Trip with Danny to some cool Islands in mexico

Danny came down and we went out on a trip together with Aquila.  We started in La Cruz, in the marina, and it was VERY HOT and so we quickly tried to get the boat ready to go and depart, which involved running all the lines and cleaning the bottom (which danny hired a local diver to do) and then we got moving.  Once clear of the breakwater, it became a lot cooler (with the wind able to blow through the boat) and we had to test the boat out to see what she could do.  There was a few thunderstorms and also a Tropical Storm (dolores) which passed nearby, so we stayed in Bandaras Bay for the first week to get familiar with the boat.  So we went to Punta Mita, to Yelapa, and back to La Cruz to hide from Dolores.  As the storm passed us by, we pulled up the anchor and took off using the remaining winds to help us go north to Isla Isabel.  

It was a pretty quick trip, about 13 hours, which is the fastest I've ever done that trip by a long shot.  I think in Altair I did it in 24 hours a few times and in 20 was the best, maybe.  The water was blue and clear and warm, we fished (but didn't catch) and dropped the skiff to do some filming and picture time while sailing along.  All very nice.

When we arrived, the water was really warm and fairly clear, but not the best I've ever had it, and we settled down for the night.  The next day we got up super early to look around before the heat of the day and went looking for birds.  

One species we found that I didn't know nested there was the Brown Noddy.  These look a lot like a tern or a gull, but longer tails, and brown.  They are cute and were nesting on the rocks off the main island.  I'd seen them a few times before out in deep water but they don't appear in the bird books for the west coast, only for the Caribbean.  So Pretty neat birds.

We also saw some Sooty Terns, and I'd seen these before once 6 years ago, so that was pretty cool.  There were a few nesting.

This is what the chick looks like:

The babies are just sitting on open rocks and some sand, no grass or softening is added.  Pretty rough life to start with.  I also found another baby that I think is a different kind, but I'm not sure.  There were some baby Heerman's gulls around but they were older than this one, but I think this is a gull chick.

Also, there was a wave!  The south swell wrapped around the corner and made a dumpy reef break that broke on super shallow rocks and I tried it out.  The biggest set waves were about head high and pretty powerful, but I didn't tempt them too much.  It was fun!

Then we headed over to Maria Cleofas, which is an island in the Tres Marias chain.  I'd never been there before, so I was excited about it.  On the way we found a bunch of spinner dolphins (and I jumped in with them for a bit) and also some Orcas!  

Here's an ID shot of the orcas.  I've heard that there is one group that lives in the sea of cortez and mainland mexico, just pacing back and forth here.  This must be the pod.  They were busy, so we left them in peace to cruise onward.  

When we got in I found another boat already anchored, and I had heard about a wave there that is a big great wave, called Hammerheads.  We navigated the outer reefs and found our way into the spot where the other boat was anchored and saw this:

I went and surfed it, and there were a few HUGE outside sets, and I caught one or two of them, and they are the scariest waves I've ever been on, I think.  My fins were singing and I was going very very fast.  When I got in the water I talked to the guys on the other boat and they were taking a break, so I had it to myself for a while, but once I got tired and came back to my boat, they went for a few waves and this picture is probably about the size of the bigger ones I caught:

The next day it was shaping to be awesome, with smaller waves and I was eager to surf the waves with less terror, but after catching two waves the Mexican Navy came around the corner and kicked us out of there.  

Its a reserve, so we aren't allowed to be there, so we headed back to Bandaras Bay and surfed the last few days of Danny's time in the bay.  Now I have a week more before I have to go back to Alaska, so I'll surf some more and dodge the Hurricane that is forming out and south of here.  
 

Back to Mexico!

I'm on break now!  I worked four weeks and they were all great, and now I have three weeks of freedom down on Aquila.  My friend Danny is already down there, so he's fixing everything up for me and I'll just step aboard a boat that is ready to go...  Hopefully.  

The last few weeks have been very beautiful.  Lots of birds and lots of great things to see.  The mountains are covered in snow still, and for the last few years this was less and less common, but this past winter had a big snowfall and its stuck around.  So everything is a bit delayed.  The mergansers are swimming around with their babies...

And the brown bears are eating the grasss...

And the orcas patrol the deep of course...

And South Sawyer is really pumping out ice, and the harbor seals are taking advantage of that to have their own babies.  So there are a lot of those babies out there too!

Here's an eagle drying its wings on top of the south sawyer glacier.

 

Back to Alaska

So its been a while...  Since living aboard Aquila, I've gotten poked and prodded and vaccinated and made my way up to Alaska.  Its been a great start so far, with good animals.  First off, is a Mink.  This one was swimming around at some of my kayaks, probably a bit curious.  It had really swollen balls, so very interested, maybe...

Then we saw a Trumpeter Swan in Saook bay, and they are always great.  Migratory, so they don't stay for the summer, but just pass through.

Another Mink...

On an All day trip in Neka Bay we saw some Dowitchers

And I found a great bear skull.  Brown bear, good teeth, so maybe 5 years old.

And a nice Northern Shoveler

The Dowitcher again...

Some River Otters Mating.   Ahh spring!

Running away after mating...

And a wolf!  This one was really resilient, just hanging out on the beach

We've been exploring Lamplugh Glacier a lot and its really changing and very exciting.  I've been paddling around it a lot in cool places.

And I found a Coyote in Glacier Bay!

 

Life aboard in Bandaras Bay

After the swift trip down I've been relaxing in the area around Puerto Vallarta.  I've been anchored off and trying to surf every day at the various breaks.  I've also been taking folks out sailing a fair bit since I've got such a sexy boat, and it helps to exercise her on a regular basis to keep stuff from growing on the bottom too much.  It still grows, but not as quick, I think.  So in the mornings I wake before the sun and await the sunrise...

And in the evenings I watch the sun set and look out for the Black Skimmers that come whispering along the surface of the waters in the growing dusk.  They are like terns, but a little bigger and have a longer lower bill than the upper and so they are good at skimming the surface of the water while flying and picking up fish.   

There's also a clan (swarm?) of bats that come out in the evenings if you're on the beach, and they do a routine and fly along the shoreline on their way to their squeaky business.

In the night there are the whales singing, and they sing during the day too, but usually there is more noise, so its harder to hear them.  But at night they thrum through the hull of the boat like giant aquatic Pavarottis.

During the day I try to go sailing, and I recently took a family from another boat out.  They had a nice time teaching their girls how to steer the boat using a tiller...

I wanted some pictures from afar, so my friend Corey took a few...

This one was pretty good, since we are bombing along directly at his boat which is anchored...

Of course we got out the halyards and one of the little girls went out swinging...

And here she is dragging a hand in the water.  We're sailing along at about 6-7 kts, so its pretty quick water going by, so she was having a blast.

They had a nice time sitting on the railing too.

And playing hide and seek...

And learning to steer. 

And searching for whales, of course...

On another trip I had some really nice close whales that like to splash around.

So its been a nice winter so far down here.  I missed most of the really good surf, but have caught a few nice waves.  I'm just now starting to miss Alaska, so I'll be excited to go back up north, but not yet.   Its nice to be in the sun again.
 

Video of Sailing down from LA

 

I used a little bit of stuff from sailing around in LA, you might recognize Abe steering in some of the shots from the dinghy.  I really like the underwater parts where you see the water separating from the hull when it is hydroplaning.  That's the transition between semi-planing and full hydroplaning!  That's why the hull has such an abrupt turn on the back there.  I have found that it makes sitting at anchor more comfortable too.  Many other boats have a curved up stern that lets the water go more smoothly, but doesn't plane as well, but they tend to slap when waves hit the stern.  Aquila does not, until the waves are big enough to lift the stern up 6 inches.  So its faster (when going fast) and more comfortable (when stopped).  Most of the time those two things don't go together at all.  

Sailing to Mexico

 

I've made it to Puerto Vallarta!  The trip was pretty difficult at times, but also very rewarding.  The boat is very fast (when there is wind) and the autopilot is very very good, so that makes it very easy to sail, provided you don't have to do a lot of sail changes.  The first day, my friend Teague arrived and we got food and fuel and water and everything we figured we needed, then headed out to Catalina Island.

  We arrived after sunset, so he got his first sunset at sea (that's him on the bow).  We blasted along at 10 kts for some of the trip, but then anchored for the night.  The next morning we got up and scrubbed the bottom of the boat (since the water was clean) and then went over to Avalon to get him some sunglasses, and headed off at around 3 pm.  The winds were nice until about midnight, and that was when we crossed the mexican border, but there was a lot of Navy activity and some NOAA bouys around (make me nervous) so I didn't get much sleep that night.  Being around traffic is tough for me.  

The next day we caught a tuna!  It was an Albacore tuna (you can tell by the super long pectoral fins and the big eye) and it was pretty delicious.  We froze a lot of it and ate it over the next several days.

It took us two nights to get to Punta Baja, where we anchored and spent a night.  During the night I played around with my camera a bit and did some longer exposures...

From Punta Baja we sailed on south, but the wind was pretty light and I had discovered that we burned a lot more fuel motoring that I had figured, (and our tanks were getting low) so we did a short hop to Punta San Carlos, where I had been before with the truck and surfed.  The waves were big out at sea and didn't disappoint, I had an evening and morning of great surf (head high) at that point.  After leaving in the morning we tried hard to make it to Islas San Benitos, but didn't arrive until 1 am, and the charts are pretty sparse around there, so coming in at night was challenging.  The next day, the wind finally arrived, but from the south.  So we sailed upwind (but only on one tack, we could just barely point at the place we were trying to go), and found some Gray Whales...

And then we got into Bahia Tortuga.  That is about halfway down Baja, and we stayed two extra days waiting for the wind to die down.  There was a pretty big storm that made the wind blow from the south up to about 30 kts (that we measured on the anemometer) with some gusts above that.  Strong enough to make nasty waves that we were able to hide out from.  While we waited, we saw some Brants!

They were hiding as well.  Then we went over to town and got some fuel (which is a task, going ashore through the break, then walking up to the gas station, then lugging the jugs back, then doing it again)  On the second return to the boat my phone jumped out of my pocket into the surf, and tried to burrow into the sand.  I fished it out and got it working again for a little bit, but it died a day later.  I believe the cause of death was corrosion by drowning.  So I switched the sim card to my old mexican phone, and it is working, sort of, but much harder to use.  The list of things to fix grows!  From there, we sailed to Bahia Ascencion, and raced two other sailboats who were leaving at the same time.  It was a close race when there wasn't any wind and we were motoring, but at 1 pm, the wind came up and we began to roll along at 8 kts, and that was that.  In between Bahia Tortuga and Ascencion, there is a line where the kelp stops growing at, and that marks the end of the "California" waters.  It began to grow warmer, and there was different fish.  Also the area south of the Tortuga is more sheltered from the NW swell, so it feels great. 
We also saw some little murrelets, which I couldn't identify exactly.  

And we saw our last Albatross.  A Laysan Albatross!  

From Ascencion we were going to continue sailing along the coast and point hopping, but the wind was great and so we just went for it, doing an overnight to Bahia Maria (near Bahia Magdelena).

  We spent one day in Bahia Maria, and hiked up the hill overlooking the point.  I've done this hike a few times before, and its great.  I surfed a bit and then came back for a nap in the afternoon, and then we left in the evening, because the wind was forecast to be good for only a few more days.  

But the wind was really good.  We took off into the darkness doing 9-10 kts, and it felt really good.  The wind began to shift a little around midnight, and the next dawn we found ourselves even with Cabo san Lucas and about 150 miles west.  (The boat doesn't like to go directly downwind)  So we jibed and headed for Isla Isabel.  From that point we had about 350 miles to go to Isabel, and we covered that distance in two days.  A midnight to Midnight run of 198 miles during one of those.  

It was dawn when we arrived, and the birds were swarming over a school of fish.  Crossing the Sea of Cortes was pretty rough for us, so we were glad to get in and sleep. 

But also to explore!  We went ashore and searched out some birds.  This is my favorite island around here and we walked under the trees with Frigatebirds all over clacking and croaking and flapping.  It really makes you feel like you've gone back in time.

Of course we spent some time looking at the Blue-Footed Boobies, and they were dancing a little bit.

I got some shots of a frigate from close up

The feathers are a bit worn down on this guy.

But his eye is very bright.

Also the Brown Boobies were nesting too.

From there we did a single day hop to Punta Mita and have had a few nights of sleep and some surf.  It feels good to be here.  Like being home.

I've discovered some problems, however.  The main battery bank is not working very well.  I have the solar panels charging all day long and then its dead at night.  So I think I need to replace the batteries.  Also the Mainsail is falling apart every time I use it.  But at anchor she feels great, and the dinghy davit system is awesome.  So I'm pretty darn happy with the boat so far.