sailing casita

Time seems to be flying by, I can’t believe it has been 3 weeks since my last post! Thanksgiving came and went (though we barely noticed) and now Christmas is now fast on its heels.

After spending one night at Balandra Cove we moved Casita to a slip at Marina de la Paz. This wasn’t our original plan, but our friends Heidi and Aaron have a slip at the marina and they were spending the Thanksgiving holiday anchored at one of the nearby islands so we jumped at the opportunity to sublet their slip for a few days. This gave us the chance to wash the boat (which it really, really needed), and it made it a lot easier to do laundry, take on diesel, and do some grocery shopping.

My sister Cynthia was flying down the day after TG so it was nice to have a chance to get the boat tidied up for her visit. Maybe “tidied up” isn’t really the right way to put it. Having been underway almost constantly for over a month in a variety of conditions, the boat was more in “passage making” mode than “relaxing at anchor” mode. We restowed lots of items that we didn’t anticipate needing for island hopping, and we excavated the aft cabin so Cynthia would have a place to sleep!

After 3 nights at the marina, and with Cynthia on board, we made the short trip back to Balandra. It was windier than our first visit so a bit rolly and we deployed our rocker stoppers again. Devon and I paddle boarded to shore and went for a walk on the gorgeous beach. While we were wandering down the beach we heard a strange sound, somewhere between a “pow” and a “whoomp”. We both commented on it but couldn’t figure out what would have caused it, until we got back to our paddle boards and realized Devon’s board had exploded! About 18 inches of one of the glue joints had failed, thank goodness it didn’t happen out on the water! I ferried us and the deflated board back on my board, maneuvering was difficult and the wind was blowing pretty strongly off the beach so we almost blew passed Casita and out into the bay.

The following morning we weighed anchor and moved to Ensenada del Candelero on Isla Espiritu Santo (the closest island). We saw Heidi and Aaron on their boat Sonho going the opposite direction so we stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes.

The anchorage at Candelero was incredibly beautiful, though pretty windy due to the wind getting funneled down a canyon into the anchorage. We spent several days there, just enjoying the beauty of the setting, wandering the beaches, and doing a little exploring inland. The scenery away from the beach reminded me of Arizona, it was a little surprising sometimes to be looking at red rocks and cacti, then turn 20 degrees and have a view of gorgeous water and sailboats at anchor.

There were several other boats in the anchorage, 2 or 3 of which had children on board. One evening we were treated to the site of a lighted Christmas tree (one of the boats rigged Christmas lights up the forestay and backstay, combined with their anchor light it made a nice Xmas tree) and the sound of the kids singing Jingle Bells.

From Candelero we went back to Balandra where we all went ashore and hiked over the hill to Playa Tecolote where there are a few beachside restaurants. We had a nice dinner of fish tacos on the beach, then hiked back over the hill and made it with just enough light to not get too lost finding our way back down to the beach!

The next morning we moved Casita to Bahia Falsa, a very protected anchorage a little closer to La Paz. We needed to scrub Casita’s bottom to remove the various flora and fauna that were making her hull home and Bahia Falsa was a better anchorage for doing the work. Scrubbing the bottom requires spending a lot of time underwater and the currents can be very strong in the La Paz anchorage, plus the water isn’t as clear as Bahia Falsa. The trip to Bahia Falsa was very short, under an hour, and uneventful until we were backing up to set the anchor and got the dinghy tow line wrapped around the prop shaft! This could have been very bad news as it killed the engine and could have damaged our prop shaft and the shaft coupling which could have resulted in a leak. Fortunately the anchor had already dug in so we were in no danger of drifting into the rocks, and Devon throttled back to idle as soon as he detected something was amiss so other than some nicks in the tow line no damage was done. We were even able to free the line without going into the water. This was the first time we’ve ever had a line wrapped on our prop shaft and hopefully it will be the last. We had gotten complacent recently with letting the dinghy drift around when setting the anchor, assuming the floating tow line would prevent a problem, but we learned our lesson!

Cynthia departed that same day to visit family friends (more like family) in Todos Santos and I took a bus the next day to join her for a few hours. Then it was back to Bahia Falsa where I scrubbed the bottom (very tiring work!), then we moved to La Paz where we are currently anchored. We are splitting our time between a little R&R, doing various chores onboard, and going on long walks to various markets, grocery stores, and chandleries. We are also starting the process of sorting out where and how to get some somewhat big jobs done in anticipation of (probably, maybe) doing the Pacific Puddle Jump in the spring.