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Friends of ours, who lived next to us on a boat seven years ago, asked us if we wanted to sail their boat from Guaymas to La Paz? We said “yippee” and “yes”. We love sailing, but we don’t get the chance to do it very often because we live in Indiana.
When March 2002 came around we flew to San Carlos, Mexico where we met our Grandpa and Grandma. They live on a sailboat in San Carlos, so they said they would help us to get ready for our trip. This is where my adventure began! |
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We got settled on the boat. Then we cleaned it and fixed the engine. After a week, we tested the boat and sailed around the harbor. It was fun. After that, we had a picnic in a valley with my grandparents. We played a game and went swimming at a nearby pool. |
The Nightmare Crossing
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Finally, the day came when we were going to cross the Sea of Cortez to Baja. We met Grandma and Grandpa and said “goodbye”. We headed out that evening to our first cove on Baja, called Punta Chivato. It was a real rough crossing. I’ll let your imagination think about that! I loved Punta Chivato, so the trip across was worth it. |
Shells Galore
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Punta
Chivato was my favorite cove. I did not
know that this would be the cove with the most shells of any of the coves we
visited. I made Christmas ornaments
with the shells when we got home.
When
I got to the beach, I thought there were no shells here, but when I got closer,
I found there were hundreds of shells.
There were paths you could walk all the way down the beach and both sides
were covered with shells. Each side was
piled with tons of shells. I could not
count them, there were so many. |
Shrimp For Dinner
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On the way back to the boat, we stopped by a shrimper and bought some shrimp for dinner. We started to cook dinner and put the shells in a safe place so they would not break. The sun was setting and we decided to go fishing. I caught a Cabria, which means red snapper in Spanish. Since we just bought a whole bag of shrimp, we did not need to eat the fish, but let it go. Little did we know that this was the only fish that were going to catch in the whole expedition! |
The Great Bakery
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The next morning, we left for Conception Bay. We anchored there and the next morning went ashore to Anna’s Bakery. We got some bread and fresh squeezed orange juice that was real good. |
Sailing Friends
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We went digging for clams. We found over 100. When we got back to the boat, we took a little swim. We met some friends from another boat. They rowed over and said “hello”. Susie said “hello”, but we could not hear her, so we swam over to her and talked. I yelled at my Mom and said, “there are people here”. She said, “I am coming”. So she came out and we talked for hours. Mom invited them for dinner. We had lots of clams, pasta and shrimp. Mom made homemade bread also. We always have homemade bread when we sail. It is much easier to store and will not mold. That night, they came over and we had a blast. We drank tea. Gavin taught us a board game that he made up called “Fish Guts”. We played that all night. |
We’re Clamming!
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The next morning, we took Suzie and Gavin to the clam beach. We got tons more clams and had some clam soup and bread. Then we went fishing and did not catch any fish. We went to Anna’s Bakery and had lunch and went swimming. We went back to the boat and ate dinner and went to sleep. |
The “City”
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The next morning, we went to Mulege. Anna’s daughter drove, because we had no car. We went on a hike to the harbor and then came back and went to a restaurant named Las Casitas. We shopped around town and we bought a couple of Mexican pots. We took a taxi back to Anna’s Bakery. |
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We went for a swim out where the whitecaps were, but not for long. We had dinner at Anna’s Bakery, then went back to our boats and went to sleep. |
The Windy Cove
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The next morning, we went to Santa Barbara Bay. When we were going through whitecaps, my brother and I went up to the bow to see if there were any dolphins. And sure enough, there were dolphins and seals. We watched them until lunchtime, and then we went back to the cockpit to eat lunch. |
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We had seafood and bread. After that, my Mom said that we had to do our homework. Finally, we got to Santa Barbara Bay. We went to the beach and did not find shells, but we did fine some cool rocks. Then we went swimming. Mom started cooking. We ate dinner and went to sleep. |
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The next morning we sailed out of Conception Bay. It was a long sail. We saw a lot of dolphins and had salami and bread for lunch. We arrived at San Juanico as the sun went down. We saw our sailing friends Susie, Gavin and their parents on “Silas Crosby”, their 37’ sailboat. |
Moon Rocks
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The next morning, we saw that there was a “moonrock” in the cove. A moonrock is a big rock that looks like it is from the moon. It was about 30 feet wide and 200 feet long. Gus decided to check it out, so my dad and Gus went snorkeling at the moonrock while my mom and I painted the moonrock. |
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That night we had a blast. We roasted marshmallows and ate dinner on the beach. We met a motorcycle guy who was traveling across Mexico. Then we went back to the boat and went to sleep. |
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The next morning we were going to head out to Carmen Island, but it was too windy so we stayed and went hiking. We found a whole bunch of obsidian. They are little black rocks. Then we went swimming out in the white caps. |
Another Rough Crossing
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The
next day it was still blowing, but we left anyway. It was really rough and bumpy so we could not go up to the bow. We
saw a lot of dolphins. They were jumping all over the place. We did some homework and then arrived at
Carmen Island. “Silas Crosby” was
already there when we arrived. |
The Ghost Town
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The next morning we sailed to Escondido. We rowed ashore, got on the road and walked up to the town. The only problem was that no one lived there. It had nice street lamps that did not work. It had nice streets, curbs and sidewalks. There were pink, green, and white houses but nobody lived there. We went to the store and did our laundry and grocery shopping and got a ride back to the harbor from a friend of my dads. We left early and sailed to Honey Moon Cove for the night. |
Stressed Eggs
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We did some snorkeling and sailed out early to meet up with an old friend of Dad's. Darlene was Dad’s Cub Scout leader. We anchored out in front of her house and rowed in. There were no waves on the beach, so it was easy to land. My dad was glad to see her again. We were all happy to know that she had just started a new school for the children of the area. We went into her screened-in house. It had no walls. That was the funny part about it. It had screens for walls. She gave us fruits, vegetables, eggplant and eggs. She claims the eggs are “unstressed”, because the hens get to run around her hen house. She also has dogs named Sam and Max that were fun to play fetch with in the water. We threw shells and bones and they would chase them. We had to leave early because the wind was picking up and we were not in a sheltered cove. We headed out for San Francisco Cove. |
Crabs on the Move
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On our way to San Francisco Cove we found a cave. We landed the dingy and rowed into the cave. When we got in the cave, there were crabs along the wall. I think they were spider craps. Since the water was moving, it looked like the walls were too. The hard thing about it was that I did not know which way was out! We took some pictures, and then rowed back to the boat. |
Do Water Animals Bite?
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That night we anchored in San Francisco Bay. The next morning, we went to the beach to collect shells. We found puka shells everywhere. We went on a little trail to the back of the island. It was hard, because we did not know which way to go. The path had a lot of turns, so it was hard to decide which way to go. We decided to go straight. Finally we found our way back. We took a rest on the beach. Daddy decided to go on a “death march”. We were not up for it. (A “death march” means straight up a hill.) |
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Instead, we went to the beach and sat down to think of what we could do. We decided to play “long jump” in the sand. That got boring, so Mom suggested we take some pictures underwater. I did not like the idea, plus I did not have my swimming suit. Mom and Gus took one-step, two-steps and then OUUUUUUUUUU! Gus ran screaming out of the water. We did not see what was hanging onto his foot! Then my Mom sent me up the mountain to get Dad. I took off running and could not find the path, while Dad was coming down the other side. By the time I got back to the beach, Dad was carrying Gus back to the boat. We were not sure what bit him, but we think it was a crab. If you ever had a sledgehammer dropped on your middle toe, that was how it felt. Plus two punctures. Haley said, “Gussie jousted with a crab and lost”. Instead of taking off his head, he took his toe! Finally, we got back to the boat. We put Gus’s foot in a bucket of hot water and let it heal for a while. Gus tried to walk on it, and guess what? He could walk! Then we had lunch and took a nap after a long day. |
There She Blows!
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The next morning, we took off for Isla Espiritu Santo. When we were sailing, my Mom, Gus and I heard a huge blow. We thought it was the wind at first, but instead it was a whale. It was about thirty feet from the boat and that is real close! Instead of sailing away from the whale, my Dad tried to get even closer. We went left and right, left and right, here and there and still we could not keep up with the whale. So finally my Dad gave up chasing the whale. Soon we came to the cove we were looking for and sailed in. |
Balancing Rocks
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Gus and I wanted to explore Candelero Cove, so Mom, Gus and I went to the beach. We tried to hike, but the beach was small and the cliffs went up high. So we looked for shells and rocks. We found a bunch of rocks, but only a couple of shells. Then we noticed a little rock statue on the beach. We made a bigger rock statue so that we it looked like the boat on the water was on top of the statue as you looked out to the cove. We went swimming and took some pictures. We went back and Mom started to cook dinner. While Mom was making dinner, Dad, Gus and I went fishing. We didn’t catch any fish, we just caught hooks. Then we went down below, put our fishing rods away and ate dinner and went to bed. It was hard for Gus and I to get to sleep, because the next cove would be our last cove. It would have shops, stores and cities and fun shows we couldn’t wait to attend. There was a good part and a sad part about it. The good part was that we would get to see all the shops. The sad part was that we would have to leave the boat in three more days. |
Manta Diablo
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The next day, we sailed into La Paz. Gussie and I were so excited, we were jumping up and down on deck. As we entered the bay, we saw this huge black thing jump out of the water. Then it did it again, and again and again. It was a huge bat ray that looked like it was coming to say “goodbye”. Then I remembered we would have to leave in a couple of days. But that is not what I should think about now. I was about to enter the land of excitement and have fun! When we arrived at the harbor and got on the dock (a harbor is a place where you keep your boat) Gussie and I raced to the sidewalk to have a look around. All we saw was a restaurant and a couple stores. I asked Mom where all the shops were and she said that this was the outer side of town and we would go into town tomorrow. We got settled and did some laundry. |
Isla de Palma
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We spent the night at a hotel and Gussie and I went in the swimming pool. The cool thing about the pool was that it had a little island of its own with a palm tree on it and a bush. Gussie and I swam to it and sat down on it. Mom took a picture of us on the island. After swimming, we were really beat, so we went to bed really early that night. The next thing that happened was wonderful. We got to watch TV for the first time in a month, although it was in Spanish! |
Shop ‘Til You Drop
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We walked all over La Paz, going to shops and stores and all kinds of places. My favorite was the marketplace. In the marketplace toy store, we got two Mexican clown puppets and three robbers and each one had a gun. When you would point a gun at somebody you would say, “Manos Arriba!” This means “hands up” in Spanish. My favorite thing was a girl “Senorita” puppet. The most disgusting thing I saw was the food market. It smelled like crazy, you could smell all sorts of things, fish, tomatoes, and carrots. I got a lot of more things, like a blue and brown dress, a blue and white flower necklace and a sailing dress. After shopping, we were quite tired. We took a taxi to the hotel and watched some more TV. For the last time, we went down to the pool and had a quick swim and went up to our hotel room and went to bed. |
Saying Goodbye To It All
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The next morning, we had a big breakfast and got packed for the trip home. We got dressed in warm things and took a taxi to the airport. I was sweating by the time we got there. We went inside and checked in at the counter. Then we walked to the sitting area and waited for our plane. Finally the plane came and we got on it. The next minute, we were in Indiana and it was freezing. I had a great time and some day I will go back and sail the Sea of Cortez again. |
The End
