We arrived in Mag Bay–as cruisers call it–on Wednesday, March 22 after a 3 day, 2 night uneventful motor sail. We needed to be in by midday on Wednesday because a blow was coming. Before the blow, while we were underway, we lived the proverbial “calm before the storm.” The Pacific Ocean looked like a lake. Maybe even calmer than a lake. Afterall, I’ve seen Lake Mojave have whitecaps!
Fish on!
The wildest part of the passage was the we caught our first fish! It was a bonita, good sized. And we accidentally caught another about 20 minutes after the first! We let one go. I’ll save you from the bloody pics as we have a lot to learn about dispatching fish and filleting them on the boat. Thank goodness for calm seas. Oh, and a small shark showed up to enjoy the discarded bits!
This is our yo-yo trolling fish line. We had 50′ of line out with the lure we named party lure–all the colors and sparkly. The coke can is the fish-on alarm. It worked.
Our first booby!
The most exciting part of the passage was the brown booby that Mark named Ernie. Ernie spent one night with us sleeping on the bow and watching sunrise with us. When he departed, he flew around the boat and floated with us a bit. Like he was making sure all of his systems were functioning before giving up a free ride.
He was a good guest. Didn’t poop on the deck, some on the anchor but that’s in the water now. Quiet. Aloof.
On Anchor
Since Wednesday, we’ve been on MACH 5 in Mag bay. That blow has been blowing! We’ve seen winds no less than 13kts and usually between the 18-27kts. We actually consider the 13kts “a break” now. Waves have been whitecaps under 1 meter. Swell has been probably also under 1 meter. Our anchor has held well! Whew!
The conditions have been too much to launch Trixie the dinghy, still laying on the foredeck, to go ashore. We’d be drenched in a minutes. If you are thinking, hey, your in Baja Sur, it’s warm. No. Sea temp is currently a brisk 61° and air temp in the 60s and 70s.
So it’s Sunday, the last day of the blow, per weather models. We have way too much trash onboard. We are ready to stretch our legs and explore! But the days have been productive. We defrosted the freezer and Mark is tweaking the settings with tech support (this was not a planned task). I have cleaned, baked bread, baked hamburger buns, and dispatched giant tiger prawns. Yes! We had a visit from a panga who sold us fresh (some still alive) giant tiger prawns. Let me tell you, I may never be able to eat shrimp from a grocery or restaurant again.
Mark installed a new-to-us VHF radio. We’ve watched a few movies. One notable one was Triangle of Sadness–that was weird. I tackled cruiser-style laundry for the first time. The ammonia water rinse worked very well. I learned about the process from long-time cruisers, Emily and Clark (see video). I made cookies with an American cookie mix and Mexican butter. I got the conversion of butter from cups to grams wrong. The cookies were extra buttery and like pancakes!
Late one night, the winds calmed for about a hour. We sat in the cockpit with a bottle of Copia The Source wine and stared at the stars. So many stars and a hint of milky way!
