10-05-2012 to 10-17-2012 La Paz and Cabo

What an excellent couple of weeks!  We attended a birthday party for Nancy, on “Jessie Marie” at The Shack the night before we headed to Cabo for our much-anticipated boat break and get-together with friends from Boston.

On the 6^th, we rented a little Dodge Attitude and took a drive to San Jose del Cabo.  As always in Mexico the drive was an adventure, especially after all the rain this summer.  The roads leave a lot to be desired in many places and you must always, always, always…look for cows and pot holes!!  Very important (smile)! (Most of the road to Cabo was a 4-lane divided highway though not quite complete all the way. Even there you needed to watch out for cows and potholes  --- and let us not forget the Mexican obsession with speed bumps. – D) It took a little over two hours to get to our timeshare.  We had not yet been to this particular property and were not disappointed when we got there.  As usual, the condo was lovely and the property, pool and beach were well cared for and beautiful.  We had to laugh because, as we told most folks, we were not there to hang out by the pool or on the beach but to hang out in the air-conditioned room, cook and watch our favorite cop shows and movies on TV.  Watching the stunning sunrises was awesome!!

San Jose del Cabo is a darling little town to stroll through, shop in and is not far from Cabo San Lucas.  Our friends from Boston were staying in a resort hotel on the beach in Cabo.  We drove into Cabo our first night there to meet them for dinner on the beach at a nice restaurant and met their friends who came with them. 

The next day we met in Cabo to get our wrist bands at the Cabo Wabo Cantina for that night’s show, which was the opening night for Sammy Hagar’s Birthday Bash concerts. (We were fortunate enough to win the lottery to buy tickets for both the opening and closing night shows – D).  We had dinner at Cabo Wabo and stood in line early to get in so that we could get good spots for the show.  The show was fantastic!!   Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, Deni Carmassi, Vic Johnson and Matt Sorum were playing with him.  They played a collage of songs spanning his career and some Hendrix and Led Zepplin for the fun of it!  Awesome night!!

We relaxed the next day after a late night out.   We went into San Jose del Cabo the following day to eat lunch at our favorite French restaurant in town.  (Well we discovered it last time we were here – I’m not sure that two visits qualifies it for favorite yet, but their crepes were excellent – D).  We made a stop at the Mega for a few provisions and got some pool time in that afternoon.

We went to dinner the next night in Cabo again with our friends at a fun restaurant called “The Office”.  We had great seats for a colorful Mexican folk dancing show.  We all got silly and had a great time dancing with the dancers.

Our only problem with this week was that we both ended up with a case of the “touristas” otherwise known as Montezuma’s Revenge!  We think it might have been the glass of water we ordered at the restaurant in San Jose del Cabo.  Oh well!  We’ve been in Mexico for almost a year now and have not had any trouble yet, so it was odd.  We didn’t feel like doing too much more than resting in the condo (which was fine) for the last few days of the trip.  

Unfortunately, we were not able to enjoy the closing night concert as much as we could have had we been feeling better.  That being said, the final night concert was a good one but was not as energetic and charged as the opening night.  It was enjoyed by all though! (This was his actual birthday, so I think he was a little more into partying than performing, he was obviously having a great time. – D)

Boo Hoo!  We had to check out Sunday morning and head back to La Paz at which time we found out that another hurricane was headed our way.  “Paul” was heading for the Baja Coast and predicted to pass over the peninsula.  When we got back to the boat we had to batten down the hatches and get ready for some possible wind and rain.

As it turned out, Paul made landfall far enough north of us that we only ended up with 25-30 knot winds and some rain.  The last hurricane, Norman, made more of a ruckus than Paul.  Once again we have been fortunate in the weather department.

We will now begin preparations to head to the mainland again for the winter.  We are planning to leave here around 10/26.  Dick is busily trying to make arrangements to get our auto pilot course computer and control head back from the U.S. now that they’ve been fixed and I’m working on planning the provisions for our trip.  We’re looking forward to visiting some of our friends here and at The Shack before we leave.

09-02-2012 to 10-02-2012 Puerto Escondido back to La Paz

(PLEASE ENJOY THE SLIDESHOW AT THE END OF THIS POST)

Soooooooo  what have we been doing.  Hmmmmm…. We left Candeleros and went to Puerto Escondido, which is nice.  We were on a mooring and enjoying the fine breezes, the restaurant, the store, the hotel and restaurant up the road at Tripui and generally trying to stay cool.

We stayed at the Tripui Hotel for two nights for our anniversary on the 10th, which was excellent and a nice respite from the heat.  We were able to watch some of our favorite criminal shows on TV, like the CSI’s-Criminal Minds-Law and Orders, and some others.  They have excellent food in the hotel restaurant and the pool was lovely. (We were the only people in the hotel the first night and they cleared the restaurant veranda overlooking the pool and set one table just for us – very romantic! D)  We had planned on only spending one night, but they gave us a second night complementary for our anniversary!!  Woo Hoo!  So very sweet of them!  So, we availed ourselves of the pool and other amenities for another night.  Excellent!!

Not a lot of exciting things happening other than a butterfly migration, which has thousands (and thousands- D) of yellow butterflies passing through every day, some cool looking jellyfish floating around and some pretty impressive lightning and thunder storms rolling through.  Not a lot of rain or wind (although there was some rain), mostly thunder bumpers.

We were about ready to drop the mooring and head out to Isla Coronados for a week or so , but ended up sticking around Puerto Escondido until Monday the 17^th.  We wanted to see the 49ers 1^st home game, which we were glad of because they won it!   We headed out the next day for Isla Coronados after getting supplies.  It was a lovely anchorage with sugar-white sand and some really good snorkeling.  They also have some great trails there, but will have to save that for a winter in the Sea because it is much too hot to hike.

We were in the company of two very large plastic yachts and two other sailboats, both of whom we had seen and met before.  We had one small problem though, when we went to anchor, I couldn’t move the gear-shift out of reverse! We had to shut the engine off once we were set and Capt’n. Dick had to put his mechanical expertise to work.  He established that it was NOT the transmission (Thank goodness!) and that it was the control cable.  It had seized and would no longer move.  This was an easy enough problem to solve as the local marine shop in Loreto would most likely have the cable, and did!  So Dick took off the next morning in the dinghy, while the seas were calm, to Loreto (about seven miles each way in open sea – D) for the part and repaired it that afternoon.  Yaaaaay!  He is such a handy hubby!  Actually we could not be doing this if he wasn’t.

We spent five days there at Isla Coronados enjoying the snorkeling and the scenery (Shared one snorkel with a 4 ft. green Moray eel – D) .  Then we headed for the anchorage in front of Loreto.  We had planned to stay there for a couple of nights, go into town, enjoy a nice dinner out and go to the market, but that was not to be.  Hurricane Miriam formed just south of Cabo (about 300 miles) and was projected to come up the Baja Pacific coast.  We decided we better high tail it to La Paz, or at the minimum Puerto Escondido.  The next morning we turned the motor on and started to head for Candeleros as a first stop, but discovered that the batteries were not charging and the RPMs wouldn’t register either. Once again Capt’n Dick had to evaluate the situation and found that a wire had broken off the back of our smaller alternator.  So, we pulled back into Puerto Escondido instead of going on to Candeleros.  He was able to fix the problem and we have power!  Whew… He has really earned his keep lately, I’ll say.

We enjoyed a nice meal at the restaurant that evening and checked in with the weather the next morning.  The hurricane had been forecasted to stay on the outside of the Baja, which would only mean a little (? – D) wind and rain on this side of the Baja.  We didn’t hear anything differently the next morning, and decided to head on back to La Paz. 

When we got to Agua Verde, we decided that it would be more prudent to continue pushing on to La Paz (the local fisherman had pulled their pangas out of the water and well back from the beach (when the local fisherman are making serious preparations, us newbies should pay attention – D), because now another storm had formed south of Cabo and was projected to come up into the Sea!  So, we continued through the night arriving in La Paz at 7:30 in the morning.  Dick had to do his Net Controller thing on Sonrisa Net and then the Marina was open.  We were able to get a slip on dock 2 this time.  Our regular slip was occupied, unfortunately.  We had become accustomed to that slip and liked it.

Later that day the sky got dark and the rain, thunder, lightning and wind began.  We were very glad we pushed on through instead of trying to go from anchorage to anchorage.  Evidently La Paz area experienced three earthquakes the night before also.  At any rate, it rained for three days on and off. (The first day I had to get to the bank and Tecel before the end of the day so I had to venture out. The streets here have no drainage system, it simply runs down the street. When I left the bank in the middle of the downtown section, right after an hour-long downpour there was knee deep water rushing down the street to the bay two blocks away – D).  The roads were a mess and many open-air places were closed. 

The rain finally stopped on Saturday night, so Sunday was a beautiful day.  We got to go to a local restaurant & sports bar where we were able to watch the 49er shut out the Jets.  I was also able to do some cleaning and some laundry.  The temperatures have been in the high 80’s and low 90’s!!  Such a nice change.  It would appear that fall is coming here.

Now we have to deal with getting the auto pilot fixed!!  Dick will be having it shipped up to the Bay Area.

We will be traveling by car to Cabo San Lucas this coming Saturday the 6^th to take an 8-day boat break.  We are going to stay in our timeshare at San Jose del Cabo, go visit friends in Cabo who will be visiting from Boston and generally enjoy condo life.  We haven’t seen these friends from Boston in 8 years, so that will be fun.  It will also involve going to the Sammy Hagar Birthday Bash shows at his club called “Cabo Wabo”.  Should be great fun!!

Will update you all before we leave for the mainland at the end of this month.