Back to the Blog…
Hello from Mexico! We have had a long hiatus from our blog as the kids thought it would be easier to document our travels from FaceBook this summer on their new Scouts Afloat FB Page. So, we will give you our summer highlights over chunks of time traveling up the coast of Mexico by boat and through the USA and Canada this summer by minivan…all with Willie the wonder dog!
The topics are as follows:
Coming up in our next issues you will learn all about our summer travels…
Sailing up the Sea of Cortez in Mexico
Haul Out at Cabrales Boat Yard in Puerto Penasco, Mexico
West Coast Drive of the USA by way of the Cascades Mountain Range
Canada escapades
Driving South Through the Rockies
Family in St. Louis, Grammie’s beach, Ridgefield friends, Wilmette friends, St. Louis Take 2
The last leg of our road trip…Colorado, 4 Corners, Utah National Parks, Glen Canyon, Grand Canyon and home to our boat in Puerto Penasco
Quick but super fun trip to Yosemite, Sequoia National Parks, and Joshua Tree
Las Vegas Council Grand Camporee in Nevada, Lake Mead recreation site
Phoenix WFA class, parts pickup, Halloween with friends in the USA
Halloween with friends in the Boat Yard
Dia de Muertos with friends in Puerto Penasco
Splashing…coming soon!
Sailing North Through the Sea of Cortez by Julie
Up the coasts of Mexico by way of SV Love & Luck…a quick trip for so many miles! We traveled these 2000nm between May 8 and June 8, 2019.
I believe we last left off in Chiapas, Mexico where we did an awesome land tour with our good friends onboard Utopia. From there, we had a 6 day sail to Zihaute, Mexico. We had the best dolphin show ever on Mother’s Day. Nearly 1,000 dolphins surrounding our boat, doing tricks, and playing for 30+ minutes all for us. So cool! Zihaute had a pretty cool vibe—and we learned about bringing barrels of fuel aboard ship for fueling up. We enjoyed walking around town, doing a little shopping, and only 1 person ended up in the water while we were learning this new fueling trick…
From Zihaute, we sailed directly to Puerto Vallarta, La Cruz, Banderas Bay—all the same place (or very close together for us newcomers) with lots of different names. It was a 2 day sail and we arrived during a dinghy race. The kids met Cat, who runs the La Cruz Kids Club. They immediately signed up for volunteering for Kite Boarding Races the next day. Cold, fun, wet, and exciting. We met some new friends on Totem, explored town (where we expect to spend some time this winter), and got caught up on daily activities: laundry, fuel, fitness tests for Personal Fitness MB, vaccine appointments, and provisioning.
From Puerto Vallarta, we headed to Isla Isabel, Mexico’s Galapagos. The little island was amazing! We hiked all over the island with the little fishing village and all of the large frigate birds and blue footed boobies. Snorkeling was pretty cool too. Heidi enjoyed a prebirthday celebration with our friends on Utopia and Totem.
From Isla Isabel, we headed to La Paz. We arrived late at night and anchored just outside the entrance to La Paz. The scenery in the morning was amazing—a beautiful deserted desert island. And it was amazingly chilly—wonderful! We celebrated Heidi’s actual birthday on the boat with spaghetti and vodka sauce. Delicious. The ice cream shop in town was also quite good!
From La Paz, we headed north to Isla San Fran. Once we arrived, the kids explored the pink salt flats and looked for agates at the beach. No luck finding any gems—but it was good to get off the boat.
From Isla San Fran, we headed to Agua Verde. We found the advertised goat cheese here and hiked out to the point over looking this very green bay. We practiced line and tender for the BSA and quickly showered and dried off because the water was COLD! A very beautiful bay and almost all to ourselves.
From Agua Verde, we headed to Santa Rosalia. We walked through the old mining town with the Eiffel Church (yes, the builder of the Eiffel Tower). We went out to dinner for celebrating Heidi’s birthday properly—I think that made 3 birthday celebrations for Heidi (just how she likes it). We visited the mining museum, caught up on email, phone calls, and ordering stuff we need next month for the big road trip…We also enjoyed great icy treats with mangos, tamarind, and sweet and spicy flavors.
From Santa Rosalia, we headed to Puerto Don Juan. This was a neat little hurricane hole that was not fogged in when we were hoping for a spot to stop. There was a gap in the rocks to see sunset across the bay. There were some lonely coyotes by the water’s edge and desert scenery in all directions.
From Puerto Don Juan, we headed to Puerto Refugio. The sea lions were the most amazing part of Puerto Refugio. There is a sea lion rookery here and all of the moms, babes, and juveniles hang out here while the males go off swimming. They are some of the loudest, barking creatures that I have ever heard. They are very curious creatures and also seem to be very silly. It was really fun to dinghy up to their island, let them get used to us to know we weren’t a threat and then watch their antics. They flopped, rolled, slid on their bellies, barked, swam and closely watched us. When we were leaving the island for Puerto Penasco, a juvenile male swam right by our boat, jumped out of the water, twisted his body to bend at the waist and look at us upright, looked directly at us and barked and yelled like crazy. It was one of the most amazing animal encounters I’ve ever experienced. Willie didn’t know what to make of him! Hopefully we’ll get to go back to swim with them when it is not mating season.
Finally, from Puerto Refugio we headed to Puerto Penasco and currently, that is the end of SV Love & Luck’s sailing log. We will fill you in on PP for our next update. Thanks for reading.