We made it to Turtle Bay! 320 nautical miles, we are half way in to our trip down the Baja coast and can.not.wait. to get to Cabo. We are with 2 other boats:
s/v Dazzler and
s/v Lady Carolina. The trip has been fun chatting on the VHF and checking in with each boat, plus the security of having a small fleet with us has been helpful.
We went 90 nm offshore, the first time we weren't able to see land in forever. It was scary, exciting, fun and every emotion you could think of at the same time. During our night watches, the stars were out, we could see the Milky Way, experienced 2 'moon risings' (incredible!) and I couldn't help thinking how small we were in our little boat, sailing the big ocean, like a speck of dirt in the world....(more on that later)...... The trip really got exciting when within an hour of each other, we all cast our fishing rods and caught tuna! I actually reeled in a 15-20lb tuna, with only a little help from Tim, I felt like such a fishing diva - lol. I used a 'cedar plug' lure with a yellow sparkly jelly worm/squid on the hook. The fish was a beauty, however I started to cry when I saw how badly he was hooked, and then when we gaffed him. Dazzler guided us to cut the gills, string a line through him and let him 'bleed out' while being towed behind our boat. We had an issue with cutting the gills that I won't explain here, but it looked like bloody hell before we got the fish in the water. We are such fishing rookies. When we realized that the poor guy was still alive, we took out rum, and poured it into his gills, which gently put him out of his misery. I felt so horrible and though that PETA was going to fly above us in a helicopter, shouting things from a megaphone like 'You are an awful person!!!'. Horrible guilt. Tim tells me it's the circle of life, but boy, to me, it's a sad circle. After that emotional roller coaster, I filleted the fish in our cockpit (thank you youTube videos for the lesson!). We have tons of tuna now in our freezer. When we arrived to Turtle Bay, we got together with Dazzler & LC, and had a bbq on the beach with all of our tuna. Good times! I thanked the fish for our food, kinda like in the movie Avatar.
On another not so pleasant note, I was horribly seasick for a good portion of the trip. I didn't take my typical 'Nauzene' motion sickness medicine early enough and the swells were kicking my butt (they were huge and broad-siding our stern hind quarter - in English, the back corner of the boat ) and thus I puked my guts out, twice. Our friends recommended
Stugeron (aka Cinnarizine - a pill given to help with nausea, motion sickness, vertigo and needs to be taken with care). I picked some up at Costco in Ensenada - 60 tablets for $3! yes, $3! for generic brand (normally $35 or $40 for non-generic), and took 1/8 of a tablet (it's so strong, you don't need much) and I was back in business. That stuff is a miracle motion-sickness drug for sure though is shown to be a leading cause of Parkinson's if taken regularly in high doses - yikes!
Turtle Bay is a very small, dirty/dusty, poor town. Not much to see. There are dirt roads, dust everywhere, tons of stray, dirty, sad, little doggies looking for a home, and even dust/dirt on the packaging in the grocery stores. It's like going back into a time machine for sure. The town used to have a cannery which was the main source of employment, however it has long since closed and the town is feeling it. According to Tim - "One day in Turtle Bay, is one day too many"
There are two places to get fuel - Annabelle's and Enrique Jr.'s.
Per Dazzler, we opted for Annabelle's, since it is clean fuel and the people are so nice. Annabelle's was also nice enough to bring us several large jugs of purified bottled water for $2 per jug, so that we could top off our tank. We don't have a water maker, so the need for clean water is always on our minds, since we got 'bad water' in Bodega Bay, we don't want to deal with that again, especially cleaning out our water tank, which is a pain in the ass.
We all went to dinner at Annabelle's/Rubin (The owners) restaurant and had a delicious lobster dinner for $15 per person, can't beat it! They pay about $400 pesos (~$40 USD) for 4 lobsters, or depending on the size - that's $10 USD per tail, expensive for a small town in my opinion, and then have us for dinner for $15 per person, which includes chips, salsa, rice, beans, and salad. Good value for us, not sure if for them?
On the Peanut/Oldsmobile front, he's been such a champ. Poor guy was so sea sick on this passage, first time since we've left Seattle, so I think we're going to hook him up with Dramamine for this next passage to Mag Bay, another 2 days at sea. (Yes, you can give dogs Dramamine! very cool, our vet gave us the doseage guidance). He's back to good health now though.
The Banda Ancha broadband stick is so slow here in Turtle Bay, so no pictures for this post. Will get some up when we hit Cabo for sure. We are heading out today for part 2 of our trip, to Mag Bay. Here we go again....
-K&T
