the beach, sand and rocks, so we have to patch it constantly, pump it up etc., etc. It is a real pain. I have sewed a canvas cover for it to protect it against the sun, which helps, but it will only extend its life for a few more months - it is gradually coming apart. We are not the only ones who are experiencing this - most cruisers we meet have similar problems with their dinghies. Provisioning also takes forever. Supermarkets are non-existent, so you have to go to the butcher, bakery, pharmacy, dairy, etc., etc. like in the old days. To further complicate matters, we have to do it on foot, and carry everything back to the dinghy to haul it back to the boat - hopefully without losing anything and keeping it dry. Since there are hardly any docks in this part of the world, we have to jerry jug fuel, usually via bus or taxi, to the dinghy back to the boat. Thank God for the water maker. If it hadn't been for that, we would have to carry cans of water as well. Ice is another problem. If we are lucky enough to get any at all, it is a challenge to get it back in the boat in time before it all melts in the 30-degree plus heat! And to top it off, you cannot buy large quantities of anything, because the food goes bad very quickly without refrigeration, and ice lasts maximum 3 days. We do have a small fridge onboard, but it draws so much electricity that we cannot have it on most of the time... What else can I tell you? Oh yes, the heat really drains you. By the time we have done the essential chores to keep us alive and moving, we are pooped! The day is also very short. Although we are up by 6 o'clock every morning, it gets dark at 6, so that only gives you a 12-hour day. After dark, we don't get anything done down below, because the lights in the cabin are too weak to read by or write for any length of time, and further, we cannot keep them on very long, because the batteries get drained... There is a constant pressure on us to tackle the high priority items first - we still have long lists of "things to do", and most of them are maintenance oriented. Things break down all the time, the salt water/air is very hard on the boat, and we have to guard constantly against rust. The other day, when we got the bikes out after two months, the chain on Martin's bike was corroded almost to the point of being ruined. He just caught it in the nick of time - and these are brand new bikes from San Diego! Rust is a serious problem. We have to polish the metal onboard all the time, otherwise the rigging may just collapse on us. The list of repair jobs goes on and on... Now, after all this, you must know, of course, that we are having the time and adventure of our lives. However, it is a lot tougher than we had imagined, and we are disappointed that we do not have the time and energy we had expected for reading, correspondence, socializing, shore trips and the like. After all this, I will pick up where I left off in my epistle from San Diego. Sven and Althea Rasmussen joined us there on November 6 for three weeks of cruising down the coast of Baja California via Guadaloupe Islands to Cabo San Lucas. We had a mixed bag of weather, but mostly good sailing. The first 7 days, we did non-stop to Bahia Santa Maria. We were monitoring the hurricane "Nora" very carefully, as she was threatening to come in our direction. Fortunately, she changed course and blew herself out before she could do any damage to boaters or anybody else for that matter. At that time, I was still struggling with seasickness, and Althea, bless her heart, did all the cooking, almost the entire time onboard. Actually, she even did it after I was feeling 100% - a tremendous help for me and a super treat for everyone else. Se is just fantastic, never gets sick and can be down below and cook in any weather conditions. I sure envy her - but it was also lovely to be so spoiled! We had truly gourmet meals every day. She would prepare the evening mead during the morning, fix lunch and then curl up with a book for the afternoon. Then, come 5 o'clock, she would change, dress up, makeup, jewelry and all and get ready for Happy Hour. After a couple of days, we would all fix ourselves up - the guys were hard to convince, though. The standards have never been higher onboard Nor Siglar, before nor since... ...and Fresh Lobster at Anchor... Our menus would consist of homemade bread, cakes and cookies, casseroles, pork tenderloin medallions with red cabbage, pot-roast, roast beef, stew, baked ham, chocolate pudding from scratch, open faced sandwiches and the list goes on and on. Althea finally got a break from the chores, when in Bahia Santa Maria we traded 8 beautiful, big lobsters with some local fishermen for 2 T-shirts and 2 packs of cigarettes. What a feast! Cold lobster and remoulade with homemade French bread and white wine, and enough for a lobster pasta salad the next day! Couldn't be any closer to heaven than that! This was our very first taste of real cruising, and we loved it! To date, we have only had one other lobster feast. Unfortunately, they are getting fished out, and most go to export. Sven and Althea ended up spending 10 days in Cabo with us, after two aborted attempts to reach La Paz (see Martin's log next). We had a great time snorkeling, wandering along the beautiful beaches, especially Lover's Beach at the very southern tip of Baja, and swimming in wonderfully warm and clear water. We also went out to eat a lot, and had first class food with very few exceptions. Some restaurants are right on the beach, with tables in the sand and you can sit and wiggle your toes in it, sipping margaritas - not bad, eh? We had some truly romantic evenings with full moon and star studded sky, overlooking the dramatic cliffs at World's End.
We tried, unsuccessfully, to make it from Cabo San Lucas to La Paz further up in the Sea of Cortes. Finally, we made it on our fourth try. We managed to tuck into a little place called Bahia Frailes half way to La Paz after fighting very strong headwinds (Santa Anas) up to 40 knots and big waves. The last 9 miles took us 5 hours motor sailing. Needless to say, both NOR SIGLAR and both of us took a beating. Anyhow, we made it to La Paz eventually, around December 9, where we rested up till December 18, enjoying the pre-Christmas atmosphere of Quaint La Paz and doing repairs and provisioning. We had intended to spend at least a month in the Sea of Cortes, where the water is incredibly clear, for very good snorkeling and scuba diving. But since we got delayed so much getting out of Cabo, we decided to spend just a couple of days on a little island just north of La Paz, before crossing the Sea of Cortes to Puerto Vallarta. MAINLAND MEXICO We had a nice sail across the Sea of Cortes - beautiful, full moon, and got into Puerto Vallarta on December 23, after 70 hours. Jonathan Cook, our friend from New Zealand, joined us here, where we spent Christmas with a whole bunch of other Canadian and American sailboats including one from Kelowna! We serenaded the Mexican Navy from about 20 dinghies on Christmas Eve. They first thought they were invaded, put their strong searchlights on us, and piped all the crew on deck! We left P.V. on December 29 for Acapulco, the next major stopover. This was the first stretch on our entire trip that we actually took it easy and got into the real cruising mode. We pretty well day-sailed the whole way, and stopped over in many beautiful bays and islands. This portion is probably one of the nicest areas of Mexico's coast, and also the area richest in fish. We had Dorado (Mahi Mahi) and Tuna every day we wanted it - got almost tired of it after a while! The highlights on this stretch was Bahia Chamela and the beautiful island of Passavera where we spent New Year, and where Anne talked to may parents over the ham radio for the first time, also to her brother Per, in New York. Other highlights were: Tenacatita Bay, where we did a long dinghy trip up a jungle river, one hour each way - full of fantastic birds - pelicans, white egrets, boobies and birds unknown to us. A native woman was doing her laundry by hand, waist deep in the river... Melaque Bay, where we almost lost our dinghy. It tore lose from the boat during the night, and was found the next morning on a reef by a fellow cruiser. We have had nothing but trouble with it ever since. It leaks like a sieve, and we have been unable to patch the holes successfully. It drives us nuts. Zihuatanejo, a gorgeous place - not too big yet with perfect beaches, small shops and hotels. We stayed here for four days before leaving for Acapulco where we arrived on January 15 at the Acapulco Yacht Club. Acapulco was very nice and interesting, but too big and commercial, and too many tourists! Here we had the best pork tenderloin we have ever tasted. Apparently, the pork in Mexico is so sweet and tender because the pigs there eat natural food outdoors, including fresh fruits. We took a land trip to Taxco from here for 3 days. Taxco is the silver capital of Mexico, and a quaint, old town from the 1700's. Hundreds of silversmith shops line the streets, and Anne got a very pretty set of sterling silver and turquoise necklace, bracelet and earrings in a traditional Aztec design - very reasonably prized! We stayed in a cozy, old Mexican-style hotel with an inner courtyard, lined with exotic fruit trees and flowers, for only $30 per night including breakfast. We finally got out of Acapulco on January 30. The first stop after Acapulco was a perfect, little place called Puerto Angel, but unfortunately we had all kinds of problems with the authorities there. It was Saturday, and we had just anchored, when we were boarded by two armed navy personnel, one officer, who was pretty drunk, and a young soldier with a big rifle. The officer could barely read Spanish, and we had to help him filling in the registration form he had with him. They wanted to inspect down below- but they were only after magazines. Finally, it dawned on us that they wanted girly magazines - Playboy, etc., which, unfortunately, we did not have. We gave them three baseball caps and they happily took off. The next morning, at 8 o'clock, we woke up with a bang on the side of the boat, and the next minute the local Port Captain sat in our cockpit. He wanted our ship's papers and passports, and told us to come in to his office at 9 o'clock to register. When we got there, he filled in our forms, which were signed by another, obviously more senior officer. Then they told us to come back on Monday to pay the port dues at the local bank. We said we were leaving early in the morning, had the right change now and wanted to pay the fee right then and there. That was OK. And when we were ready to leave, the Port Captain gave us a piece of paper ("bill") with 50,000 pesos (US$ 17) written on it for his "services". I (Martin) lost my temper, slammed my fist on his desk and told him - suddenly fluent in Spanish (!) - "Bastante No!!! Manana vamos a l'officina del turismo!", shaking my fist at him! Threatening that we would go to the nearest Ministry of Tourism office on Monday morning and put in a complaint sure stopped them. The two of them whispered something to each other and told us we could go. Suddenly, everything was in perfect order! To put the icing on the cake, in Puerto Angel, we got a homemade loaf of bread from some friends on another boat, and while we were ashore, someone stole it out of our dinghy. Needless to say, we were not too impressed with Puerto Angel - the "angel port". The next stop was Puerto Huatulco, from where we took another interesting land trip - to Oaxaca, by a second-class bus. That was some experience! The bus was from the 50's, manual steering, no muffler and the assistant had to sit and fill water into the radiator as we ground our way up some incredibly steep and narrow switchbacks over the Sierra Madre Mountains. Going downhill on the other hand, was something else. The driver played tapes at full force while he was wheeling the bus around the corners and pumped his brakes in time with the music - at the same time turning around with a big smile to check and see if we liked it! We were really scared, but at the same time had a ball. The bus would take mountain people on and let them off at places where we couldn't see a trail even less a road or anything. Mostly, they just carried a sack with something in it. One woman came on the bus with a live turkey. When nature called, people would just ask the driver to stop, go outside and squat next to the bus in plain view of the other passengers. Natural as anything... In Oaxaca, we visited some old Indian ruins and had some fantastic meals in small sidewalk restaurants, serenaded by colourful Mariachi bands. We walked a lot around the town and watched the locals selling their hand woven specialties, mostly blankets, and just enjoyed being inland for a change. The next stretch of coastline is the dreaded Gulf of Tehuantapec, in which full force gales can literally come out of the blue. We had been recommended to stay very, very close to shore - about a mile or so out. Thus, if a gale started it always blows offshore, we could go close to the beach and just put the anchor out and ride out the storm. Anyway, we were lucky, and had excellent weather through the Tehuantapec right to Puerto Madero, the last port before leaving Mexico. Just before arriving Puerto Madero, a Mexican destroyer called us on Channel 16, ordering us to stop and prepare for a "boarding committee". A big Zodiac with two young officers and six sailors came for a "friendly inspection" - real gentlemen, proper Navy, not drunk, neatly dressed and very polite. They even spoke some English. Apparently, they are looking for drug smuggling. We heard later that other cruisers had been boarded in that area too, so it was obviously a routine inspection. Ahead of us lies a challenging stretch of ocean, which we will cover in our next epistle. Copyright © Anne Brevig & Martin Vennesland. www.norsiglar.com |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Home
INDEX
Logistics of Cruising:
Home
NORWEGIAN 
In Mexico we trade Langoustinas for next to nothing and have lots of gourmet dinners "Chez Nor Siglar" 
Our first Xmas at Sea 
